I’ve upset someone again. After an excellent panel on the role of faith communities in the LGBTQ movement at the LGBT Momentum conference, I posed some questions which I thought were respectful, if challenging. Why, I wondered, do progressive people stay in religious communities and try to salvage them, fighting with traditionalists of their own faith, instead of leaving those communities (many of the central commitments of which they no longer seem to share) and making common cause with Humanists and other non-religious groups who have always supported queer rights?
This question has always perplexed me. From the outside, it seems that most faith traditions have taken every opportunity to oppress everyone they can get away with oppressing, and that the history of the reform of faith traditions toward more Humane values is precisely a history of the secularization of those traditions. But the purpose of this post isn’t to take up this issue in particular, but to question how far it is really possible for Humanists like me to engage in fruitful “dialogue” with a religious other.
The responses of the panel to my question – four well-respected figures in the struggle for queer rights from within faith communities – were passionate and fair. But as I approached the speakers to continue the conversation afterwards, well… Let’s just say it didn’t go so well. After a few short exchanges my interlocutor thought I was being dismissive and rude, and that I considered her “unreasonable” and “stupid” (although I never used those words). I felt my partner in “dialogue” was being prickly and aggressive, and failing to respond to my points. We both felt in the right, and both felt that we were being misunderstood.
It soon became clear that much of the problem came down to a disagreement over the very standards of discussion themselves. My appeals to reason and evidence were received as an overbearing attempt to impose one epistemological framework over others. I experienced my interlocutor’s appeals to different epistemological frames as an illegitimate attempt to shield certain ideas from critique.
This experience has become all-too-common with me, and leads me to question the potential for real dialogue between those who have deep disagreements over fundamental metaphysical and epistemological commitments. But what do I mean by “dialogue”?
Dialogue, to me, means more than simply sharing personal stories with each other. For a true dialogue, there must be some potential for change – for people to shift their position based on the reasoning of others. Simply talking about our own experience, and getting to know others through listening to theirs, is at best valuable sharing of monologues, but it is not true dialogue. Like two ships passing on the ocean, we might appreciate each others’ semaphore but we aren’t going to change direction.
No, true dialogue requires the possibility for parties to change their position. And to realize that possibility, the parties in the dialogue must be able to agree on some fundamentals. Standards of reasoning and evidence must be shared so that claims can be assessed against a common yardstick. And this is, I think, the sticking point in interfaith discussions.
In a conversation between a naturalist and someone who believes in the existence of supernatural forces, is there hope for establishing shared understandings of reasoning and evidence? In a discussion between someone who rejects the validity of arguments from authority, and someone who maintains the epistemic authority of Scripture, how can we meaningfully assess our differing arguments? In a back-and-forth between someone who thinks personal revelation is sufficient basis for the truth of a claim, and someone who does not, how can we expect someone to change their mind?
In short, when epistemic common-ground is in short supply, can we really talk?
Hmm…I agree with your point that dialogue must have potential for participants to change their position. But what is it that should change, and who is doing the changing?
For me, dialogue must be a mutual forging of a new language or culture out of the raw material of the individual’s disparate minds. Due to individual difference, this new culture will be tenuous and not immune to contradiction and conflict, but it functions for purposes of discussion and draws the participants together on an affective level.
Is it necessary to change certain beliefs (such as belief in supernatural forces), to change attitudes toward various oppressed groups such as homosexuals? I don’t see the connection between these two issues at all. Using a literalist/anti-historicist reading of a text to justify forms of social repression is to me unrelated to belief in God or the supernatural. Secularists and atheists are prone to the same intellectual sleight of hand regardless of their professed beliefs/lack-thereof. The rampant ethnocentrism, misogyny and homophobia that still plagues non-theist communities attests to this, and I can make this assertion because I was once complicit in this.
