I have never been so aware of Easter as a religious holiday. For me, Easter is usually a long weekend off work and excess chocolate. But here on the Catholic island of Flores it is the highlight of the religious calendar. Although still a week away, the church has been staging special events, for example on Palm Sunday they flew in a Korean girl with stigmata.
I have never lived in a Catholic community before, and find some of its paradox’s confusing. The religious leaders (nuns and priests as well as the bishop) are clearly the wealthiest people in the area. Their homes and offices are always made of brick, often having two stories, and rumours has it that one of the priest houses even has a washing machine & tumble dryer – unimaginable luxury. But directly or indirectly is this not all paid for by the poorest people when they put their wages in the collection bowl? I guess everywhere in the world it is true that organised religion is rich – the Church of England is still the biggest land owner in my own country – but here it is the contrast that is striking. The church and its ‘employees’ have so much and it sits right next to, and is provided by, people who have so little.
But despite, or maybe because of this, the people are devout: peoples houses are full of Catholic icons; the cathedral is always busy; and many young men and women train to be priests and nuns (well who wouldn’t want to join this privileged section of society). However, in times of crisis their Catholic faith seems often to sit beside an older, more traditional culture of animism. My friend’s pregnant sister went into labour this week, it is proving to be difficult and her family are all by her bedside praying. But at the same time they believe that the difficult birth is due to black magic – someone has placed a spell on the pregnant woman and now the baby cannot get out. So alongside modern medicine and organised religion is tradition, and it is fascinating for a sceptic like myself to observe peoples simultaneous and unquestioning faith in all three.
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Ok, be patient with me – I think it makes perfect sense that your ‘community’ can believe in all three at the same time; two are simply based on irrational and completely unsupported superstition (religion and black magic) drilled into their consciousness from birth and the other, medicine, is something that most if not all will have seen work, so knock me down with a feather if they dont actually believe in this as well!
Anyway, Whitters we both darn well know that you are, in effect, one of ‘them’ – you claim to be a sceptic; about what exactly, all three!? In the case of religion and black magic, what in the name of old nick is there to be ‘sceptical’ about - neither are supported by any ‘real’ evidence whatsoever! Therefore, your position, if that’s what it is, demonstrates that you are as much a victim of the great and long-lasting ‘mistrovka’ as they are! In the case of medicine, if you are a sceptic, in what way – medicine doesn’t have or claim to have all the answers, but what it does have is a cumulative history of scientific evidence; so ‘sceptic’ here, simply taken in the round, is indefensible! And dont please go down some weird self-serving 'equivilance' road, I'm not buying!
I remember a very very dear friend, telling me that religion made sense if for no other reason, than it provided a moral structure within which humanity could live – oh dear – the thing (God) that created everything, the cleverest, surely farest-sighted being that has ever existed and surely a philosopher without compare provided the various rules laid out in all our pathetic human interpretations of religion – OH REALLY!? For instance, Christianity, oh what a thinker he was - the first 4 or so commandments tell people they’re in deep do do if they don’t follow the word of God, the remainder cover stuff like murder, lying, steeling etc – oh what an insightful brilliant thing this God is, providing humanity with this 'moral’ structure – actually take a break, take a long look; admit and realise the utter ridiculousness of current religious doctrine and then, when one has joined rational humanity – only then could one argue that you can start thinking you have the 'perspective' to critically observe in others what you fail to fully challenge and take responsibility for yourself.
Perhaps, your observations will prove a key opportunity(and motivator) for you to join the truly 'enlightened', the wonderfully free and unconfused of humanity - those without all the answers but fantastically free from the need to think we should have all the answers - go on I dare you, step off your holly fence…….
Ok, Mr (Mrs, Miss?) Anonymous. I've been patient. I read your post a day ago, read it again today, and still find it strangely vague in the detail of what is dressed up to be a very insightful comment. First, dear anon, you must reveal yourself! Who are you? Surely not DT (not enough typos ;-) But who?
Then to the argument. I have to confess, that your extremism has forced me into a position of fairly polar oposition that I would't take of my own volition, but anyway, the case for the oposition... Religion and black magic? Bogus? No evidence? I don't think so. Firstly on black magic: at a very basic level, 'western medicine' has an extremely powerful explanation for why it might work - in western science it's called a placebo, and it works. There are plenty of cases of statistically significant objective measures of improvement that can be attributed to a placebo affect. But I wonder if it's actually more than that. Take homeopathy - the most familiar 'black magic' to most of us in the west - on the face of it the only possible explanation is placebo. But if you think about the way homeopathy is practiced, you see it's more than that. There's the interaction between the homeopath and the patient - long interviews, carefully considered history - this is a case of psycholigical and lifestyle counciling combined with a placebo effect that sounds to me like it's got every reason to be very effective. I think the same is probably true of many of the interventions that would be termed 'black magic'.
Then to religion, and your contention that Karen and her readership should join the 'enlightened' and unconfused that just don't bother thinking about the hard stuff... no thank you. Of course we can never expect to have all the answers, but you gotta keep asking! For me, the real reason for the failure and disaster of much modern religion is that it is often so unquestioned - as Karen pointed out. Religion really can be seen as a structure that helps humankind rationalise and decide on the very difficult decisions that we have to take each day, but I don't see it as a flawed invention of a disputed god, but a flawed evolutionary artefact of human existence. We'll make it quite a lot less flawed if we treat it as a little less organised - and a lot more personal. Religion needs interpreting for every generation and every individual. It's the unquestioningness (is that a word?) of organised religion that's the problem, not the existence of useful moral frameworks that can be adapted to suit the time and the place.
Then to western medicine itself, that you so unquestioningly support . It's brilliant stuff, but it is limited by the scientific method by which all of it has been derived. Modern medicine can only include that which can be clinically proven - and there's a lot that can, but it seems evident to me that there are many phenomena that are so subtle and complex, that cannot be separated from the context in which they exist that the rigours of a controlled double blind scientific experiment simply stamps out the phenomena that was to be studied. Yeah, I know, that leaves us in a bit of a bind - how do we know it works if we can't prove it scientifically? Don't have an answer for that I'm afraid, but there are plenty of phenomena that we experience, and accept unquestioningly without tragedy that I reckon that's OK. Does cognition preceed action? (not scientifically proven, but a good working assumption) If a tree falls in the wood, but nobody is there to observe it (in the quantum physical definition of observation) - does it still make a sound? (unproven, but still a good working assumption). Can we use common sense here? Apply occams razor perhaps? Maybe the problem with 'black magic' and religion is really all about (mis)communication. The subjects are necessarily difficult to observe and communicate (otherwise they'd be amenable to the scientific method) but that doesn't make them any less worthy, or believable. It just takes more insight and imagination.
Thanks Karen, for your insight, and imagination. A very thought provoking post. And thanks Mr(s) Anon, a very interesting comment.
I'll stop now, coz my vitriol has now gone on even longer than yours ;-)
In good faith.
Kerry
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