Gods

Let’s imagine a theological dispute of a different color: the question is which of two possible Gods, called Yum and Yam, exist. Yum and Yam are very similar—they are standard-issue Gods—but they do differ in certain particulars. Yum’s chosen people are the Dutch while Yam favors the Armenians, Yum’s day of rest is Saturday while Yam’s is Sunday, and they differ with respect to their minions. There is enough difference for theologians to get their teeth into and for different traditions to be formed. We can suppose there is a lively debate about which one is real and which a fake. Maybe there are extreme sects that impose punishments on people who make the wrong choice. Possibly there are some people who stop believing in one and go over to the other (much frowned upon by those attached to the God who has been spurned). This dispute has been going on for centuries, sometimes coolly and sometimes heating up. There might be subdivisions within the two religions, centering on the day of rest, or the roster of minions. Imagine you grew up in this religious atmosphere—how would you choose? There doesn’t seem to be any solid evidence favoring one God over the other, just a lot of rhetoric and appeals to family loyalty. It seems arbitrary which one you choose—a matter of “personal preference”, as they say. What you do know is that you are required to make a choice. You can’t be an agnostic, or believe in both, or neither, or some third God (Yom). You feel flummoxed.

Obviously, this is absurd. You have no basis to decide; it would be irrational to choose one over the other (though it might be pragmatically sensible to go one way rather than the other). You might be forgiven for agnosticism, or deplored for atheism, or tolerated for bi-theism, or cheered for neo-theism; but it would be bonkers to believe that one of these Gods is real and the other unreal. That is just not an epistemic option. The case has been set up so that nothing can decide the question. Indeed, we might suppose that this is literally true: the whole thing is a massive psychology experiment designed to study irrationality! We are subjects in this experiment, which has been devised by advanced aliens from another galaxy; the experimenters are interested in how irrational the human species can be. They set things up in such a way that the subjects are asked to choose between options between which it is impossible rationally to choose. They have even provided rival bibles, rival churches, rival preachers. It is a long-term experiment and has already been going on for over two thousand years. A high point, scientifically, was that period when the two religions began persecuting each other to the death—it being deemed heresy to proclaim the day of rest falsely. The correct opinion, by stipulation, is that neither Yum nor Yam exist—they were made up by the experimenters and then foisted on the human population. Atheism with respect to Yum and Yam is true (whatever may be the case for other putative Gods, e.g., Yahweh).

Amusing, you might say, possibly instructive—but what does this have to do with us as we actually are, historically? The answer is obvious: we are in essentially the same boat. Which God exists—the God of the Old Testament or the God of New Testament (the old religious text or the new one)? They are clearly not the same (jealous and vengeful versus emotionally mature and gentle). Is it the God of the Roman Catholic Church or the God of the Protestant Church—again, quite different Gods. What about Allah—should we believe in him or the God we call “God”? Also, we have Gods drawn from non-Jewish traditions and accepted in other parts of the world. The criteria of identity for Gods are clear enough to declare that not all these Gods are identical. I just sharpened the issue with my imaginary thought experiment. But even if you think there is a rational basis for believing in one God rather than another, it is surely disturbing to acknowledge that such a case is possible—and that it would be preposterous to insist that one theistic belief had to be true rather and the other false. The obvious fact is that neither of these beliefs is true—Yum and Yam are fictions, fakes. The theology in my imaginary scenario is a theology about nothing. That is exactly what atheists say about our actual theology—polytheism versus monism, the holy trinity, etc. These are all debates about chimera.[1]

[1] I wonder whether, in the age of polytheism (still not dead), there were people who believed firmly in some gods and just as stoutly denied the existence of others—the Sun god yes, the Moon god no; the weather god yes, the sea god no. The impression one gets, say with respect to the Greek gods, is that the believers were all in. If one god exists, then all do. Curious, no? It seems unduly credulous.

Dreams and Religion

There is a peculiarity of religion that is not often (if ever) remarked: its combination of the serious and the silly. I might even say commingling: the way the serious and the silly are interwoven, inextricably joined. Serious themes run through religion—life and death, right and wrong, cosmology. But at the same time, we find superstition, fantasy, fairy tales, risible rituals, preposterous costumes, and a general sense of absurdity. To an outsider much of religion seems silly, childish, hard to take seriously. The Catholic Church is a prime example, prompting attempts at silliness reduction over the centuries. One might even say that the serious-silly nexus is the essence of religion. I am not against silliness, still less seriousness, but the combination strikes me as anthropologically interesting; it bears examination. So, let’s take a scientific naturalistic attitude towards it—what is its psychological meaning? What does it tell us about the human mind? Can we explain it?

