SKEPTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY

Mark Evey – UUFCO – September 25, 2005

Introduction

As a scientist and a person who considers himself to be deeply spiritual I have struggled to articulate a spirituality that is not a reflection of religious creed. As a life long Unitarian I have often felt that spirituality is deeply connected with something beyond me and simultaneously feeling that spirituality is within the most intimate part of me. Yet I have forever been unable to accept a spirituality that requires me to suspend my rational abilities. Nor am I willing to accept that spirituality is the sole province of any single religion; or of religion at all. Today I am going to talk about how spirituality and skepticism are not antithetical to each other. Even more I hope to shed some light on how spirituality is guided and strengthened by the appropriate type of skepticism. I will be using our affirmation to promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning because I think that principle has profound and revolutionary effects on religion. This revolutionary change is central to the issue of understanding how skepticism can enrich spirituality and spirituality gives meaning to our skepticism. From this I hope to deepen our understanding of the power and value of a unified spirituality in which there is no duality between logic and faith, in which the original meaning of spirit, that of ultimate creation (the etymology of spirit is to give breath) is returned to the core of spirituality. In this way spirituality becomes the function of religion and not the product of religion.

Last year we had a couple Buddhist sermons and Buddhism was a topic in RE during that time. On the drive home from one of those Sundays our daughter informed Sharon and I that she thought she might be a Buddhist. I had three reactions to this announcement. First, in typical cool UU fashion, I said, “That’s nice, there is a lot in Buddhism that I like also.  She went on to tell about some other religions that she did not like and the reasons for her dislikes. A little later I got wondering about why my daughter would say she was a Buddhist when she had never said that she was a UU even though she has been raised as a UU and has only attended UU churches. When I asked her about this I was troubled by her answer. She told me that she did not know what it meant to be a UU. After less than two hours of exposure she had a grasp on what it means to be a Buddhist but after years of attending UU churches and being raised by UU parents she has no idea of what it means to be a UU.

Further discussion with my daughter shed light on this interesting development. And it is development, in this case cognitive development, which made Buddhism more understandable than Unitarian Universalism to a young child. Buddhism like most religions reflects concrete ideas that are specific, precise, and representative of some particular exemplar or content that is directly tied to physical objects or events.  For example, God in many religions, although never seen, is presented as existing in human form. These concrete representations are missing from contemporary Unitarian Universalism. Instead UU theology reflects formal ideas that are propositional in nature and with the emphasis on general rules and overall patterns and principles rather than on specific content. This formalism started one hundred and seventy years ago when the Unitarians, most notably Emerson and Parker, rejected the notion of a god as a supernatural human and argued for a religion that reflected the natural world that included our human abilities as valid and good and real in and of themselves.

My third reaction to my daughter’s announcement of her budding Buddhism was being proud of us. By ‘us’ I mean this congregation. My daughter did not get this idea that she might be Buddhist from her parents; she got that idea here, at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon. I would be very proud if all this congregation had done was provide my daughter with valuable information that helped her in her individual search for truth and meaning. But I am even more proud that this congregation has the courage to encourage its children to think for themselves as members of this congregation; starting now. What makes it possible for us to be a religion of unity that endorses and supports diversity at the elemental level of religious belief?

            This type of response from our children and from ourselves occurs because we UU’s have made a profound qualitative shift in what religion is. By foregoing the need to have an unquestionable belief in a specific creator and an equally unquestioning belief in a specific creation event as the unifying theme that defines our religion we are free to think about the hypothetical, to entertain the possible, and to explore the unknown. Now I need to be careful here. I am not suggesting that UUs have replaced all beliefs or ideas about god and creation with thinking. I am saying that we have placed thinking about these beliefs as an important part of our religious experience just as other religions have defined themselves by proclaiming that the highest level of religiosity can only occur with unthinking acceptance of singular belief.

For me this can be seen most clearly in our covenant to promote a responsible search for truth and meaning. Now brace yourself, I am going to attempt to be profound. For me this principle embodies one of the most profoundly revolutionary and important religious developments of all time. Yikes. But think about it. To have this principle in the first place means that we Unitarian Universalists don’t already have the truth or know the meaning of everything. We, the UUs, the religion of Unitarianism and Universalism are admitting that we don’t have the answer, that we don’t know how it all began or what it all means. It means that nothing we say or do can be pumped up as the word god or as god’s will. But by all that is whole and wholesome we are going to go look for truth and meaning. Just because we don’t have it doesn’t mean we can’t find it.

