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October 18, 2007
Impossible, you say?
In Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton (“my age”!), he argues that religion can help alleviate our worries about our relative place in the world. Religion addresses the big questions of life and death and therefore can take us out of our mundane concerns about our place in the social hierarchy.
The idea of death brings an authenticity to social life: there may be no better way to clear our calendar of engagements than to speculate as to who among our acquaintances would make the trip to our hospital bed.
I think about this a lot. Or, who among my acquaintances would still be interested in talking to me if I acquired a disfiguring or grotesque illness. (This happens. This is something that happens.)
Herodotus reported that it was the custom, towards the end of Egyptian feasts, when the revellers were at their most exuberant, for servants to march through the banqueting hall and among the tables carrying skeletons on stretchers.
I know it is very presumptuous of me to assume that other people haven’t seen their share of death and sorrow. But often, especially in New York, especially among the young and successful and arrogant, it is hard not to think that these persons think that they will live forever.
Elsewhere in his Histories, Herodotus tells us an apposite anecdote about Xerxes, the mighty king of Persia, who in 480 B.C. invaded Greece with an army of nearly two million men. Seeing the whole Hellespont filled with the vessels of his fleet, and the plains covered with his regiments, Xerxes at first congratulated himself on his good fortune and abilities, but then, a few moments later, he began to weep. His stunned uncle Artabanus, standing beside him, asked what a man in his position could possibly have to cry about. The king replied that he had just realised that in a hundred years' time, all those men arrayed before him, every one of the solders and sailors with whose help he had terrified the known world, would be dead.
Chances are that the most famous and most successful people of today will just be footnotes in history. I am reminded of that line in “Love! Valour! Compassion!”: I long for the day when somebody says, "Who's Madonna?"
There are natural phenomena so enormous as to make the variations between any two people seem mockingly tiny. By seeking these out, and experiencing a consoling sense of the insignificance of all humans within the cosmos, we may mitigate whatever discomfort we feel over our inferior position in the social hierarchy.
I think I heard somewhere that there are more bacteria in one inch of our intestines than there are people who have ever lived. Think of how that compares to the size of the cosmos! Count the stars in the sky. Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon. Number the grains of sand on the sea shore. Impossible, you say?”
De Botton – who is from a Sephardic Jewish family – singles out Christianity for its emphasis on elevating the position of the poor, meek, and downtrodden. The standard in Christianity is the treatment of the “least of these”, not the greatest and most powerful.
Christianity bids us to look beyond our superficial differences in order to focus on what it considers to be a set of universal truths, on which a sense of community and kinship may be built. Whether we are cruel or impatient, dim or dull, we must recognize that we are all of us detained and bound together by shared vulnerabilities. Beneath our flaws, there are always two driving forces: fear and the desire for love.
I am reminded of the Song of Mary:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.
He has mercy on those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm and has scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, to remember his promise of mercy,
The promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children for ever.
De Boton states:
In the City of God (A.D. 427), Saint Augustine explained that all human actions could be interpreted from either a Christian or a Roman perspective, and that the very accomplishments that were esteemed most highly by the Romans -- amassing money, building villas, winning wars and so on -- counted for nothing in the Christian schema, in which a new set of concerns, including loving one's neighbours, being humble and generous and recognising one's dependence on God, offered the keys to elevated status.
This had the effect of changing the landscape of Europe, as art and architecture changed to reflect the values of Christianity.