It is hard to find any convincing parallels to it. Plenty of things are serious, and plenty of things are silly—but the combination? One might think of pantomime and fairy tales—rich in silliness, yes, but rather lacking in seriousness (psychoanalysis notwithstanding). Still, worth keeping in mind; there is a kinship here. The closest cultural parallel I can think of is opera: the gaudiness, the costumes, the absurdities—yet the depth of the themes, their resonance. But the parallel is not close, or particularly illuminating. Opera shows that the human mind can tolerate, even welcome, the serious-silly nexus, but it would be pressing a point to suggest that opera is the model for religion (or religion the model for opera). Perhaps comedy could be adduced, its jokiness combined with (sometimes) serious themes: think of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, some of Charlie Chaplin, or Shakespeare’s comedies (e.g., A Midsummer Night’s Dream). But here too the parallel is not that close—laughing in church is really not on. Religion is characteristically humorless: priests are not comedians (God is not the funniest man ever). Is there anything in the human psyche that could be regarded as a precursor to religion, its psychological precondition? My title suggests an answer—dreams are the clearest analogue to religion. For they too combine the serious and the silly—stirring themes, preposterous performances. Wacky stuff occurs, nonsense obtrudes, yet there is an atmosphere of seriousness—there isn’t much laughter in the church of dreams. Nor is there much skepticism. Miracles occur, natural laws get flouted, people fly about, evil lurks, nonsense is rampant (verbal and physical)—not unlike religion. Fear and exhilaration coexist. There is the giddy feeling of being in contact with another world. In religious ceremonies people can go into a trance, as if possessed or hypnotized, but the same is true of dreams—a trancelike state in which the usual rules are suspended. A church is a dreamy place, full of other-worldly icons, spectacle, strange adventures. Dreams are vivid, but so are biblical stories, with all the illogic of dreams. And the Bible is full of dreams and dreamlike happenings. In dreams we take the silliness in our stride, not separating it from the seriousness; we don’t wonder how the two things can go together. In fact, they harmonize seamlessly. Thus, dreaming prepares us for religion; it provides the psychological foundation. It makes the religious experience possible. We already know how to combine the serious and the silly, because we are born dreamers. That is the hypothesis.

But there is another aspect of dreaming that really drives the analogy home. This is that the dream state is the primary arena for what might be called credulity enhancement. In dreams we don’t question what we experience—what the dream tells us. We just accept it, absurdity and all. In the waking state we would take ourselves to be hallucinating or undergoing an imagination malfunction, but in dreams we are utterly credulous—the dreamer is no skeptic. Sheer silliness is no impediment to abject credulity. We believe whatever is dished up to us, no questions asked. Isn’t this just like religious belief? People believe what they are told, or what is vividly depicted, or what is performed in front of them (miracle healings and the like). They might be more skeptical outside of the trance-inducing place of worship, but their critical faculties go into abeyance when the chanting starts, the stained-glass windows dazzle, and the lure of the fantatic beckons. They enter a kind of dream state in which the silly is transmuted (miraculously!) into conviction—what is called religious belief. We have faith in our dreams, as we have faith in our religious instruction. We don’t have evidence for rational belief in our dreams, and nor do we in the religious case—we are primed to believe, set up for it. Even hardboiled scientists have faith in their dreams. Thus, the religious state of mind resembles the dreaming state of mind in its susceptibility to belief formation. Dreaming is a pre-religious state of silliness acceptance: miracles occur in dreams and the dreamer blithely accepts them as real; ditto for the religious believer (note the term). In dreams we are all true believers, easily taken in; in religious contexts we are likewise highly susceptible to invitations to believe. And the silly stuff mingles with the serious to add weight to the pressure to believe; it isn’t just silly (though it can be very silly). This is where the power to persuade comes from in religious contexts—it mimics the dream state. Children, of course, are particularly susceptible to the persuasive power of dreams, having little in the way of critical faculties. But the same is notoriously true in the case of religion—which is why we get them when they are young. Imagine if the adults around you as a child were to reinforce the messages (as they might call them) contained in your dreams—about bogey men, ghosts, lurking killers. You would end up completely in the sway of your dreams. As it is, we say “It was only a dream”. But we don’t say “It was only religion” in order to temper the child’s natural credulity. Religion is like a socially sanctified dream, driving home the silliness. The reason the silliness is accepted is that dreams are full of it yet excite belief. Of course, believers don’t think it is silly, or at least they strive to overcome that feeling; and the reason for this is that they are psychologically primed to overlook silliness in dreams. Note that many cultures have believed that dreams are to be taken seriously, as containing important information about reality; they might be said to have a dream-based religion. They have achieved a total merger of the two. Silliness generally promotes skepticism, but not in certain areas of psychic activity. The person who was once religious and now rejects religion is like someone emerging from a dream: what once seemed real is now seen as so much fantasy. He might wonder at his prior state of mind, shaking his head in disbelief; it might comfort him to be told that he was living in a dream. Are deeply religious people unusually prone to vivid and compelling dreams? Are natural atheists lacking in dream experience? Do people who never dream (if there are such) put up more resistance to religious indoctrination? Is religion more likely to gain control of a person during a period of life in which dreams are particularly powerfui? These are all empirical questions, capable of investigation. In any case, dreams provide a prelude to religious conversion, or a platform from which to launch religious belief. Dreams provide a precursor of that ability to combine the serious and the silly that is so characteristic of religion as we know it.[1]