Is an absolute confluence of epistemological frameworks a requisite for empathy and shift in attitude toward the other? Is it impossible for two people, one who arrives at decisions based on what they understand to be ‘personal revelation’ (I have no idea what is meant by this) and the other arriving at it by way of ‘reason’ (again, it is unclear what is meant by this), to have a constructive exchange on these issues? I’m not convinced. I am writing to you as an atheist who has not encountered the same hang-ups in encounters with religious people as you describe. While I am not in a position to cast judgment on your interfaith experiences, I can’t help getting the impression that you (and possibly your interlocutors as well) are getting tied down in language games at the expense of genuine communication.
In my experience, fruitful dialogue functions as a kind of improvisational dance, which necessitates a creative give-and-take relationship with language. To dance in this way, we have to understand the tenuous link between signifier and signified (for example. what a religious person understands by the phrase ‘personal revelation’ probably has very little to do with how you define the term). Success under such ambiguity requires an ability to constantly translate back and forth between different language traditions – not to discover some underlying epistemological similarity hidden beneath the linguistic surface, but more to weave a (necessarily messy and incomplete) common ground through which to draw closer and resolve issues.
Not to be too provocative, but when you say dialogue must carry the potential to change, how much are you willing to change? To what degree are you giving yourself to the dance and to what degree are you dictating the tempo?
Best,
Ian
Hi Ian, and thanks for the thoughtful response!
You ask “Is it necessary to change certain beliefs (such as belief in supernatural forces), to change attitudes toward various oppressed groups such as homosexuals? ”
I don’t think it is, no. I think a lot of these sorts of changes happen through the “parallel monologuing” I describe – people share stories, come to see they have certain common experiences (if not common epistemologies) and come to appreciate each other more. Perhaps that’s a certain type of “dialogue”, but it’s not quite what I was thinking of in the post.
I’m not sure what you mean by the “rampant ethnocentrism, misogyny and homophobia that still plagues non-theist communities”. I’d like to know more about this. Those communities that are explicitly nontheistic have tended, in my experience, to be explicitly dedicated to challenging at least homophobia and misogyny.
“Is an absolute confluence of epistemological frameworks a requisite for empathy and shift in attitude toward the other?”
Again, I’d say “no”, but this is precisely the sort of sharing of “monologues” that I described. It’s not really discussing issues or positions on issues, but simply talking about ourselves in earshot of others. This doesn’t fit my conception of dialogue, because it could come about without any meaningful interaction between the speakers.
“I can’t help getting the impression that you (and possibly your interlocutors as well) are getting tied down in language games at the expense of genuine communication.”
This might be the case. But I’d also like to think that accuracy in language is an important component of “genuine communication”, and the attempt to be accurate is not necessarily a “game”: it can be an honest attempt to define terms well and delineate the boundaries of a discussion.
“Not to be too provocative, but when you say dialogue must carry the potential to change, how much are you willing to change? To what degree are you giving yourself to the dance and to what degree are you dictating the tempo?”
Please, be provocative! I enjoy provocation. I think your metaphor is illuminating, and I think it makes my point for me. If you want to improvise a dance, great! But we can only make a good one together if we’re dancing to the SAME tempo. Otherwise we aren’t dancing TOGETHER at all. This is precisely my point.
INteresting.
“In a conversation between a naturalist and someone who believes in the existence of supernatural forces, is there hope for establishing shared understandings of reasoning and evidence?”
Yes, although that’s not the same as saying it’s likely. In any given case it’s probably unlikely, because it would require a fundamental change of one or the other, and fundamental changes don’t happen every five minutes (which is to say, they don’t happen easily). But it’s subject to argument, so there can be hope that argument will do its work.
(If your question is, is there hope for such shared understandings without either party having to change – then no.)
“In a discussion between someone who rejects the validity of arguments from authority, and someone who maintains the epistemic authority of Scripture, how can we meaningfully assess our differing arguments?”
Doggedly? Other than that, I don’t know. The first is reasonable (and leads to an infinite array of further conclusions, as opposed to one predetermined one) and the other isn’t, and I don’t know how to get around that.
This, of course, is one reason I don’t get the whole “interfaith” thing.
I’m just begging for shouts of “arrogance” with that, so let me elucidate a bit more.
