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So here's this little "define your religion" meme that I ran into some time ago and always thought I might fill out at some point. That time is now! Because otherwise I'd have to work on my Yeats paper -- like *that's* gonna happen. (Also, interestingly, this is a very Yeatsian exercise: nobody was more into talking endlessly about how he thought the universe worked on a spiritual level than WB. Nevertheless, I doubt my prof will give me any credit for it). Anyway, the nature of the questions asked in these kinds of things are always interesting, in addition to the answers: this one has kind of a New-Agey flavor to it.
Religion Definition
are you mono or polytheistic?
I'm functionally polytheistic, meaning that I have really no idea whether all these entities that appear to people as different gods are *actually* different gods, or "aspects" of gods, or the same ultimate divinity reflected through the cultures and minds of different individuals, blah blah blah. I mean, really, how should I know? But here's how I work the math: just looking at the historical record and the diversity of world belief and practice, etc., it *appears as if* we have worshipped and do worship a whole lot of different gods on this planet. Therefore, one of three things is true: 1) the reality is exactly what it appears to be, and there are in fact lots of different gods, 2) the appearance of polytheism in the world is only the way that the One Big Divine Whoever presents itself to us, on account of our inability or unreadiness (outside of a handful of mystics) to truly perceive the totality of the divine, 3) somebody's particular godform is the real one and everyone else is screwed. So, okay, pretty much all of those are unprovable, and I figure I get to pick. I find 3 pretty hard to believe, if only because when you stack it up on the level of the whole planet and all of human history, there is no single deity that has ever been worshipped even by a simple majority of humans, let alone by a consensus. So if 3 is the case, there are a lot more people doing badly than doing well -- a *lot* more. And somehow -- you know, it's like if a professor gives the final, and everybody in the class fails it except maybe one person? Something was wrong with the class. I feel that any god worth the name would do a little better than that, particularly if there's no competition, you know? So I'm down to two options, and there's two levels of question: A) what's *really* true, and B) what am I going to behave as if were true? If A=2 and all gods are One, then I can go with B=2 and all's well...but I can also do B=1, on the assumption that the One has given us all these diverse polytheistic options in order to make life easier for us and wouldn't have done so if we weren't supposed to make use of them. Either way, I can't imagine Ultimate Reality is going to be too offended. However, if A=1 and we really do live in a hugely polytheistic universe crowded with gods of distinct personalities and desires, then I figure if B=1 I'm fine, but if B=2 and I go around talking about them and acting like they're all just illusory products of my thought processes and the vagaries of history.... Well, wouldn't it piss *you* off? Nobody likes to be smacked with a label and trundled off; if humans all like to be thought of as unique individuals, I can only imagine the gods feel that way, too. So the way I see it, if Option #2 is the truth (One Divine Presence, Many Faces) then I can "be" a polytheist (in the sense of, act and think like one) or not, as I prefer, but if Option #1 is true (actual polytheistic universe), then I'd better be one, or risk ticking folks off. Follow? To make a long story short, I don't claim to know the True Nature of the Divine, but I consider myself a polytheist, because it can't hurt and it might help.
do you subscribe to a major religion?
Actually, I've let my subscription lapse (rimshot! I'll be here all week.) I consider myself a neopagan, but in all honesty that's less "a major religion" than an umbrella term that covers a constellation of related religions and miscellaneous odd ideas. *g* If you count all of us all together, we're...still probably not "major." But who gets to decide all these things, anyway? Have you noticed that textbooks for World Religions classes still give whole chapters to the Zoroastrians and the Sikhs? And there aren't a whole lot of college campuses in this country where it won't do you more practical good to know what "neopagan" means than "Zoroastrian." (Paganism always gets three-quarters of a page in the last chapter on "New Religions." I know this because I look it up every time I'm in a university bookstore; it's good to keep an eye on these things.)
how do you feel about Jesus?
Like in a theological or a personal way? Because personally, I think he'd be great to have over for dinner -- clearly a heck of a conversationalist, with his own unique perspective on the world. I've very much enjoyed some of his work! Theologically, I think that every culture has its own culture hero/gift-bringer/inspired prophet/foundational ancestor, and he was it for his time and place. It's not the fabulousness of Jesus I dispute, or even really the divinity per se -- it's only the universality. In other words, no, I have not accepted Jesus as my personal savior, but if he's working out well for you, I'm pleased to hear it.
what holy book do you feel is most accurate? (Bible, Koran, etc.)
