I was reading this really great (and long!) article on Why we all need Philosophy, and it got me thinking (as Philosophy is want to do). A lot of people tend to separate philosophy and faith, and I think that creates some really dangerous ground. Yes, faith is often defined as 'believing in things unseen' and the idea is that in order to have faith you have to trust that what you believe is true...without proof. But blind faith is something that can lead you into very self-destructive and hateful places. I have always felt faith and questions go hand in hand, you question the things you believe in, and through asking and thinking about the questions, you understand your beliefs better. ((Side note: the guy who wrote the article does a weekly newsletter, with three things to think about....if you don't mind some cursing, I highly recommend it!))
As I mentioned, the article is long, but one of the key points that stuck out for me was boiling Philosophy down to three major questions. What is true about existence? How can we know that it is true? And what actions should we take as a result of this knowledge? To me, these are really at the heart of faith and religion as well. So I thought I'd take a look at how these questions can help focus and refine your spiritual path.
Starting with 'what is true about existence' we kind of look at the idea of truth and knowledge. We are not only questioning the world around us, but how all of this came to be. Most religions and cultures have creation stories, tales that explain how the world came into being. Often, these are quite fantastical, things that we, as modern people, don't take at face value. But I also think that there is a tendency to just dismiss them as 'stories our ancestors told because they didn't understand any better,' and we don't question them at all. Even worse, quite a lot of people have never looked into the modern explanations for how the universe came to be, so they aren't replacing the ancient stories with modern ones, they are just kind of turning a blind eye to our origins.
Now, I find quantum physics quite fascinating, so I have looked into a lot of the scientific theories, possibly more than the average person, and I don't think everyone needs to do this (especially if it's not interesting to you), but spending a little bit of time examining your personal thoughts on how we came to be, and also considering any ancient myths that might apply to your path (for example, I work with a lot of Norse deities, but also some Egyptian ones and I am Chinese by blood, so all of their creation myths have direct connections to me) is something that really helps create a grounding for your belief structure.
Why is such a thing even important? Honestly, in my day to day live, my understanding of the birth of the universe has very little bearing. But, when it comes to my connection with the divine and how that weaves into my personal being, I think knowing where we come from is important. If we spend some time thinking about how things started, that will inform how we feel about the way in which divinity interacts with the physical world in our daily life.
And this leads into a more direct expression of this question. We look at the world around us, and we take a few things at face value. We expect the sun to rise in the morning, we expect gravity to hold us to the earth, and we expect to wake up every morning to the same world we went to sleep in. But those deeper questions about existence, the ones that delve into spirit and the afterlife, those are a bit harder to tackle.
This also brings us back to the idea that it is the questions that are important, not the answers. Some of these questions, even about the truth of existence, will never have fully solid answers. My personal philosophy, that I've held since high school, is that we can't 'prove' anything exists, but we can expect things to be a certain way. I have my catalog of experiences to compare things to, and my expectation is that things will continue on in a similar fashion.
Which brings us to the second question: how can we know that something is true. My favorite explanation of the scientific method is that it can't prove anything, it can only disprove things. We can't know something is real, we can only know that "until now, every time it has worked this way." And that may sound like proof, but it really isn't.
So understanding the truth of a thing doesn't come down to absolute proof, what it comes down to is examining as much evidence as possible, and thinking about what that means. It also means that we need to check back in with this information from time to time, and see if our conclusions still hold true.
This is where I think so many people fail to adapt. They come up with an idea, and at the time they accept the idea, it may be true (or at least it may seem true based on the information they had). But then, in the future, as they learn more information, their idea no longer holds up. And this creates a panic in people. There is this fear of judgment, like the fact that we believed something that turned out to be wrong somehow makes us a bad person. And so instead of adjusting their idea to include all the current information, they turn their back and cling harder to an outdated idea, refusing to admit that it no longer works.
This is something that I really try to avoid at all costs. I'm okay with having been wrong. One of my guiding principles is that I may not be the same person tomorrow that I am today, and I'm okay with that. Change is my friend, and I am constantly looking for new information, new ideas that will fundamentally change how I view the world. To me, this is a super exciting process, and it's one reason why I love reading and talking with people about how they think and how they experience things. I may only be one person, but the more perspectives I can be exposed to, the broader my own vision becomes.
And finally, we come to the question of what we should DO with this knowledge we have acquired. This is where we delve firmly into the realm of religion. Almost every religion has some sort of guidelines for morality (even the very open Pagan faiths that expect you to come up with your own code of conduct). We all have a sense of right and wrong, and this is based on our understanding of what is real and true in the world.
Consider for a moment, if we lived in a world where resources were truly unlimited. If you saw something you wanted, you could just make a copy of it and it would be real in every way. Stealing would no longer be an issue, because firstly there would be no reason to steal, and secondly even if you did, the person you stole from could just recreate what you had taken. Stealing wouldn't be a moral issue. Of course, we don't live in this type of world, and so when we take something that means someone else doesn't have it. We have created all kinds of ethical guidelines for when taking stuff is okay and when it's not.
This is where I feel that we need to spend the most amount of time really thinking about the values we have been raised with. Just because I have been taught something since I was little doesn't make it right. As an adult, I have a duty to myself and to the rest of the world to question what I personally feel is right and wrong, and what I am okay with and what is not okay in my book.
I very much feel this is something that comes up in the Pagan world, especially with the oft quoted prohibitions of 'harm none' and the threefold 'law' that some people expect everyone to live by. These are 'rules' that many Pagans and witches learned as they were learning the basics of their craft, and they are memorized but not often actually considered. Spending time to think about what they mean, how they get applied, and if you even believe in them are things that I think everyone who learned these rules should do. And if you don't subscribe to these rules, take time to think about why you don't (or examine other ethical rules and strictures you have been exposed to).
All in all, I think that philosophy and exploring these three key questions has a very big part in our spiritual practices (and indeed in life in general). If we don't question, we go through life blind, we allow other people to guide our experiences and our actions, and we don't really understand the world around us. Ask questions, and see where those answers lead you!
No comments:
Post a Comment