It’s not necessary to treat the rejection of (the validity of) arguments from authority as *true* to think it is a better starting point for dialogue. You can treat it as just a method. It is a better method *for dialogue* because it’s not coercive. Dialogue should be dialogic, not bossy. Arguments from authority are bossy by definition.
This is a great point – the method or grounds of a discussion needn’t be held as a “truth” but simply as a pragmatic basis to talk. But, as you say, this points more towards the sorts of discussions naturalists and rationalists tend to want to have which each other, which exclude all sorts of religious claims.
Yes…but what then?
It’s just a fact of life that different people have different interests. Are you thinking that fact can be changed in some way? Am I missing the point?
Ian makes intriguing points. I wasn’t there so I can’t do anything but pose the idea that humans are exquisitely sensitive to missionism, and though some seem to like it, those who have found a structure they already like tend to get cranky. The question you posed is rather baldly proselytesque, so it may have put up personal hackles where it was still a fair question to pose in public.
Ian touched on the first thought I had:
“For me, dialogue must be a mutual forging of a new language or culture out of the raw material of the individual’s disparate minds.”
When interfaith dialogue stubs a toe, I find myself barking the same phrase over and over again: Define Your Terms. The dialogue almost always breaks down long before it needs to, because participants get caught up in phrases and terms that people use instead of thinking.
For instance, define “supernatural.” This term does not include all views of god. For instance, quantum theory shows a degree of ubiquitous awareness, predictive motion, sympathy (I use the term a bit loosely — referring not to emotion but to detective responsive motion), and behavior that looks amazingly like intelligence in the energetic/material forces/entities that exist at the quantum level. That’s a key component of my understanding of god, but how is that supernatural? Odd, yes; outside of normal experience, absolutely; but scientifically valid and so very natural it’s actually a part of our own bodies and everything around.
This recasting of the definition of these loaded terms — god, supernatural, etc. — in terms which are meaningful and precise to both participants, can totally change the game. In some conversations, it leaves the interlocutor nowhere to go, when their ideas (or, honestly, their mental capacity) can’t bear the light. In others, it opens up a great deal of potential for productive discourse.
However, to assume you know what your partner in dialogue means — especially when using emotionally-charged terms — is a stumbling block I see happening far more often than rationalists should probably be allowed to excuse themselves for 🙂
I would love to read more conversations where rationalists ask, with integrity and attention, “When you say ‘god’, what do you mean by that?” I know what an extraordinary variety of intelligent answers _I’ve_ heard, but it would be quite different to hear those answers filtered through others’ understanding. I can’t imagine the opening-up that could happen when the common language is allowed to evolve.
Erratum — iPhone thought it was being helpful. The parenthetical phrase that reads,
detective responsive motion
Should be
predictive responsive motion
Not sure that’s any better, though 🙂
You point to an important aspect of dialogue there – a clear definition of terms. One doesn’t have to agree with the other’s definition of a term, but one does have to understand it. This is a practice I should do more.
Ian’s comment is so deep and pertinent; beautifully written and beautifully felt. As a person who left a faith tradition and then went back to see what could be done, I have one answer for your question. For me, engaging within my faith community is a nod both to realism (faith isn’t going anywhere) and to my love of the people who are in the community.
About dialogue, which is a very intimate thing: it’s an art not just of logic and vocabulary, but of emotion, connection, relationship, and trust. The change that might occur in a dialogue can be sideswiped by the lack (or clumsy application) of any one of these things. But dialogue is worth the effort, unless your partner shows you repeatedly that he or she is not available for the relationship.
It’s also important to know that this change may not happen in our time, but might need to be measured over a kind of geologic time. That’s where the need for almost inhuman patience comes in. But it pays off: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/i-think-i-no-how-to-make-people-or.html
What we say to people today might and probably will percolate inside them for days, weeks, or even years.
James, what you’re doing is majestic and laudable and absurdly difficult. As a singer, I think a harmony analogy is pertinent: So many people say, “Oh, we’re in harmony here” when what they actually mean is that they’re in unison. Dialogue should not be a request that everyone sing the exact same notes at the exact same time.
