Atheists and Ritual
Offline Hello everyone. I feel like discussing some of my more controversial ideas on this forum. I'm sure that some of my idea's will be disliked by some, but I am totally open to discussing them. I am aware that these ideas are still pretty half baked, so please feel free to offer your criticisms.
I recently was watching the Richard Dawkins debate 'Atheism: The New Fundamentalism?' which was a great debate. There was a moment during the debate however where Dawkins crystallized one of my ideas for me though, and it's one that I suspect many Atheists will disagree with me about. The idea is that it is impossible to be 100% certain about the existence of god, both for AND AGAINST. Dawkins himself states in this debate "No, of course you can't definitively state that god certainly does not exist. That would be fundamentalism. I personally on my own seven step scale of theism am a 6.5."
As I have been attending these Christian meetings I have been finding myself more and more envious of their connection to a unifying concept, and their existential certainty which Christianity has provided them. It seems like Christians are able to be emotionally satisfied because they have answers to the existential dilemmas of the human condition. I know that there are more primary dilemmas but I can only ever remember four of them, 1. Uncertainty of what comes after death, 2. Ultimate meaninglessness of life, 3. Ultimate aloneness, 4. Personal responsibility for our actions. For Christians it's really quite simple, the answers are provided in order 1. Heaven/Hell, 2. God has a plan, 3. God is always with you, 4. you don't have to take responsibility as long as you believe in Jesus. Quite a tidy little package to bring closure to the unanswerable.
So I have noticed a negative trait in Atheism, and a positive trait in Christianity. Let me just be clear that I value making rational decisions based on observable reality far greater than I do closure for the existential conundrums, however, I think that in this sense religion is currently filling a hole which empties once the religion is taken away. In many ways this is a positive thing because it opens a space for personal convictions to fill rather than mass manufactured lunacy, but I also think that these personally convictions are less convincing to your psyche. There is a lack of positive reinforcement as nobody is there to tell you that you are right anymore. I also think that our tendency to self-doubt makes a set of personal answers to the existential dilemmas less potent.
So I am toying with the notion of embracing the side of our personality which will always be a black hole of 'What If?'. I think there is a piece of our psychology which could benefit from having fantastic rituals. If even Richard Dawkins acknowledges that it is impossible to ever be truly certain about the non-existence of god then doesn't that mean that almost every Atheist feels the same to varying degrees? Is it part of being human and living in reality to try to fill the gap with something? Could it even be a natural human drive to do make reality more palatable brought about by basic questions that are universal to the human condition?
Now before I start sounding too Theistic I just want to clarify a couple points. The difference between an Atheist and a Theist in regards to a ritual would be this, The Atheist knows that this is just fantasy and make believe where as the theist believes it is real. The Atheist knowingly suspends their disbelief to heighten the emotion of the moment and renews their disbelief when the moment ends where as the Theist continues their belief always. The Atheist engages in ritual and ceremony to indulge the 'what if' side of themselves to become a more complete and happy person where as the theist engages in rituals to interact with supernatural forces.
I think that by participating in 'magic' rituals of our own we could A. Have something fun to do on an otherwise dull night and create a community and B. Satisfy a nagging need in our brains for mysticism (the .5 of seven in all of us that lets us wonder if there may be a god as we can't disprove the unprovable).
So there it is, pretty incoherent at this point. It helps me to discuss things with people to solidify my thoughts. So please, all feedback is welcome.
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I don't have a brain nagging for mysticism or rituals of this sort. Maybe go see some midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Do you suffer from the existential dillemmas at all? 1. Uncertainty of what comes after death, 2. Ultimate meaninglessness of life, 3. Ultimate aloneness, 4. Personal responsibility for your actions.
1. Remember what it was like before you were born? Me neither. Apparently worked out for billions of years before I was an I to care or notice. I imagine I'll return to a similar state of non-consciousness. So, no.
2. Just because an "ultimate meaning" hasn't been prescribed to me, doesn't mean my life has no meaning. It's been rather fulfilling just making my own way so far. Is there really a difference between a universe that has "no ultimate meaning" or a universe that perhaps has an "ultimate meeting" but we'd have no way of discovering it (unless we construct a fantasy to make some people feel nice?)? So, no problem there either.
3. Ultimate aloneness? I'm around other humans almost all the time. Who's alone? And are we more or less alone than if we were talking to ourselves more often and pretending something is paying attention to us?