For hundreds of years, the talents of the finest stonemasons, poets, musicians and painters -- whose predecessors had been called upon to celebrate the triumphs of emperors and the blood-curdling victories of legions over barbarian hordes -- were directed to praising such activities as giving alms and showing respect for the poor. The glorification of worldly values never entirely disappeared in the Christian era -- there remained plenty of palaces to alert the word to the charms of mercantile or landed wealth and power -- but for a time, in many communities, the most impressive buildings on the horizon were those that honoured the nobility of poverty rather than the might of a royal family or corporation, and the most moving pieces of music sang not of personal fulfilment but of the torment of the Son of God, who had been, in the words of Isaiah 53:3, quoted in Handel's Messiah (1741),
despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief
Ten years ago I began the rudimentary Inquirers Classes at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, in preparation for baptism and confirmation. I had been raised a Unitarian, which I think of as National Public Radio in religion form. In the United States, the Unitarian Universalist Association generally promotes an intellectual yet sensitive approach to spirituality, trying to learn from different religious traditions while not endorsing any specific beliefs, other than loving one another, etc. But I didn’t find this satisfying. I wanted there to be some there there. At my father's church, the only thing the congregation could come to an agreement on, theologically, was the spiritual power of flowing water.
I had done some research and decided on the Episcopal Church. Roman Catholicism seemed both too dramatic and too shabby, and I didn’t like the ethnic baggage that came along with it, as well as the implicit endorsement of anything emanating from the Bishop of Rome. Quakerism seemed too awkward. Methodism and Presbyterianism were much too boring. Lutheranism seemed too bleak. The Episcopal Church in the United States preserved a lot of fancy ritual and faggish pageantry and required no earnest demonstration of actual religious conviction. It had a core set of beliefs, yet they were still approached with some intellectual distance and frigidity. And I liked the connection to the international Anglican Communion (little did I know what storms and schism were ahead). So I was baptised a Christian and a week later confirmed as a full member of the Episcopal Church.
Strengthen, O Lord, your servant Eric with your Holy Spirit; empower him for your service; and sustain him all the days of his life. Amen.
Of course, this all seems quite stupid. Yet I am so glad I went through with it.
But how can any thinking person just sign up for a whole set of crazy beliefs, accumulated over centuries of varying levels of ignorance?
A few weeks ago on Yom Kippur, I attended a Kol Nidre service. Since my knowledge of liturgical Hebrew is pretty much limited to נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן , I admit that my mind wandered a bit over the course of the three hours, and I started leafing through the Reconstructionist prayer book. In a footnote, I read something like: you cannot practice ‘religion’ any more than you can speak ‘language’ – spirituality must be rooted in some tradition or narrative.
I’m not really worried about all of that garbage in the Nicene Creed being disproved, since, hasn’t most of it been disproved already? And how, exactly, do I understand the idea of the divinity of Christ?
That is an excellent question!
People like to criticize the cafeteria approach to religion, where one just picks and chooses those aspects that one feels comfortable with (in a way, I was one of those critics in how I rejected Unitarianism), but the reality is that every practice of religion involves some picking and choosing, unless you just blindly do everything that a religious leader tells you to do, and that means you are living in a cult. (And that religious leader is just picking and choosing as well. Even fundamentalists are just choosing to emphasize the most austere, self-abnegating and traditional-seeming aspects of their religion, while ignoring the more forgiving and compassionate aspects.)
I’ve written about this before, but I have a tiny fragment on my corkboard from a book by V. S. Naipaul (a non-religious Hindu), in which he describes, somewhat dismissively, the Christian concept of grace: unmerited love and favour bestowed upon an undeserving person.
Unmerited love and favor is bestowed upon us, undeserving?
It seems very improbable.
Posted by eric at October 18, 2007 05:37 PM
Comments
Beneath our flaws, there are always two driving forces: fear and the desire for love.
Tender at the bone we are.
Posted by: whitney at October 18, 2007 04:40 PM
Do you have to believe any of the tenets of a religion to belong to it?
Posted by: Aaron at October 18, 2007 04:49 PM
eric, you need to get laid.
Posted by: hughman at October 18, 2007 06:19 PM
I fear that you might just place too much faith in what de B has to write. I've heard him debate - in person and on the radio - and he is terribly (I was going to say unconvincing, but that's not it) unsuccessful, when pushed.
He comes over as an Oxford defeatist. Just listen to him -v- John Humphrys, for example.
