Fun Among the Stars

Yesterday as I was trolling blogs looking for pictures to share, I stumbled across a question. “Do you believe in evolution, or do you believe in the Bible?” More than likely, the question came from a fundamentalist, but there are many who aren’t religious, even many who are critics of religion who think in such black and white terms. But I think, that’s sort of like asking if you believe in America or if you believe in Westeros, or if you believe in photography or Picasso.

Many think that mythological stories came about due to a lack of scientific knowledge, but I don’t think that was the intention of the original authors. I don’t think people repeated them because they thought they answered such down to earth questions. I think they served as a kind of poetry about the mystery of life and how it is experienced. Humans aren’t machines who always think in such rationalistic terms. We are emotional creatures who feel things. For many, the stories connect on an emotional level, not an intellectual one. Many think if you concretize them, you ruin them…in the same way you would ruin Star Wars if you insisted it was literal history that’s either true or false. Not everything we do is left brained.

Humans are formed by culture, and our culture happens to value positivism. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that fundamentalism arose in this era. It’s an attempt to make the religion fit the times, but not necessarily in an overt and intentional way.

I suspect that religion often gets into trouble when it becomes institutionalized. When the Judeans were sent into exile in Babylon, there was probably an impetus to formalize beliefs so as to retain identity. Then when the Persians allowed them to return and build the second temple, the aristocratic priestly class might have wanted to retain control. There is evidence that early Christians told all kinds of wild and woolly stories. But then Paul not only wanted to be a convert but the authority that brought the message to gentiles. He turned the stories about Jesus into a formula. Later came bishops who stamped their feet and demanded orthodoxy. Then the Edict of Milan turned Christianity into a triumphal religion, and it got bound up in politics. But did Christianity and other religions survive because of creeds and doctrines and men in robes who claim to speak for God? Or was it something else?

Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential theologians of the Middle Ages. He’s still a towering figure in Roman Catholicism. He spent his life attempting to justify every aspect of faith in meticulous rationalistic terms. His arguments are no longer considered persuasive by philosophers, and they give technical reasons why. But if you think Aquinas was a fool engaged in nonsense, then you’ve just never read him. He was a genius. However, at the end of his life he abandoned his theological projects, and when his admirers begged him to continue, he claimed to have experienced something that made all of his work seem like straw. I think he realized there was something else besides dogma and arguments and proofs.

Last night, I noticed even Neil deGrasse Tyson bid his friend and colleague Stephen Hawking to rest in peace. I doubt if Tyson literally believes Hawking is out there somewhere in a lounge chair or snoozing in a feather bed. But we’re human. President Obama told Hawking in a tweet to “have fun among the stars.” This is right-brained stuff, and it’s part of who we are.