4. Normal functioning brains seem to understand (or perceive that they understand) making choices and forecasting some degree of outcome as a result of those actions. It's also plausible and fair that we are rewarded or punished for our actions that positively or negatively affect those around us to various degrees. Again, not something I'm really conflicted about or desire ritual to consider.
Many religions teach that you can't be good no matter what. That seems to accept even LESS responsibility for your actions. How do they make up for it? You can be forgiven just by talking to yourself more!
OK my turn,
1.I find things to be much simpler when I don't have to live every moment of my life worrying about what happens when I die. Honestly, that whole thing comes from some dusty books written by a bunch of bronze age misogynists anyway. Hardly an authoritative source on which to base one's life.
2.Meaning in life? And just who is defining that meaning? I can find my own meaning without turning to the aforementioned bronze age misogynists.
3.Aloneness? Get a cat. Then you will never be alone.
4.Personal responsibility? You mean like living a life which is relatively free of the negative consequences of poor choices? Yah, I know how to not get fired or evicted without being told even more crap for the bronze age misogynists.
=
Just pretend? Sure, people do that all the time.
Let's go larping! (if you have no pride...)
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
1: nope, died on the operating table once (thank you doctors and nurses for your efforts) no heaven or hell, no god, or any deity....simply nothing. So nope nor worried about it.
2: Meaning of life is dependent on what you want it to be. My meaning to live it to the best that I can, and to continue to pass on my genetic information....while teaching my daughter to be a great person, respectful of others and capable of critical thinking and actually applying that to her life.
3: ultimate aloneness? naw there are 7 billion humans, I rarely feel alone and when I do, it's temporary, there is always family, friends and strangers. If not always a good bartender.
4: We are all responsible for our actions, I have always accepted that part in my life (thank you mom and dad for enforcing that....especially mom) so I don't get this one really, we have laws to follow and it is up to each one of us to either follow it or not, and whatever we do, it's is our decision and we are responsible for that decision, even if some people attempt to deflect that responsibility.
See that's the thing. Yes, it's just pretend. We know that in our rational minds. What I am suggesting however is there is a part of our psyche which will believe that a sufficiently developed psychodrama 'could be real' and that magic 'could be real' and it's that tiny little part of our brains which we would be taking advantage of.
I guess the idea is like this, if you believe on some level of you that you are going to meet the girl of your dreams, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean lets be real, if you live in a city you pass by 10,000 potential mates in a day and any one of them could be 'the girl of your dreams'. It's really just a matter of your perception on the matter. So lets say that you took part in a 'ritual of love' or have been 'praying' for a girl for a while and are primed to think that meeting this girl is an event on the immediate horizon, I think that you are probably more likely to stumble across one of the many potential girls and make the right choices at the right time which lead to lasting romance.
Of course it's purely conjecture. I'm not really sure how you could even really test the validity of an idea like this. Either way I think it's fun and healthy to tap into my emotional side and let a small bit of 'what if' into my life. Just as long as it is kept in perspective.
So just so it's clear, the 4 existential dilemmas that I listed are not my own personally, but are a concept from psychology... I just can't remember where I read it.
The personal responsibility one, I remember it being something like this: It can be difficult make decisions because we are ultimately responsible for the outcomes that arise from our choices. For example your mother is in a coma and on life support at a hospital and her chances of coming out of it are slim, do you pull the plug? Or do you wait? If you pull the plug will you walk around feeling guilty and wondering 'what if?' for the rest of your life?
Maybe a more practical example, you are in a market for a DVD player and there are 5 DVD players in your price range. They have similar features with slight differences in each one. Which DVD player do you pick? Sometimes a shopper will feel 'buyers remorse' after making a purchase, and this feeling stems from the personal responsibility dilemma. A christian would just know that god would make the choice for them and steer them in the right direction, where as an atheist might worry that they had made the wrong decision because they know they are human and make mistakes.
So anyhow.. thanks for the responses so far. They are interesting.
No worry about what comes after death. Seriously, never.
Have been faced with the prospect seriously at least once, and it was somewhat stressful, of course, but can't recall any sense of worrying about what might come after.
Easiest to assume it was the same oblivion/nothingness that was my experience of life before I was conceived.
The only anxiety there is the wish to avoid a drawn out dying process., especially if pain was involved.
I can imagine a stress if one knew in advance when you were going to die.
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Meaninglessness? Only makes sense if you think there ought to be meaning in some absolute, external sense. What is the meaning of "meaning"?
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Responsibility for our actions? Could be something there, if one can see or imagine a significant link between some action or failure to act and some bad thing happening. Obsessing about the possible consequences of everything you do is something that should be treated by counselling.