So what do we have if we don’t have the answer, if we don’t know our ultimate destiny, if we don’t know what it all really means? Well, we have a project. I know, it doesn’t sound like much does it? A project is not nearly as impressive as having the final truth and the ultimate meaning. By comparison to the concrete theologies offered by other religions our project of responsibly searching for truth and meaning is a very hard sell. But nonetheless, we have committed ourselves to responsibly look for these answers because we have noticed that those theologies with their flashy final truths and rousing ultimate meanings keep getting it wrong. Remember that little tussle over whether or not the earth was at the center of the universe. Some pretty smart folks got that one wrong for a very long time because the reality was not directly observable. From our direct experience it sure looked like the celestial vault revolved around us. Still does. It sure looked like we were at the center of things and this made us feel real important.

But it was wrong, how it looked wasn’t how it really was, and once we got past that we, us humans figured it out. It wasn’t told to us in a book, not even a hint that what looked so much like something was so entirely different than we had ever thought. That is why in our formal theology, we Unitarian Universalists are unified in our acceptance of the importance of this free and responsible search for truth and meaning, not just as individuals, but as a congregation for all seven or our principles start with the phrase that, We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote ….” This is an incredibly important phrase. It starts with the inclusive We, a unifying word if their ever was one. But more importantly for me this phrase has provided me with an important understanding of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist. I am not a Christian, and I mean no disrespect by this, it is simply something that is true about me. I know that I am not a Christian because I do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of god nor do believe that he is my personal savior. Because I believe as I do does not mean that I am right and Christians are wrong. However, I do know that I am a Unitarian Universalist because I have chosen to take my place along with you, and to work with you as member of this congregation to promote and affirm a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, along with our other principles.

Our non-creedal theology is essential to our project for I cannot conceive of us being successful in our search without having an open and accepting congregation that reflects the vast array of religious ideas that humans have created. For some they are UUs and Christians or UUs and Buddhists, there is the UU Pagan contingent, the UU druid group, and I have been hearing more interest in learning about and incorporating Islamic teachings. These and many other combinations of identifiers are important to some individuals in our congregations and not to others, but all are accepted and respected, but they are not a requirement of our religion. For many of us we are simply Unitarian Universalists. But one cannot say that they are a UU without becoming a covenantor of our seven principles. This does not mean that we cannot question them or want to change them. This has occurred many times. Our current principles are only twenty years old.

Now I need to be careful here. By my placing our individual acceptance of our congregational principles as one of the defining elements of being a UU it can appear that I am saying that these principles are our creed. This of course would conflict with our being a non-creedal religion. Creed denotes authoritative formulations that are the chief articles of a religion or system of belief. Accepting that Jesus is the son of god and ones personal savior is creedal requirement for being a Christian. Our principles are not an authoritative formulation of a religion or of a system of belief.  Nor do they deny anyone the right to have a personal creed.

In the introduction you may have noticed that I said that I am life long Unitarian and not that I was a life long Unitarian and Universalist. That is because I started attending Unitarian churches shortly after my father resigned from his job as a Presbyterian minister because he could no longer believe in god. He started his ministry a month before I was born and quit when I was two. My father and I were never close so I have no idea of what I might have done in my first two years to cause this crisis of faith in my father but I have always appreciate the results. So, I am a life long Unitarian but I have only been a UU since 1961 because in 1954 there was no UU and there were only five principles, none of which were concerned with a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. In 1961 these five principles were incorporated in the New Statement of Purpose resulting from the merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists. The principles in their current form did not exist until 1984 and they arose from the congregations; not from any authoritative group. And they were voted into being by a democratic process at the UU general assembly. Again this is pretty boring when compared to other religions that have really cool stuff like sacred texts, or get messages from burning bushes or from beautiful women with 10 arms and lots of other supernatural manifestations that give them the word from on high. Yup, we had a meeting and voted because we chose to take on this task without any assurances or beliefs that we are directed to do so by some deity or because we are fearful of eternal tortures or for any other declared theological reason because the principles are not presented as representing or being the requirement of any particular theology. In this way we are a principled religion, not a creedal religion.

