VACUUM TO FILL - I

There are so many layers to the religious arguments. I am trying to listen and analyse one at a time. Its not only listening to the arguments between well established orators and speakers (with evidence and without!), but also I am trying to dig for ground reality by looking at the real people and how they deal with life situations. I am trying to find the deepest of the human yearning, slightest ounce of positivity that has allowed and still keeping religion in existence. 

Lets not waste our time analysing the existence of god sort of topic. And of course no amount of justification will cover the brutality of organized religion and radicalization of fringe elements. I do understand that religion as a whole should be considered in full and not piece by piece. My analysis below might sound piece meal, But the way I would like to draw parallel is by defining religious views as top down or bottom up approach.

If you point towards the brutality of the religion to start the argument, then it is an argument and not communication. I consider this as top down. And the communication breaks down quite often in this way of top down. If you point towards the humbling, compassionate and helping nature of the religion, it is bottom up , then also its breaks down because its too metaphorical and would not be complete. 

There is no nicer way to put that I have not much interest (for top down view and approach) in communicating with the extremist elements. By nature they are extreme fringe element. Best way is to eradicate!. What I feel where there is a sliver of hope is the bottom up. Within and bottom up where the humans try to find the hope to fill the vacuum. 

  

Human nature abhors a belief vacuum as physiologist have long studied. We yearn for completeness, fulfilment and fill the void in us. I am always surprised and amazed at seeing people with unmoving faith and their total surrender to the belief. What is that holds them together that simply can't be disproved by logic and reason. One of the strongest position the religious supporter/apologist often taken is that of hope which religion, the invisible force substitutes/brings. It fills the vacuum the human nature needs!. It gives hope at the worst of situations. It drive people to do improbable things (including crazy things), it moves your core (conscience self) to make yourself more than you are. (it kind of adds an apparition to your self!). 

In the video below. (its too long, you could go straight to Taleb & Dennett points at 1.21.37 onwards). 

(Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50pq71Bmils)

Taleb is raising that point, but very succinct. When religion is removed from a mind, what are we gonna put in place. Taleb is little different (from mine) in his approach. In his segment from the video 47.40 he talks about the stuff which constitutes and make this package (Trust and decision making (based on probability), Humbleness - god knows , Negative advice - Dogma) which religion fills with. He mention belief in a different light..like trust...like the way American dollar says.. "In god we trust"! Like the children trust their parents!

I am going to say that I would agree to a certain level and disagree in the other half. Before we go further lets put Daniel Denett's point to light. Pretty standard for me, the argument is reasonable, rational to say that the void to be filled with secular rational morality. Golden rule example. Respect for each other, making bigger humanistic circles and beyond. Here again I would agree to a certain level and explain further how to match the gap between Denett and Taleb stands.

My understanding of Taleb's perspective and approach is bottom up and Denett is talking top down approaches, that's where the mismatch is.  We can better understand if add an example subject. 

Subject 1: 

Religious extremist : Top down. There is no excuse applying bottom up justifications. 

Subject 2: 

Middle income salaried employer with certain level of stable life (some religious affiliation): 

Mix of both bottom up and top down. 

Subject 3: 

Low income, day to day survivor!. (with some religious/social affiliation and pressures)

Bottom up!

Subject at case 3 is the one I am most intrigued about. For me he/she defines religious affinity, society and life's belief. Yes I have classified based on socio-economic layers. That's the closest comparable subjects I have, I do understand that subject at case 3 can move to case 2 or case 1 situation with time. Similarly case 2 to case 1. I will not consider those options now just because of my life experience, my affinity towards eastern philosophical thoughts and statistics in general. 

   

Dennett and other related atheist/skeptics arguments are directed towards the interest of Subject 1 and Subject 2. Whereas Taleb and other religion apologist arguments are based on Subject 3 level of interest. So both of them are correct but in different situations. If we want to eliminate the toxic out growth of religions, we have to work at the Subject 3 level (apart from eradicating Subject 1) . To understand the vacuum it fills. Work in its foundation which in the first place that gave birth to this vacuum filler. 

For every situation, its always good to look at the history (unbiased). We often get into trouble when we try to hop instead of walk through history, Also when we choose and select only the selected time frame in history. 

Religions especially the western ones seems like they originated before few thousand years ago. But actually, I have to rename those times stamps as religious rebirth or renaissance (not in a good way though) which happened few thousand years ago. But if we look carefully, humans have much longer history with religion and belief systems. They seems to have served a purpose, some form of primitive justification system for our existence and suffering!. If we dig even deeper, this primitive enquiry must have come-forth as soon as we came to became conscious of our existence. Existence of 'I' the ego would quickly evolved to enquire the nature of that ego-self. I have to stop a bit here to rename this as a enquiry and justification system rather then a religion or a systematic belief! This is the state at its core that filled the vacuum for humans. It still does to a vast majority.  It is much more a deep connection and it has served a purpose for a long time. 

Then there are also biological hard wires like, we can't keep questioning every thing every time. We got to build on the certain foundation. Simply because, it is not economical (wasted time and energy). We are hard wired to be follow our parental lead when we are a vulnerable baby/infants.There are lots of residual by-products because of this hard wires getting reflected through religious beliefs. Looking at the evolution of human awareness in current century, I believe there is a hope for this hard wire to be turning more soft. 

One thing the religious extremist got completely in the opposite direction is - humbleness. When religious people don't know about something, they are ought to say "god knows" (like Taleb mentioned in the video above) or like A. R. Rahuman says, "all praise belong to god" when he wins an Oscar. To show their humbleness and amazement of universe. What actually happened with the extreme interpretation is that instead of humbleness, it became arrogance to go on to say that "whatever written in this book I hold is the truth!". Its a metaphorical disaster. Instead of unknown, it became all known!. Also, this 'god knows' is not exactly like the atheist argue that once you points/reason to the God, then human enquiry stops and became dull and dogmatic. In its core, 'god knows" means to convey the human humbleness and amazement of universe. (We are suppose to be amazed, continue enquiring and try to understand a bit more to be more aware). 

Lets not dwell too much into the arrogance part ( as I said, it is a destructive top down approach) . Lets focus on the humbleness part for Subject 3 type. Humbleness added with strong hope and the need for a vacuum-filler drives the religion to its existence today. 

Intellectual arrogance does little to address this vacuum. Spirituality is one way to approach, but its a slippery slope with possibility that it can degenerate once again into another form of religion! 

Let me share a video to ponder further on this vacuum we all need to fill. Its a clip from the movie "Apocalypto"