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Ultimate aloneness? The least likely one of them all, or maybe similar to "meaninglessness", to qualify as some sort of universal angst. Can't identify with this at all.
Yes, I have felt alone, and total actual isolation is really stressful for most people, but unless you really are in such a situation, it is unlikely be felt in some 'ultimate" sense unless one really does have a psychological disfunction.
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I don't think these are quite as universal as is typically assumed, and are closely correlated with the strength of those tendencies which incline a person to belief in a God figure.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
The problem with Christians is, that their supernatural theories and rituals are crappy. When Christians are dying, they're often more afraid of Hell than expectant of Heaven. This Hell idea does more harm than help. We, occultists then have to bother with cleaning the world of leftover Christian astral bodies, that were too afraid of a slight possibility of ending up at hell, that they rather went nowhere.
Furthermore, as for their normal living rituals, like "laying hands on people", they also have no idea what they're doing. They leave it all up to God, taking it as granted that they have a direct, clear uplink to the creator of universe. They don't care who really picks the phone and if God cuts off the nonpayers.
So, what an atheistic ritual is supposed to be? What are these what-ifs it's supposed to invoke? I have no idea. I know what kinds of effects and processes the occult rituals must do, and this is a technical question. It's not like "pour a water into bowl, stir it and feel the mysticality of having no idea what you're doing."
It's more like that for example (not my example, but people I know), a particular person is attacking me through bossing, or repeated lawsuits, and I focusedly mentally invoke the principle of balance and harmony to be estabilished between us two. That's all, nothing more. And then, because that person's actions were destructive, then something really deserved and not pleasant happens in their vicinity. The theory says very much about how exactly it works and how to improve that functionality (because obviously that ability does not come from nowhere).
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Nope.
No. I just will not exist anymore, just like before I was born. Just like what happens to an ant, or a squirrel, or a [insert animal here].
I find my life quite meaningful, I've passed on my dna to some wonderful children that need my guidance on how to be outstanding human beings. I have done research in dna memory and I know that my donation to humankind is very important.
I'm only as alone as I think I am. It's a person's choice whether they want to be an outsider or if they want to connect. Everyone has some kinship on some level and if you choose to relate to someone you can. It's all in your head.
This I'm sure is where "believers" are lacking. Too many people today do not take personal responsibility. Hence why we're in a recession started by people who like to pass the buck and never account for their own actions. I think if more people took personal responsibility we'd be a much better society(America and elsewhere). You can't expect someone else to "save you" or clean up your mess. Accountability is a very important moral obligation. Or everyone could just become socialist and we could all rely on eachother... I'm sure everyone will do their own part even though everybody gets equal pay... yea right(thinking of the USSR?). There have been lessons in history about personal responsibility(and why it is important).
"I can resist anything, except temptation..."
~Wilde
1. Uncertainty of what comes after death - It's going to be the same as what came before life
2. Ultimate meaninglessness of life - Dude, get a job helping people or have a family or just appreciate your five senses or something. Does the whole of existence have to be about you?
3. Ultimate aloneness - Spend more time alone. Work on a personal relationship with yourself. There will never be anybody in your cranium but you, no matter what you believe. Stop running away from this.
4. Personal responsibility for your actions - Mate - do you actually want it some other way? Personal integrity is impossible without responsibility. What sort of man do you want to be?
Paisley, the alternative to facing life's challenges as your own person is to accept dogma just so you can stop worrying, the downside of which is the fact you will no longer be free to chose what to think.
Sure being alive is scary and we only have a one way ticket but you'd have to agree something that's yours forever could never be this precious. In comparison, heaven is going to be groundhog day.
Theists criticise atheists for being morally bankrupt but I think the choice we make is the braver and truer choice. We are out there alone searching for something real. The godly are too gutless to be really alive.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
There's a lot going on here, and several separate issues to deal with. I'll try to take them one at a time, and keep them as focused as possible.
* There is a difference between epistemological certainty and practical certainty. Anyone who's familiar with the basics of science knows that we never claim absolute certainty of any empirical observation. When we speak precisely about issues like the existence of God, or evolution, or the sun and moon, we always begin or end with the disclaimer that it is at least remotely possible that we are wrong about absolutely any belief we hold.
In practical life, however, 100% certainty is irrelevant. For pretty much any sane person, if I told them that they have a 99.999999999999999999999999999% chance of winning the lottery if they buy a ticket.... well, duh... they're going to buy a ticket, and they are going to win the lottery. I am certain that I'm sitting at a desk eating egg-drop soup and typing on a keyboard. Am I 100% certain? No... but for all practical purposes, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.
