a plea
i could certainly have asked for an easier lot. my life was, up until i met zohra, had become fairly unhappy. when i arrived in richmond and began my education, i had only years of bad decisions to show for myself, and a few moderately realized creative endeavours. college was a new start for me, getting my life on track, my act together as they say, making use of my brain and my potential--you know, all those things you never want to do as long as somebody's telling you that's what you should do. i arrived in the academy at age 26 in the summer of 2003 as a religious mystic, basically--one who wanted to reconcile the mysteries of the soul with the mysteries of science. i had been preoccupied with religion since i could remember. forever trying to make belief compatible with truth. this started very simply for me, and it happens for most people who don't remain fundamentalists. i realized that the church and proclaiming believers didn't match up to the truth of the divine word. so i decided that one had to locate religious truth as an inner experience, a personal relationship with god and see religion as an ethical way to live, a meaningful way to live. then, maybe by the time i was 20 or 21, i decided that the bible couldn't be better than science (here was the beginning of the end), so i decided that, most likely supernatural flourishes in the text were the result of mythologizing the story, making it grand and poetic. to my mind, this was fine, and it didn't diminish the holiness of it's subjects or its message. i loved the gesture of leo tolstoy and the jeffersonian bible. take the words of christ, his philosophy--these were what really mattered. this was the divine revalation to the human race. genesis was an allegory i said. as millions of believers do. i was a sociology major and professing marxist because i believed that marx's main goal was the same as that of the religions: a classless society of harmony where sexual discrimination didn't exist, where everybody helped everybody else. and sociology was where you studied marx.
my first sociology class was 'the sociology of religion.' right up my alley, i thought. it turned out to be a devastating blow to my belief. i arrived at vcu reading the work of simone weil and tielhard de chardin: a philosopher and a scientist--each a devotee to the divine path. but by analyzing religions cross culturally and historically, it turned out that you could distinguish certain governing traits. most importantly, it seemed that a vision of god had more to do with a particular culture's vision of themselves than it did with any universal truth. and, after all, if it was divine, it had to apply to all of us, right? anyway. that christmas break, i spent time on nothing but education. watched a 9 part documentary about the brain. and checked out a philosophy of religion book from the library. i didn't totally grasp the concepts--they were kind of difficult, but it got a few questions circulating in my head. by the late winter and early spring, questions of death and existence were heavy on my mind and i realized a sharp disjunction between what i was feeling about belief and what i had been professing and searching for. but i wasn't spoiled yet. not totally at least. i was mostly preoccupied with lacan and with psychoanalysis. so i moved to new york. not before meeting my wonderful fiancee. we talked about religion, but we seemed to be mostly on the same page.
my skepticism toward supernatural things led me to buy a book called 'the problem of the soul' which was essentially about the philosophy of mind. i was running into a difficult question. if scientists knew so much about the brain, so much that a soul wasn't required to explain what made decisions and what acted on the flesh, where was the soul? and without a soul, where was the afterlife, where was religion, where was faith? i had two options: believe in spite of clear evidence to the contrary or, as they say, follow the argument where it leads. i became more and more convinced that mental health was to be my area of expertise and i was not content to adopt the anti-scientist attitude of the psychoanalytic community. clearly the analysts who were using the talking cure on shizophrenics and manic depressives were terribly irresponsible. so i pursued the philosophy of mind, i pursued science and philosophy. and it's true, i read many convincing argument from nietzsche to russell to hitchens to freud as to why religion didn't make sense. but philosophy has all kinds of neat tricks. science, on the other hand, has fewer. i would venture to say there is not one praticing neuroscientist who is now religious. i don't know this for a fact, but i'm guessing...
so i set out to get my life together. to make my parents proud. i met a woman who i adore along the way. all of these people, the most important people in my life are religious. their extended families are even more so. i have pretended to be religious to all of them--i say pretended because when i first met them--or when i talked to my grandparetns about it last, say when i was 16, it was true that i had some religion. i fear what would happen if one day samira ever found out how i feel about religion. but the lie i've told her is nothing different than the lie i would tell my grandparents. it's more like sticking with the first story. because nobody lets you go back on that story--the i believe in god story. you can't make your case (well, actually, you can and that's what infuriates believers). she would probably hate me forever. how would my grandfather, the pastor feel if he found out? how would i feel knowing that they feel like i've lied to them and pretended to be something i wasn't? did i ever have a choice? being an atheist is really sometimes like being gay. people fear it. they look down on you, look at you differently as a result--but it's just not a choice! in new york, atheism and homosexuality get a pass so i'm ok in my social milieu. but in my life, where it matters, will i get a pass? will i have to compromise what i believe to be a real ethical position so that i can please those i love, those in my family and those in my future family? can i do it? i've never been able to do one such thing in my life.
