been reading

I've been reading this fabulous book, eat, pray, love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. You've likely heard of it or at least seen it around, as it is a #1 New York Times Bestseller, as the cover proudly proclaims. It was recommended to me by both my devout mother-in-law and by fellow DAMU blogger, love medicine (who has exponentially expanded my To Read list).

The first section, "eat," is about a four-month stay in Italy, where the author practices the art of indulgence by learning Italian--for no other reason than she wants to--and by eating wonderful, delicious Italian food. There's this great chapter where she describes seeking out the best pizza place in Naples, the city where pizza began. Get this: she's eating the Best Pizza in the World. She gushes about this pizza with it's thin crust, perfectly flavored red sauce, and fresh mozzarella (once you've gone fresh, you can't go back). I tell you, she practically describes a food-gasm about this pizza. Tears of joy over the cheese. Shit, I almost had a food-gasm myself just reading about it. I thought back to the best pizza I've ever had, in New York City, with fellow exmos Meg & Jack Slate, hank rearden, lisesymom & exV, and juggler vain. We were there for lunch, I had skipped class and taken the train in just for this lunch, and we ate pepperoni pizza with rolls and red wine. The sauce was perfect, the crust was crisp but melt-in-your-mouth wonderful, and the fresh mozzarella just made this pizza. I can't imagine the pizza in Naples.

What I love about this section of the book is that the author feels it is 100% okay to indulge like this. Enjoy life; cater to your senses; focus on the body. This is not okay in Mormonism, where the spiritual self is supposed to put above the physical self: sacrifice, deny immediate pleasure for future gain, fast from food to get in touch with your spirit. That's not to say that Mormons can't be foodies; I certainly was. But I always felt a bit guilty about it.

Twenty-three pounds heavier, Gilbert goes on to India for a spiritual journey in the Buddhist tradition. There are parts of this I really liked and appreciated. Some of it made me want to try meditation, explore Buddhism more. I felt a bit jealous, really, of the transcendent moments she experiences. On the other hand, I found myself irked by it all being explained with the term "God." I don't want to be irked, but I am. Gilbert's version of God is absolutely nothing like the Mormon's Heavenly Father, of course. It's something much more elusive, certainly not corporeal, but still, often, a He. Ick. I also found my skeptical side kicking in and asking, "Why should we be seeking these altered states of consciousness at all? And why do they have to be called spiritual? Isn't what they call "god" just a part of our brain, a state of mind, something inexplicable to them but not, someday, to science?"

There was one particular passage that describes faith. I found my skeptic self frustrated by the description and argument.

"There's a reason we refer to 'leaps of faith'--because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be--by definition--faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark."

I didn't like it. That leap from the rational to the unknowable. Been there done that. Except that I was ignoring the rational because the knowable was artificially made unknowable by the scary label "anti-Mormon lies." So in leaving the church, I made the opposite leap; from what I thought was the knowable to the rational. And the rational won, and I value it too much right now to try any leap back. Maybe sometime I'll try seeking out some other level of spirituality, but not now.

The same paragraph goes on to read,

"If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, out belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be...a prudent insurance policy."

That bit I appreciated. I realized that had I read that three years ago, when I was on the verge of the collapse of my Mormon belief, I would have really liked it. It would have opened my eyes and changed my understanding of faith, and helped me see that Mormonism had a messed up view of faith. Other religions see faith as doubt; Mormonism sees doubt as antithetical to faith. Mormonism confuses faith and knowledge; people say "I know the church is true" instead of "I believe the church is true." Gilbert never, ever says, "I know" about anything. She never, ever says, "This is the way to achieve transcendence." Her attitude is more, "I'm not sure what this is, but I like it" and "Everyone should seek their own way, this way has been working for me." How refreshing. Overall I liked the section, and appreciated that even though her experience and interaction with spirituality is so different from mine, it is still human experience and valuable to her and to me.

And now for the "love" section, where she seeks balance. I can't wait to read it.

*Both quotes are from p. 175

Mormonism and the Bible

I realized that in my last post about the Bible, I forgot to write some things I wanted to say. Like how Mormonism has a strange relationship with the Bible. Because of the 8th Article of Faith, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God" (I typed that from memory; I think I got it right), Mormons are kind off the hook in some respects. For example, you could take a passage in the Bible you don't like or agree with (hmm, like slaughtering every man, women, child, and animal; or sacrificing daughters; or destroying gay people) and throw it out with a "it must not have been translated correctly."