For many atheists, it is the same with God. For instance, I am so completely certain that the Christian God doesn't exist that I never experience even a moment's hesitation or doubt. The chain of virtual certainty is just too long. My rejection of the Christian God comes from my acceptance of axioms, logic, empiricism, the scientific method, philosophy, etc, etc, etc. For him to exist, everything else would have to be not just wrong, but grossly, horrendously wrong.
Because of the enigmatic nature of the "God Concept," I must be a little more reserved with regard to the existence of *any* god at all. I know for a fact this is the position that Richard Dawkins takes, as well. He will tell you he is certain the Christian God doesn't exist in the same way I just did. Essentially, when I say that I am agnostic towards the potential existence of any god at all, I must take into account that there is practically an infinite number of gods we could conceptualize, and probably just as many more that we couldn't. I can't possibly disprove all of them, and I wouldn't want to try. This is why the burden of proof and the null hypothesis are so useful. I am not obliged to disprove all possible gods anymore than I am obliged to disprove all possible unicorns. Simply by noting the total lack of evidence, I may treat them all as if they are either non-existent or irrelevant.
On a very practical, everyday level, I am completely sure there are no gods.
**Ritual is an intrinsic part of human existence, but it is NOT inherently tied to the mystical or fantastic. This is just a myth. There are tons of rituals which have no fantastic element to them whatsoever, and are still incredibly fulfilling and meaningful to the people who participate. (OCTOBERFEST!!!) It's my belief that people are not nearly so concerned with "higher meaning" than we have always suspected. We note that the people with the most fulfilling lives tend to be the least concerned with stuff "higher" or "outside" of this life. We further note that as prosperity increases, people's concern with the afterlife and purpose in life decreases.
I mentioned Octoberfest for a specific reason. I was kind of hoping you'd poo-poo the idea as so much trivial fluff. After all, it's just a bunch of drunkards getting together for a Bacchanalia. But... this is PRECISELY why it's important to us. Human life consists of LIVING. These are a bunch of people celebrating their national heritage, their ties to the community, their beer crafting, their level of prosperity, and their shared human similarities. That, my friend, is ritual, and I believe it's at least as useful as gathering around a chart of the galaxy and chanting, "Woah... man.... Deep," a hundred times.
Remember also that humans have not lived in huge societies for very long. Our evolutionary brains are built for small communities, and that is where most rituals live. For instance, for the last ten years, I've played trivia with the same group of about ten folks every monday night. It was ritual. We bonded, we drank, we shared victories and defeats, but mostly, we liked the regularity, the comfort, the feeling of connectedness to the community. That's ritual.
In short, I believe the focus on ritual leans way too far towards "religious ritual," and I don't see the empirical evidence that humans generally need or even want this kind of ritual. Look at any secular society which has been mostly free of popular religion for a long time, and you will see lots of rituals. I don't think we have to work at replacing religious ritual with non-religious ritual. I think people create them automatically, the same way they create social hierarchies.
*** Finally, I think you're painting "atheism" with too wide a brush. My atheism is not the foundation for anything in my life. It's an ancillary conclusion I reached AFTER I embraced rationalism. I think a lot of atheists are the same way, though it may be a little skewed in America because most atheists were theists for at least some of their childhood.
In this light, atheism doesn't -- and shouldn't be expected to -- provide us with explanations for anything. I have quite strong personal convictions, and beliefs about the universe which do offer me a great deal of comfort. I'll take the easiest one and explain it to you, and trust that you'll believe me when I tell you that I have equally comforting and intellectually satisfying answers to all of the categories you rather arbitrarily assign as somehow peculiar to religion.
Death to me is normal and natural. I have lost loved ones, some very dear, and I have faced my own mortality more than once. I am comforted by the fact that when death comes for me, it'll be one big step, and then it'll all be done. I will never again feel pain, hunger, sadness, loss, or fear. I will once again be a part of the expanding and ever-changing universe, of which I have been a part since its inception. I, among all the potential humans carried in the bodies of my mother and father, was lucky enough to experience life, and I have done my best to experience it well and thoroughly. My death will both separate me and unite me with the universe. When I die, I will have lived the best that I could, and experienced more joy than the trillions of other eggs and sperm who never get the chance. I am lucky. I am privileged, and I am honored. I take my stroke of dumb luck very seriously, and I feel like I owe it to myself to make the most of it.
See? Meaning, purpose, and comfort without ritual.