Still he was born Dec 1969. A good year.
ahoj
Posted by: czechOUT at October 18, 2007 06:20 PM
Last time I looked, Roman Catholicism required only the professionn of faith (meaning also behaving accordingly). Faith is given by the grace of God, not the ordinance of the church. (There is something of this in Pascal's wager.)
I have discovered many wonderful things in my life, and encountered some awful ones, but I have never felt the faintest spiritual urge, even though I can well imagine how appealing it must be.
Posted by: R J Keefe at October 18, 2007 06:38 PM
Oh Eric-
"And how, exactly, do I understand the idea of the divinity of Christ?"
Because he demonstrated, by submitting life in this world, "the unmerited love and favour bestowed upon an undeserving person."
?!!!
Who was the son of the vineyard owner, sent to negotiate with the managers that killed him? And, as an allusion, who were the muderous managers?
Again, that moving parable about the lost son. Did you notice that it was the baby son who decided to collect his share of his dad's properties and took off into the "real world" to "start his own fabulous life"? When he failed, and saw what the world is really about, he regreted and thought to return and get by life by becoming his dad's serf. He didn't believe in having more as he repented: no one in the world will forgive me and what I've done. And he was dead on right..., about the world. What he didn't know and excuse himself to accept was, his dad and his family don't function that way.
There is nothing inherently wrong with pick and choose either, but a nice bigger picture is always quite helpful.
Posted by: jason at October 18, 2007 07:03 PM
Very thoughtful. Although to be honest, I'm upset that the sharing of your thoughts occasionally takes a meaningful turn and shatters my preferred illusion of you as a pretentious, over-educated product of priviledge and Chelsea faggotry. However, I must tell you that if you find yourself dying in the hospital, give me a call and I'll come wash your feet and listen to you talk of things. There is this side of us that finds fulfillment in service and humility.
I consider that my own soluction to pondering belief and it's endless struggle has been to push the fundamental questions out of my mind completely. Yet the "moral" behavior persists. Shame, I think, as it probably would be more fun to be a philandering mess than merely a contemplative one.
Posted by: paul at October 18, 2007 09:00 PM
A bunch of discrete ideas about religiosity strung together with marginally applicable quotes from suitably pretentious and/or arcane cultural references does not a narrative make.
I get a sense that you are impressed not only with your own 'depth,' but with your writing as well. I'm not sure which delusion is more tragic. The tantamount tragedy, however, is that people apparently read this and are content to feel that your writing must mean something profound, instead of having enough self-awareness to realize that no, it really is just someone spouting off at the mouth. You're fooling no one with half a brain with the hyper-aware self-deprecation, either. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book for pathological narcissists (no sauce for me, Livia Soprano).
It's all very entertaining to watch, though. Keep it up!
Posted by: nothankyou at October 18, 2007 09:13 PM
You're entering a monastery, aren't you?
Posted by: Bourgeois Nerd at October 18, 2007 09:57 PM
Nothankyou:
Jesus loves you! And so do I!
Posted by: Eric at October 18, 2007 10:55 PM
Hmmmmm for the first time in about three weeks I read the entire post. Quite, quite moving.
Posted by: Rich at October 18, 2007 11:33 PM
I on the other hand could not make it through all that religious stuff but i want you to know that i am OBSESSED with the idea of running through a party - at it's peak - with a stretcher avec skeleton on top. I plan on doing this someday and I hope you'll be on the other end!
Posted by: Tony Rizzuto at October 19, 2007 09:37 AM
This is all well and good. Can we please get back to the important stuff? Did you decide to take the ocean front share with the sluts on Fire Island or not?
Posted by: Boomer at October 19, 2007 09:52 AM
Xerxes wouldn't get much air time in Japan. Yukio Mishima just missed getting drafted to go die for the Emperor and regretted it for the rest of his life. In fact he spent the rest of his life planning an elaborate samurai death, which he more or less succeeded in orchestrating when he was 45 (*my* age). To him and those like him, the dead on the battlefield were the lucky ones.
I think we can do without people like that...
