...YinYang.....

Fred and Pnina, more later, but, Fred, I did not mean the word humor as in funny, but rather intersting or engrosing. Perhaps a better word would be bemused. Thanks for responding.

An interesting discussion, aptly paired with a picture of people stripped bare. I think the essence of the story of Eden is the transformation from ignorant bliss to self-awareness and self-consciousness (and the shame that comes with it). Whether one takes the story as a literal rendition of events or a figurative fable, the a basic part of being human is to cover oneself up. And perhaps that's what religion and philosophy does--covers us up. And once we become dressed up in outfits constructed of rationalizations, expectations, commandments, philosophies, and arguments, the frail humans that we are disappear, camouflaged behind fig leaves.

 

 

I think of humans, particularly smart ones, as hermit crabs. There's a soft underbelly of spirituality that lurks behind a hard shell we drag around with us. The shell seems like an integral part of us and it certainly serves a purpose, but it is not us. By spirituality, I'm not necessarily referring to anything religious, but more those higher aspects that connect us horizontally to others and vertically to something greater than ourselves.

 

 

I was reared in a Fundamentalist home. That's where I started. That's not where I stayed. Like Margaret, I see having faith as offering more of a struggle than a comfort. Some days, I find it impossible to believe in anything besides chaos. Other days, the doubts disappear and life has a makeshift order to it. A confused agnostic, a frustrated believer, a prodigal son, a weeping saint, a renegade. All describe how I experience faith. It's taken a lifetime to divorce faith from religion. I now see my own extensive doubt as a very real spiritual experience, and all the "stuff" I used to believe in as counterfeit.

 

 

Whether I believe in God or not ultimately has no bearing on whether a divine entity exists. I can create God in my image or negate him. He, She, or It exists or doesn't exist independent from whatever I've cooked up in my head. To think otherwise is nothing more than my children closing their eyes and insisting that I've disappeared because they can't see me. Strangely, when they close their eyes, they also think they've disappeared from my sight as well.

 

 

This picture depicts a truth. Although titled yin and yang (and I do see how the title fits the blending of male and female), I still see Adam and Eve, admittedly entirely because of my own history. But I see this as a statement of being real and embracing what is real. Now, determining what is real....I got nothing.

"The shell seems like an integral part of us and it certainly serves a purpose, but it is not us."

 

Then who is it?

 

Sure it's us. It seems there is a point in distinguishing between some philosophies and religion, take for example existentialism.

 

One might say that anything we "believe" is equally part of our shell but that doesn't mean that all shells are equal. There are substantive differences among the beliefs that we have and they can be judged and/or acted upon accordingly. There may be two equally-felt beliefs, one that Earth revolves around the sun and one that the sun revolves around Earth. Those beliefs are both integral to the believers but one is right and one is wrong. Such beliefs may lead to different actions and that's what's key, not simply that they are both had. In form, a philosophy and a religion may seem similar. In substance, often not so.

 

"Existence precedes essence" is a "tenet" of existentialism. Now, you may argue (and it seems you are by asserting that they both dress us up) some sense of equivalency between existentialism and, say, Judeo-Christian faith, because they both have tenets. That argument only goes so far. Plato believes that true reality lies only behind appearances and precedes those appearances. (You've echoed Plato above: "There's a soft underbelly of spirituality that lurks behind a hard shell we drag around with us." Precisely what we learned in the allegory of the cave.) Jews and Christians argue that God created man. Sartre, on the other hand, suggests that each person is defined only in so far as s/he acts. Existentialism argues that *what we do* is who we are, nothing hidden and nothing pre-existing. So we create ourselves.

 

These are substantive differences. Jews and Christians inherit The Ten Commandments, which they will surely argue over and spend much time interpreting perhaps, as you suggest, struggling over them. (There's a difference, as you've noted, between religion and faith. I said that *religion* is easy. You, personally, have rejected religion in favor of faith, which I believe has much more struggle. Religion generally tells you what to do: eat certain foods, honor your father and mother, observe the Sabbath day, don't masturbate, don't have abortions. Religion is much easier than faith and *that* was my argument.) Existentialists may have a big text by Sartre to interpret but ultimately what they are left with is, in his terms, "Nothingness." That "Nothingness" is the definition of man, the jumping-off point from which we must define ourselves and create who we will be. No basic rules or commandments from the outside, no creator to whom to look for guidance, no afterlife on which to depend for meaning to a limited stay on Earth.

 

"This picture depicts a truth."

 

It depicts a perspective.