**** Having said all of that, I'm not here to tell you which rituals you should enjoy and which you should forgo. That's your own business. I say all of the above to try to let you know that I believe it is giving undue credit to religion to suggest that they have anything more than a preponderance of the market on ritual, as well as existential wonder and awe.
All I have to say to that is this: MAC > IBM
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
According to my information, the highest form of ritual is a precise combination of rhythm, movement, sound, color and light, which among other specific purposes, stimulates consciousness into high quality.
This eventually degenerated into modern dances, that stimulate sexual urge more than consciousness. Even some very old rituals, present for example in Catholicism or Freemasonry, are mostly distorted remains with a lot of unnecessary ballast and with much lesser effectivity than they should have. Perhaps it's better that way, the true ritual is a technology that should not be misused for controlling people. You all know, how various makeshift rituals were and are used in fanatizing and brainwashing people.
This also means, that new rituals can be possibly developed or re-discovered by scientific observation of people's reactions on various forms of the mentioned rhythm, organized bodily movement, sound, color and light. And perhaps also some universal symbols, sacred geometry, and so on. If you atheists want a ritual, then it should be highly effective and scientific, unlike Oktoberfest.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Hammby Thank you for your post. That was insightful. I hadn't really considered that we already do have rituals before. Good point. I particularly like thinking about Oktoberfest as a ritual.
I guess I should note that one of the things I am trying to address here with all of this 'lets have a ritual' business is the lack of community we have as atheist people. Like Richard Dawkins says there are more atheists than there are Jews in America and yet the Jewish political lobby is super powerful and gets almost anything it wants, and atheists have yet to get a tax exempt status
I realize that this website is an attempt to create a bit of a community and put pressure on the religious world, but web will never replace face to face contact. So anyhow, Oktoberfest is usually a pretty sweet festival and a great secular holiday, but wouldn't it be nice if we had something that was explicit atheist to rally at? A way to become more cohesive as a community and push a political agenda? The Christians have parties every Sunday and do lots of fun things like speak in tongues and cry while waving their hands in the air and picturing a dead man nailed to a cross 
I just think it would be nice if I had something like that to do with a group of like minded people.
As far as the god concept I am totally with you. 99.99% is good enough odds to make a bet. I also totally agree with you that the Christian god almost certainly does not exist. I think that you are missing my point about the whole thing though. I think that the .01% of 'what-if' that is left in your mind is actually quite powerful sub-consciously. Going with the lottery theme, I suggest that it would be enough to elevate your heart rate and blood pressure in any situation where the game appeared random enough to make you doubt at all the validity of the information you had received beforehand even though you had been assured you were going to win. Since none of us can see into the future, all we can do is work with the data we have been presented, and if we are rational people there will always be doubt about the validity of our data, it's necessary to doubt in order to have our ideas be changeable with new contradicting evidence.
So what I am saying is that by being a person who is entirely 100% rational is good, and important. I also think that even the most rational person has a side of themselves that looks into the stars with awe and wonder and says 'It's so grand, what if there is something more that I have yet to consider or experience?' This doesn't have to be god, this can be for anything paranormal like telepathy, telekinesis, time-travel, etc etc the list goes on. I'm not endorsing any of that as real, I am simply suggesting that all of us have at least a little piece of our psyche that thinks it 'Could be' true under the right circumstances no matter how much we 'know' it's fake. I think a lot of rational people just dismiss their whimsical child-like side and say 'i've grown up now, I know the difference between fact and fiction.' I think it's unhealthy to dismiss the naive and awestruck side of ourselves outright and I think there might be a way that we could incorporate all of that emotion into our daily lives and become more complete healthy people as a result.
Sorry for the bunny ears, but I think I have expressed my point.
Luminion
I am inclined to agree with you about what a 'ritual' is, at least in the sense that I was originally intending. I don't think anyone does want a ritual though. I'm pretty sure that I am the only one who thinks it might be something worth exploring. I used to be into the new age/occultist world for a little bit when I was younger. It was when I was about 16 and I heard about Rei-Kei for the first time and thought there might actually be some sort of obscure hidden magic in the world. After exploring it for a couple of years I quickly realized that no, there is nothing to it, and all of that stuff is mostly a hoax. The thing I did pull away from it, is the power of developed psychodrama on the sub-conscious mind. I personally think that a little bit of controlled and developed psychodrama might make life easier/more fun to live. I suspect 'magic' spells for wealth (for example) can actually help people find wealth more easily simply because they believe it can, and as such are more inclined to make the right choices. If it's true, then it IS magic (in a sense) or at least magic enough to be worth exploring.