[1] Do we need religion? Do we have an appetite for it, possibly innately given? Can we be happy without religion? There is some evidence to suggest that this is so. If it is, the dream hypothesis explains it: for we do need to dream. Studies have shown that people deprived of dreaming become disconsolate and depressed. Why this should be so is not clear, but it seems to be a fact. We might try to fulfill the need by adopting some other equivalent activity—say, science. We make a religion out of science (including philosophy). We will need to ensure that we supply the silliness quotient as well as the seriousness quotient. Quantum mechanics might come in handy, or the big bang, or panpsychism, or possible world semantics—something seemingly preposterous. It will help to have scientific churches and a priestlike brotherhood (professors in universities). The need for religion might thus be met by something other than religion. However, it is not at all clear that the need to dream could be met by anything else (movies comes closest). Religious psychology is an underdeveloped branch of the science of psychology. We could call it the “religious faculty” and undertake an investigation of it analogous to our study of the language faculty: where does it come from, is it modular, what kind of pathologies beset it, what is its neural basis? It is clearly an aspect of the human mind (and brain), so it ought to have a psychology. I can imagine a book entitled The Religion Instinct, or a journal called The Journal of Experimental Religious Psychology, or a society of “Rel-Sci” devotees. There could be a natural science of supernatural belief.

Table Tennis (and the Meaning of Life)

I was watching the Olympics a few months ago and made a point of checking out the table tennis. I used to play a lot as a teenager—we had a table at home and my brother also played. Naturally, I was pretty good at it (the best in the school anyway). I thought: “Damn it, Colin, get a table! You love the game and used to be good at it—why hesitate?” The reason I hesitated was that I had no one to play with, or no one available and good. But, I reasoned, once you get the table you will find partners—just go for it! So, I went for it: I bought a table and installed it on my front porch. Of course, I bought new bats (rackets, paddles) and a high-quality net (very important), as well as dozens of balls (now hundreds). I found a couple of friends to hit with, though not of the most expert level, and it turned out my handy man and a construction manager I know were pretty good players (but not very available). I was still not supplied with enough partners to fulfil my needs, however. So, what did I do? First, I bought what is called a rebound board—a mounted plank with a rubber surface that sends the ball back to you when you hit it. This was okay, but you need to be a skilled player to keep the rally going. I decided to buy a table tennis ball machine that would spit balls at me for practice. It came with a net to fit over the other end of the table to catch the balls. This was a step up, because it simulates real play, though not perfectly. But you can’t serve to it, so I needed to work on my serve separately. This was about three weeks ago: I undertook rigorous serving practice.

