Review of Michael Krasny's Spiritual Envy: And Agnostic's Quest

Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest by Michael Krasny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Krasny asks a book long question (that I shared to some extent), and asks the reader to join the question; he invites the reader to seek along with him. It's probably safe to say that not all agnostics feel the way he feels; but, questioning comes with the territory, I think. Krasny doesn't claim to know the answers. I really appreciate that in this time of such overpowering (sometimes almost nauseating) certainty: in both the believer and atheist camps. Certainty eludes me, as it eludes Krasny, and he isn't afraid to share his uncertainty and what he is doing in spite of it.

Lately, I've had some slight envy, similar to what Krasny writes about, and questions of how to be the best person I can be in this life I have. I don't believe religion is necessary for morality, but I can see how it has shaped morality, mores, and ethics in different societies and for individuals within those societies.

What I miss is the camaraderie that I enjoyed when I was a practicing Christian and that is the envy I have for those who are confident and solid in their faith. Occasionally, I envy the comfort that would come with certainty, but then I remember that if I were certain, I would not have the curiosity to keep my mental hunger fed.

If you are interested in how some agnostics think, this book can help you ask the kinds of questions to find your own way, without telling you how you should think or believe. Read it and see what you think.



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Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest

Too Good Not to Share

I have attempted to tell people this, but they simply do not want to believe it.  Their wrong beliefs regarding other religions are nearly as strong as the beliefs they have for their own.

It seems as if religious faith and open mindedness cannot co-habitate in the same mind--at least in the cases I have encountered.

Don't be closed minded....

Think About It

Agnostic Seeking

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

- Albert Einstein

For awhile now I have called myself an atheist.  I’m probably more of an agnostic, because I still look for something outside myself and something that could be called a “spirituality” (yet, paradoxically without spirits or other super-natural beings).  That being said,  I still believe there are no gods, goddesses, divine beings, spirits, ghosts, demons….  There is no way to be absolutely certain, one way or the other, I know, but from my experience (which is no more than most religious believers use to argue their points for those things), the evidence is stacked against their existence.  So, on my agnostic scale, I lean more toward atheist than theist (in all its many forms). 

Understand, I don't scorn religions, belief systems or faith; and I especially have nothing against believers.  I simply seek; I delve into questions on morality, on good and evil (and what those ideas may or may not mean), on whether there is life after death (e.g. eternal life, reincarnation, metempsychosis), and on why very bad things sometimes happen to seemingly very good (or innocent) people. 

I seek answers to these questions in science, literature (sacred and profane), art, current and past world events, conversations with friends and family, and in movies.  Some questions are unanswerable in our existing state of knowledge and awareness, others are trivial and/or unconvincing. All the same, I still ask the questions.

Sacred/Profane/Spiritual/Secular

Sacred and profane are not mutually exclusive.  If you read sacred literature closely, you will see how it is often the profane that is set aside for destruction, i.e. set aside for the deity.  The meaning of "set aside for destruction" is to "make sacred."

Spirituality and secularism are exclusive.  Or are they?  I have often pondered this question.  I consider myself secular, humanist and atheist, but I also have an aspect to my way of seeing and being that I cannot label anything other than spiritual.  It's not that I believe in fairy tale creatures or deities or ghosts or anything else supernatural.  It is more like a connection to Jung's collective unconscious (a term I find amusing, because to be unconscious is like being, you know, passed-out/fainted/...errr, unconscious).  While I'm not sure how much I hold to this idea, I do have a need to spend time in quiet contemplation, which could be equated to the spiritual practice of meditation -- which I am also interested in.

But, and this is a big-O but, I don't believe that we are genetically spiritual.  Some scientists have found "evidence" of spirituality in the brains of subjects.  I think a good experiment to follow this, is to have atheists go through similar tests, but to use non-spiritual language, images, etc., to see what kind of result they come up with.

No 'God Spot' In Brain, Spirituality Linked To Right Parietal Lobe

“We have found a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but it’s not isolated to one specific area of the brain,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions. “Spirituality is a much more dynamic concept that uses many parts of the brain. Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate individuals’ spiritual experiences.”

There should also be the caveat here: spirituality does NOT by default mean YOUR specific brand of spirituality.  If there is a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, that does NOT mean there is a basis for a deity.  It is non sequitur to reach such a conclusion from this data.

I believe that people can have a form of, what could be called, spirituality without having recourse to deities or spirits.

I also believe that atheists can hold things as sacred.  What do atheists deem as sacred?  Sacredness usually connotes holiness or has a spiritual aspect, but can it not simply mean "set apart"?  They might hold their families as sacred, their friends, their intellect, even science.  They may hold the quiet beauty of the deep forest, or top of a mountain as sacred: not because it is inhabited by a spiritual being, but because it is a place where they can reach the deepest parts of themselves.

Atheists still have faith, right?  So why not sacredness?

Think about the things you consider sacred/profane; and about your outlook: is it more spiritual or secular?

