FINDING GOD: SOCIETY’S FIGHT OR FLIGHT STRUGGLE WITH THEISM

Adrenaline is a hormone secreted in the body in response to stimulation from things such as stress and, most notably and curiously, in response to perceived harmful events, an attack or threat to survival.

It is a physiological response, and as animalistic as our day-to-day human interactions get. What I find curious is that we, the notoriously intelligent Homo Sapiens, have adapted this response to the complex and intellectual matter of spirituality and theism.

Now, before going any further, I feel the need to make a rare personal disclaimer: I am writing this contemplation as much for myself as for the reader. As someone on the personal journey of evolution and improvement, I have found that I can be far more candid in writing than the continuous buzz of thoughts and slow deliberation that speaking allows me. I do hope to make peace with my own spiritual journey, and perhaps this piece will be a step in the direction of clarity.

Having been preached to by religious fanatics, agnostics and skeptics alike, I have found that our evolutionary response to ‘finding G(g)od’, reflects the impulse of a terrified, befuddled race. From the dawn of time, our story has been punctuated by typecast characters of the ‘puritan’ who has clung to the reflex ‘fight’ reaction, and his sceptical foil, the ‘heathen’ who has ran very quickly from the muddled ideas of canon.

The fight response sees those presumably lucky individuals who have found ‘God’, forge an esoteric personal utopia to which all must aspire, or be damned. They defend their beliefs staunchly and sing their singular truth from ironically Babelesque superiority. The fight response does lead to aggressive self-assurance, both in themselves and in the belief that ‘infidels’ must be converted, whether to Sharia or Trinity-ism. The ‘burning bush’ must be shared by those good enough to know it. Indeed it is understandable that something which forms the bedrock of identity and purpose is clung to and fought for so fiercely. Perhaps, it means even more than is readily understood, as I have also found that many people who have suffered traumatic events ‘find’ and ‘know God’ more readily than the average man. Recently I heard a motivational speaker, whose name currently escapes me, say that whenever he encountered a joyous person he asked the question ‘When did they suffer?’ This caused the reemergence of a common reflection of mine. Is it that ‘God’ recognizes that this person needs Him more than ever and presents Himself to them? Or is it that, those in pain need more of the people’s opium, and grasp even more tightly to their desperate placebo? For I’ve always thought that should Marx’s theory be right, then religion would more adequately be described as a placebo than opium. Regardless of these questions though, the ‘fight’ response does seem to foster a rather pharisaic hubris. It shall not be reasoned with, any questions about it’s form and sense amounts to blasphemy, and you should simply humble yourself and pray that you might be bestowed with answers for the very dirty and faithless questions you dared to ask. This, in addition to the very real and olden Christian-Muslim melee over Jerusalem, continuing Crusades and Jihads, provide cannon fodder for those more inclined to ‘flight’ and turn off those of us who are simply seeking inner peace. Indeed I live in a culture, where what I have just written will vastly draw diatribe at worst and abashed glances of reproach at best.

The other end of the spectrum sees the opposite reflex of flight, where similarly assured men eagerly divorce themselves from theism and the ‘divisive illogicality’ of ‘god’. They delight themselves in what they know for sure, and do seem to leave behind the very heart and spirit of scientific investigation in decrying that there is definitively no ‘god’. They run from the whimsical and the stuff of tales, uttering equally austere rebukes of those ‘foolish enough’ to not see their rational truth. With agnostics, the zenith of open discussion has only been half-achieved. For while they admit a desire to know more, the definitive rejection of the possibility that “God’s” existence could ever be proven, even on a personal level, seems hasty and alienating. The flight response seems to do an injustice to the natural and symbiotic pulse of a wondrous world, in which life seems too… curious, to be controlled by unthinking forces of coincidence. I must admit though, that there are heinous occurrences which do make me feel that no thinking, loving being could truly exist, have the power to stop, and still allow to happen, much less on the regular basis that they do. It also seems that there is an absence of some bigger picture: man worships and ‘God’ loves, but to what end? We were created by a benevolent being, but as a race, I feel that we are missing the grand design. Was the world, and man designed simply to bring pleasure?

I don’t have the answers yet. That much I know. With regard to whether the answers are out there or not, I have chosen to believe they are, for it would make me a tad unhappy to have to remain in a stasis of ignorance. The adrenaline permeated haze of man’s attitude to this journey, is not the best place to seek answers. Society needs some calm and introspection, so that those who are not so high-strung or assured may seek their inner peace. Admonitions to ‘humble thyself’ while making them feel like the unlucky outsiders to some esoteric club of godliness, are no more helpful than limiting knowledge to that which can be definitively ‘seen’. We are afraid, lonely even, and we need the survival of self more than anything else, but I think there is a reason our brains can resist animalistic instincts. Each man’s journey is unique.

Until tolerance and empathy overcome our penchant for strict, often sophist ideology, I think I’ll be here, in the middle of the noise and the adrenal hubbub, neither fighting nor flying. I’ll continue to try to be kind to others, and to improve myself. Maybe, amidst all the fog, I’ll be listening for the whispered crackle of a warm flame, or peering through the haze for the answering sliver of a silent dawn.

Yakum

Embrasse l’Aurore.
Yakum
Views are my own.