But our formal non-creedal theology is not without its problems. First among those is the very important question of how spirituality functions without a concrete system of beliefs centered on a creator and a creation account. We are often criticized as being a “menu driven” religion in which the worlds religions are presented like meals on a menu and we simply pick which ones we like or parts that we like. In this way we get to avoid what we don’t like or avoid having to do the hard stuff. Of course we can easily argue that creedal religions are “recipe driven” religions in which a list of ingredients is presented with instructions of how to use the ingredients correctly. But this simply moves us into be a church of discontent in which we come here because we did not like the recipe of our previous religion. We are also portrayed as a hyphenated religion, UU-Christian-Buddhist-Wiccan- whatever. This is seen by many critics as proof that Unitarian Universalist is not a real religion. That we have to bring in these other creedal theologies to make up for what we lack.

These are real issues for us to address. Our origins are steeped in rebellion and discontent. The Unitarians came into being by rebelling against Catholicism in Europe and, along with the Universalists, by rebelling against Calvinism in this country. Fortunately, at the core of our historical rebellion is a strong desire to be guided by the will of humanity. The will of humanity taking precedence over the will of god came into fruition early in the last century with strong humanist movement. One of the lasting effects of the humanist movement’s attempts to reformulate liberal theology on completely nontheistic grounds is the openness in contemporary UU practices to the teachings of other religions. Our menus and hyphens are one of the results of this openness.  Our rebellions, our openness to other points of view, and our diversity all arose from logical conflicts with other theologies. It is not surprising then that at the core of these criticisms is the argument that our use of logic as a guide in spiritual matters is flawed because logic is an inferior way of finding religious truth.

What is at work here is a very old but still imperative religious practice called the way of two truths, in which truth is either by logic or by faith; with faith being much preferred over logic. This allows for something or someone to be logically correct but not true in faith or one can true in faith and logically incorrect. For most religions, it is an article of faith that the manifestation of god in everyone and everything is what gives everything its true meaning. Anyone who questions or denies the truth reflected in this faith is simply wrong. And any arguments based on logic that challenge the idea of manifest presence as the foundation of all truth are treated as a test of faith in which logic is merely a sophistry designed to expose one who has a weak or false faith. No exploration or discussion is necessary. But this type of faith limits freedom and perverts faith by making truth a disunified concept. Something is not true just because I agree with it; truth requires more then that. Nor is truth what I or any one else says it is. Truth is a quality that exists independently of us, independently of beliefs, independently of emotions, and independently of desire.

In secular terms the way of two truths is a particular and common type of skepticism that is used as a basic component in maintaining all types of opinions and beliefs that are facing powerful evidence that the opinion or belief is wrong. This is systematic skepticism. Systematic skepticism denies the possibility of any knowledge that is contrary to ones belief; thus making the truth unavailable. And it is very easy. All one has to do is say something like “I don’t belief that,” or even more simply just say, “You are wrong.” Or for people who want to be nice say, “I just can’t accept that.”  If you feel a need for more authority than allude to a religious text, “That is not true because that is not what it says in….” No proof, no support, no evidence required.

Because of this absence of real support systematic skepticism leads to dogmatism and stagnation by allowing only one opinion for what is meaningful and making all other meanings wrong simply because they are different. From this perspective the concept of faith is denigrated to a mindlessness in which a belief without knowledge is more valuable than a belief supported by knowledge, that unquestioning acceptance of what one is told is true is more honorable than acceptance based on the information gained from rigorous questioning. This is why those very same people who decry any skeptical response to their beliefs as blasphemous to the truth from faith nevertheless find the use of systematic skepticism in response to differing beliefs justified and appropriate.

In sharp contrast to the neophobic construct of systematic skepticism the very powerful and responsible methodological skepticism urges us to investigate all claims about the truth. The pitfalls to finding the truth, whether it be in the words and deeds of others, or from our ability to tease it out of the phenomenological fabric of the universe requires the use of methodological skepticism. It was how we figured out that we are not the center of universe. Essentially, this means that we satisfy certain philosophical requirements prior to accepting anything as true, or reflective of the truth, or even as an indication of the direction of truth. First, there is the requirement of materialism where everything in the universe is concrete or material; though not necessarily corporeal. Further, everything behaves lawfully in this material universe; although we may not yet know or understand those laws. This is followed by the requirement of realism; everything is knowable, at least gradually and partially, and things exist independently of those who study it. Rationalism is the requisite that our ideas ought to have internal consistency and mutual coherence. This leads to the guidelines of empiricism in which every idea about real things should be experimentally testable.  Finally, there is the condition of systemism in which the data and the hypotheses are not incidental but constitute an organization or structure that is essential for finding the truth and meaning about something.

