A comment (for which, thanks) on my last blog On Becoming a Person queries my views on religion and God.
I wondered there whether my teenage developing views were rational or a reaction against the fundamentalist regime of my upbringing. That certainly made me a critic of detail, since religious belief (across the religions) requires belief in miracles, magic, and the irrational generally. In the Old Testament, the sun stood still to give Joshua military victory, Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt, the waters of the Red Sea pile up. The New Testament presents us with a virgin birth, a physical ascention to heaven, and numerous medical miracles. None of these is a problem if we can read them as folklore.
Today we have a vociferous evangelical atheist movement pursuing the demolition of myth and folklore, and denying the relevance of a concept of God. Religions need to respond by redefining themselves after such demythologising, so that belief in God does not ride on the irrational. Rudolph Bultmann applied demythologisation to the life of Jesus. Paul Tillich appealed to depth psychology to find God in (or as) the depth of personal being. This is not unlike philosophical Hinduism.The collection of articles by active Christians, called The Myth of God Incarnate was an unexpected but understandable best seller. That the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, are problematic historical documents is saying no more than that we should approach them as critically as we do Josephus, Tacitus or Suetonius. That the books were written to have an authoritative use should put us on our guard more, for that makes them socio-political propaganda, documents for contemporary people to accept without question and act on, and if required give up their lives for. All people in power try to write (and rewrite) history and it was no different in the early church. The Old Testament consists of foundation books for the origins of Judaism, written to promote the interests of a particular power group. Some off-text sections have survived which makes the archaeology of the text particularly interesting.
Religions mostly base themselves on stories of one or more deities. Theravada Buddhism alone presents their founder as human and not divine, which did not translate to Tibet, China and Japan, where deities abound in Mahayana Buddhism. People then as now varied from concrete/pictorial to philosophical. The common folk needed pictures, whether in words or icons; the more thoughtful could see beyond them to deeper principles. It is what God means in these deeper principles that concern us here.
God is pictured (described through a picture) even in the Hebrew Bible where creating images of God was forbidden. 'He' walked in the garden, was a shepherd and king, and so on. I describe this process in some detail in the chapter on symbolism in my Creating the Old Testament (1989). A picture can be demythologised. God is not really a shepherd but an aspect of care and protection is shepherd-like (the argument would go). Of course the same God who protects also destroys when in a different mood. The prophet Jeremiah focused on political disaster as a divine punishment for sin. Hindu deities are iconic (presented in the form of icons or images). Saraswati goddess of wisdom is a lady, dressed in white, crowned, with a Sitar, rosary and book. I asked children what wisdom is, and one said, "a wise person is someone who knows a lot about a lot of thiongs, but is humble and not proud and uses what they know to help others". So this is what Saraswati means. This deep inner wisdom is part of what we mean by God. This is one of many images of God that Hindus use and all can be deconstructed similarly. Ganesh, with elephant head, is the remover of obstacles: what better than an elephant to knock a wall down; but Ganesh has an untied bond (meaning to remove inhibition), a cake (meaning to maintain strength), a goad (meaning to make maximum effort) and a broken tusk (meaning to take risks). Obstacles are only overcome thus, with inner strength and conviction. Inside each of us is a reservoir of inner strength, which we need to learn to draw on. God therefore refers to these inner strengths. But again, what is created comes from the destruction of what went before. Siva is creator, but also destroyer, reminding people of the procdess of change and entropy.
Religion can make us either dependent or independent. Fatalism is to say that God has it all planned and we can do nothing. If we do nothing, disaster will happen and we will say it is God's will. Blaming God for disaster is as old as religion. Praying for help might unlock inner strengths that will succeed.
Prayer is another interesting topic. In a sense, we pray within ourselves to no external person; but the inner dialogue may be helpful. By externalising the vision (that is, thinking of an objective God) we might focus ourselves to succeed instead of fail. We all need an inner reflexive dialogue to clarify our thoughts and motivations. Contemplation is a monologue, but prayer is a dialogue. Artificial maybe, but effective. Prayer is an internal discipline which is more helpful than unhelpful.