If any single thing is responsible for me leaving the Christian church, it was my realization that at some bone-deep level, I am not a Person of the Book. Of books in general. I do not dig them. I mean, I *dig* them -- you should see my apartment -- but I think they are essentially (to be kind of reductionist about it) left-brained tools. They can help you think about all kinds of interesting things, and even feel things, but to me *spirituality* is something entirely other than thinking or feeling, and it's something that you get no access to through books. Spirituality=relationship or connection to the numinous and non-quantifiable aspects of reality, and the very nature of that thing (which we'll just call the Sacred, for the sake of argument) is that it's a moving thing. It changes, it flows. Every religion knows this; every religion talks about it as flowing water, a dance, a turning wheel, the Breath of God, etc. It's something that can't be fixed or defined, because it will always spin away from what you think it is. The written word, by its very nature and by the nature of what your brain does as you read, is all about fixing things and setting definitions to it. It is, on some basic level, the worst possible tool for spiritual enlightenment we've yet come up with. Not that it's all bad -- just that *everything else* is at least a little bit better -- oral tradition, music, images, moving, breathing, pretty much you name it, it has a leg up on books in the window-to-spiritual-truth department. In other words, while I find "holy books" fascinating in the way they shape the religions based around them (really, I'm a huge fan of the Biblical scholarship field -- that shit is *fascinating*), "accurate" is ipso facto the exact wrong word to use, IMO.
do you believe in reincarnation?
Oh...theoretically, sure. Why not? I mean, sure, all those quasi-celebrity past-life channelers from the great age of spiritualism were thoroughly debunked as frauds, but that's not actually proof that it doesn't happen. It's probably not news to anyone that there's a shocking lack of proof to back up *anybody's* afterlife theories, so once again, I figure, pick what you like. I tend to default to the idea that physical processes have spiritual analogues (aka, As Above, So Below), so if parts of you are physically made up of the same stuff as other people were made up of -- both in terms of your ancestors' DNA and just the basic molecules that build you which have been around the block since the literal beginning of time in various forms -- then it seems reasonable to assume that on the soul/spirit level, we're also made up of bits of other people who've gone before us. On that theory, we're more our grandmothers than we are, say, Cleopatra, but it's not ridiculous to say there may be parts of us that used to be Cleopatra, too. We're all pretty thoroughly reconstituted from scrap, which I think is neat. That's not very close to the common usage of "reincarnation," but it's in the ballpark, I think.
do you believe in the traditional heaven and hell?
I don't think so. I went through a phase where I believed that maybe humans had in fact created a "traditional" Heaven and Hell through some force of the built-up belief of so many people...but I'm kind of swinging the other way at the moment. We don't change gravity or the value of pi, regardless of how much we believe or disbelieve in it; the nature of the universe just is not subject to a vote. So again, why would it be that way spiritually if it isn't physically? I don't know, though -- like I said, I've been on both sides of that fence, so I can relate to both arguments. I'm pretty comfortable at the moment saying, "No, I don't," however.
do you believe in ANY heaven and/or hell?
I believe in an Otherworld, the other, hidden half of our reality that we can enter in a number of ways, but that most people don't enter except through the Big Door, death. What's it like over there? Well, just like our world, I imagine it's like a lot of things. I have a certain amount of intuitive, emotional faith that most of its neighborhoods are pretty nice -- might, in fact, qualify as "heaven" -- but I don't rule out the possibility that there are some places you wouldn't want to be, either. I guess what makes my belief in the Otherworld "nontraditional" from a Christian point of view is that I don't think you get an assigned seat and have to stay in it through all eternity; I think it's at least as possible to move around the Otherworld as it is to move around our world, and I sort of suspect it's actually a good bit easier, what with most experiential evidence of the Other Side claiming that time and space aren't really issues there in the same way they are here. I don't know, it's all a little hard to conceptualize, which is what makes it, well, Other. (On the subject of heaven -- mind if I geek out a second? -- the word is actually not Semitic in any way, but comes from the Old English heofon, meaning sky/heaven both lit. and fig. Tracing the word back from there gets a little murky, but it seems to come from the Indo-European *ke-men, which is a compound word made up of a word related to "sharp" and the word for "mind," and appears to have a lot to do, in usage, with the idea of stone, stoniness, and permanence. The American Heritage Dictionary settles on an ultimate definition of heofon/*ke-men as "the stony vault of heaven," implying a view of the sky as a hard dome covering the world -- with, presumably, nothingness or the void beyond that...which is actually pretty much completely true, when you think about it. However, obscure as *ke-men is, if we can look at it as implying a kind of constellation of related ideas which are sharpness/firmness/solidity/mind/thought/stone/sky, that's all pretty evocative. Hell is also an Indo-European word, and a whole lot easier to trace: it comes directly from *kel, which means "covering," "concealment," or "that which holds stuff in" -- okay, that last was my translation *g* -- the exact same place we get a ton of other words in English, like hold, hall, hollow, holster, occult, and cellar -- and, in German, Keller, for any Oz fans I may have in the audience *g* It has a definite meaning of containment and hidden-away-ness, and probably meant to the Indo-Europeans just exactly what Sheol did to the Israelites: the grave. Oh, come on, etymology is fun, admit it!)