Is it important to apply methodological skepticism in our spirituality? I obviously think so. Our psychological lives are a stream of feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and memories such that we are that stream and not some observer on the shore. Because of this the very stream of our existence obscures our ability to see beyond the stream banks. Methodological skepticism was developed by us so that we could extend our knowledge beyond our inherent boundaries. To me this is as mind boggling as the idea of an infinite universe. How we came to the recognition that the very act of existing limits us in what we can know is one of the greatest achievements of our species. How we then went on to developed the cognitive tools of methodological skepticism to overcome that limitation is one of the greatest creative accomplishments of humanity. We did this – it was not given to us – it is not innate – it did not exist until we created it. To trivialize this remarkable achievement is to trivialize our very humanness.

I think as UUs it is immensely important that we consciously make a place for methodological skepticism in our spiritual process. Just because we can think of something doesn’t make it real. Just because we feel that something is true does not mean that it is true. For me, the too seldom used, yet simple phrase, “I don’t know.” is the single most important concept and requirement for finding truth and meaning responsibly and freely. I am not saying that you have to say “I don’t know” but you have to be free to say so if you choose. Many of you are certain of your belief in god. But if you have no freedom to question that belief, if you choose to, your certainty is meaningless. The ability to openly and freely express our lack of knowledge is more important for spirituality than the traditional defining act of spirituality as the experience of total devotion to a particular unification belief. For if I cannot know the difference between what I know from what I don’t know how will I know  that I even need to look for something, or where to look, or what to look for, or how will I recognize it when I find it, and – most importantly – how will it have any meaning. It is a simple truth that without no yes is meaningless.

Most of you are familiar with the process and progress of science using the invention of the experiment. Yet few realize, given the grand scope of all the knowledge that has emerged from the use of the experiment, that experiments, no matter how well they satisfy the doctrines of methodological skepticism, are only a small and specialized use of methodological skepticism. On the grander scale there is strong evidence for the use of methodological skepticism within ourselves. We spend a great deal of our time focused on the fundamentalism of others; all the while ignorant of our own. Here is a small and safe example: How many of you believe that if you find a bird’s nest that you should not handle the eggs or baby birds that are in the nest? How many of you learned this from your mother or father? When you asked why you should leave them alone how many of you were told that the mother bird would smell you and not come back to care for its young? How many of you have passed this wisdom onto your children? This is fundamentalism and orthodoxy at it roots. An unassailable authority tells us that something is so and we then act on it without reflection throughout the course of our lives and then, when we have assumed the mantle of the unassailable authority we pass on that same fundamental orthodoxy to our children. This is so powerful that we often persist in these beliefs and their subsequent behaviors even though we are repeatedly presented with irrefutable observable proof that our beliefs are in error. This happens because we fail to recognize the disconfirming information for what it is. How many of you have seen nature shows in which scientists are shown taking eggs and baby birds from their nest to measure them – often with the parent birds watching them do so?

To believe in this manner appears to be part of our humanness: it is our nature. In 1993 an elegant series of experiments were conducted by Gilbert et al. to determine if the theory of Descartes or that of Spinoza was correct in explaining how we develop our beliefs of what is true. Descartes theorized that we choose to believe in the truth of something only after we comprehend the information and that comprehension only occurs after much rational deliberation to determine if the information is correct. Spinoza, reading Descartes some 34 years later said, “You’re nuts!” Okay I made up, I don’t really know the exact phrase Spinoza used but he was not impressed with Descartes. Spinoza theorized that comprehension and belief are the same thing. In Spinoza’s theory rational deliberation is only necessary to reject an idea or concept but that comprehension is basically irrational, automatic, and the same as belief. In this way, what we believe is never questioned because we naturally and automatically perceive it as true. Once we are certain that something is true why would we put additional energy into determining if it was not true? Therefore it takes less energy to believe in something then it does to reject it. The results of this particular study provided robust support for Spinoza’s contention. If subsequent research continues to support that Spinoza is correct it then follows that we need to develop conscious and intentional systems to focus our energy, to be able to find our fundamental beliefs and hold them out from ourselves long enough to responsibly determine their truth and meaning. Birds do not rely on smells to alert them to danger because smell plays a small role in survival when you can fly.  Our parents, however well-meaning, were wrong and so were we. But as Spinoza would predict we failed to recognize this because we do not naturally question our beliefs.

