Where Religion Meets Materialism

Where Religion Meets Materialism

I had recently observed some arguments against Religious Phenomena, that none of it could be proven, and that it all could be reduced to hallucination or hysteria. They were saying that while it might have seemed real enough, it was actually just imaginary.

Well, this made me think of Shankara, the famous Hindu Sage, who had created an entire System upon one very famous example, about the Snake and the Rope. You see, at twilight a man saw a rope in his path and honestly thought it was a snake. His anxieties seemed quite real, but their cause was figmentary. Well, Shankara went on from there, deducing that the Senses had no direct connection to the Truth, and that Reality was at best inferential. The senses gave us Proof of nothing. But he went on from there in a dizzying string of positively reinforcing inferences, each somewhat zanier than the one before. We find eventually that our entire World is an Illusion. And so he concluded that Spirituality and Consciousness were our only Certainties.

Well, I think Shankara wound up his arguments a bit far too far. You see, there must be some difference between being able to Certainly Prove every article of our Perceptions, and simply surrendering it all to being of the same vague and nebulous Quality as pure delusions and Insubstantial Dreaminess.

You see, Shankara carelessly threw out the notion of Correspondance – that the Senses correspond to Reality. That the Rope, after all, does LOOK LIKE a Snake. That while the Senses cannot prove there is a Snake, they do a good job of telling us that there Might Be a Snake. This should count for something. Tell me, what harm is there, if one can’t be entirely certain whether a Snake is in our path or not, in tossing a stone at whatever it is there that lays in our Way. If we cannot be Certain, then we can at least Investigate with a clear Philosophical Conscience.

But that isn’t my point. You see Shankara created a Religious Premise from Arguments for Uncertainty in the World. That the World could not be Proved was the first building block for his Religion. Isn’t it odd that he was using the same arguments FOR Religion that are now being used AGAINST Religion.

Well, modern Atheists focus almost exclusively on maintaining that first one aspect of Religious Revelation cannot be certainly proven, and then the next and the next. There arguments against the anecdotal testimony for Miracles is quite enough to toss out ALL Historical Testimony. As the nit-picking is multiplied to curtail anything and everything, what they soon must arrive at is that nothing is certain. It is a shame that most Atheists resist much reading or they would have found that over the last few centuries in Western Philosophy, that most positives have been completely discredited. Hume critiqued Reason, and then a parade of Germans went on to pull the rug of certainty out from under everything else. We come to the Existentialists who can only agree upon the Will, and that the only Free Choice is in Suicide. We only wish they would stay alive long enough to tell us what that was really supposed to mean. Existentialism is so difficult to understand because once anybody begins to get the knack for it, they kill themselves before they explain it to anybody.

Anyway, if the Materialists are arguing that we cannot be Spiritual because of lack of proof, well, the Materialist Philosophers have already come to the same conclusion regarding Materialism.

While Materialism depends upon its Material actually Existing, requiring proofs and all of that, Spirituality is probably satisfied with its Subjective Experience, or rather, Consciousness. Spiritualism sees the Objects of Consciousness as being somewhat secondary in importance.

Now, of course the Spiritual Systems that focus so completely upon the Wonders of Pure Consciousness are very far removed from the coarser Religions that are so very rich in the sometimes controversial areas of Social and Moral Doctrines and Imperatives. While the Materialist Atheist may not begrudge the Meditater for his contemplation of Pure Being, he does begin to object when the Spiritualist begins to rattle off his inferences when he suspects that it all might lead to his Taxes to be raised.

Well, what does the Spiritualist Perceive, and to what is the Materialist Objecting? The Spiritualist sees Suffering in the World and is prompted by his inner compassion to provide some Plan for its mitigation.

Now, at worst the Materialist sees such Moral Schemes as invidious to his own Evil and Selfish Plans. At best the Materialist sees Moral Schemes as likely to do as much harm as good. While plans for doing Good for others may be tentative, his own benefits and interests are in his own mind quite certain, and he would not sacrifice the one thing for the other. So even in the best of cases, it is difficult for the Materialist not to admit to a basic motive of selfishness. And while the Spiritualist’s Experience of Unmodified Bliss may go without question, still we might reasonably wonder regarding their Worldly Deliberations once they are back in the Worldly Dimension. And we can certainly use our common sense in making any such evaluation. For instance, how often is any particular Saint correct about anything. In any active Life we can certainly begin to notice if anybody is particularly discerning and wise. In reading extensively about the Saints of many of the World’s Religions, it is not so remarkable that a great many of the stories veer away from the Miraculous simply to elaborate upon how such and such a Saint gave consistently good advise.

Anyway, we should encourage such Moral Debates in order to find the most probable and viable of Moral Solutions to our problems. But to only object that nothing can be proven is not likely to ever be helpful with anything. Does it not echo the Current American President’s stance on Global Warming… that as nothing can be absolutely proven before it happens, that his Rich Core of Contributors might as well be allowed to continue destroying the planet for the sake of all their most certain and dependable profits. Perhaps the Atheists might enjoy the irony of it, that the Religious Right has taken over the “Prove it, Prove it, Prove it” Argument, seeing that it can do more than just stifle Religious Debate. The demand for absolute proofs can stifle any kind of inquiry, for as we all know, in the actual material Universe, absolutes do not exist. Where there is always some percentage of Uncertainty or one loose variable, demands for perfect proofs only amount to obstructionism… which seems to be fine if you are of the party that benefits by the Obstruction.

If all of Philosophy has long ago agreed that we can be certain of Nothing, then we must realize that we must now move beyond these imperatives for Proof, and settle for plausible generalities.

People need to stop thinking they are so clever simply because they insist upon shutting down debate for lack of absolute certainty.

We must become Enlightened to the Great Truth Of Our Time, that Good Enough is Good Enough.