(This was written about 4/5 years ago and, while I wouldn't change much in terms of content -except for perhaps exploring in more detail the Buddhist concept of self- the tone would be more upbeat. My head clearly wasn't in a great place but, as it's as valid a representation of my views on religion as anything else I've written on the subject, I'll let it stand.
Incidentally, I think the cartoon above brilliantly sums up the stupidity of the religious attitude towards evolution.)
Is there a middle ground between the spiritual and the scientific, between reason and mysticism? My own view is that there is not. My own feeling is that I wish there was. However, I must come down on one side or the other and, inevitably, simply by the way I have phrased everything so far, it must be that there is no middle way and thus only science explains everything.
Spirituality and mysticism are lies or, at best, delusions.
There we have it: the conclusion. I don’t need to write anything more, do I? Except for the fact that I keep being drawn to Buddhism, or at least aspects of it.
I’m 56 years old. I have an unspecified number of years left to me. All can know is that they are less in number than those I have lived. Death could come at any time, though I do expect, barring accidents, to live at least into my eighties. (At this point I’m reminded of the old joke: Q. How do you make God laugh? A. Tell him/her/it your plans.)
My childhood spans the 1950’s, my adolescence the 1960’s. Chalk and cheese; unthinking acceptance and ignorance followed by angst and confusion.
If you’re too young to remember the 50’s, be glad; it was a drab black and white decade. My memories are all monochromatic as if seen through the small tv screen on which I watched The Lone Ranger and Quatermass and the Pit. Little of the world impinged on my consciousness – I remember rations but never understood at the time why they so called- and childhood seemed as if it lasted forever. But my memories are fragments, snippets of images, many seem to have no significance whatsoever, but there they are; some, of course, do have significance.
The junior schools (7-11) were streamed, and so it was within the classes, and I was usually the youngest in the class, also usually the last name to be read out (curse that alphabet), neither of which, it seemed to me, were advantages, the former certainly was not. One day, someone in the second top aisle had been naughty and was to be demoted. Who, in the third and fourth aisles, would like his place? Every hand in those two aisles went up, all except mine. I didn’t bother because I wouldn’t be picked. So, of course, I was. What happened after that I’ve no idea. John, one of the kids I did hang around with in that class was the elder brother of the kid who became rock legend Dave Stewart. I remember once punching out a kid smaller than me. Odd, because I avoided fights and I’ve no idea why I did it as we usually got on (just don’t ask me for details because I can’t remember).
Perhaps I should re-title this ‘The Absence of Memory.
Buddhism says that the ‘I’ doesn’t exist. There are times when I can almost grasp that concept and believe it. There is no one self.
I was brought up a Methodist. My family had always been Methodists (‘always’ being, of course, relative). My great-grandfather (a bad-tempered Victorian-type who died when I was seven, hooray, aged 94) played the organ for many years in a different church to the one I went to. I went to the Sunday School at Ewesley Road Methodist Church which was just round the corner. I was also a member of St.Gabriel’s Church of England cubs (and later scouts), because Ewesley Road didn’t have a pack. (The two churches faced each other across a main road and both were –the 50’s, remember- well attended.) Every so often the cubs and scouts had to attend a church parade and I always found the C of E services confusing compared to those of the Methodists.
All it takes is a moment of doubt.
I must have been nearly fourteen, not short of the time when I would exchange Sunday School to become a member of the church’s congregation. It didn’t happen because one Sunday the person giving the main talk to us kids said something that I agreed with.
“Gambling is wrong,” he declaimed.
While I felt the use of the word ‘wrong’ was unduly harsh and perhaps would have substituted ‘stupid’ or ‘pointless’ or whatever, I couldn’t say I disagreed with him to any significant degree. Unfortunately he went too far. After condemning the usual forms, he then went on to state that the Pools and Premium Bonds were wrong.
(For the benefit of non-British readers, I should explain that the Pools was a national pastime of wagering very small sums on which of the Saturday soccer matches which would result in drawn games. Premium Bonds are a government run scheme in which you buy a stake with the chance of winning money. If at any time you wanted your money back you got it, without interest. As far as gambling goes, these barely warrant the name.)
You’ve gone too far, I thought.
There, the seed of doubt and so I began to question. Being an avid reader of science fiction didn’t help. Although crap at science subjects at school I did find science interesting.
By the time I got to college I was very confused. I strongly felt the religious impulse but couldn’t reconcile it with the scientific approach to the universe. I remember (very little) about going to a Christian weekend during my first year and talking to two girls who laughed (pleasantly as they suddenly gained an insight into me) and said I was an intellectual. Which struck me as odd as I didn’t believe I was intelligent enough to be an intellectual. I also went to an evangelical do in Liverpool and came away, as did the woman friend I’d gone with, feeling it was manipulative. I spent several Sundays going to a Pentecostal Church. After the lively meetings, the congregation went to a local hospital with fruit and talked to the patients, not trying to convert but just to provide some company, which I thought was nice. Eventually I had a one to one session with the pastor who tried to bring me across to Jesus.
He failed and that was pretty much it for me and religion.
I’ve stood there, wanting God to speak to me in some way, begging Him/She/It/Whatever. I want to believe, help me. I’m open to you.
Nothing came because there is nothing there. And we are briefly burning flames in the night and what is left of the flame when it is blown out?
That’s right.
POST SCRIPT
Rather ironically, in my online novel All The Worlds At Once (see sidebar), I came up with a quasi-scientific explanation for the existence of a god.
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