To sing harmony, you’re not singing the notes of the tune proper; in many cases, you’re not on the rhythm, and you’re not even on the lyric. Yet the song is made better through the skilled application of dissonance and cacophony. Perhaps it could be helpful to approach dialogue as not just a dance, but as an impromptu a cappella duet?
I LOVE these artistic analogies everyone is throwing up! But I think they support my central point. If we’re going to sing together let’s make sure we’re at least in a complimentary key and musical system. It makes little sense to sing “with” each other without agreeing on some ground-rules first.
That’s why I think there’s some need for epistemic common-ground if we’re going to really talk…
And who better to midwife the birth of this epistemic common ground — uniting language, neurology of understanding, artistic metaphor, and intellectual rigor — than you?
Rock on 🙂
But how?
It’s certainly possible to *sing* with people without epistemic common ground. But talk in a meaningful way? Only if the subject matter is carefully filtered.
In short, given the way you have set this out and what you say in the final paragraphs, it seems obvious that the answer is ‘no.’
If the parties in dialogue can’t agree on some fundamentals, then no, they can’t engage in dialogue.
I don’t think there’s much more to say – I think that’s true by definition. If you and I start from different premises and we both refuse to budge an inch, then no; no dialogue for us.
The room for optimism is in the fact that one can never know for sure that no one will budge.
James, let me ask this: Let’s say that the song or the dance of this dialogue is about reducing the inexcusable horrors of misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of oppression and othering.
If so, are your faith-based friends, who are attempting to reduce these behaviors from inside the belly of the beast (as it were) — are they truly engaging in a different dialogue? Clearly, their tempo would of necessity be largo or even grave (perhaps even Sisyphian), and possibly their volume would seem imperceptible, but to your ears, are they still in the song?
“let me ask this: Let’s say that the song or the dance of this dialogue is about reducing the inexcusable horrors of misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of oppression and othering.
If so, are your faith-based friends, who are attempting to reduce these behaviors from inside the belly of the beast (as it were) — are they truly engaging in a different dialogue? Clearly, their tempo would of necessity be largo or even grave (perhaps even Sisyphian), and possibly their volume would seem imperceptible, but to your ears, are they still in the song?”
Real good question. It’s difficult for me to answer. On the one hand, of course they’re allies in the struggle. On the other, I see emancipation from religious faith (and we can have endless discussions about what I mean by this) as part of the struggle for human freedom. Religious belief, what we might call “theophobia”, is itself in my view a form of “oppression and othering” that needs to be tackled.
Since I think human beings can’t be truly free while believing in God, there’s at least something absent from the songs of liberal religious people. So are they still in the song? I don’t know. Perhaps they’re missing a verse?
I guess the impossibility of dialogue is being enacted (or perhaps sung or danced) right here. I’ve been taking the questions at face value and attempting to answer them accordingly, but I guess the approved style is literary and metaphorical. I yield to no one in my passion for literature and metaphor, but not for purposes of analytical discussion. In short, I should butt out. (I happened to see this linked on my Facebook page, and I was curious, but I should discipline my curiosity.)
I don’t think you should butt out – I think your responses have been very clear and helpful!
FWIW, I find that Ophelia’s style grounds the conversation — clears up the natural fuzziness of analogy and metaphor, without killing it. The contrast is useful didactically and seems to help keep the surrounding metaphors clearer. But if it doesn’t work for her, obviously that’s the important thing. I appreciate what’s already here.
Okay, I’ll get off the song metaphor and move to a dialogue. If you reason that religious belief is in and of itself an error, then I’m wondering if there is any way for you to view a religious believer as a reasonable person?
Is there a way in which you’re waiting for the belief to be thrown off so that you can finally have a meaningful and “logical” conversation?
This is a very interesting question: “If you reason that religious belief is in and of itself an error, then I’m wondering if there is any way for you to view a religious believer as a reasonable person?”
