The only way

[Philos]

Folks,

Walking past a mosque today, I saw a sign in the window: “There is no deity only Allah.” This reminded me of something that happened last week. I was in the town and a man carrying a sign called out to me, “Jesus is the only way!”

The word “only” is intriguing in this context. If there is only Allah then what of Jesus? If Jesus is the only way, then what of Allah? While these positions seem contradictory, there is at least agreement between the followers that there is only an only way. There are not many or few ways according to these religions, but one “only” way.

As an agnostic, I do not currently believe that either of these ways is certainly true, but I do believe that whatever way there is out of this world, it is most likely the only way. The way could be religious, and any religion may or may not be the “way”, or alternatively the way out of this world could consist only in feeding the worms. But, it is not likely to be both.

The question I am interested in, is why do we feel drawn to an “only way”? Why do we not feel that there could be as many ways out of this world as there are species living on it? The call of a singularity seems very strong, even to an agnostic such as myself. I can't explain it.

Alex.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The question I am interested in, is why do we feel drawn to an “only way”?

Humans really like to be in the IN crowd.
You don't feel special if you're in one of thirty popular cliques... What would the point be? Why be exclusive if the people you keep out of the IN crowd can be happy and popular in another crowd.

So much of our marketing is aimed at this need to find and be and have The Best. No one advertises their detergent as being 'one of many ways to wash your clothes which is pretty much indistinguishable from the other thirty or so brands on your supermarket shelf....but we really hope you'll spend a disproportionate amount of money on our brand." There can be only one BEST brand of anything, only one TOP seller, one and only one TRUE GOD, and only prophets of the Number One Selling God can help YOU get into the one and only Heaven.

 

[Horatio Parker]

According to Jung, it's psychological.

There's an archetype, understanding. It's a male archetype and though it can achieve a measure of perfection, it is incomplete since its object must always be considered in isolation.

Then there's another archetype, wholeness. We experience reality as a unity. It is a female archetype and though complete, it is imperfect.

Transcendence or revelation is a state of mind where the reconciliation of these competing archetypes appears possible; a perfect wholeness.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It must be emotionally gratifying - pleasant brain chemistry and all that - to have such experiences. Maybe the pleasant brain chemistry even creates the experiences, so that what we are seeing is actually happening in reverse.

Evolution has obviously selected for being right, even if being right was nothing more than chance or dumb luck. Maybe that's why such screwy behaviors exist.

 

[rousseau]

There were cultural and historic reasons around the time of Jesus that led to people looking for the 'one true God' aka religion, and I'd hazard a guess that this was less about 'the only way', or 'one true God', and more about a sound moral framework that not only guided people toward a good life, but also didn't force them into too many discomforts.

For instance, one of the main 'political' decisions made in the early days of Christianity was whether a 'true' Christian had to be circumcised. From an anthropological perspective there are obvious reasons why people would want to keep the religion and avoid circumcision. So in this kind of way Christianity became the first 'universally accepted' religion out of a whole array of smaller sects and cults.

It just so happens that a universally accepted and coherent religion happens to have one true God. Repeat, normalize, and refine the religion over two millennia and you have a lot of people convinced that this framework is accurate, so much so that they're able to claim it as the only way without any sense of cognitive dissonance.

Underlying that are the obvious power dynamics which allow the religion to survive and grow.

 

[Philos]

According to Jung, it's psychological.

There's an archetype, understanding. It's a male archetype and though it can achieve a measure of perfection, it is incomplete since its object must always be considered in isolation.

Then there's another archetype, wholeness. We experience reality as a unity. It is a female archetype and though complete, it is imperfect.

Transcendence or revelation is a state of mind where the reconciliation of these competing archetypes appears possible; a perfect wholeness.

Horatio,

I can grasp this only dimly, but it feels right. My experiences of 'wholeness' have been fragmentary but definite. Any attempt to understand and the feeling slipped away. This may be why some religious people scoff at reasoning. Must add that my 'wholeness' experiences have not been connected to any organised religion, just something that happens rarely.

Alex.

 

[Philos]

There were cultural and historic reasons around the time of Jesus that led to people looking for the 'one true God' aka religion, and I'd hazard a guess that this was less about 'the only way', or 'one true God', and more about a sound moral framework that not only guided people toward a good life, but also didn't force them into too many discomforts.

For instance, one of the main 'political' decisions made in the early days of Christianity was whether a 'true' Christian had to be circumcised. From an anthropological perspective there are obvious reasons why people would want to keep the religion and avoid circumcision. So in this kind of way Christianity became the first 'universally accepted' religion out of a whole array of smaller sects and cults.

It just so happens that a universally accepted and coherent religion happens to have one true God. Repeat, normalize, and refine the religion over two millennia and you have a lot of people convinced that this framework is accurate, so much so that they're able to claim it as the only way without any sense of cognitive dissonance.

Underlying that are the obvious power dynamics which allow the religion to survive and grow.

Rousseau,

I can see your point. However, my masseur is a Hindu. She entertains me with stories of the many Gods, none of which have created the universe. She does not question her religion, which is as old as the hills AFAIK. For me, the notion of a universe without creator is coherent and much less threatening than the monotheisms.

Maybe that's just me?

Alex.

 

[Horatio Parker]

According to Jung, it's psychological.

There's an archetype, understanding. It's a male archetype and though it can achieve a measure of perfection, it is incomplete since its object must always be considered in isolation.

Then there's another archetype, wholeness. We experience reality as a unity. It is a female archetype and though complete, it is imperfect.

