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Monday, September 12, 2011

Logic and Spirit

I have come to accept my own responsibility in my lack of spirituality over the past decade. I have neglected my own intellectual and spiritual needs in favor of the safer course of professed atheism, and I cannot blame that lack on the culture in which I live- as much as I would like to.

I grew up with a strong connection to spirituality- as if there truly were spirit and meaning in every moment- and separated from it only in my teenage years when I began to explore the ideas and dogmas of the religion that held the roots of my experience. I would have hated to have been in a culture or situation where that revolutionary questioning was more frowned upon than it was. I was lucky in that most of the reason I withdrew from the church was for my own logical and emotional reasons- I have been very lucky to be welcome in almost every venue I have been in- and only excluded by my own decisions and ideas, which I often refrained from sharing with anyone. Simone Weil, a philosopher and activist of turn of the last century, is one I have considered to be a kindred spirit- though she approached the same religious dogmas I did from a different direction and was fascinated by the Christian webs of spirit and dogma.  She also excluded herself from Christianity, and for many of the same reasons. In her Letter to a Priest, she put forth several reasons involving paganism, Judaism, and "modern" culture that kept her from falling head over heels for the Catholic God. In the end, I agreed with her statement:  "There are two atheisms- of which one is a purification of the notion of God."

Since so many philosophers spend their time contemplating a religious side to life, I have always thought that Philosophy and Religion are linked. As a result, I enrolled in a Philosophy degree program in order to better understand the battles in my own brain (any guesses on how well that worked out?).  Perhaps, as I read more and think more, there is more of a war between spirit (religion) and mind (philosophy).  From very early paganism, rational thought has been a detriment to the spiritual knowledge of connections beyond the self. In fact, many of the philosophers who spend their time contemplating the logical reasoning of a higher power end up on the atheist side of the coin. Baruch Spinoza was the first excommunication based on his philosophy (if you don't count the assertion that the world is round as a religious statement)- having been kicked our of the Jewish faith in his 20's. Bertrand Russell was a leading atheist of the early 20th century, whose logic dictated belief, as is true of many (if not all) the atheists of whom I am aware.  Logic alone may be putting too much credit in the human mind. If atheism is the agreed upon logical course, then perhaps we need something more than logic- something more than simply observable fact.

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say “this we know.” – T.S. Eliot

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