First, I want to clarify my stance. There may be many beliefs that stem from a person’s religion that are not in error. A religious tradition seems to me to include lots more than metaphysical and epistemological commitments – there are ethical considerations and perhaps even scientific and historical positions as well. Those might well be correct, or at least useful.
But the commitment to the existence of a personal God is not supported by any evidence I know of, and is in my mind unreasonable. I have never encountered what I consider to be an intellectual defensible account of theistic belief itself (and I’ve read a LOT of apologetics and listened to COUNTLESS debates online etc.). Nothing has come CLOSE to convincing me. The arguments are extremely weak.
But believing in God does not, I think, make someone an “unreasonable person”, at least any more than anyone else is unreasonable. Many of the people whom I love the most in the world believe in God, and I don’t consider them unreasonable. I just consider them mistaken on this particular point.
I think I hold this position because I recognize that people, in my experience, very infrequently hold god-beliefs because of evidence and arguments in their favor. Rather, they have a cultural, ethical or other form of commitment to the God-belief which they them supplement with whatever evidence and arguments seem good enough to bolster it in a challenge. This is why, I think, so few people change their mind when confronted with watertight arguments demonstrating that their belief is poorly-founded.
Ultimately, I do think this is a problem and should be challenged. But if the belief does not lead to adverse social effects then I don’t think we should focus incessantly on convincing people otherwise. We can work together as a matter of practicality toward shared aims. But I’m yet to understand if we can really “dialogue” about the commitments we don’t share…
All of your remarks on the irrationality of theistic faith are founded on the premise that key experiences — let alone transformative ones — can be accurately rendered into language. That premise is obviously flawed, given the natural limits of language.
Even mundane experiences defy precise rendering into argument. How is it possible to describe the feeling of intimate touch with someone you’re crazy about? Yet, among those who have, an evocative remark conveys the full meaning of the moment. To those who have not, it’s a mystery they can only observe in puzzled — possibly resentful, occasionally shrill — detachment.
Not everyone has had that experience, James, but to tell those who have that their arguments in favor of it are weak says a lot, partly about the limitations of language, but also about your capacity to recognize that there may be some things outside your experience. It doesn’t make you a lesser person, any more than being totally colorblind makes my admirable friend Steve a lesser person. But Steve realizes there are some things he’s never going to perceive for himself, and feels free to ask others to notice and interpret.
It’s worth adding that coming to terms with my distinctive brand of theism freed me, body and mind, as nothing ever had. Certain of my — untellable, of course — experiences were no longer unnatural or untenable, but were simply on a rather broader continuum of experience than I had really considered.
I’m only a flyspeck on the ass of the universe, but I’m my own flyspeck, and I know now how to hold my ground — for myself and others — to be exactly the kinds of unique & distinctive flyspecks we most truly are. It was my scientific/experiential/metaphoric/concrete experience of godhead that made all that come together, and that keeps it coherent as my life goes on.
I don’t expect you to understand that. I do expect you to realize that there is something worth understanding. That seems fair, since I do the same for you.
“I don’t expect you to understand that. I do expect you to realize that there is something worth understanding.”
I think this is the key – if you don’t expect me to understand your experience or share your conclusion, then we don’t have a disagreement and we certainly don’t have a dialogue. If an experience is truly unconveyable in language or other symbolic means of communication then we cannot discuss it. I’m open to the possiblity that such experiences exist, but not to the idea that someone might convince me of the truth of a proposition (i.e. change my mind about something) on the basis of such an experience.
So the answer to my initial question seems to be, sadly, we cannot talk, at least about some things.
Basically, that’s fair, but you’re conflating again and possibly going overboard …
I don’t expect you to understand the experience, because it’s not yours — any more than I’d expect you to understand what it’s like having large breasts, for instance. I suppose what defeats my aim here is your determination to climb into faith and uproot it, but only on your own (metaphorically colorblind) terms.