Posted by: Colin at October 19, 2007 11:37 AM
I think you should convert to Pattoneism. Jimboism seems to be working fine for me.
But I also agree with hughman's solution to your concerns. You'll feel fine once you get poked nicely and regularly.
>>Lutheranism seemed too bleak.
WTF?!? _Lutherans_ are bleak, but Lutheranism is quite sunny in my opinion.
Posted by: jimbo at October 19, 2007 12:03 PM
I did like where this post was going, but I suppose in a way, while I wouldn't be so dismissive as "nothankyou", I do have a hard time distinguishing between the sardonic, ironic Eric and the more sincere one. Its sort of trying to distinguish between "Stephen Colbert" and "Stephen Colbert".
Posted by: Brian at October 19, 2007 12:16 PM
Goyim.
Posted by: David at October 19, 2007 12:31 PM
Wasn't Bach a Lutheran? It is upsetting to imagine, but I believe that some Protestant sects are even so decadent as to have their own musical traditions, of which some elements are everything but grim and boring. And I suppose Benjamin Britten was some sort of Anglican -- what today we would refer to as the Nigerian Church in England.
Posted by: Aaron at October 19, 2007 01:10 PM
I guess my question about the points you raise in this very thoughtful post is: did you find your there there?
Posted by: Huntington at October 19, 2007 01:12 PM
While I wouldn't be as harsh as nothankyou, he makes a few good points about this site (and perhaps you, by association).
Watching the pseudo-humble deployment of multiple character sets and endless Wikipedia links (because of course your audience is too stupid to know about whom or what you're referencing) does get to be a bit depressing.
Posted by: Fabrice R. at October 19, 2007 02:04 PM
Aaron:
Yes, J.S. Bach was a Lutheran.
I have nothing against Lutherans or Lutheranism! And the Anglicans and Lutherans have a lot in common. See this and this. I would have joined this had it been feasible.
For those of you who think I'm falsely self-deprecating, all I can do is agree. I am a sad, falsely self-deprecating piece of shit.
For those of you who don't like my multilingual links, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to be helpful.
All I can say is 하이퍼링크.
Posted by: Eric at October 19, 2007 02:35 PM
By the way, I am totally getting a t-shirt made with the words "tantamount tragedy" on it.
"Tantamount" means "equivalent", though.
Anyway, also forgive my references to such arcane texts as the Song of Mary, the Nicene Creed, and the Bible.
Posted by: Eric at October 19, 2007 03:06 PM
LIFT up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look the loath to think on aught but Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only Himself.
And do that in thee is to forget all the creatures that ever God made and the works of them; so that thy thought nor thy desire be not directed nor stretched to any of them, neither in general nor in special, but let them be, and take no heed to them. This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God. All saints and angels have joy of this work, and hasten them to help it in all their might. All fiends be furious when thou thus dost and try for to defeat it in all that they can. All men living in earth be wonderfully holpen of this work, thou wottest not how. Yea, the souls in purgatory be eased of their pain by virtue of this work. Thyself art cleansed and made virtuous by no work so much. And yet it is the lightest work of all, when a soul is helped with grace in sensible list, and soonest done. But else it is hard, and wonderful to thee for to do.
Posted by: nothankyou at October 19, 2007 03:44 PM
Oh, JESUS, I cry out to you!
Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table, no?
Wait...something is happening...
I saw . . . as it were in the time of His Passion . . . And in the same Shewing suddenly the Trinity filled my heart with utmost joy!
In this suddenly I saw the red blood trickle down from under the Garland hot and freshly and right plenteously, as it were in the time of His Passion when the Garland of thorns was pressed on His blessed head who was both God and Man, the same that suffered thus for me. I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself shewed it me, without any mean.
And in the same Shewing suddenly the Trinity fulfilled my heart most of joy. And so I understood it shall be in heaven without end to all that shall come there. For the Trinity is God: God is the Trinity; the Trinity is our Makerand Keeper, the Trinity is our everlasting love and everlasting joy and bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ. And this was shewed in the First and in all: for where Jesus appeareth, the blessed Trinity is understood, as to my sight.