 

"Whether I believe in God or not ultimately has no bearing on whether a divine entity exists. I can create God in my image or negate him. He, She, or It exists or doesn't exist independent from whatever I've cooked up in my head. To think otherwise is nothing more than my children closing their eyes and insisting that I've disappeared because they can't see me."

 

Substitute "tooth fairies," "Santa Claus," or "leprechauns" for "God" in that statement and it will make equal sense. It is impossible to prove some negatives. It is impossible, and ultimately fruitless, to prove the non-existence of God. But it is equally impossible to prove the non-existence of any of the other entities mentioned. Your children insist that you've disappeared because they don't know any better. As they mature, they will learn to discern and they will learn a way to translate their knowledge beyond their immediate sensual experience. But that doesn't mean that "beyond their immediate sensual experience" will necessarily go as far as an omnipotent being. Whether they believe in that or in astrology or in ESP or in unicorns will depend on countless factors we can't predict at this point. Because I agree with you and know that I cannot disprove the existence of God does not lead me to your conclusion that God exists or does not exist independently from what I've cooked up in my head any more than it leads to such a conclusion about tooth fairies. I would have a hard time choosing which phantoms of my imagination or of our collective imaginations to be rational about and when to allow rationality to fly out the window. Why does God exist or not independently of me and why would unicorns be thought of any differently?

 

"self-awareness and self-consciousness (and the shame that comes with it)."

 

The idea that shame or guilt or negativity or original sin must be foundationally associated with free choice or knowledge or knowledge of self is why many of us recoil at religious teachings and at the myth of the Garden of Eden, which poses something *we* do wrong as our foundation. While it's a fascinating story, with many great interpretations, room for insights, rich symbolism, the truths garnered from it are of no greater or lesser value than the truths garnered from the mythology of the Ancient Greeks. They are fictions that ring a bell for some of us humans. The problem ensues when the morals of the stories are accepted as gospel by each civilization that is convinced of their generative importance. Myths are important to us humans. But they are myths.

As is typical, I agree and disagree with you. I'll start with the attempt to prove the existence or non-existence of God. I agree that such arguments lead nowhere. A believer trying to "prove" the existence of God runs contrary to faith. Faith and proof are two different outcomes. The list of mythological or imaginary beings you generated cannot be proven or disproven. In the world of children, many of these beings are quite important, but eventually outgrown and disproven simply because faith in them wears thin and no longer seems meaningful. I stand by what I said, though. Whether I believe or don't believe doesn't negate the existence of something higher than myself. It does, however, have an effect on me, my behavior, and my view of the world. In that regard, to believe or not to believe is personally relevant.

 

 

It is my strong opinion that many people cloak themselves that serve a purpose, but when questioned don't always hold up to scrutiny. I don't argue that some shells seem more sensible and factual than other shells. All are still shells. In working with people undergoing intense tragedy or approaching the end of life or facing substantial loss, many of these shells work to protect, others are discarded in favor of something else. But in the middle of it, one can occasionally get a glimpse of the spirit in the shell. Stripped away, one feels naked.

 

 

I carefully chose the word truth in my comment. I'm not arguing that the story of Eden is the truth. What I am saying is that in my experience of people, it is an essential part of being human to cover up. I'm not using shame in a biblical sense, but more in a universal sense. There are psychologists who would argue that shame should be listed as a basic human emotion, alongside fear and rage and attraction. I don't know whether I would go that far, but I do believe that for most people (except perhaps sociopaths), shame seems to be a feeling I encounter over and over and over. The story of Eden, like many other stories in many other non-Judeo-Christian worlds, talks about shame and how to deal with it. In the story, God covers them. Perhaps that's the start of religious belief--looking outside oneself for a covering. But responding to your last assertion, I am absolutely not taking the stance that the story is historical.

 

 

Existentialism shares many aspects of behaviorism, which purported that humans are nothing the collection of their experiences. Skinner used to claim that he could make anyone into anything, given adequate control of their experiences. Freud with his determinism seems much closer to the old-time religion, and his id-driven eros and thanatos and the development of superego seems to follow a similar course to the some basic religious tenets.

 

 

I am not arguing the existence of original sin, but more the unfortunate existence of basic shame, which in my mind is different. Any prolonged interaction with anyone will uncover some sense of shame and defense against it. Narcissism, power, plastic surgeries, health clubs, make-up, war...I could go on. Each, in my mind, entails aspects of shame, shame avoidance, and shame defense.