All right, so we may not be able to share our perceptions so precisely or so completely that one or the other would say, “Ah-hah! You are so right! Now I’m going to go back and tear up everything I’ve built on these core concepts and perceptions.” For you, that’s a career; for me, it’s a frame of functional reference. Neither of us should give that up! It would be truly irrational to do so, and would be violating an essential aspect of our true selves. To go into debate with the goal of conversion is to expect a great deal and offer almost nothing in return.
You seem to come back to — and bump against — this idea of conversion. Is that truly the aim of your discourse? Is that what you want it to be?
Returning to the lover metaphor — if you had never had that experience, you might get some sense of it if you were willing to read enough of the poetry or music or erotica I wrote to hint at its nature. You would not be reading argumentation in its favor, you would be reading metaphor (sorry, Ophelia) that conveys its nature. However, you’d have no reason to do so if you were driven to share my conclusions about it. Conclusions are moot, where one of you can’t let go of the idea that congruent ideas are the only form of agreement. It becomes a straw man argument. Does that make sense?
I’m struggling to express my perception of your declarative stuckness. Perhaps it boils down to this. What I really care most about is whether things work, and I’m happy to understand but recognize that understanding is often a luxury. You seem, at least in your arguments against theism, to take exactly the complementary approach.
I don’t see even that profound mental difference as a barrier to real dialogue, however. It just puts a higher premium on precision and mutual respect. I certainly don’t see that as a barrier.
Yes, once again, your article has hooked into my brain. One more thought here — a sort of offering.
If I could possibly convey my experience of godhead accurately, I’d be happy to share it with you — not to convert, obviously, but just to share the understanding, which you seek so intensely and so far without success you can work with. For me, it’s even more personal than sex, so it would pose one hell of an artistic challenge.
Imagine being able to render spiritual experience in language, but without dogma or jargon. Purely as one profound human experience within the panoply of profound human experiences. I could spend the rest of my life working that out.
Hmm.. sounds like a challenge..
Thanks for your excellent reply, James, and huzzah Isabel. It’s so fun to talk about these issues in deeply reflective and non-shaming ways. Excellent!
Here’s what I notice about evidence; even people with the most objectively wild-eyed ideas almost certainly have evidence for it. No one believes things that are preposterous to them; it all makes sense to somebody.
That the evidence for a god or gods doesn’t satisfy you or anyone who stands on the outside of a faith community is, if you don’t mind me saying it, immaterial.
Here’s a for instance. I’ve got an energetically imaginative brain with massive amounts of “Supersense,” as Bruce Hood puts it (in one of the few skeptical books on the supernatural that a believer could read and not be shamed or offended, bravo to him): http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/about-supersense/
Though I was never a Christian proper, hadn’t read the bible, etc (I was raised as an atheist and then migrated into the new age at age 10), I began in my late thirties to have full-bodied waking visions and dreams of Jesus, compete with audio. And he was amazingly wise; he helped me work through some issues that were gut-wrenchingly painful and honestly life-threatening. He became my closest friend and literally my savior.
There was no downside to knowing him (unlike the myriad downsides religions have created), and he and I regularly laughed and raged about the bollixed mess that Christianity had become; he was even more angry about it than I was (which in itself was a miracle).
I began to search around for the stories of other people who had directly witnessed Jesus; the stories were very similar to each other, but not to mine. I talked to religious and evangelical Christians, but their stories were also not similar to mine. And yet, when I needed him, this Jesusy presence was always available to me. And oh my word, was he brilliant, wise beyond anything, and penetratingly awake to the foibles and the possibilities of humanity.
To give you a felt sense of what these visions were like, try to recall the feelings you have during the best conversation with your most beloved friend, then add the feelings you have during the most beautiful duet you’ve ever sung – when the harmony seems to reach into your chest and expand it, and then add the feelings you have in the presence of the most gorgeous and transporting piece of art you’ve ever witnessed. If you can do that, you’ll feel about a tenth of what I felt in his presence.
I remember telling him, “Dude, if I believed in religions, I could totally build one around you – the best that was ever seen,” and he replied, “Dude, don’t be crazy.”