And I said: Benedicite Domine! This I said for reverence in my meaning, with mighty voice; and full greatly was astonied for wonder and marvel that I had, that He that is so reverend and dreadful will be so homely with a sinful creature living in wretched flesh!
Posted by: nothankyou at October 19, 2007 04:01 PM
Even as a lapsed Lutheran I twitch uncomfortably at this public airing of rage and impotent despair. So much easier when it comes to me in the form of a cantata or fugue.
Posted by: henry at October 19, 2007 04:06 PM
"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes".
Karl Marx
Posted by: max at October 19, 2007 04:14 PM
Maybe it is, Max. Seriously. But I doubt you comfortably have faith in Marx.
Posted by: jason at October 19, 2007 05:49 PM
I am amazed whenever I read negative comments left in this here website thingy. I mean: if you don't like it - go somewhere else! No one (I hope!) is being forced to read this. And then to take the time and effort to craft some remarks aimed to take people down. I can't help but think - don't you have better things to do?
I am a big fan of this here website thingy, as it goes through its moods from shallow fun through pretty photos and interesting observations to solipsistic navel gazing. It's just a person's musings after all, and if it pulls in different aspects of the narrator's own disparate experience, so be it. I like seeing things from another person's point of view now and then.
Posted by: stephen at October 19, 2007 07:13 PM
jason, does it matter who said it if it's true?
Posted by: Dagon at October 19, 2007 07:21 PM
I'm with Stephen in my fandom and thankfulness that Eric, you're great company on a rainy Friday night with so much laundry to do and my own wounds to lick. Reading your fabulous ruminations and following your exotic travels is a highlight for me. I simply thank the chaos/god/universe/etc. that you either have a job light enough to leave you with the brain power to construct the "website thingy" or you're a a very rare and sensible insomniac.
Let's face it folks, he could be watching Law and Order reruns on TNT and leaving us to think about god-knows-what.
Posted by: Paul at October 19, 2007 09:11 PM
Well, nothankyou was a little harsh yet I like the cloud of unknowing.
Why, brother, do you continue to sit and weep by the rivers of Babylon? What can you possibly find in the new New York?
Posted by: Jason at October 20, 2007 01:34 PM
Dagon,
Do you think it is true?
Posted by: jason at October 20, 2007 04:40 PM
Choosing to follow a faith when you believe in none of its major tenets demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding and lack of respect for both religion and intellect.
I understand the impulse with someone who was raised in a particular faith, but it's harder to sympathize with someone who chooses spiritual and intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by: TED at October 21, 2007 06:24 PM
"TED":
To clarify: I certainly did not say that I believe in none of the major tenets of Christianity. Quite the opposite. I believe in all of the minor tenets.
But seriously.
The opposite of faith is not doubt, the opposite of faith is certainty. - The Very Reverend Alan Jones
In any case, when it comes to religion, people have different ways of believing things. Religion and science provide different kinds of answers.
But this here website thingy is not the place for this kind of debate. Of all of the reasons for which I could be accused of hypocricy, my religious belief and practice concern me the least.
Posted by: Eric at October 21, 2007 07:01 PM
Yes, jason, I think it's an apt metaphor. And I'm no Marxist. And the cognitive dissonance isn't as bad as you might fear.
Eric, I think that VRAJ quotation frames the issue in an unduly restrictive manner. For me the opposite of faith is simply a neglect of metaphysical questions of Meaning. I just assume all those questions are falsely posed with untold false underlying assumptions. I direct my attention instead towards questions that seem more germane and tractable. And I don't feel like something huge is missing from my life.
I think one of the saddest things is how people (especially Americans, and especially Christianity) get swindled by a belief system into thinking their lives are sad and empty unless the universe knows their names and makes everything happen "for a reason".
Posted by: Dagon at October 22, 2007 12:34 AM