 

I am also not trying to be the mouthpiece of God, a role I think has been nauseatingly assumed by many religious leaders. I'm not arguing for or against God, unicorns, the tooth fairy, or any other phantom. I'm not arguing for anyone to believe as I do. What I am saying is that I do think there are some universal and shared. I don't think it any more enlightened to believe or not to believe in something beyond oneself, whether it is divine or philosophical in nature. That, too, is universal, unleashing both great good and horrible atrocities.

 

 

I saw Pnina's picture to be a tender sharing of two people. An ideal representation of letting one's guard down with another person, if only for a moment. And instead of the strictures of religion, perhaps this is a truer antidote to shame.

I'll try to keep it brief here, knowing that we could each write much more lengthy treatises on these subjects.

 

I don't think children stop believing in the tooth fairy because faith in it wears thin. I think it's because older children start telling them it's a fantasy, their parents start hinting at that, they learn as they grow to trust what they see and experience more and more. The world and people and books tell them the tooth fairy isn't real. It's what they learn and observe, not what happens to their faith. The only difference, in my mind, between the tooth fairy and God is that their culture and many people and many books don't tell them God isn't real. The myth keeps getting reinforced.

 

I didn't think you were asserting the historical truth of the Garden of Eden. I thought you were asserting the truth of some of its morals or insights. I was suggesting that those morals or insights weren't truths but were perspectives or simply ways of seeing the world. I am aware that existentialism is such a perspective and a way. I see the difference between religion and existentialism as one of self awareness. I think existentialism knows that it is just a way. I think religion believes it is THE way.

 

Where I think existentialism and behaviorism part company is that the former talks about actions, not just experiences. Sartre was aware that we experience many things that are beyond our control, such as the tyranny of certain governments. It is in our reactions to such things that we define who we are. It is how we act in the face of experience that projects us forward and suggests that we are free. Skinner's utopia, as I understand it (and that understanding is likely only superficial), is founded upon methods of manipulation and conditioning of experience, different from the radically *free acts* of individuals which Sartre suggests create who we are, despite even the most seemingly influential of experiences which others might suggest bind or define us.

I take great joy in these discussions. Not in the arguing, but more in the sharing of ideas. I would agree that faith in the tooth fairy is hard to maintain in the face of many, many contrary experiences and disconfirming information. In the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the tooth fairy, Easter bunny, and Santa Claus slip over the horizon. You are right in saying that God is a different story. I think I've discussed the concept of confirmation bias, which purports that information that confirms one's beliefs are given more weight and attention than information that does not. We're all subject to such bias. Faith is a bias. Disbelief is a bias. All information bends and distorts as it comes in. So, I admit that my opinion on the matter is a biased one. Plus, it is only my opinion. I wholly believe that our biases can respectfully co-exist. Of course, when I use words such as "truth" "universal" and "shared," these are representative of my understanding of how the world operates and what I've observed in living and working with people. Nothing more. I don't possess a Levitical stance on anything.

 

 

To clarify the notion of behaviorism. A strict behavioral therapist would never include in a treatment note anything but observed behavior or action. What the client thought or felt would be irrelevant. What he/she did is all that matters. Of course, there are many variations now, including cognitive-behaviorism, which spends all its energies tracking and managing the thoughts that shape actions.

 

 

Why is this important. There are many ways of defining oneself. I am what I do. I am what I think. I am what I believe. I am who you say I am. All are false. All are true. None represent the whole story. I won't belabor the point any further other than to say it's always a pleasure when a discussion takes off.

While I agree with you that no one philosophy or religion tells the whole truth and that there is truth (and falsehood) to each, I do think it makes a difference which ones act as our basic guiding principles. I'll simply get back for a minute to one of the original points about my problem with the "ease" of religious thinking and a specific moral code which is handed down or taken to be supreme. In the name of religion, many horrific acts have been perpetrated on humans and humankind. From suicide bombings to the suppression of or overturning of civil rights, those who think they have an external connection to what's right often commit great wrongs. I've never known an existentialist to perform an act of mass murder in the name of Jean Paul Sartre or Albert Camus. I don't think all philosophies carry equal weight or merit or deserve equal consideration just because no one of them captures complete truth. I feel comfortable taking sides.

I totally agree with you. It's unfortunate that religion often operates as thinly veneered powermongering. People do all sorts of horrific acts in the name of God. As I said, people bend and twist information to rationalize their actions and beliefs. For me, it's hard to see beyond that most of the time. I would rather take religion out of the equation. Philosophical ideas, devoid of religious roots, can also be destructive. Put simply, humans can be destructive and the sad thing is that we often use "higher level" notions to justify very base, cruel, and unforgivable acts.