I was learning to sing Black gospel at the time, and I wrote a song called “That’s Not My Jesus,” because the Jesus I kept meeting in churches and books was, well, who was he, this homophobic, xenophobic, pasty-faced, sanctimonious dude? He certainly wasn’t my Jesus. My Jesus could run circles around the historical and biblical Jesus; he could out-think, out-love, and out-pace him. My Jesus could whup…
… Time jump: No single person could come anywhere close to helping me figure Jesus visitation thing out. A series of books helped me understand the neurology of what had occurred (Phantoms in the Brain; How We Die; Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Human Combustion; On Being Certain; Why We Believe What We Believe; Descartes’ Error, etc.).
Another series helped me understand the sociocultural aspects of my visions (Context is Everything: The Nature of Memory; Invitation to the Sociology of Religion; Amazing Conversions, etc). And still another series helped me look at the universal phenomenon of religious and supernatural beliefs (Religion Explained; After God; Bounded Choice; Breaking the Spell; Doubt: A History, and so forth).
In his book “Invitation to the Sociology of Religion,” sociologist Phil Zuckerman helped me understand that my vision was a function of social learning (specifically, it was an American Evangelical Protestant-themed vision, ignited by my immersion in the Black gospel tradition). I didn’t begin speaking in tongues, nor did I handle snakes, nor did I become possessed by spirits, as people from different social locations might have done. I also didn’t envision Allah, Lao Tzu, Kali, or the Buddha.
I mean, if I had seen a local spirit from a desolate village in Burkina Faso, and if that spirit had spoken to me in a language I didn’t know, then we could make a case that this was a “real” vision. But I didn’t. I saw Jesus in a way that located me very specifically in a social niche, in a specific time in history, and through a specific cultural lens.
That my Jesus wasn’t coherent with the Jesus in books, in the bible, or in the visions of white evangelical churchgoers is further proof that my vision was socially learned (I had no biblical learning that didn’t include Charlton Heston) and therefore not “real.” But no one has effectively explained why my Jesus was so jaw-droppingly brilliant. If he was merely a sociocultural and neurological creation, then how was he so able to understand humanity and suggest solutions for issues about which I had lost all perspective — and all hope?
Was he a version of me, or was he some sort of genetic afterimage of a brilliant male figure in my ancestry? Was he triggered in the same way, and with the same brain mechanisms that give dying people an exquisite glimpse of their friends and family bathed in a tunnel of warm, loving, and welcoming light?
Or was he the full flowering of a survival instinct lodged deep inside a brain already well-versed in the creation of stories and expanded narratives? What was he?
I learned enough to gently move my Jesus aside, but he’s with me in the way a character you create for a novel is. And just as it is with a beloved character in a novel, the things he told me, the way he saved me, the mentoring he gave me, and the way I felt when he was near … those stay.
I did not have a simple life before Jesus appeared; I had survived childhood sexual abuse, and multiple early losses that essentially separated me from regular life. In my new age career, I had acted as a “triage psychic” for people who, like me, were in the spiritual and metaphysical communities partly in response to the horrors other humans had visited upon them. I saw and lived through direct experiences of human evil and unrelenting human suffering, and when I finally hit the wall in my thirties, I required more than mere psychotherapy or even deep psychotherapy (and anyway, I didn’t have that kind of money). Another human could not have helped me, not in book form, and not in person, because humans were the problem.
Had there not already been a Jesus in the world, I would have had to create him. But you see, I didn’t consciously choose to do so, nor did I consciously want anything to do with Christianity. I was actually pretty offended during my first vision, and I fought with him, and with the expectations of how I was supposed to behave in his presence. My brain made an executive decision for me, and looking back, I see that it was the right decision. But it freaked me out at the time.
So I say this to you and to all rationalists: When there is no longer a desperate, aching need for gods and for transcendence; when there is justice, safety, and compassion for every living being; and when human society makes some kind of sense – any kind of sense; when that happens, then reason will prevail, and there will be no arguments. Until then, I will use all parts of my brain to create compassionate, inclusive, and truly rational dialogue with all people, no matter what their direct evidence tells them is true.