do you think the god(s) are vengeful or nice?
Well, barring the fact that I'm not sure those are binary opposites (I've known some people who were both), I'm going to say "nice," because otherwise, how do they rate the name "god"? I mean, if you posit a world full of powers/beings/entities, I imagine there's going to be a range of behaviors and temperaments, but I for one am not at all willing to call all of them gods. I think some people think of the word as having something to do with level of power of influence, like once a spirit collects enough XP to get to 400th level, suddenly it's a god, but I think there's a qualitative meaning to it, too. Gods are and always have been the Big Power(s) that are *there for us,* that bat for our team, that want good things for us. They are *by definition* our friends. And yes, some of them have tempers and are vengeful and can be on a whole host of levels hard to deal with...but if there isn't some kind of foundation of *liking* us, of being in the most general sense "nice" to us, then we normally call them something other than gods -- demons or asura or titans or giants or whatever. Ergo, I do think the gods are nice, because if I meet something really big and really mean, that's not what I'm inclined to view it as. Thus we settle the question of whether or not Gene Roddenberry's Omnipotent Yet Childlike Beings are actually gods: no. Next!
do you believe in angels?
As you've probably noticed by now, it's my general policy to believe in everything until proven otherwise, just in case. So, sure. That doesn't mean I believe one saved you from a car crash. That old saw about being open-minded, but not so that your brain falls out? Yeah.
do you believe in miracles?
Hm. You know...I don't know. I mean, I believe in all manner of strange things happening. I even believe the gods can work the system to make those strange things come to pass some of the time -- in fact, as I implied above, I kind of believe that's their job. But do I really believe in wholly inexplicable things that defy the laws of the universe? No. So, I mean, I guess I believe in spooky shit, but within certain limits? Me and Rabbi Kushner, we're not so much on the omnipotence of the Divine; it just doesn't make that much sense. How very Age of Enlightenment of me, right? Reason trumps God. But the world is weird, and I think there's a lot of room for The Powers That Be to maneuver before you hit the nature-of-reality smackdown. Actually, one interesting definition of both religion and magic is that they are variant methods of, let's say, *finessing* the basic organizing principle of the universe, which is reciprocity -- the equal and opposite reaction thing. Left to its own devices, the world delivers everything back exactly in kind, just like Newton said. The priest or the sorcerer or whatever cheats that *just* a little bit -- you can't get out of giving something for what you get, but you can make it so the exchange is unequal in your favor. So, for example, prayer: in almost any tradition, what you do is give a relatively little tiny bit of what you have (time, attention, affection), and you get a thing you really, really need (God on your side). The principle of sacrifice has always been, okay, if we give you like three cows, will you keep the world from ending? And that's not in any sense a fair trade, but that's what's crazy and good about dealing on that magico-religious plane rather than simply in the real world: you can cut those deals, in a way you just can't with, say, electricity. So although I've said about a million times that the Sacred works a lot like the mundane -- the reason it's a mystery, the reason it's *the* Mystery, is that sometimes it really, really doesn't. So...yes on the miracles, I guess?
do you believe in predestination?
