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| Thursday, December 15, 2005 11:26 AM |
| Interesting questions, or Lewis and Freud: the cage match |
| by poppy |
This week has been one of unanswered questions and, more often, those that I answer with some variation of "I just haven't thought enough about it yet." "The execution" inspired several of those questions, as did a conversation about the relative merits of Santa Claus. I enjoy mulling things over; I could say that it was important in some way, but really I just find it interesting to turn a problem around and poke at it from different angles.
So there's this show on WHYY last night called The Question of God, during which various folks sit around a table and discuss the aforementioned question while the tv audience is treated to interspersed bio clips of C.S. Lewis and Freud. I watched this several months ago on the advice of a patron; at that time it was some sort of Freud anniversary. I'm assuming they've dug it up again because of Narnia. In any event, I couldn't be much bothered with the biographies, because the conversation was the really riveting part. As I was watching last night, I surprised myself by anticipating remarks by several of the participants. I remembered several passages by heart actually, after only having seen them once before. I suppose one reason for this might be the slight frustration the whole thing inspired in me.
The group pits those with a spiritual or religious understanding of the world against "hardened" scientists. Overall the tone of discussion is heartening, because overall there is a level of respect that is maintained. At one point this respect is in serious danger of disolving, and I have to say it was the scientists' fault really. One of them kept saying, If you say you've had spiritual experience I can't quarrel with that. First, I think phrasing it that way is a little hostile. You don't really need to quarrel with it, do you? Only after saying this for the second time did the person concede that his concern was not whether someone else has a spiritual experience but whether or not someone else's spiritual experience should be "forced" upon him, in the sense of that experience informing what he should believe for himself. Not one person had brought that up, and that fear, when it was stated and when it was not, derailed good threads of discussion.
One woman, my favorite participant (whose name I couldn't tell you, for last night as with a few months ago I was watching this while knitting, then later from under the covers) finally pointed out "the pink elephant at the center of the table," which I interpreted as being science is often as hostile, if not more so, toward religion than the reverse. There are exceptions to be sure, ugly glaring ones. But fundamentalism aside, I can't think of a religion that advocates anything besides love and respect, and barring anything else isn't that a good thing?
The biggest obstacle I think to the discussion being more productive was the scientists' insistence that "their way" was rational and deductive, therefore "provable." That might be true on some level. However, I am not a trained scientist. I am not an evolutionary biologist. I am not a geneticist. I am not a neurologist. I take just as much "on faith" as any spiritualist when I say I believe in evolution, when I believe what people tell me a particular gene does, when people tell me which nerves are at work as I type this. I, not being a scientist, cannot "prove" any of that. I am not threatened by this knowledge that I don't possess, although I do maintain a healthy skepticism about what I am told. I would expect no less than healthy skepticism from someone who becomes aware of my faith.
What I don't like is a seeming disregard for the intelligence of religious people. What I also don't like are conversations and intersections between religion and science being presented as battles, where two (or two thousand) enter, one leaves. This is one area where I see plurality being key to peace, and it just doesn't seem that difficult. No one at that table was saying anything that would preclude the views of any of the others. Again, I'm not even bringing fundamentalism into it, because that's a whole nother issue and most fundamentalists are beyond the pale. Bringing that into the discussion clouds the issue, and leads, no doubt, to some of the defensiveness on the part of scientists when they are asked to share a table with those who admit to having personal encounters with God. I just question the seemingly gut instinct to distrust spiritualists. After all, Lewis liked the angels.
(My neurosis aside, it was a good show. "Morality" was an especially interesting discussion. Check it out if you get a chance.) |
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