If I think about ethics, I can visualise the apogy of ethics: perfect, positive communitarian behaviour. This is part of the conceptual cluster I call God. Similarly with justice, there is a core concept of perfect justice. And virtue, and goodness, and altruism, and fidelity, and empowerment. All these give God substance, and I cherish them, the highest of all positive values.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Thursday, 21 October 2010
On Becoming a Person
Carl R Rogers, in On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy, poses two challenging questions: how have I come to think the thoughts I do? and How have I come to be the person I am? From that, he leads into a descriptive autobiography, but I will try to be more focused.
Day 1.
I have studied religion in various forms most of my life - indeed it was my first specialism. Brought up in evangelical certainties, my father taught me to question and not be afraid of standing out against the crowd. The religious community, the Brethren, were repressive in the sense that I was hauled over the coals from time to time for asking the wrong questions - for example about women's role in worship, about literal inspiration. Looking back, I was nicely hounded, but learnt to cope with it. Believing or thinking something just because everyone else does is a form of intellectual idleness. I lost detailed dogmatic beliefs as soon as I started studying. My Professor at University, FF Bruce, was also from the Brethren, but I was relieved to find that his mind was very open. Other University teachers had a range of beliefs - Sam Brandon, about Jesus being an active Zealot, John Allegro about sacred mushrooms, James Barr about the wickedness of fundamentalism. I study religion as an outsider, interested in the power of metaphor, why people express themselves in such self-deceiving ways when taking metaphor literally, but also not blind to personality gains that this provides for them. Having a conscience, for whatever reason, is socially very helpful.
Having a conscience brings me to my interest in justice, good works, and being a helpful citizen. Being helpful to others is a bit of an obsession without which my life would be simpler. Intellectually, I ask questions about social justice, implicit corruption to achieve benefit, and the unfairness of life generally. Those that achieve wealth, fame and fortune seems to do so for the wrong reasons in a society in which something deep down is rotten, where self, greed, ambition and power are drivers esteemed by gatekeepers. My politics are therefore left of centre, although I do not feel or give loyalty to political parties.
As to what sort of person I am, I leave to others ultimately. I love my own company, but also treasure the company of people I care about. I try to empower rather than disempower, give credit where credit is due, and take blame if blame is due. This is what I think I do - others may see me differently. I write with others for practical purposes, and learn much from others - but I prefer to write by myself. I also enjoy physical exercise - I could have had a career in athletics and sport generally, and now, once gardening find it hard to stop. I find pointless exercise irritating - and would much rather fit exercise into my everyday life and tasks. Although I like music, it is not important to me and a silent desert island holds no fears. Wall to wall potted music in shops drives me to distraction. I probably don't move to music either - since it has never been tested, I don't know.
Equally I don't need conversation, though enjoy it when the time is right. I communicate in writing, which means utterances are considered rather than spontaneous. Friends will probably say that this is not true, and they may be right, I may understand myself wrongly. I am probably intolerably self confident, but this hides a certain self-consciousness. Probably no one gets crosser at me than myself, and I have no illusions about my faults and failings.
If I were to write my own obituary, what would I say? Someone who has dabbled in a lot but not become known for any one field of endeavour? But I don't see breadth as a disadvantage or a failing. Someone who constantly swims against the tide? Again, not in my book a failing. I hope I am remembered as someone who has touched many people's lives in positive ways and who has not hurt too many - I wonder.
Day 2.
I am not really comfortable talking about myself. Do I think the thoughts I do as a reaction against upbringing, or do I have the freedom to think freely because I have escaped from the restrictions instilled through childhood? Is it common or rare for a person to break loose from nurture? It is sometimes said that loss of belief creates a hole that needs to be filled. In my case belief was never deep rooted, and through schooling was not something I could explain to others. Finding that it had no substance when examined was perhaps inevitable, though I note that others do not find it so, or at least take longer to find dogma wanting. So there never was a void to be filled; secular ethical standards and aspirations remained as a demythologised core reality. This is acting choicefully. The Buddhist notion of right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, contemplation (the Noble Eightfold Path) is a powerful menu for personal development and integrity. Whatever we think and do, there are right choices and wrong choices. Wrong choices lead to bad faith, which has consequences (karma) and when accumulated globally adds up to dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. Buddha's vision was that unsatisfactoriness is the result of wrong thinking, so instead of complaining about life and the world, we simply get on with putting our heads right. I am not a Buddhist, but this speaks to me.