 

Both of you are the cause of bringing my English to understand to its limits.....

( thanks for doing it! I break my teeth to understand your reasoning, with new vocabulary, and I enjoy the effort,but it takes its time....)

 

I think that the bible contents and mythical stories are our cultural heritage, if we accept them literally or not, they are part of our human life. The shell you are talking about Jeff , I think is our way of surviving, the spiritual aspect is our consciousness and perception of the world. You can call it religion , you can call it faith. I agree with Fred, that religion is easier as everything about ways of life is written for you, and faith has the ability to ask questions and struggle with doubts,as it is your own doing ( what you cook in your head....)

 

Reading the book " The god delusion"is a great essay if God exist or not, a question which employs the mind of many philosophers and scientists all along the human thinking history. A difference between Darwin's theory of evolution and the religion/bible still exist. There is a very big part of religious people that belive the bible stories are literally happened.

 

I'm sorry that my English language limitations are not enabling me to take a real part in your discussion, as I'm still reading it again in order to understand it better, but I enjoy reading your point of view, and being your host because of my photo, so at least this is my " donation" ... ;-))

 

Thanks both of you, it is a real interesting discussion and an English lesson..;-))

My hearty congratulations on your success with this image! You surely created the Edenic feel with this image....

Thanks for a reasonable response. Last century, there was a famous court case called the Scopes Monkey Trial in which a teacher was accused of teaching evolution in the classroom. A courtroom battle ensued between William Jennings Bryan, defender of the faith, and Clarence Darrow, defender of reason. For a few moments, this felt similar, but it is actually quite different. Fred and I are actually not on opposing sides at all, although there may exist a line in the sand that entertains the possibility of the divine with me on one side and Fred on another. That's okay. It's a big world with room for everyone. Besides, who am I to argue on behalf of God. If he does exist, he doesn't need puny and flawed me to defend him.

 

 

There are some vestiges (remnants) of my childhood faith that I still hold dear. It has been disheartening to see Christianity hijacked and used for what I would view as manipulative, cruel, and downright evil political practices. It's as if someone abducted my entire family and replaced them with malicious duplicates that look similar, but act entirely different. Fred and others have a right to be enraged by the current religious machine that steamrolls over people. In studying the life of Christ, I am always struck with the care and compassion he had toward the outcast, the misunderstood, the foreigner, the physically and mentally ill, and the weak of the world. And I'm also struck by the anger he directed toward the self-satisfied and hyperreligious who believed they held all the answers and could impose them at will on others. Whether one believes in Christ as being divine or simply as a very good man, his compassionate stance is what I still believe in. True, compassion is present in many different forms of religion. And since I now have a religiously blended family, I see connections in my own beliefs to the good people in all beliefs. This in part is why I use the word faith instead of religion. Religion defines a body of beliefs and practices. Faith is the hope that whatever divine spark we hold inside will catch fire and change the world as best we can. I feel like I've done my preaching for the day, so thanks for providing a wonderful photo that provided the stage for a great discussion.

 

Thanks for writing to me. I remember some of that trail in the papers.... I appreciate your sharing your thoughts with me, and our possibility to talk about what we belive in.

 

The question if there is a God or not will never really be answered. What I don't like, to say the least, is the religious establishment , in all religions, that play the mediators between people and God,and do many atrocities in the way, utilizing their ( political ) power.

 

There are moral codes that religious and seculars have obligation to, universal human qualities, like " don't do to your friend what you don't like to be done to you," etc...

 

My " religion " is to try and fulfill these human qualities, be a better person, a better human being.... Not always easy but necessary. I think you know exactly what I'm talking about .Your family is a very good example of these virtues.

 

Thanks Jeff.

Pnina, There you go, cutting off the feet again. But then who's looking at that area? :-) Kidding aside this one is very sensual. Faces? Insert the one of your choice (could be your own). Actually the lack of identity works well here, faces aren't important. This one could easily illustrate the Genesis story of Adam & Eve. Universal. Always a pleasure. Best, LM.

"Actually the lack of identity works well here, faces aren't important. This one could easily illustrate the Genesis story of Adam & Eve. Universal. "

 

Thanks Len, but the lack of identity WAS intentional ( blurred the identity more in PS ! in order to create a general saying,) and I have connected it to the series of " The forbidden apple story" even the two are very different dances that has no connection to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve......( most of the dance series, has my interpretation , many times not connected to the dance narrative of the choreographer).

Excelent shoot. I like the tone. Nice conception of YIng-Yang. Well done