i set out not to get a degree, but to do real good for people. do be part of a making a better social environment, a better future, all that naive idealist, important stuff. and now it turns out that religion is the enemy of the future. of my future and of those i love. this isn't politics. this is a risk of inflaming and alienating everybody i love. a prospective family with a high public profile to whom religion is, at the very least, not able to be disavowed for publicity's sake. but what would my silence mean? this all depends on my ability to do real work in the world that would be heard. if i could ever do so, as a musician or journalist, how could i neglect this? if i DON'T become a public figure and i just go on with mental health, how do i live such a double life? i can't be a neurologist or philosopher or psychoanlayst and believe. i'm not JUST angry at religion. i see it harming people i love--even in the smallest weys. it did so much emotional violence to me over the years--as it does to most people, but they've learned to euphemize it or glorify it--turn it into a virtue, even. and there is the matter that religion threatens to end the human race. that it is positively, at this point in time, maladaptive. moderation amounts to dishonesty. fundamentalists are the ones with the courage of their convictions. we now call them 'maniacs.' moderates are watered down maniacs. and they vote. they raise children. they get jobs as teachers and lawyers.
when the time comes, will i be understood? will i ever have to speak out? will i ever have the chance? i started this by saying i could have had an easier lot in this life. this one is driving me mad, by virtue of its looming threats to all the things i hold dear--my family, my future wife, my loved ones--and my convictions and the future of all of the afrementioned involved does seem to hang in the balance. not that i could ever change anything for sure. but what if i had the chance? major sections of social revolution happen through culture all the time. the beatles did, in fact, help change the world. it also helped that hard sciences and social sciences were involved in the same kinds of revolutions, giving real evidence and real social movements for people to become involved with. they didn't create the zeitgeist, but somebody, on that level, ushers it in. fanatical christians in the white house are bombing fanatical muslims in iraq. religion is more impoirtant now than ever. this is dangerous stuff. we keep hating and killing for something that isn't even there. this isn't a land dispute or an ancient tribal vendetta. it's about ideology. the sensible ones have to prevail. not the bush's and not the suicide bombers. will i have to suffer a castration of my core beliefs about the universe to maintain good graces with loved ones? some will say it's about priorities--you can keep your cosmologies to yourself. but the truth is, you can't go back. once you know it, you can't unknow it. and it's very hard to live a lie your whole life. making sure you don't stumble and say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. it's like resolving yourself to having a lifelong mistress. i don't want that. but i don't want to hurt anybody either. so this is nothing, if not a plea for understanding.
my first sociology class was 'the sociology of religion.' right up my alley, i thought. it turned out to be a devastating blow to my belief. i arrived at vcu reading the work of simone weil and tielhard de chardin: a philosopher and a scientist--each a devotee to the divine path. but by analyzing religions cross culturally and historically, it turned out that you could distinguish certain governing traits. most importantly, it seemed that a vision of god had more to do with a particular culture's vision of themselves than it did with any universal truth. and, after all, if it was divine, it had to apply to all of us, right? anyway. that christmas break, i spent time on nothing but education. watched a 9 part documentary about the brain. and checked out a philosophy of religion book from the library. i didn't totally grasp the concepts--they were kind of difficult, but it got a few questions circulating in my head. by the late winter and early spring, questions of death and existence were heavy on my mind and i realized a sharp disjunction between what i was feeling about belief and what i had been professing and searching for. but i wasn't spoiled yet. not totally at least. i was mostly preoccupied with lacan and with psychoanalysis. so i moved to new york. not before meeting my wonderful fiancee. we talked about religion, but we seemed to be mostly on the same page.
