I'm currently reading Island by Aldous Huxley and it is a welcome relief just coming from the depths of Ayn Rand. Where she preaches the empowerment of the self and the literal worship of the dollar, Huxley seems to find that ever-elusive middle ground that Buddha spoke of. And as much as Rand is right with her selfish philosophy, she is ultimately falling into the same trap as most religions and political orientations that she demonizes do. You can’t replace one extreme for another and expect it to be any better. And the flip side of this coin is: If some of what Ayn Rand is talking about it true, some of what she demonizes must also be true. In other words, and more attuned to my personal feelings, some of religion/belief must be true. Something doesn’t exist without a benefit, that’s natural selection. And like it or not religion and belief have stuck around.Huxley’s Island is an interesting book so far. It takes a peek at a world that is by all accounts doing things right. They exist as sort of a Buddhist/Hindu state that takes a non-traditional approach to most everything in their lives; most of it really having to do with rearing and raising children. They have a sort of “adoption” program that works on a need base. Children live with their biological parents, but have a network of adopted parents, more like godparents in our society, that they can go to when a situation at home gets tense. And this is encouraged, not only to spread the burden of parenting but also to ensure the child has a well developed pallet of influence. Quite a good idea I think, and it goes further. Children are conditioned Pavlov style to feel no fear towards animals and other people through a series of repetitive introductions, (this is a good bird, good bird, good bird etc.). In school they are encouraged to meditate and those who are better able to be hypnotized are identified and encouraged to develop their talent for its benefits in helping one learn faster by ingesting knowledge in a hypnotic trance which allows one to learn faster and better. And they are also identified so they are made aware of their abilities so they are better able to know when someone is attempting to manipulate them, future Darrin Browns if you will. Another important part of the rearing process is the understanding that life isn’t all easy. Children on Pala, the Island the book's title refers to, are taken on rock climbing adventures and other outdoor activities to teach them the struggles of life, and when they are only twelve or fourteen they star working. So much of the way we live our lives has to do with how we were raised really; most problems that hamper people later in life are left over from childhood. Wouldn’t it be great if we’d been taught how to deal with life at an early age?
But by far the largest aspect of Pala life is the ritual ingestion of moksha, a hallucinogenic medicine designed to facilitate a religious experience. But the people on Pala don’t believe in any deity, like Buddha himself, they only believe in the power of the individual spirit (there’s Ayn Rand speaking, but she forgets the next part) and the collective spirit. The give offerings to Shiva (that’s a Hindu god I’m pretty sure) and praise her, but it is all a symbolic representation of the struggle that goes on inside all of us. And from what reading I have done of Buddha and other eastern religions, this is the general idea.
And that is a very powerful notion to me. Christianity, Islam, and to a certain extend Judaism, have slipped into this insane idea that there religion is speaking factually. They actually believe that god flooded the entire globe and had Noah put two of all of the millions of species onto one boat. It’s a nice story but I think if taken literally it loses all its power. Rather, when its taken symbolically it gains a power that touches each and every person. There’s a great website called Back of the Bible, by Jay Pinkerton. He reviews the “minor” prophets of the Old Testament with hilarious results. One in particular is the book of Hosa, which in a nut shell is the story of a prophet who marries a hooker…fuck, I’ll let Jay explain it he’s better at it than me anyway.
The Book of Hosea chronicles the story of — spoiler — the prophet Hosea. According to Hosea, the Lord God comes to him with explicit instructions that he marry a prostitute. No, really. Hosea speedily complies and shacks up with the prostitute Gomer (presumably unrelated to the Pyle family), who—in a move uncommon to the profession—spits out a shitload of kids. Hosea does his best with his new-car-smell harlot wife, buying her lots of nice things and making love to her with regularity. Despite Hosea's sex-and-purchase-based love strategy, though, she continues to harlot around like it's going out of style.
Following several decades of faithless marriage between Hosea and village bicycle Gomer, God reveals his reason for demanding all the hooker-sex in the first place. The union, it turns out, makes for a perfect metaphor for the Lord's relationship to Israel. In forsaking their covenant by exploring other religions (golden calves, Ba'al and whatnot), Isreal is like the faithless whore Gomer, and God the exasperated spouse. You hussy, Israel.
So this obviously has to be a metaphor, a story that was told by some other prophet to the people about their wicked ways, and it seems Israel can do nothing but be wicked in the Old Testament, which makes you think that prophets are just a bunch of whinny doom spitters. But that’s beside the point.
What is the point? I think what I’m trying to get at with this post here in a round about way is that I feel like I am starting to get to a point where I can see the benefits of religion in someone’s life. Buddha said a healthy mind needs a healthy body, well I think the mind needs more than just rational and skepticism (both important mind you!). The element of religion is that missing link, and the dogma of it is just a tool to make it more fun and meaningful. But the awareness of its purpose is absolutely necessary. I can worship the flying spaghetti monster to get piece of mind, and you can worship Jesus for the same piece of mind. When you start to believe that a guy named Jesus actually walked the Earth and actually took two shots of metal to the wrists just because you said a naughty word or looked at a nice pair of tits, it becomes a problem. Because then people want to hurt people who don’t believe the same thing they do. When you are aware that your religion is just as ridiculous as the next and what you are really worshiping is something inside yourself, in an attempt to find the middle ground, this whole business becomes a lot easier to swallow. Its like discovering that asparagus is good for you, and suddenly eating it doesn’t seem as horrible as it did when you were a kid.
I’m still working out the whole organized religion aspect of all this. What benefit does a standardized set of rules have over individual defined rules? If you worship Jesus, can I worship a deity that is a robot from Mars and get the same benefit? I suppose the answer lays somewhere in the aspect of the checks and balances that a community provides. But at the same time that community needs to be open to change, which unfortunately a lot of churches and religions aren’t. Again, it’s the middle ground, this time between leading and following.
I guess no one ever said it was easy, no matter what religion or lack of you subscribe to.