Many of you may be asking yourselves what all of this has to do with spirituality. Spirituality is generally defined as being spiritual. Spiritual is defined as those things that are of the spirit. Things that are of the spirit share the qualities of being immaterial and incorporeal and therefore are not subject to the mundane laws of materialism. And this divide is further characterized by or suggesting a predominance of the spirit. In traditional usage someone who is spiritual is then defined as some one who values what is unknowable over what is knowable. Spirituality that is based entirely on what is unknowable is bubble spirituality. Bubble spirituality has a big bubble when most things are unknown but with each new discovery it shrinks. Current attempts by various religious groups to obstruct the teaching of science, especially Darwinian evolution, and only allow their beliefs to be taught are attempts to stop the bubble from shrinking. As our knowledge has advanced more and more of these supposedly incorporeal and immaterial ideas have fallen from the spiritual to the worldly as we gain more understanding into their material and corporeal existence. To me this is a sad and spiritless spirituality.

This lifeless spirituality is unnecessary for the knowledge gained with methodological skepticism does far more than help us identify untrue beliefs; it enriches our spirituality because it extends our ability to experience the transcendence of our humanity. All those ineffable and ethereal things that move and come from us that used to be ascribed to the soul, we now know have been engraved on our nervous system by the survival experience of our forbearers and in our direct experiences with the external world in our short individual existence. We have in turn etched our own passing on others so that their experience will always be unique from all others; and they in turn sculpt us again in totally new and unexpected ways. And we can never know fully when and how we have done this or when and how it has been done to us, nor will we ever know more than the most immediate effects of our passing or the passing of others throughout our lives or throughout our history.

Responsibility matures within us in this spiritual process as we take more control of this shaping, of this growth, of this continual process of gathering, building, and fixing ourselves. We choose to teach ourselves to first understand our own uniqueness and then we add to that uniqueness by teaching our brains to function in ways far beyond the dictates of mere individual survival and reproduction. It is this intentional choice that leads to the greatest achievement that we recognize; the act of creation. By this I mean that we humans value the creative act. If we did not we would not have based our different religions on different creation stories. We honor those of us who have created something of importance, something that did not exist before. Regardless of where we believe the credit for our creation as a species or as an individual should go, the whole essence and force of all spiritual endeavors is to support and revere acts of creation. This yearning to be creative can be seen in our drive to learn, to divine, to discern unification, for the more we can understand and predict the more we can create. The more we create the more we have to revere.

Because of this I see no duality between what is known and what is not, between our worldly selves and our spiritual selves for we have created our spirituality as surely as we have been created by it. Simply put, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning is the great spiritual quest of our species.  A truly free and responsible spirituality is a spirituality that respects and honors its sources while recognizing its weaknesses. It is a spirituality that trusts that the act of responsibly searching will eventually make the unknown known, because something being unknown is not the same as something being unknowable. The unknown is still part of the world regardless of our knowledge of it. It is a spirituality in which faith and logic are unified as equally important because they are based on trust; trust of ourselves, trust of each other, trusting that our efforts are meaningful regardless of our successes. And most importantly trusting, having faith in the value of our admission that we don’t know the big truths or the ultimate meanings. It is having faith that meaning can found in all things, it is faith in the power of logic, and faith that changing beliefs based on logic will empower and create a grander spirituality. 

            By placing methodological skepticism within our Unitarian Universalist spirituality we can supplant the fragility engendered by our rebellious history with a strong internal commitment and identity that forgoes the need for a reactionary basis to explain Unitarian Universalism. We can rejoice in our creative religion with its unique offering to share in the joy of exploration and to exalt in the potential of discovery. We can be proud and honored to be part of a principled and purposeful religion.