Archive for the tag 'Denomination'

The danger of certainty

D March 26th, 2010

Certainty reduces anxiety; safety – real or perceived gives a sense of calm.  Many of the fears and phobias that we deal with on an ongoing basis are the direct result of uncertainty.  You may be scared of heights because you are not certain the railing can hold you.  Your fear of food poisoning causes you to wholly burn meat in a bacterial genocidal certainty.  The fear of terrorists gives public demand for machines that ‘increase’ the certainty to catch ‘them’.

A corollary axiom is ‘ignorance is bliss’, the idea that assumed certainty gives rise to perceived safety, and is on the whole a reliable saying.  Before learning of cholera one may see no reason to drink from an otherwise untainted slough.  Before examining bicycle death statistics, one may feel comfortable riding without a helmet.  Being blissfully ignorant is something many children enjoy for the duration of their childhood.

And this idea goes far beyond physical safety, into popular culture, politics, governments, economics, sexuality, cultural norms, and of course religion.  Not knowing facts or ideas outside of your worldview gives you the freedom to feel certain you are right.

Most people claiming religious insight or understanding are frequently biased by their affiliations; that is to say they will give you ‘the party line’ when it comes to theological answers.  A true expert in a particular religion would be a rarity indeed; someone possessing unbiased viewpoints that have been aggregated as the best known answers from multiple sources.  I dare say such an expert does not exist, although I hope I am wrong.

In our quest for certainty in reconciling our beliefs, and with our lack of capacity to absorb huge amounts of arguments, we surrender much of our critical thinking ability to others, deferring to them and trusting their answers implicitly.  Particularly in religious interpretation the danger of this approach is apparent, as few groups have such expansive agendas as religious organizations.  Organized religions are less interested in the truth of their texts or prophets and more interested in how their set of derived conclusions can be used to further their assumed worldview.  The irony, of course, that such world views can degrade over time becoming muddied and not in order with the original ideas.

With our desire to be certainly right strongly prescient, this cannot end well.  It is our collective arrogance that will (or has) ultimately devolve our religious affectations into something utterly unlike their original intention.

And to widen the lens, perhaps we have already derived a product utterly unlike the original, and with no other sources to rely on, have stuck to our guns to our own peril.

A friend at work balked at the news story of Scientologists landing in Haiti to help in the aftermath of the disaster.  He questioned their intentions as to landing in that nation during crisis.  Were they going to help clear some survivors with their e-meters, or were they simply there in a humanitarian capacity?  And moreover, what purpose would an organization that is – to us – so clearly setup as a a very profitable scam have to offer the nation of Haiti; who are inexorably poor.  I can think of two reasons: it is a fantastic PR opportunity, or the most alarming conclusion; they are true believers.

They are certain.  Beyond doubt.  And perhaps in a thousand years people and documents wise to the scam will be extinct.

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Fear and Control

D August 12th, 2009

There is no end to the discussion on fear and its fabulous utility as a method to control people’s decisions and action. This post is just me brain dumping my experiences growing up ‘in the church’. As it is somewhat redundant for me to delve into the various uses of fear in control, I will attempt to compose a coherent opinion of this weaponized fear. This is all water under the bridge for me at this point, but worth me putting up my ideas to spark discussion regardless.

The new atheist movement (militant fundamentalist all-religions-must-die) has, being somewhat of an oxy-moron, illuminated the hypocrisies of my own religious past. Although I had long pulled myself from the denominational bubble, militant atheists like Dawkins finally gave me the lens with which to view the structure in which I had grown up. Using subtle phrases, an isolationist worldview was pushed on me all those years. I was ‘inside’ with the ‘one-truth’, much like the new atheists – convinced of their assertions and willing to aggressively defend them. To see such an approach being used by ‘the non-Christians’ gave me additional pause, and led me to the distinct possibility that it was unlikely I held the ‘one-truth’ – as taught by my former denominational leaders.

In the end, it was the us-vs-them attitude that introduced my doubt, and gradually demonstrated to me that really my church leaders were mouthpieces of the bible college they had attended and in turn the denominational industry it represented. If they had ideas outside that denominational box I never saw them discussed. The building of polemic arguments against the latest ‘threat’, be it a court decision, a rock band, television, dating, alcohol, homosexuality, and anything considered a remote threat was commonplace. I now think that the polemic approach was less necessary in regards of the arguments themselves, and served a better purpose of ‘uniting’ the group. We then had a common enemy that we could fight together, ignoring the sometimes shaky foundations of our theology – and certainly ignoring any sort of pragmatism or compromise that could have helped meet ‘the non-Christians’ where they were at.

There was a single overarching idea of ‘unity among the body’, which was a twisted way of saying ’stick to your denomination’. It was this imperialist mindset that gave unity its secondary meaning – the one pertaining to member retention and the guilt and fear associated with walking away from the ‘body’. I now look back astonished that I was always frustrated with our lack of ability to achieve ‘unity’ among believers, which I now attribute to the fact that they had an entirely different sort of isolationist unity in mind.

This brings me to their idea of self-control, their version of which took until much later in life for me to learn was actually repression, a repression borne through fear and negative reinforcement. I plan to write a much more detailed piece on the idea of the ‘dangers of repression as self-control’, but need to do more research into the psychology of these ideas (anyone have any pointers?).

However their biggest fear is that of ideas, and particularly ideas that challenge the denominational theology. There is no room for discussion, and no structure for conversation or debates involving derivations of the teachings. At this point, I believe that is because they were taught with certainty that they hold the ‘one-truth’, and therefore greatly fear (and have no need for) a clearinghouse of ideas. This is where the fear has become systemic, where leaders teach fear not out of some malicious intent, but because they are genuinely scared of being wrong themselves – and in order to protect themselves turn a blind eye to new ideas, interpretations and reason itself.

My emergence from fundamentalism has been refreshing and I feel more at peace with myself and God than ever. And so my persistent uncertainty dictates that I cannot run from ideas, only consume, evaluate and apply those that are sensible to my life as a human who identifies with Christ’s teachings.

Feel free to comment below…

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