More so than is currently fashionable, at least, yeah. I think you come into this world with certain things laid on you already; we used to call it Fate, which is a lot cooler to say than "predestination." What you're fated to meet, you will meet. What you're fated to be, you will always be. Now, I don't think *every little aspect* of your life is covered by fate -- or even most of them. But if something actually is your fate, sorry, that's it, and you have the option of dealing with it well or badly. Not that all fates are bad; your fate may be to be immensely powerful or talented in some way, and you really still have the option of dealing with it well or badly. This seems kind of kooky and even barbaric to a lot of people, but you know, we generally all accept it (again) on the tangible level. I mean, clearly you're born into certain situations that aren't yours to determine: you could be born physically or mentally disabled, you could be born to a fantastically wealthy oil family, you could be born in a cult (sorry, I've been watching a lot of Big Love recently -- that show kicks ass, by the way). There's no reasonable way to construe these things as resulting from free will (I mean, without defaulting to the whole it's because of something you did in a past life thing, which always struck me as semi-insane and a really transparent social control mechanism). They just happen, because of biology, because of history, because of other people's actions, whatever. The fact that it happened to you doesn't make you better or worse than anybody, though it may go a long way toward making you happier or more miserable. It's just your Fate. I would just argue that it's the same deal on a kind of metaphysical level, both in terms of some of the big events of your life (I'm just Germanic enough to believe in that whole thing where, when it's your day to die, it's your day and there's not much you can do about it) and in terms of some of the big aspects of your character (you just are who you are on some fundamental level -- be the best you you can be!)
do you believe in original sin?
Hey, an easy one! No.
do you believe in freedom of will?
Sure. As I implied above, I think you're given certain parameters through Fate, but within those, the world is your playground. Actually, the tricky part is knowing which moments in life are the work of Fate and which are up for grabs. Serenity, courage, and the wisdom to know the difference, right?
do you believe in souls?
Oh, yeah. I believe we all have at *least* one, and smart money says more. Or...oh, that was glib and possibly misleading. I think souls have an anatomy like bodies do, so that you can talk about pieces of the soul as independent, the way you can talk about something happening just to your lungs or your kidney. Or you can conceptualize it all together and say you have one body. The body is interestingly singular and multiple in that way. Actually, a lot of things are interestingly singular and multiple in that way, including probably souls.
what do you think will happen to you when you die?
Well, I'll go Over There, to that Other place. I mean, if you're asking what I think it'll be like, I don't know. I've always been kind of excited about the prospect of finding out, actually.
do you think there will be an armaggeddon?
One of those fascinating Roman proto-anthropologists named Strabo, writing about the Gaulish Druids, said that they had "pronounced that men's souls and the universe were indestructible, although at times fire or water may prevail." That pretty much sums it up for me.
why do you think we exist?
You know, people say that the one thing science can't do is tell us why all these things happen, as if it's some massive flaw in science. Why does there have to be a *reason*? Pi is pi because that's what it *is.* The Big Bang happened because that's what *happened.* Personally, I've never been able to give a damn why. Here it is, you are here, this is your context, go. Do something. Hopefully it's something you won't regret too terribly afterwards *g*
do you believe in life on other planets?
In keeping with my general policy, yeah, sure! Why not? And no, I don't believe any of them ever put anything in your fillings or up your ass.
do you believe in evolution?
Technically speaking, not even the most hardened lunatic disbelieves in evolution. You can *watch it happen* in a population of flies. I assume the question actually means, do I believe that complex life evolved out of microorganisms? Yes.
do you think religion and science will always oppose the other?
Uh.... I don't even think they *have* always opposed each other, let alone that they will always do so. The Greeks were pretty keen on using science and religion to bolster each other. So was Thomas Aquinas. Islam has always been an immensely science-friendly religion, firmly convinced that God gave them the world to figure out. Julius Caesar said that the druids "discuss many things concerning the stars and their nature, the size of the universe and the earth, of the nature of things; they discuss the power and might of the eternal gods and they hand this over to the young people." He didn't seem especially stunned by that combination of interests. I feel fairly secure that we'll grow out of this whole dull science-religion catfight eventually; it's like one of those really insufferable but temporary adolescent things.
what would you say to God if you met him/her/them today?
At the risk of making it sound like my personal savior is actually Jed Bartlet, I think I would basically say, "What's next?" I mean, I always think the hardest part of getting through life is making those decisions about your direction, your focus, your priorities, sort of collectively and individually.
anything else we should know?
