Ecumenical Mysticism

I saw a post in the forums over at StevePavlina.com: “How do you nicely deal with skeptics?” And before I even read it, I thought to myself “What is there to be skeptical about?” Immediately, I tried to understand my response, because I wasn’t really sure what I meant. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon.

Here’s the best I’ve come up with so far: I can’t imagine skepticism about Ecumenical Mysticism because (a) no specific interpretation of the nature of universal truth is being advanced, and (b) I’m not really interested in human interpretations of universal truth…I’m only interested in the reality of universal truth, whatever that happens to be.

Whuh-huh? Bear with me for a minute.

Some people express skepticism when somebody asserts as true something that can not be proven to their satisfaction. If I say “we were all created by Flying Spaghetti Monster“, you might experience skepticism, and you might express it. Fair enough. If I say “human beings are the result of a long, slow, accident-prone process of genetic trial-and-error called evolution”, you might experience skepticism. Fine.

But…who cares? I’m not interested in what you believe. Heck, I’m not even interested in what I believe! Human beliefs are, at best, mental constructs we create that assist us in our attempts to reach out toward the infinite and eternal truth. At worst, they are delusions we wrap around ourselves in order to… Well, in order to do all sorts of evil, mostly by avoiding Universal Truth, one way or another. Beliefs can be useful. But they’re just beliefs…they aren’t “real”, even if they tend to be reasonably accurate. Don’t confuse a belief about something with the reality of the actual thing.

Pretend we were walking along a canal and we came upon a sealed shipping container; one of those rectangular metal boxes they load onto ships and train cars and semitruck trailers. It’s locked, and we haven’t got the key. It’s on the other side of the canal anyway, so we can’t even bang on the outside. What’s in it? The truth of what’s inside may be important, but at this point, we can only guess. If I say “It’s full of sneakers”, you would probably be skeptical about that, because I’m asserting something I have no evidence for and which we have no way to verify. So skepticism might be an appropriate response. However, we also have no way to verify that my guess is not correct. Essentially, my guess has no value. It isn’t really worth discussing.

And you know, my guess has no value EVEN IF the shipping container IS full of sneakers! I made a completely unqualified guess without anything remotely similar to plausible evidence.

That’s pretty much how I feel about human beliefs. I used to think this made me an atheist, and for years I believed I was an atheist. I looked down my nose at agnostics…”atheists who lack the conviction of their beliefs”, to paraphrase a character in Carl Sagan’s Contact.

And then I realized that Sagan’s joke was true. Literally true. Atheists do NOT doubt their beliefs, despite the complete lack of any definitive evidence. Atheists make a completely unqualified guess about the nature of universal truth. Just like the other religions!

Let’s return to our shipping container parable: If I assert that it’s full of sneakers, the absolute most bizarre response you could make would be to assert that it was empty, and then begin arguing with me about it! If our discussion became heated, and we came to blows about it, an onlooker might be forgiven for concluding that we were both off our rockers. Why would people argue or fight about guesses they’ve made about something they cannot possibly know, the truth of which is most probably something completely distinct from either of their guesses? It’s absolutely irrational.

And that’s why my gut reaction to the question “How do you nicely deal with skeptics?” was “What it there to be skeptical about?” What I really meant was “why would you deal with skeptics?” Even more specifically, I meant “why would arguing with a skeptic represent a worthwhile use of your time and energy?”

Heck, I’m a skeptic. My doctor does cranio-sacral therapy, and I’m not sure I “believe in it”. But I recognize my skepticism, accept it, and choose to be open to the benefits I may receive despite it. I still don’t really “believe” in cranio-sacral therapy, but guess what: I feel better when I get it done. If it’s real, I don’t have to believe in it.

That’s what’s so great about god. Or universal truth, if the word “god” throws you off: You don’t have to believe in it. It’s OK if you don’t. Completely unimportant. That which is true remains true regardless of your failure to believe. That’s why it doesn’t matter what you believe.

You don’t need to believe in antibiotics for them to work. But you do have to let them work. You have to allow the healing to happen. You have to acquiesce to the truth. But to fully open yourself to the truth, you must first accept that you may not really know what it is. Ah…NOW we’re getting somewhere, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The point here is that it isn’t really worthwhile to engage in discussions with people who aren’t yet ready to accept the truth you’ve discovered. Not because you can’t convince them; but because it doesn’t matter whether or not you convince them. If it’s real, they don’t need to believe in it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.