NOTES:

Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Sacred - 1. a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity <a tree sacred to the gods> b : devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) <a fund sacred to charity>

Finally, Through It

Well, I really got into studying the Bible for a while (I mean minutely).  I had always heard about contradictions, but had also heard that those could be explained away.  Well, I cannot see how they can be.  After going through a time of agnosticism, I eventually came to atheism.  I really believe that there is no god other than those made up by the human mind and changed to fit the current need of humans.  One of the first steps I came to, when I was looking at the Bible closely was: if "God is love", then he has a strange way of showing it. 

Then, I began to look at the world around me and think about it in terms of this god.  If he truly loves humans, then why does he let them suffer?  If he can do nothing about it, then he is not almighty, and so, not a god.  If he can do something and chooses to do nothing, then he is wicked.  So, either this god is 1) impotent rather than omnipotent or 2) a masochistic fiend worse than any devil in his Hell or 3) (and most likely) he is imaginary. 

I decided from what I saw and experienced that he was imaginary just like Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, et al.  And so came to atheism.  This is just my choice.  I’m not a zealous, militant atheist like some that are out there.  I simply made my choice and am living accordingly.  I don’t party, I don’t steal, or kill or any of those things that are called sin.  I simply live by a set of morals and ethics that I have inside of me naturally.  Partly, I observe the Golden Rule, which by the way, is much older than Christianity.  Because of this, I cannot and do not judge other people, nor do I let them judge me.  I have no guilt, because I am not a sinner, I am a human being.  And if I do “wrong”, it is my choice and my responsibility.  The responsibility does not fall on my parents, grandparents, a god, a demon, or anyone else.  It is mine.  If the wrong happens to be against the law, then I might have to pay by going to prison, but that is not something I think will happen, because I generally abide by the laws of the land.

During my agnostic phase, I thought a lot about human inability to prove that a god does or does not exist.  I cannot prove that he doesn't and someone that believes he does cannot prove that he does.  All the experiences are subjective, personal.  What I find interesting is that most religions have these same kinds of personal experiences to "prove" the existence of their deity/deities.  The similarities between the Bible and so many other mythologies is just icing on the cake, so to speak.  It was the Bible itself (along with what I could--and could not--see for myself in the world) that turned me away. 

I'm still interested in the myths (including the Judeo-Christian one), mostly because of their influence on literature.  And I use myth in its denotative meaning.  That is, according to Joseph Campbell, all myths are true in their contexts.  So, there are "truths" (though not absolute) that can be taken from all mythologies, and it is often these truths that are borrowed from one and passed on to another; or truths that are represented by the metaphors, symbols and themes in the myths.  Death, burial, and resurrection, for example, are simply references to nature and agriculture.  Jesus even is quoted as saying, "Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it beareth much fruit."  While this, of course refers to himself as a fertility god, it also refers to plant life.  Those themes only came into the mythologies once the people who believed them were agrarian.  Those themes do not work as well for hunter/gatherers.  They had a completely different set of myths based on a completely different set of truths, or ideologies.

More Through It

It wasn’t really a very negative or hurtful experience that drove me from Christianity.  Merely observation about what was going on and how all of it seemed phony, or worthless.  None of it connected to the Bible, and the Bible was quickly losing ground in my mind as infallible truth anyway.  All of it just added up to doubt for me; then, I asked myself what I really believed. 

The conclusion is that I believe what I can observe (or better, what is observable).  It is somewhat scientific, but it is my way.  I don’t trust emotions or the things that happen during highly emotionally charged situations.  I’m not saying that I am emotionless, but that I don’t trust them because they can mean so many things and come from so many different stimuli.  Many religious leaders use emotions to keep people coming back.  It is similar to an addiction.  So much that happens in churches would be considered sheer madness if one individual acted that way, but because it is an entire group, it is okay.  I think it is group madness and I was right in the middle of it, as you may have been or may still be.  In that highly emotional state, which becomes a type of hypnotism, people are super-suggestible and if they go far enough they become gullible and eventually are enslaved, either to a person/personality, or an office (i.e. apostle, etc), or a doctrine.  It sounds harsh, but I think it is accurate. 

This is how my first steps into agnosticism began.  I started looking, listening, etc., and soon realized that a deity’s existence cannot be either proved or disproved.  There is nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to hear that can be seen, felt, heard by another.  In other words, one person’s experiences with religion, god, spirituality, or whatever are entirely subjective.  Others cannot duplicate those “experiences”.  I might claim to hear the voice of a god, but the whole room full of people does not hear it.  I might say, “Thus sayeth the Lord,” but the rest of the people only hear what comes from my mouth.  There is no voice directly from heaven.  So, directly observing situations and really taking apart what people (especially the “leaders”) said was a big step toward thinking for myself and coming to the conclusion that I did not believe any of it.  The things that happened to me, which at one time I credited to God, I then began to see were either purely coincidental or had some other explanation. 