my skepticism toward supernatural things led me to buy a book called 'the problem of the soul' which was essentially about the philosophy of mind. i was running into a difficult question. if scientists knew so much about the brain, so much that a soul wasn't required to explain what made decisions and what acted on the flesh, where was the soul? and without a soul, where was the afterlife, where was religion, where was faith? i had two options: believe in spite of clear evidence to the contrary or, as they say, follow the argument where it leads. i became more and more convinced that mental health was to be my area of expertise and i was not content to adopt the anti-scientist attitude of the psychoanalytic community. clearly the analysts who were using the talking cure on shizophrenics and manic depressives were terribly irresponsible. so i pursued the philosophy of mind, i pursued science and philosophy. and it's true, i read many convincing argument from nietzsche to russell to hitchens to freud as to why religion didn't make sense. but philosophy has all kinds of neat tricks. science, on the other hand, has fewer. i would venture to say there is not one praticing neuroscientist who is now religious. i don't know this for a fact, but i'm guessing...
so i set out to get my life together. to make my parents proud. i met a woman who i adore along the way. all of these people, the most important people in my life are religious. their extended families are even more so. i have pretended to be religious to all of them--i say pretended because when i first met them--or when i talked to my grandparetns about it last, say when i was 16, it was true that i had some religion. i fear what would happen if one day samira ever found out how i feel about religion. but the lie i've told her is nothing different than the lie i would tell my grandparents. it's more like sticking with the first story. because nobody lets you go back on that story--the i believe in god story. you can't make your case (well, actually, you can and that's what infuriates believers). she would probably hate me forever. how would my grandfather, the pastor feel if he found out? how would i feel knowing that they feel like i've lied to them and pretended to be something i wasn't? did i ever have a choice? being an atheist is really sometimes like being gay. people fear it. they look down on you, look at you differently as a result--but it's just not a choice! in new york, atheism and homosexuality get a pass so i'm ok in my social milieu. but in my life, where it matters, will i get a pass? will i have to compromise what i believe to be a real ethical position so that i can please those i love, those in my family and those in my future family? can i do it? i've never been able to do one such thing in my life.
i set out not to get a degree, but to do real good for people. do be part of a making a better social environment, a better future, all that naive idealist, important stuff. and now it turns out that religion is the enemy of the future. of my future and of those i love. this isn't politics. this is a risk of inflaming and alienating everybody i love. a prospective family with a high public profile to whom religion is, at the very least, not able to be disavowed for publicity's sake. but what would my silence mean? this all depends on my ability to do real work in the world that would be heard. if i could ever do so, as a musician or journalist, how could i neglect this? if i DON'T become a public figure and i just go on with mental health, how do i live such a double life? i can't be a neurologist or philosopher or psychoanlayst and believe. i'm not JUST angry at religion. i see it harming people i love--even in the smallest weys. it did so much emotional violence to me over the years--as it does to most people, but they've learned to euphemize it or glorify it--turn it into a virtue, even. and there is the matter that religion threatens to end the human race. that it is positively, at this point in time, maladaptive. moderation amounts to dishonesty. fundamentalists are the ones with the courage of their convictions. we now call them 'maniacs.' moderates are watered down maniacs. and they vote. they raise children. they get jobs as teachers and lawyers.
when the time comes, will i be understood? will i ever have to speak out? will i ever have the chance? i started this by saying i could have had an easier lot in this life. this one is driving me mad, by virtue of its looming threats to all the things i hold dear--my family, my future wife, my loved ones--and my convictions and the future of all of the afrementioned involved does seem to hang in the balance. not that i could ever change anything for sure. but what if i had the chance? major sections of social revolution happen through culture all the time. the beatles did, in fact, help change the world. it also helped that hard sciences and social sciences were involved in the same kinds of revolutions, giving real evidence and real social movements for people to become involved with. they didn't create the zeitgeist, but somebody, on that level, ushers it in. fanatical christians in the white house are bombing fanatical muslims in iraq. religion is more impoirtant now than ever. this is dangerous stuff. we keep hating and killing for something that isn't even there. this isn't a land dispute or an ancient tribal vendetta. it's about ideology. the sensible ones have to prevail. not the bush's and not the suicide bombers. will i have to suffer a castration of my core beliefs about the universe to maintain good graces with loved ones? some will say it's about priorities--you can keep your cosmologies to yourself. but the truth is, you can't go back. once you know it, you can't unknow it. and it's very hard to live a lie your whole life. making sure you don't stumble and say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. it's like resolving yourself to having a lifelong mistress. i don't want that. but i don't want to hurt anybody either. so this is nothing, if not a plea for understanding.