Transcendence or revelation is a state of mind where the reconciliation of these competing archetypes appears possible; a perfect wholeness.

Horatio,

I can grasp this only dimly, but it feels right. My experiences of 'wholeness' have been fragmentary but definite. Any attempt to understand and the feeling slipped away. This may be why some religious people scoff at reasoning. Must add that my 'wholeness' experiences have not been connected to any organised religion, just something that happens rarely.

Alex.

The symbols of religion don't have the same power for you. You apparently require other explanations.

A cause for confusion IMO is the language. Religious texts are designed to induce that transcendental state. If the bombast of something like

1 Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”
3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
4 I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5 I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.
7 Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.
8 From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.

is qualified by adding something like, "of course the lord may be Jehovah or Allah or Jesus or many other things YMMV" takes the punch out of the rehetoric, and the punch is what they came for.

The problem comes when that rhetoric is confused with and taken for an empirical statement. One minute the adherent is comforted by the power of the Lord, and in the next there are innumerable real enemies who must submit or be destroyed.

Religion and Psychology by Jung is a good read.

 

[Philos]

The symbols of religion don't have the same power for you. You apparently require other explanations.

A cause for confusion IMO is the language. Religious texts are designed to induce that transcendental state. If the bombast of something like

1 Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”
3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
4 I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5 I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.
7 Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.
8 From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.

is qualified by adding something like, "of course the lord may be Jehovah or Allah or Jesus or many other things YMMV" takes the punch out of the rehetoric, and the punch is what they came for.

The problem comes when that rhetoric is confused with and taken for an empirical statement. One minute the adherent is comforted by the power of the Lord, and in the next there are innumerable real enemies who must submit or be destroyed.

Religion and Psychology by Jung is a good read.

Horatio,

There may be a way to grasp this with language and simile/metaphor. I suspect that the "punch" is like falling in love, or is falling in love. I have fallen in love and if that experience were available to me in a church service I would find it very hard, almost impossible, not to give myself to it.

Many people have said that falling in love is like going home. I am aware that my wife loves me deeply, and that I am her home. Our daughter says "Mum loves you with every fibre of her being." There was a film by the French director Eric Rohmer in which he depicts a girl's last night of freedom before entering a convent. She spends the night with a young man who she does not love. However, she is consumed with love of the Lord and sees the convent as her future and only home.

The word 'only' crops up again. I think this is the strength of the metaphor. When one falls in love, one wants only the object of that love.

Alex.

PS - I have read some Jung and will look for the title you recommend. Thanks for that.

 

[rousseau]

There were cultural and historic reasons around the time of Jesus that led to people looking for the 'one true God' aka religion, and I'd hazard a guess that this was less about 'the only way', or 'one true God', and more about a sound moral framework that not only guided people toward a good life, but also didn't force them into too many discomforts.

For instance, one of the main 'political' decisions made in the early days of Christianity was whether a 'true' Christian had to be circumcised. From an anthropological perspective there are obvious reasons why people would want to keep the religion and avoid circumcision. So in this kind of way Christianity became the first 'universally accepted' religion out of a whole array of smaller sects and cults.

It just so happens that a universally accepted and coherent religion happens to have one true God. Repeat, normalize, and refine the religion over two millennia and you have a lot of people convinced that this framework is accurate, so much so that they're able to claim it as the only way without any sense of cognitive dissonance.

Underlying that are the obvious power dynamics which allow the religion to survive and grow.

Rousseau,

I can see your point. However, my masseur is a Hindu. She entertains me with stories of the many Gods, none of which have created the universe. She does not question her religion, which is as old as the hills AFAIK. For me, the notion of a universe without creator is coherent and much less threatening than the monotheisms.

Maybe that's just me?

Alex.

Yea I guess my post was a bit off.

A universally accepted and coherent religion can have one God, and often does. Why a person would want to know the 'one true' God is obvious, but I guess it's not universal that people desire one God.

When you get down to it religions are like any other organization that propagates itself. The organization relies on people, people rely on the organization, so people will attempt to spread it, and if it represents a sound framework it will grow. In the case of Christianity there was a single, true God. In the case of hinduism the framework must have been successful despite no single God, for whatever reason.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

According to Jung, it's psychological.

There's an archetype, understanding. It's a male archetype and though it can achieve a measure of perfection, it is incomplete since its object must always be considered in isolation.

Then there's another archetype, wholeness. We experience reality as a unity. It is a female archetype and though complete, it is imperfect.

Transcendence or revelation is a state of mind where the reconciliation of these competing archetypes appears possible; a perfect wholeness.

Jung sounds like woo to me.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Also, knowing that you're right isn't half as satisfying as the knowledge that the people who disagree with you are wrong. It's all fine and dandy to have Allah be the path to salvation, but that loses a great deal of its luster if there are a bunch of non-Allah related paths to salvation out there as well. If you don't have the only correct answer, you're not a special snowflake, but instead just one more boring old regular snowflake.

 

[Philos]

Also, knowing that you're right isn't half as satisfying as the knowledge that the people who disagree with you are wrong. It's all fine and dandy to have Allah be the path to salvation, but that loses a great deal of its luster if there are a bunch of non-Allah related paths to salvation out there as well. If you don't have the only correct answer, you're not a special snowflake, but instead just one more boring old regular snowflake.

Tom,

I know my place.

Alex.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The word 'only' crops up again. I think this is the strength of the metaphor. When one falls in love, one wants only the object of that love.

Alex.

Yes.

I would say that love of beauty is the basis for spirituality.

....beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,' said the stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible—you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'