No, because now that you've read what I think about the size of the universe and the power and might of the eternal gods, you know everything you'll ever need to know! Congratulations! I mean, the answer to that question is always "yes"...but nothing comes to mind at the moment. *g*
Religion Definition
are you mono or polytheistic?
I'm functionally polytheistic, meaning that I have really no idea whether all these entities that appear to people as different gods are *actually* different gods, or "aspects" of gods, or the same ultimate divinity reflected through the cultures and minds of different individuals, blah blah blah. I mean, really, how should I know? But here's how I work the math: just looking at the historical record and the diversity of world belief and practice, etc., it *appears as if* we have worshipped and do worship a whole lot of different gods on this planet. Therefore, one of three things is true: 1) the reality is exactly what it appears to be, and there are in fact lots of different gods, 2) the appearance of polytheism in the world is only the way that the One Big Divine Whoever presents itself to us, on account of our inability or unreadiness (outside of a handful of mystics) to truly perceive the totality of the divine, 3) somebody's particular godform is the real one and everyone else is screwed. So, okay, pretty much all of those are unprovable, and I figure I get to pick. I find 3 pretty hard to believe, if only because when you stack it up on the level of the whole planet and all of human history, there is no single deity that has ever been worshipped even by a simple majority of humans, let alone by a consensus. So if 3 is the case, there are a lot more people doing badly than doing well -- a *lot* more. And somehow -- you know, it's like if a professor gives the final, and everybody in the class fails it except maybe one person? Something was wrong with the class. I feel that any god worth the name would do a little better than that, particularly if there's no competition, you know? So I'm down to two options, and there's two levels of question: A) what's *really* true, and B) what am I going to behave as if were true? If A=2 and all gods are One, then I can go with B=2 and all's well...but I can also do B=1, on the assumption that the One has given us all these diverse polytheistic options in order to make life easier for us and wouldn't have done so if we weren't supposed to make use of them. Either way, I can't imagine Ultimate Reality is going to be too offended. However, if A=1 and we really do live in a hugely polytheistic universe crowded with gods of distinct personalities and desires, then I figure if B=1 I'm fine, but if B=2 and I go around talking about them and acting like they're all just illusory products of my thought processes and the vagaries of history.... Well, wouldn't it piss *you* off? Nobody likes to be smacked with a label and trundled off; if humans all like to be thought of as unique individuals, I can only imagine the gods feel that way, too. So the way I see it, if Option #2 is the truth (One Divine Presence, Many Faces) then I can "be" a polytheist (in the sense of, act and think like one) or not, as I prefer, but if Option #1 is true (actual polytheistic universe), then I'd better be one, or risk ticking folks off. Follow? To make a long story short, I don't claim to know the True Nature of the Divine, but I consider myself a polytheist, because it can't hurt and it might help.
do you subscribe to a major religion?
Actually, I've let my subscription lapse (rimshot! I'll be here all week.) I consider myself a neopagan, but in all honesty that's less "a major religion" than an umbrella term that covers a constellation of related religions and miscellaneous odd ideas. *g* If you count all of us all together, we're...still probably not "major." But who gets to decide all these things, anyway? Have you noticed that textbooks for World Religions classes still give whole chapters to the Zoroastrians and the Sikhs? And there aren't a whole lot of college campuses in this country where it won't do you more practical good to know what "neopagan" means than "Zoroastrian." (Paganism always gets three-quarters of a page in the last chapter on "New Religions." I know this because I look it up every time I'm in a university bookstore; it's good to keep an eye on these things.)
how do you feel about Jesus?
Like in a theological or a personal way? Because personally, I think he'd be great to have over for dinner -- clearly a heck of a conversationalist, with his own unique perspective on the world. I've very much enjoyed some of his work! Theologically, I think that every culture has its own culture hero/gift-bringer/inspired prophet/foundational ancestor, and he was it for his time and place. It's not the fabulousness of Jesus I dispute, or even really the divinity per se -- it's only the universality. In other words, no, I have not accepted Jesus as my personal savior, but if he's working out well for you, I'm pleased to hear it.
what holy book do you feel is most accurate? (Bible, Koran, etc.)