So, a negative experience didn’t drive me out of the church, but I did notice a general lack of genuine care and concern from many, particularly from the leaders.  They mouthed love, but their lives were the exact contradiction.  This, of course, didn’t make me want to stay there either.  And my family and I did try other churches.  Each had their own “weird” thing that turned me off, but it was ultimately my observations of both the Bible and the church that made up my mind. 

Agnosticism soon became a silly notion in the light of what I saw and understood.  I think agnosticism is a legitimate response to things that can eventually be tested, or to things that have been tested but not completely proved or disproved.  It simply means that I don’t know based on current observations by myself or others.  Atheism seemed a more realistic approach to the idea of gods.  I do not believe in any gods, including the one portrayed in the Bible.  I also don’t believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, or the Easter Bunny.  To my way of thinking, they are all the same kind of thing.  I see them as devices imagined/created to keep people in line, under control, or in a position in which their minds or bodies can be easily manipulated. 

I know I’m talking more about what I think that what happened to me or the progression of events.  It’s difficult to distinguish ONE thing that did it, but if I had to pin it down, I would go, once again, with the observations I mentioned before. 

That’s about all I have time for right now, so I will have to write more at another time.

Through It

I can relate to the idea of feeling like something is wrong.  Religious leaders like to use that to keep people under control, don’t they?  I hadn’t really thought of a period of  de-programming after leaving Christianity, but after I had made the choice to be atheist I did read a couple books by prominent atheists which was a kind of de-programming.  They are fairly militant in their whole idea, but I can understand why.  That being said, I don’t agree with everything they write or say, but I now realize that that is okay.  I can think for myself!  I do agree with much and so I recommend them as a way to get a basic idea of where I am.  The first book, if you’re interested, is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.  The other is God Is Not Good, by Christopher Hitchens. 

I don't mind telling you how I got here.  Strangely enough, it started with my studying the Bible very minutely.  The more I looked at certain things in there in connection to what I was seeing in the world around me, the more I questioned.  It is also strange that a very staunch Calvinist—Calvin himself—started me on this path.  In his theological work, he says to read the scripture for one’s self.[1]  So, I did.  I could go on about this, but some of the main things were also fundamental things.

For example, my first eye-opener was with Adam and Eve.  God is supposed to be omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, right?  Well, if he was all-knowing, then he would have known that Adam and Eve were going to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  My question is why did he go ahead and put the tree in the garden?  OK.  He wanted to test them.  Why?  He already knew they were going to eat the fruit.  What's to test?  Then, after the Fall, why did it take so long for a savior to arrive?  I mean this is the creator and master of the universe, right?  Why did it take so many thousands of years to get the redeemer in place?  OK.  Because of sin.  Well, if that's the case, then even God almighty is weak before sin and takes a couple of thousand years to fix what it took only seven days to create, and a few minutes to screw up.  Hmmm…  Also, I'm sorry, but a god that knows that his creation is going to screw up and then freely gives them the opportunity in their complete and total innocence and ignorance to do so, is not a very nice god.  And, if all people born are born into sin because of what Adam and Eve did, where is the justice in that?  Why am I sent to burn for eternity in Hell because of something I had absolutely no control over?  That is not just.  That is evil and tyrannical!  So, if this god is not just, then he is a liar, because he claims to be just.  Punishing people who do not deserve it, merely because they were born is also not love, it is hatred, pure unadulterated hatred.

Sorry, that's just the first couple of verses of the first book and that is mostly my emotional response!  I became agnostic for a time, because I thought about humans trying to prove a deity's existence.  It cannot be done.  But, it also cannot be proven that a deity does not exist.  So, I went on in that way for awhile.  Then, after feeling like I was wasting my time even thinking about it, I just kind of woke up and realized that I believe that there is no god.  This is, of course, different than most peoples' definition of atheism, which states that “an atheist does not believe in God.”  And, it is not simply semantics.  The typical definition begins with the idea that there is a god in which to believe.  True atheism believes there is NO god and so nothing to believe in. 

I'm not a closet atheist, but usually don't just go around telling people that I am unless they bring it up or ask me a question regarding my “faith.”  I guess I want to avoid being responsible for their giving up faith, if that happens.  Not that I am particularly persuasive about it.  I actually don't even think that much about it unless someone asks, and then I can go on and on about it as you can see from this post.  It's not that I even want to go on about it, it just happens because there is like a valve and the question opens it.  This post is me trying to restrain myself from being wordy, and I'm not sure it's working all that well...

There is a lot of Judeo-Christian “stuff,” as well as other mythology, in literature, but it was several years before I was comfortable enough to use what I had learned in writing and thinking about literary texts.  I even avoided certain literature that seemed particularly Christian because I would get angry about the things I had been through.  I then began to realize that most of the literature is just interpretation, like those asserted by all the thousands of Christian sects or denominations out there.  Everyone has their own interpretation and so there is NO single right interpretation, even though thousands of people have killed and been killed for what they believed was the only single interpretation.  What a confusing mess.  Anyway, I’m going to shut up for now.

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[1] This is quite similar, in fact to Buddha’s telling his followers to find their own path.