CAB: being a Christian non-Religiously?

Be a CABinet o algo. Let people put stuff in you.

I think you should be a CAB. Haha, not actually but still though. Let people put stuff in you, let yourself pick up passengers and drop them off. I’ve had a lot of stuff swimming around in my head as of late. I am drafting this at 2 AM after a nice talk with one of my good friends.

There is a colloquial difference between Spirituality and Religiosity that is often cited. Religiosity is posited to be about following edicts, being orderly and diligent to a given text and the body that supports said text, being part of the organized endeavor. Conversely, Spirituality to be more about a striving, a living connection with your spirit and spirit at large, framed as the lively ideal ordeal.

As an Atheist / Agnostic, I have spent a lot of time thinking about spirituality, religion, what it all means, how to live well, how to live morally, and what is the true nature of reality. Frankly, I have came up empty handed and that is okay. I think we often think that we need to figure things out. That we need to find answers and understand things. It’s what has gotten us this far. I think we should pursue this diligently. That being said, I believe there is an issue that the atheistic materialistic worldview doesn’t solve: The Absurd.

Jordan B Peterson represents something that I think a lot of people find unsettling. The assertion of transmedial value and for this instance, the assertion people do not actually understand how they tick. He asserts they are different than how they self-describe. Yes, I think this assertion is generally bad practice and unempathetic, however I think this is a useful point to belabor. Instead of saying like he does, that people are not in fact Atheist, let’s look at the positive case, that being people are in fact spiritual.

Everyone’s life is endowed with some level of meaning. Meaning feels to be the spirit that animates what is the best of humanity. A lot of Atheists will say they are not spiritual, that they do not have spiritual experiences etc. As Jordan Peterson asserts, I think this is false. It is an issue of language and frame. The way meaning grips a person is a spiritual experience in nature. Your wedding, the passing of a family member, or becoming one with crescendo of your favorite song at a concert. If these did not move you would you be human? Yes, but the point being you are likely moved by some kind of meaningful event.

The Absurd seems to arise from the impossibility to rationalize meaning. The thing that literally defines us, has no definition. At least no definable definition if you are epistemically honest. The atheistic theory that tells you exactly how happiness works and can be obtained, will always at some level be unsatisfactory. Happiness is not defined, it is experienced. There is an insurmountable abyss between experience and definition.

Immaterialists, you are not free from this either. I think religion and many things people call spirituality also try to define the undefinable. “Here is the definitive theory of life. It’s called this book, the Bible, or the Quran or the Tao Te Ching”, the whatever book you can present. I do think immaterialist descriptions capture additional angles of the matter that most atheists neglect to see due to the mentioned issue of language and frame. However, like the atheistic theory of happiness, these things become exercises of the Letter of The Law rather than the Spirit of The Law. Which maps nicely onto our taxonomy of Religiosity vs Spirituality.

Being raised Christian despite being poorly indoctrinated, I’ve thought about and struggled with guilt of non-Christian-belief, and genuine unsureness of its truth claims. I think if you go: “Oh, this thing is bunk! I have not considered it and will never!” That feels against the spirit of exploration and discovery, against the pursuit of truth. Alternatively, if you say: “Oh, this thing is truth! I have not considered others and never will!” This is also against the same spirit.

Despite simping for JBP’s take on Atheism, I will now proceed to dunk on the common argument against subjective Atheist morality. “How will people know how to act morally without God and the edicts of the Bible???” This is obviously a completely laughable statement. If you play enough word games you can poop out this statement as linguistically true using the sentiment of people being intrinsically spiritual I just provided. What this statement functionally does is reduce spirit to definition. People do not act morally due to definition. Maybe they have some definition of what is moral, and they follow it. But—they follow it because of spirit not ordinance. And if they do follow it because of ordinance… well eventually that makes Nazis.

Which then leads to my big gripe with Christianity: Christianity is not Spiritually moral. There is no way in Hell you could convince me faggots deserve to burn in Hell solely due to that nature. I mean that literally. Burning me in Literal Hell would only produce a tortured confession, not a deduction of the truth of that claim. The Absurd Truth of our world cannot be contained within the pages of anybook. E.g. not defined and definitely not properly redefined out from scribbles into a reader’s mind in a manner worthy enough to be Life’s ordinance. A point of merit to Eastern faiths is the baked-in-ness of this idea. The opening of the Tao Te Ching loudly proclaims:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

Buddhism has a common parable about a finger pointing at the moon. The finger is there to show you the way to the moon, not to substitute the moon.