If any single thing is responsible for me leaving the Christian church, it was my realization that at some bone-deep level, I am not a Person of the Book. Of books in general. I do not dig them. I mean, I *dig* them -- you should see my apartment -- but I think they are essentially (to be kind of reductionist about it) left-brained tools. They can help you think about all kinds of interesting things, and even feel things, but to me *spirituality* is something entirely other than thinking or feeling, and it's something that you get no access to through books. Spirituality=relationship or connection to the numinous and non-quantifiable aspects of reality, and the very nature of that thing (which we'll just call the Sacred, for the sake of argument) is that it's a moving thing. It changes, it flows. Every religion knows this; every religion talks about it as flowing water, a dance, a turning wheel, the Breath of God, etc. It's something that can't be fixed or defined, because it will always spin away from what you think it is. The written word, by its very nature and by the nature of what your brain does as you read, is all about fixing things and setting definitions to it. It is, on some basic level, the worst possible tool for spiritual enlightenment we've yet come up with. Not that it's all bad -- just that *everything else* is at least a little bit better -- oral tradition, music, images, moving, breathing, pretty much you name it, it has a leg up on books in the window-to-spiritual-truth department. In other words, while I find "holy books" fascinating in the way they shape the religions based around them (really, I'm a huge fan of the Biblical scholarship field -- that shit is *fascinating*), "accurate" is ipso facto the exact wrong word to use, IMO.
do you believe in reincarnation?
Oh...theoretically, sure. Why not? I mean, sure, all those quasi-celebrity past-life channelers from the great age of spiritualism were thoroughly debunked as frauds, but that's not actually proof that it doesn't happen. It's probably not news to anyone that there's a shocking lack of proof to back up *anybody's* afterlife theories, so once again, I figure, pick what you like. I tend to default to the idea that physical processes have spiritual analogues (aka, As Above, So Below), so if parts of you are physically made up of the same stuff as other people were made up of -- both in terms of your ancestors' DNA and just the basic molecules that build you which have been around the block since the literal beginning of time in various forms -- then it seems reasonable to assume that on the soul/spirit level, we're also made up of bits of other people who've gone before us. On that theory, we're more our grandmothers than we are, say, Cleopatra, but it's not ridiculous to say there may be parts of us that used to be Cleopatra, too. We're all pretty thoroughly reconstituted from scrap, which I think is neat. That's not very close to the common usage of "reincarnation," but it's in the ballpark, I think.
do you believe in the traditional heaven and hell?
I don't think so. I went through a phase where I believed that maybe humans had in fact created a "traditional" Heaven and Hell through some force of the built-up belief of so many people...but I'm kind of swinging the other way at the moment. We don't change gravity or the value of pi, regardless of how much we believe or disbelieve in it; the nature of the universe just is not subject to a vote. So again, why would it be that way spiritually if it isn't physically? I don't know, though -- like I said, I've been on both sides of that fence, so I can relate to both arguments. I'm pretty comfortable at the moment saying, "No, I don't," however.
do you believe in ANY heaven and/or hell?
I believe in an Otherworld, the other, hidden half of our reality that we can enter in a number of ways, but that most people don't enter except through the Big Door, death. What's it like over there? Well, just like our world, I imagine it's like a lot of things. I have a certain amount of intuitive, emotional faith that most of its neighborhoods are pretty nice -- might, in fact, qualify as "heaven" -- but I don't rule out the possibility that there are some places you wouldn't want to be, either. I guess what makes my belief in the Otherworld "nontraditional" from a Christian point of view is that I don't think you get an assigned seat and have to stay in it through all eternity; I think it's at least as possible to move around the Otherworld as it is to move around our world, and I sort of suspect it's actually a good bit easier, what with most experiential evidence of the Other Side claiming that time and space aren't really issues there in the same way they are here. I don't know, it's all a little hard to conceptualize, which is what makes it, well, Other. (On the subject of heaven -- mind if I geek out a second? -- the word is actually not Semitic in any way, but comes from the Old English heofon, meaning sky/heaven both lit. and fig. Tracing the word back from there gets a little murky, but it seems to come from the Indo-European *ke-men, which is a compound word made up of a word related to "sharp" and the word for "mind," and appears to have a lot to do, in usage, with the idea of stone, stoniness, and permanence. The American Heritage Dictionary settles on an ultimate definition of heofon/*ke-men as "the stony vault of heaven," implying a view of the sky as a hard dome covering the world -- with, presumably, nothingness or the void beyond that...which is actually pretty much completely true, when you think about it. However, obscure as *ke-men is, if we can look at it as implying a kind of constellation of related ideas which are sharpness/firmness/solidity/mind/thought/stone/sky, that's all pretty evocative. Hell is also an Indo-European word, and a whole lot easier to trace: it comes directly from *kel, which means "covering," "concealment," or "that which holds stuff in" -- okay, that last was my translation *g* -- the exact same place we get a ton of other words in English, like hold, hall, hollow, holster, occult, and cellar -- and, in German, Keller, for any Oz fans I may have in the audience *g* It has a definite meaning of containment and hidden-away-ness, and probably meant to the Indo-Europeans just exactly what Sheol did to the Israelites: the grave. Oh, come on, etymology is fun, admit it!)