Much of my work is in educational research. I have said in the past (and not so past) that many schools are not fit for purpose. Their purpose should be education, which means learning, participation, motivation, and intellectual excitement. My own schooling did not offer me that; nor did the first two secondary schools of my teaching career in the 1970s. They were about control. In teacher training, my experience of primary schools was better, with better relationships and more freedom - sometimes. But often unchallenging. The excitement of learning from experience was well articulated by John Dewey and served primary education well until the National Curriculum replaced education with assessment, but that is another story. There is much to improve, especially in the relationship between teachers and pupils, who really should be partners learning together.
I am not a great fan of fiction, though I have read professionally a great deal of fiction for children, and write some occasionally. There seems to be a modern fetish for magic, ghosts, wizards, and horrific monsters in children's literature and anything other seems hopelessly old fashioned. Why this obsession for the supernatural, and what will this do to children's thinking? Children are confused about the nature of reality, and I am always surprised at how long belief in Father Christmas persists as one who rumbled the great man when I was 3. Should we be teaching them about battles in parallel worlds, or worlds through wardrobes, of a magic hidden world alongside our own? Or can the word 'pretend' help their development? Anything non-rational is pretend - magic, father Christmas, God, monsters, heaven, hell, paradise. That would reduce nightmares anyway. Perhaps I will write a children's book called Let's Pretend and throttle all these monsters (the myths, not the children).
Day 3.
I am a human. Am I not therefore self-centred, self-serving, and self-aggrandising? Is not self-esteem my ambition? and self-reward? Do we have any ways of handling self so that community takes over from greed, and altruism from power? Or are humans bound to be what humans are - an ultra-aggressive animal capable of killing without compassion or conscience? Aggressors create victims, so this too is a natural human state, visible in anxiety and depression. Rogers first defined 'person-centred counselling', though he didn't invent it. This has to allow for the dark as well as the light. The dark pulls more powerfully than the light. Anger, despair, hostility, prejudice can simply take over. But we are thinking beings and can challenge the dark, and find a way back to the light. With help.
Day 1.
I have studied religion in various forms most of my life - indeed it was my first specialism. Brought up in evangelical certainties, my father taught me to question and not be afraid of standing out against the crowd. The religious community, the Brethren, were repressive in the sense that I was hauled over the coals from time to time for asking the wrong questions - for example about women's role in worship, about literal inspiration. Looking back, I was nicely hounded, but learnt to cope with it. Believing or thinking something just because everyone else does is a form of intellectual idleness. I lost detailed dogmatic beliefs as soon as I started studying. My Professor at University, FF Bruce, was also from the Brethren, but I was relieved to find that his mind was very open. Other University teachers had a range of beliefs - Sam Brandon, about Jesus being an active Zealot, John Allegro about sacred mushrooms, James Barr about the wickedness of fundamentalism. I study religion as an outsider, interested in the power of metaphor, why people express themselves in such self-deceiving ways when taking metaphor literally, but also not blind to personality gains that this provides for them. Having a conscience, for whatever reason, is socially very helpful.
Having a conscience brings me to my interest in justice, good works, and being a helpful citizen. Being helpful to others is a bit of an obsession without which my life would be simpler. Intellectually, I ask questions about social justice, implicit corruption to achieve benefit, and the unfairness of life generally. Those that achieve wealth, fame and fortune seems to do so for the wrong reasons in a society in which something deep down is rotten, where self, greed, ambition and power are drivers esteemed by gatekeepers. My politics are therefore left of centre, although I do not feel or give loyalty to political parties.
As to what sort of person I am, I leave to others ultimately. I love my own company, but also treasure the company of people I care about. I try to empower rather than disempower, give credit where credit is due, and take blame if blame is due. This is what I think I do - others may see me differently. I write with others for practical purposes, and learn much from others - but I prefer to write by myself. I also enjoy physical exercise - I could have had a career in athletics and sport generally, and now, once gardening find it hard to stop. I find pointless exercise irritating - and would much rather fit exercise into my everyday life and tasks. Although I like music, it is not important to me and a silent desert island holds no fears. Wall to wall potted music in shops drives me to distraction. I probably don't move to music either - since it has never been tested, I don't know.