Christianity and a large number of its followers engage in frankly disgusting acts in the name of Religious morality (using our taxonomy). Given this fact alone, I find it hard to believe that this is God’s true divine word, if it can be so easily twisted up by man. This doesn’t mean Christianity is necessarily bathwater and lacks truth potential; maybe the needle is so much smaller than commonly thought, as well as scoped a few degrees off. I think something JBP has also dutifully noted is that Christianity has a ton of deep truth and deep merit. How is one supposed to reconcile these blaring issues with this deep merit? Well,

1. I'm not sure you can.
2. I'm not sure you should.

I am sure this will be an on-going debate playing out within my life for a while. But, if one were to reconcile these points of contention, I would say one does so via the Spirit of The Law. What are the good deep insights that can be gained from this text that are Spiritually aligned? Many religious people seem to be engaging in their religion well… Religiously rather than Spiritually. Both religion and spirituality should be a means of confronting the Absurd Spiritually, not Religiously. How religious you are has little worth if you are Spiritually bankrupt.

The struggle against the confrontation with the Absurd feels like the same struggle against God, retaining faith. How does one retain meaning in a truly meaningless world? Well, a world that at least refuses to provide certain meaning. A particularly gemmy book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes I think illustrates this.

What if there is a non-believer that goes about and does numerous wondrous good deeds? This person burns in Hell? Is this just? I don’t think so. The Buddha undoubtedly has helped innumerable people, just like Jesus. Is the Buddha burning in Hell? This feels Spiritually immoral and an absurd claim for me to believe. I don’t think I will ever believe things about Christianity that are non-blasphemous, nor fully believe the Letter of the faith. Does this mean I shouldn’t explore and value Christianity? Probably not right? It still has value to bestow upon me, and things to teach. I think this aspect of believing the proposition of Jesus dying for your sins being necessary for one being saved is a good point to illustrate the functional Spiritual lens. The purpose of this proposition seems to be to save those who are lost, and restore faith that all, even them are redeemable, not to condemn people who fail to believe it.

I’ve been slowly realizing something about the seeking of an ephemeral spiritual answer to life, a resolution of the Absurd. Deeply striving for some spiritual answer. I can taste the slight hint of something more, beyond what I can logically rationalize with my big Atheist brain. Yet, the world remains unyielding of my desired answer. Life is an utter enigma. I have this God-shaped hole in me. The world has this God-shaped hole (well maybe it’s more like a miniscule pin-prick). There is nothing to plug such holes. There is just the enigma, The Mystery. I think what there is to do, is to participate in this Mystery. There is no ultimately true answer for you to acquire and to be definitively sure of. Maybe you can become enlightened or saved by Christ or something like that but I haven’t got the slightest idea. What you can do is acknowledge this deep Mystery though. One that you cannot come to know. That you are driven by a contradictory meaning that makes no sense. In a happenstance of existence that you do not know the why of.

I title this post in jest, CAB. Christian Atheist Buddhist. I saved the explication until the end because it has no real relevance to the content. I do find the idea of boiling out some eclectic combinatorial religious creed amalgamated from many such spiritual traditions fun and enticing. There is no shortage of wackadoodle New Age fodder to indulge in. Thinking like a Christian provides me value. Thinking like a Buddhist provides me value. Thinking like an Atheist provides me value. Perhaps, I will one day create such a work, but like anybook, it is just another anybook. Anyways, I will pursue Truth and Spiritual morality and if Christianity is an effective vehicle in doing so, so be it. I think CABs are likely pretty effective vehicles. Perhaps, I will one day call myself a Christian to the dismay of many theological nerds. Does some random nerd or priest determine *MY* relationship with God? I don’t think so, right? That is between me and God. And maybe I am an utterly evil ignorant fool that gets ground pound straight into the FLAMING depths of Hell. Oh well. I will know I pursued diligently to the best of my ability in accordance to these values.