do you think the god(s) are vengeful or nice?
Well, barring the fact that I'm not sure those are binary opposites (I've known some people who were both), I'm going to say "nice," because otherwise, how do they rate the name "god"? I mean, if you posit a world full of powers/beings/entities, I imagine there's going to be a range of behaviors and temperaments, but I for one am not at all willing to call all of them gods. I think some people think of the word as having something to do with level of power of influence, like once a spirit collects enough XP to get to 400th level, suddenly it's a god, but I think there's a qualitative meaning to it, too. Gods are and always have been the Big Power(s) that are *there for us,* that bat for our team, that want good things for us. They are *by definition* our friends. And yes, some of them have tempers and are vengeful and can be on a whole host of levels hard to deal with...but if there isn't some kind of foundation of *liking* us, of being in the most general sense "nice" to us, then we normally call them something other than gods -- demons or asura or titans or giants or whatever. Ergo, I do think the gods are nice, because if I meet something really big and really mean, that's not what I'm inclined to view it as. Thus we settle the question of whether or not Gene Roddenberry's Omnipotent Yet Childlike Beings are actually gods: no. Next!
do you believe in angels?
As you've probably noticed by now, it's my general policy to believe in everything until proven otherwise, just in case. So, sure. That doesn't mean I believe one saved you from a car crash. That old saw about being open-minded, but not so that your brain falls out? Yeah.
do you believe in miracles?
Hm. You know...I don't know. I mean, I believe in all manner of strange things happening. I even believe the gods can work the system to make those strange things come to pass some of the time -- in fact, as I implied above, I kind of believe that's their job. But do I really believe in wholly inexplicable things that defy the laws of the universe? No. So, I mean, I guess I believe in spooky shit, but within certain limits? Me and Rabbi Kushner, we're not so much on the omnipotence of the Divine; it just doesn't make that much sense. How very Age of Enlightenment of me, right? Reason trumps God. But the world is weird, and I think there's a lot of room for The Powers That Be to maneuver before you hit the nature-of-reality smackdown. Actually, one interesting definition of both religion and magic is that they are variant methods of, let's say, *finessing* the basic organizing principle of the universe, which is reciprocity -- the equal and opposite reaction thing. Left to its own devices, the world delivers everything back exactly in kind, just like Newton said. The priest or the sorcerer or whatever cheats that *just* a little bit -- you can't get out of giving something for what you get, but you can make it so the exchange is unequal in your favor. So, for example, prayer: in almost any tradition, what you do is give a relatively little tiny bit of what you have (time, attention, affection), and you get a thing you really, really need (God on your side). The principle of sacrifice has always been, okay, if we give you like three cows, will you keep the world from ending? And that's not in any sense a fair trade, but that's what's crazy and good about dealing on that magico-religious plane rather than simply in the real world: you can cut those deals, in a way you just can't with, say, electricity. So although I've said about a million times that the Sacred works a lot like the mundane -- the reason it's a mystery, the reason it's *the* Mystery, is that sometimes it really, really doesn't. So...yes on the miracles, I guess?
do you believe in predestination?
