Religion as an art form
I’ve got no problem with religious mythology. Many children believe in Santa Claus. Lots of adults here in the Pacific Northwest believe in Bigfoot. Belief systems with little or no foundation in objective reality abound.
So what’s the harm in using religion as a mythological art form? None. All of us engage in fantasies of one form or another.
When I played tennis seriously I always believed that the next new racquet I bought would eliminate my nasty double-faulting problem. That never happened, but I continued to have faith in the Perfect Racquet – thereby adding to the profitability of Prince and other manufacturers.
In a recent issue of New Scientist, Amanda Gefter reviews “Dawin’s Angel: An angelic riposte to the God Delusion,” by John Cornwell (note: this link is to Amazon UK, not Amazon US – where the book isn’t listed)
She quotes Cornwell:
You think religion is a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. And yet, for most of those who studied religion down the ages, it is as much a product of the imagination as art, poetry, and music.
Well, yes, absolutely. My sentiments exactly. But we admire the works of Rembrandt, T.S. Eliot, and Beethoven – we don’t worship them and found our entire outlook on life around a painting, poem, or symphony.
And few of us expect that other people will share our artistic sentiments, or consider that if they don’t, they’re deluded.
Thus Gefter is right on the mark when she says that while Cornwell aces his contention that religion satisfies a need that can’t be met by cold hard scientific facts, he misses the mark in other respects.
But before celebrating a win he must presumably concede that in this version of religion, no particular set of religious beliefs can be taken as superior to any other. He must allow that “belief” is probably not the right word, and consider using “intuition” or “experience.”
And that if a sacred text like the Bible is, as he says, not to be taken literally, then its metaphorical and allegorical insights cannot be held in any higher esteem than those of other great works of literature.
This short New Scientist article, which I’ll include in its entirety as a continuation to this post, got me thinking about my personal myths and how they could easily become converted into religious dogma if I came to be seen as a great sage or prophet (unlikely, since I can’t even get our dog to reliably bring a ball back to me when I throw it).
My mother had several strokes in her final years. After her last serious one, before I was able to fly from Oregon to the California hospital where she’d been admitted, I sat on a large Douglas fir stump outside my Salem home and came as close to praying as my non-monotheistic soul would allow.
I pretty much believed in karma at the time. Back then I also considered that my guru might be able to manipulate karma in a godlike fashion. So on that stump I talked to him: “Master, I want to give my good karma to my mother. Whatever you can do for her, please do, even if it means that my journey to god-realization takes a significant detour.”
At the time I knew that I might be talking to myself. Now I’m almost sure of it. Yet I still cling to this myth.
Even today, before I meditate I often recollect standing by my mother’s bedside and holding her hand as she, comatose, died after being taken off of life support (her brain was gone, and my sister and I were more than willing to respect my mother’s wishes not to be kept alive artificially in such a circumstance).
At the time I silently wished her soul, Godspeed.
And now, I enjoy imagining that by letting go of my own thoughts, emotions, and other attachments in meditation, I’m helping to propel my mother across some sort of cosmic Truth Portal that she has found her way to, but can’t enter without a last push of good karma from her son.
I know, this sounds crazy. And it is. I recognize that myself. However, this myth serves a purpose for me in a way I can’t even explain to myself, much less to other people. Like everybody’s relation to their parents, mine is so deeply personal it’s barely communicable.
Yet this deeply personal myth of mine still could become the core of a shared mythology under the right circumstances. Provide me with an eloquent gift of gab plus a gullible audience, and you might see the seed of a new form of ancestor worship begin to sprout.
In short, a religion. One which could come to believe that it actually is possible to affect the afterlife of a deceased relative by bestowing your good karma upon them, and that it’s the divine duty of everyone to do just that.
God forbid that such should ever happen. I’ve no interest in spreading my personal mythologies beyond the interior of my own mind.
I realize that my fantasy is, as Cornwell argues, a subjective art form that has nothing to do with external objective reality – and that the only critic whose opinion counts to me is myself.
(Here’s the entire book review)
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