Joseph Smith seemed to have done this with the crazy story of Lot offering up his daughters to the Sodomites in place of the male visitors (as if it's better to rape women than men?). "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof" (KJV Genesis 19:8). In the Smith translation, the scripture reads "And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you; and ye shall not do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes;" (JST Genesis 19:13). Smith's version certainly makes Lot sound like a nicer dad (we'll not get into what happens later).

I've seen Mormons discount stories with other morally questionable passages, like the story of youth getting eaten by bears because they teased Elisha about being bald (see 2 Kings 2: 23-24). When you believe the Bible is true only insofar as it was translated correctly, it's easy to decide that the whole bear story was a fairy tale, or at least told incorrectly. God wouldn't do that. And yet I've seen even worse stories held up as absolutely factual, like God telling the Hebrews to slaughter every living thing in wherever-it-was (see, I really need to improve my Bible literacy). I mean, why not give God the benefit of the doubt that He (ahem) really is benevolent and decide that particular passage was an after-the-fact justification for massacre, or that the incident didn't even happen at all?

I would expect some Mormons to also take the as-far-as-it-was-translated-correctly clause as an easy way to reconcile modern science with the early stories of the Bible. You know, like the 7-day creation, Noah's flood, the parting of the Red Sea, 900-year lifespans, the Tower of Babel as the origin of diversity of languages, etc. It'd be pretty easy to dismiss these as mythology if you don't have to believe every word of the Bible as Truth. And yet the party line is that these things did literally happen (I'm sure there are many Mormons who don't believe these literally, and many are able to handle the cognitive dissonance of believing both evolution and creation, for example).

I suspect that one of the reasons Mormons generally don't dismiss those stories as mythology is Joseph Smith's literal belief in them--and his placing of mythological characters and events in prominent, literal events. Noah's flood must be literal, for example, because prophets said the flood was the baptism of the earth (for example Smith, Joseph Fielding, Jr., Doctrines of Salvation (Salt Lake City: BookCraft, 1955), Vol.2, p.320.). And if the Tower of Babel is just mythology, then the story of the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon would have to be mythology too--so if you believe the Book of Mormon is true, you must believe the Tower of Babel is literal. Then there's Joseph's assertion that Abraham was a real person who wrote a real book and hid it among Egyptian papyri while he was really in Egypt. And while I've on the rare occasion heard Mormons refer to the temple version of the creation as symbolic, it's safe to bet that a large proportion take Adam and Eve's existence as quite literal. Joseph certainly did--he reportedly spoke to not only Adam (aka Michael), but also Gabriel (aka Noah), Raphael (D&C 128:20-21), Seth, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Journal of Discources 17:374; 18:325-26; 21:65, 94, 161; 23:48). So it's safe to say that Mormons are supposed to take those men's respective Bible stories as real.

Which is unfortunate.

the spirit and transcendence

I recently had a faithful Mormon friend ask me, "Okay, so you left the church. But what about your spiritual experiences? Didn't you have any? What did you 'do' with them since leaving?"

In reply, I sent here edited versions of two previous posts, the spirit and exorcising the spirit. On reading those posts, I realized I've thought more about the issues, and added the following to my reply.

I also think that transcendent moments (e.g. spiritual experiences) happen across religions, and to the non-religious, and people interpret them according to how they were taught to interpret them, or according to their personality. A Baptist takes it as confirmation that her church is the true one; a Mormon takes it as confirmation that her church is true; an agnostic takes it as a beautiful moment of feeling a connection with the community or the cosmos; one boy decides his experience means he should become a priest; another boy sees his as a great love for science and the natural world. It doesn't mean none of it is sacred or important. A good quote for this is "I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance."

surprise

In a phone conversation with my dad, he brought up Carl Sagan.

"I always wondered," he said with a chuckle, "what Carl Sagan thought when he woke up on the other side. 'Oops, guess I was wrong [about the non-existence of an afterlife and god]!' "

"Huh," I said to let him know I was listening. But I was quite bothered by his comment.

"Can you imagine? What do people who didn't believe in God think when they die and see God? What are they going to do then? 'Well, now what?' Bit of a shock." He laughed some more.