More so than is currently fashionable, at least, yeah. I think you come into this world with certain things laid on you already; we used to call it Fate, which is a lot cooler to say than "predestination." What you're fated to meet, you will meet. What you're fated to be, you will always be. Now, I don't think *every little aspect* of your life is covered by fate -- or even most of them. But if something actually is your fate, sorry, that's it, and you have the option of dealing with it well or badly. Not that all fates are bad; your fate may be to be immensely powerful or talented in some way, and you really still have the option of dealing with it well or badly. This seems kind of kooky and even barbaric to a lot of people, but you know, we generally all accept it (again) on the tangible level. I mean, clearly you're born into certain situations that aren't yours to determine: you could be born physically or mentally disabled, you could be born to a fantastically wealthy oil family, you could be born in a cult (sorry, I've been watching a lot of Big Love recently -- that show kicks ass, by the way). There's no reasonable way to construe these things as resulting from free will (I mean, without defaulting to the whole it's because of something you did in a past life thing, which always struck me as semi-insane and a really transparent social control mechanism). They just happen, because of biology, because of history, because of other people's actions, whatever. The fact that it happened to you doesn't make you better or worse than anybody, though it may go a long way toward making you happier or more miserable. It's just your Fate. I would just argue that it's the same deal on a kind of metaphysical level, both in terms of some of the big events of your life (I'm just Germanic enough to believe in that whole thing where, when it's your day to die, it's your day and there's not much you can do about it) and in terms of some of the big aspects of your character (you just are who you are on some fundamental level -- be the best you you can be!)
do you believe in original sin?
Hey, an easy one! No.
do you believe in freedom of will?
Sure. As I implied above, I think you're given certain parameters through Fate, but within those, the world is your playground. Actually, the tricky part is knowing which moments in life are the work of Fate and which are up for grabs. Serenity, courage, and the wisdom to know the difference, right?
do you believe in souls?
Oh, yeah. I believe we all have at *least* one, and smart money says more. Or...oh, that was glib and possibly misleading. I think souls have an anatomy like bodies do, so that you can talk about pieces of the soul as independent, the way you can talk about something happening just to your lungs or your kidney. Or you can conceptualize it all together and say you have one body. The body is interestingly singular and multiple in that way. Actually, a lot of things are interestingly singular and multiple in that way, including probably souls.
what do you think will happen to you when you die?
Well, I'll go Over There, to that Other place. I mean, if you're asking what I think it'll be like, I don't know. I've always been kind of excited about the prospect of finding out, actually.
do you think there will be an armaggeddon?
One of those fascinating Roman proto-anthropologists named Strabo, writing about the Gaulish Druids, said that they had "pronounced that men's souls and the universe were indestructible, although at times fire or water may prevail." That pretty much sums it up for me.
why do you think we exist?
You know, people say that the one thing science can't do is tell us why all these things happen, as if it's some massive flaw in science. Why does there have to be a *reason*? Pi is pi because that's what it *is.* The Big Bang happened because that's what *happened.* Personally, I've never been able to give a damn why. Here it is, you are here, this is your context, go. Do something. Hopefully it's something you won't regret too terribly afterwards *g*
do you believe in life on other planets?
In keeping with my general policy, yeah, sure! Why not? And no, I don't believe any of them ever put anything in your fillings or up your ass.
do you believe in evolution?
Technically speaking, not even the most hardened lunatic disbelieves in evolution. You can *watch it happen* in a population of flies. I assume the question actually means, do I believe that complex life evolved out of microorganisms? Yes.
do you think religion and science will always oppose the other?
Uh.... I don't even think they *have* always opposed each other, let alone that they will always do so. The Greeks were pretty keen on using science and religion to bolster each other. So was Thomas Aquinas. Islam has always been an immensely science-friendly religion, firmly convinced that God gave them the world to figure out. Julius Caesar said that the druids "discuss many things concerning the stars and their nature, the size of the universe and the earth, of the nature of things; they discuss the power and might of the eternal gods and they hand this over to the young people." He didn't seem especially stunned by that combination of interests. I feel fairly secure that we'll grow out of this whole dull science-religion catfight eventually; it's like one of those really insufferable but temporary adolescent things.
what would you say to God if you met him/her/them today?
At the risk of making it sound like my personal savior is actually Jed Bartlet, I think I would basically say, "What's next?" I mean, I always think the hardest part of getting through life is making those decisions about your direction, your focus, your priorities, sort of collectively and individually.
anything else we should know?
No, because now that you've read what I think about the size of the universe and the power and might of the eternal gods, you know everything you'll ever need to know! Congratulations! I mean, the answer to that question is always "yes"...but nothing comes to mind at the moment. *g*