Equally I don't need conversation, though enjoy it when the time is right. I communicate in writing, which means utterances are considered rather than spontaneous. Friends will probably say that this is not true, and they may be right, I may understand myself wrongly. I am probably intolerably self confident, but this hides a certain self-consciousness. Probably no one gets crosser at me than myself, and I have no illusions about my faults and failings.
If I were to write my own obituary, what would I say? Someone who has dabbled in a lot but not become known for any one field of endeavour? But I don't see breadth as a disadvantage or a failing. Someone who constantly swims against the tide? Again, not in my book a failing. I hope I am remembered as someone who has touched many people's lives in positive ways and who has not hurt too many - I wonder.
Day 2.
"First-person research/practice skills and methods address the ability of the researcher to foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life, to act awarely and choicefully, and to assess effects on the outside world while acting."Reason PB and Torbert, W 'The action turn: a further look at the scientific merits of action research, Concepts and Transformations, 6(1):1-37, 2001:23
I am not really comfortable talking about myself. Do I think the thoughts I do as a reaction against upbringing, or do I have the freedom to think freely because I have escaped from the restrictions instilled through childhood? Is it common or rare for a person to break loose from nurture? It is sometimes said that loss of belief creates a hole that needs to be filled. In my case belief was never deep rooted, and through schooling was not something I could explain to others. Finding that it had no substance when examined was perhaps inevitable, though I note that others do not find it so, or at least take longer to find dogma wanting. So there never was a void to be filled; secular ethical standards and aspirations remained as a demythologised core reality. This is acting choicefully. The Buddhist notion of right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, contemplation (the Noble Eightfold Path) is a powerful menu for personal development and integrity. Whatever we think and do, there are right choices and wrong choices. Wrong choices lead to bad faith, which has consequences (karma) and when accumulated globally adds up to dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. Buddha's vision was that unsatisfactoriness is the result of wrong thinking, so instead of complaining about life and the world, we simply get on with putting our heads right. I am not a Buddhist, but this speaks to me.
Much of my work is in educational research. I have said in the past (and not so past) that many schools are not fit for purpose. Their purpose should be education, which means learning, participation, motivation, and intellectual excitement. My own schooling did not offer me that; nor did the first two secondary schools of my teaching career in the 1970s. They were about control. In teacher training, my experience of primary schools was better, with better relationships and more freedom - sometimes. But often unchallenging. The excitement of learning from experience was well articulated by John Dewey and served primary education well until the National Curriculum replaced education with assessment, but that is another story. There is much to improve, especially in the relationship between teachers and pupils, who really should be partners learning together.
I am not a great fan of fiction, though I have read professionally a great deal of fiction for children, and write some occasionally. There seems to be a modern fetish for magic, ghosts, wizards, and horrific monsters in children's literature and anything other seems hopelessly old fashioned. Why this obsession for the supernatural, and what will this do to children's thinking? Children are confused about the nature of reality, and I am always surprised at how long belief in Father Christmas persists as one who rumbled the great man when I was 3. Should we be teaching them about battles in parallel worlds, or worlds through wardrobes, of a magic hidden world alongside our own? Or can the word 'pretend' help their development? Anything non-rational is pretend - magic, father Christmas, God, monsters, heaven, hell, paradise. That would reduce nightmares anyway. Perhaps I will write a children's book called Let's Pretend and throttle all these monsters (the myths, not the children).
Day 3.
I am a human. Am I not therefore self-centred, self-serving, and self-aggrandising? Is not self-esteem my ambition? and self-reward? Do we have any ways of handling self so that community takes over from greed, and altruism from power? Or are humans bound to be what humans are - an ultra-aggressive animal capable of killing without compassion or conscience? Aggressors create victims, so this too is a natural human state, visible in anxiety and depression. Rogers first defined 'person-centred counselling', though he didn't invent it. This has to allow for the dark as well as the light. The dark pulls more powerfully than the light. Anger, despair, hostility, prejudice can simply take over. But we are thinking beings and can challenge the dark, and find a way back to the light. With help.
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