The thing is, you don’t normally practice your serve, because you are always playing other people. But that was not my situation, so I practiced my serve a lot. And I did it thoroughly, systematically, diligently. Let’s talk about the serve, because it’s a fascinating topic. There are basically three kinds of table tennis serve: topspin, backspin, and sidespin. These can be executed either by forehand or backhand, so there are quite a few possibilities; and that’s not counting variations (e.g., backspin with sidespin), as well as bat trajectories. I invented a couple of new types of serve that I have never seen used and are perfectly good ways to serve (hard to explain without being able to provide a demonstration). I have hit thousands of serves over the last three weeks. For me, the easiest is backhand topspin, a fast serve with a lot of action on the ball (it flies up in the air when you try to return it). I improved this tremendously. I also figured out the best way to hold the bat for forehand topspin serves—in tennis lingo, use a western not a continental grip, which requires moving the forefinger across the back face of the bat (again, I would need to show you). Now, when you put in this amount of work, you develop a wide range of serves that go in and are difficult to return. You also get much more consistent, rarely missing. The time came to play with my handy man partner Michael and I was interested to learn what all that practice had done for my game (it’s hard to judge without a partner). This was yesterday. He is a very decent player with a fast forehand serve and mastery of spin (though somewhat out of practice). I killed him. Previously, he was holding his own, but not anymore. Oh no. My point is that in table tennis you can dominate just by serving well—particularly because most amateurs never practice their serve. They just play and hope their serve improves. This is emphatically not good enough. Mark my words: YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE YOUR SERVE. It’s the same in regular tennis, but in table tennis it’s crucial. Most players simply cannot return a well-trained serve, but it isn’t that hard to develop such a serve (unlike tennis). And I wasn’t even using my fancy serves! I am a decent human being, after all. Poor Michael, standing there, befuddled, defeated—I felt for him, I really did. I told him about the previous three weeks and encouraged him to work on his serve, or serves (you do need several). I gave him some tips. I analyzed his serve for him (it was illegal by the way). I thought: “All that solitary practice paid off”. My game had been transformed. As a bonus, my other shots were considerably improved because of all the bat discipline I had instilled in myself. It was hard work, but it paid off (and not that hard).

How does this bear on the meaning of life? Well, table tennis is the meaning of life for serious players, but for us amateurs the parallels are obvious. Chiefly: Put in the less glamorous and less fun work; be patient; analyze what you are trying to achieve; turn deficits into opportunities; spend time alone; focus. I had never thought of practicing my serve this way as a teenager—I just wanted to play. But it would have improved my game massively: a good serve kills. It defeats, destroys, humiliates. Of course, expert players would have no problem returning serves at the level I am talking about—they would kill my serve. It would come back at me unreturnably—smash! During this period of table tennis dedication (madness?), I watched a video on YouTube of Roger Federer playing table tennis with an eight-year-old Chinese girl (name of Pineapple). I knew Roger could play, but I was impressed with his level of ability—he has clearly played a lot of table tennis. She destroyed him. He asked her how long she had been playing; she said since she was five, so three years. He said he had been playing thirty years, giggling the while. That’s table tennis for you. He looked like a klutz next to her. Anyway, my life advice to you is this: Practice your serve.[1]

[1] I would actually like to teach the game—particularly to young children and old codgers,

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name;

Thy kingdom come;

Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses;

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

The power and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen

Here is a modern paraphrase, which I think is true to the content of the above words.

Big Daddy, up there in heaven (but you knew that),

I hope you are being flattered a lot.

Let’s also hope your monarchical lifestyle gets widely adopted;

And people do what you tell them,

Where we live just like where you live.

Please give us something to eat today (but not only bread).

And don’t blame us for our bad behavior;

Like we shouldn’t blame other people for their bad behavior towards us;

Even when their bad behavior (and ours) is really bad and blameworthy.

And also, please don’t tempt us to commit horrible acts (why would you do that?),

But prevent bad things happening to us (this part is particularly important).

Because you are the boss of everything,

You have all the power and celebrity.

And you always will.

That’s the way it goes.

We were required to intone the Lord’s Prayer (isn’t every prayer a prayer to the Lord?) every day at school from the age of five onwards. I didn’t have much idea what the words really meant but they seemed vaguely serious. I can still remember it, though I haven’t recited the prayer in over fifty years. As an exercise, I decided to make a paraphrase. I don’t think the prayer emerges all that well, either in what it includes or what it leaves out. I don’t know why we were asking God to feed us every day when the school cafeteria was doing a perfectly good job. And what kind of temptations were we talking about (we were too young for sex and alcohol)? Did God do the tempting? How were we to avoid blaming anyone for bad behavior when we were blamed for bad behavior every day in school (I was caned on a number of occasions, as was everyone else)? Did it mean we could skip homework and get away with it? It all seems pretty bizarre stuff. And why all the shameless sucking up to Our Father? And why “hallow” his name (what name?) instead of him? Use-mention confusion? It just doesn’t seem very well thought out.