And once again I was jarringly reminded that I am a closet atheist.

Sure, it's easy enough to tell a random neighbor, or a non-believing colleague, or DAMU friends, or post about it openly on my anonymous blog. But tell family? Mom and Dad?

The conversation with my dad made me realize not only that I've never discussed my new positions with him, but how very far I am from telling him. How do I tell him? Just squeeze it in to a Sunday evening telephone conversation? Write a letter?

I've really not felt compelled to announce my personal beliefs like that at all, actually. I never was comfortable with testimony-bearing when I was a Mormon, though the culture encourages open and frequent professions of belief. Personal beliefs should not be the subject of casual conversation or family newsletter announcements, in my opinion.

I suppose the Carl Sagan conversation would have been the perfect opportunity to let him know. Possible phrases skipped through my mind as I listened to him. "You know, Dad, I'm an atheist." "Actually, Dad, I really respect Sagan, and I find it rather rude to talk to him like that." "Um, Dad, Sagan wasn't off the mark in my opinion."

But he was talking about atheists so dismissively, so derisively. My dad is generally quite nice. He doesn't make fun of people or speak rudely. It's weird for me to use "derisive" to describe anything he ever said. But atheists, apparently, are unworthy of the normal respect with which he would talk about the dearly departed.

I found it too difficult to come out and tell him he might as well group me with the non-believers whom he so obviously derides. It didn't occur to me that maybe he was trying to pull me out of the non-believers' closet, throwing out some bait and seeing if I'd bite. I'd assumed that the word had gotten around that I was an atheist; apparently not.

After some deliberation of whether to speak up or not, I decided on a compromise. Rather than tell him what I thought, I told him what I thought Sagan would have thought had he woken up in an afterlife after all. We'd discusses Sagan's ideas on aliens a few months ago, so I jumped off from there.

"Well, maybe Carl Sagan would think the same way about God as he would about aliens. He'd be pleasantly surprised, excited, you know, to find any aliens. He just thinks there's not enough evidence to support that idea that we will contact any aliens. Maybe he'd think the same about God. Not enough evidence to believe, but still, he'd probably say, 'Oh, okay, cool!' if he woke up after dying. You know?" Which is what I think a lot of atheists would think. We don't disbelieve in God because we don't want an afterlife necessarily, we just think there's not enough evidence to believe in one. But if there is, all right, awesome, next great adventure, huh?

My dad laughed some more, but a pleasant laugh. "Huh, yeah, maybe. That could very well be true. Like the aliens. Ha!"

And I remained in hiding.

"what do you believe now?"

I've been asked more than once by faithful Mormons (usually ones who are somewhat religiously liberal), "If you don't believe in the Church, what do you believe? How are you spiritually sustained now? Where does your direction come from?"

Here is the first part of one of my written responses.

About what else I do believe, I've been searching, and I was really torn up about writing back to you, because I wasn't sure what to say. But then I started writing, and realized I believe a lot. Some of it may shock you, and I'm sure you won't agree with most, but here goes:

I think that God and gods are created by men, in the image of humans, not the other way around. And that's okay. But because people believe so strongly in their versions of God, and because they operate their lives and make their decisions according to those versions of God, and because they let those Gods govern and direct their lives, from daily ritual to values and morals to who it's okay to kill, God is real. Do I think there really is a supreme being, an entity that created and directs us? Probably not. And I'm okay with that.

But I also believe that God can't be proven or dis-proven (e.g., I'm agnostic), and that therefore belief in God is actually a matter of faith, not knowledge. I could choose to have faith in the existence of God, or not. The "evidence" could be interpreted either way. (With Mormonism, I think there is enough evidence to say it’s not what it claims to be, so it’d be impossible for me to choose to have faith it in.) Right now, I choose not to place that faith in God. Right now, I don't think there is an actual God, that having faith in one is having faith in an idea that is real only because we act like it is. Like nations, or nationalism, or paper money, or anything else abstract. But I recognize that, in this way, God still does influence the world.

But I think that faith in God is a perfectly legitimate path. So is choosing to not place faith in God. Each way will influence how people think and live their lives. Both can produce despair, confusion, fatalism and nihilism, and both can produce productive, happy, and kind people.