Lots of thought provoking ideas here! Part of my hesitation in criticizing religion is that I don’t fully buy the secular worldview. I don’t think it’s necessarily more correct than any religion. I’m not religious. I don’t like the term “spiritual” all that much either. But I think there is a self-process and life-process that many religions get at which paves a way to deeper truth. I think evoking the process of placing self and experiencing self within a larger context is healthy and that this context is existential, curious and even mystical. I think it needs to move past reason and to an extent language. I find it through biology, nature and relationship but see the essence of these things as being almost godlike
I totally get it. The standard secular worldview assumes too much (like, for example, that only measurable things are worth believing). I've written about such assumptions before (in my find_purpose.exe post), partially because I think the secular community could be convinced through reason. I just don't think religious communities can be convinced without weaking their beliefs in core dogma.
The godlike essence in nature you speak of sounds like the ancient Greek concept of the 'logos,' or cosmic order. If such a thing exists, it would be found everywhere, like in the cellular organizations you wrote about in your own post. While we don't know whether the logos exists, there are certainly patterns that feel orderly, as I wrote about in my history_of_universe.zip post.
(Sorry to keep plugging my own posts to you, but I really do think about these things a lot. My next post is almost done and will focus on the nested scales of human organization. Even before I started this Substack, I wrote a fictional story about a skin cell questioning its purpose in life.)
There's definitely similarity in our ways of thinking, so I'm looking forward to reading more of how you conceptualize life, health, and existence in the near future.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I look forward to reading more of your work!
What do you think religious communities need to be convinced of? It does bother me when religious practices interfere with healthy development but then again, secular societies based in consumption and over working have their fair share of challenges. They’re just more familiar.
I would argue that cosmic order is how we know anything and clearly the base of all existence. From the way galaxies form to the way language develops, it’s all in resistance to entropy. The force of life is one of multi-scale ordering and emergence where all scales cooperate in creating relative stability. The propagation of energy along a nerve through chemical means is profoundly orderly and organized.
I think it’s a greater challenge to understand the nature of disorder in the unfolding of reality. The space between, the randomness that perturbates the system, the ripping apart of systems, the body sensations that don’t fit societal structures of emotional patterns.
Much of my theoretical work is inspired by the late Robert Rosen who I think secular communities could learn from. Linear thinking and procedural logic that lacks space for genuine emergence is misguided imo. Everything in life from the Palestinian genocide to the choice of breakfast is multifactorial. Understanding the nature of the process must look past any absolute or objective reason or logic.
I’m not a fan of Plato as you could imagine lol!
I spend a lot of time thinking about relations between scales, how to define a scale, ways to conceptualize scale and so on. I look forward to your writing
Religious communities may need to be convinced that a certain region was not divinely gifted to them and should be shared, or that certain groups of people deserve rights and respect. In America, LGBT rights have largely progressed alongside secularization and weakening of Biblical literalism. I think further weakening of that dogmaticism is needed to make further progress there, and in places like Israel-Gaza.
It sounds like you are advocating for ways of thinking that are not so reductionist, more relational. You don't want to reduce the world linguistically and ontologically into neatly labeled boxes because the world isn't that way. Instead you're tuned into emergence, complexity, nonlinearity, and interdependence between scales.
I see things that way too, but I also see value in objective reason and logic. So I'm especially curious to read your future long-form critiques of these concepts as you draw from Rosen and systems thinking. I also think Plato had some good work (like the allegory of the cave and Republic), so we may have some productive disagreements. :)
Lots of thought provoking ideas here! Part of my hesitation in criticizing religion is that I don’t fully buy the secular worldview. I don’t think it’s necessarily more correct than any religion. I’m not religious. I don’t like the term “spiritual” all that much either. But I think there is a self-process and life-process that many religions get at which paves a way to deeper truth. I think evoking the process of placing self and experiencing self within a larger context is healthy and that this context is existential, curious and even mystical. I think it needs to move past reason and to an extent language. I find it through biology, nature and relationship but see the essence of these things as being almost godlike
Thank you for reading!
I totally get it. The standard secular worldview assumes too much (like, for example, that only measurable things are worth believing). I've written about such assumptions before (in my find_purpose.exe post), partially because I think the secular community could be convinced through reason. I just don't think religious communities can be convinced without weaking their beliefs in core dogma.
The godlike essence in nature you speak of sounds like the ancient Greek concept of the 'logos,' or cosmic order. If such a thing exists, it would be found everywhere, like in the cellular organizations you wrote about in your own post. While we don't know whether the logos exists, there are certainly patterns that feel orderly, as I wrote about in my history_of_universe.zip post.
(Sorry to keep plugging my own posts to you, but I really do think about these things a lot. My next post is almost done and will focus on the nested scales of human organization. Even before I started this Substack, I wrote a fictional story about a skin cell questioning its purpose in life.)
There's definitely similarity in our ways of thinking, so I'm looking forward to reading more of how you conceptualize life, health, and existence in the near future.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I look forward to reading more of your work!
What do you think religious communities need to be convinced of? It does bother me when religious practices interfere with healthy development but then again, secular societies based in consumption and over working have their fair share of challenges. They’re just more familiar.
I would argue that cosmic order is how we know anything and clearly the base of all existence. From the way galaxies form to the way language develops, it’s all in resistance to entropy. The force of life is one of multi-scale ordering and emergence where all scales cooperate in creating relative stability. The propagation of energy along a nerve through chemical means is profoundly orderly and organized.
I think it’s a greater challenge to understand the nature of disorder in the unfolding of reality. The space between, the randomness that perturbates the system, the ripping apart of systems, the body sensations that don’t fit societal structures of emotional patterns.
Much of my theoretical work is inspired by the late Robert Rosen who I think secular communities could learn from. Linear thinking and procedural logic that lacks space for genuine emergence is misguided imo. Everything in life from the Palestinian genocide to the choice of breakfast is multifactorial. Understanding the nature of the process must look past any absolute or objective reason or logic.
I’m not a fan of Plato as you could imagine lol!
I spend a lot of time thinking about relations between scales, how to define a scale, ways to conceptualize scale and so on. I look forward to your writing
Religious communities may need to be convinced that a certain region was not divinely gifted to them and should be shared, or that certain groups of people deserve rights and respect. In America, LGBT rights have largely progressed alongside secularization and weakening of Biblical literalism. I think further weakening of that dogmaticism is needed to make further progress there, and in places like Israel-Gaza.
It sounds like you are advocating for ways of thinking that are not so reductionist, more relational. You don't want to reduce the world linguistically and ontologically into neatly labeled boxes because the world isn't that way. Instead you're tuned into emergence, complexity, nonlinearity, and interdependence between scales.
I see things that way too, but I also see value in objective reason and logic. So I'm especially curious to read your future long-form critiques of these concepts as you draw from Rosen and systems thinking. I also think Plato had some good work (like the allegory of the cave and Republic), so we may have some productive disagreements. :)