Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Why wake up in the morning?
I consider myself a spiritual person, and I have an awe of nature, a sense of transcendence when I see an eclipse or a Hubble space telescope photograph. These things all generate a sense of transcendence, spirituality, every bit as warm and fuzzy and religious as when I was a religious person. You know I was an evangelical Christian for years and to me Chartres Cathedral is wonderful but so is Machu Picchu or going up to Mount Wilson Observatory and sitting in the chair where Edwin Hubble himself sat and discovered that our galaxy is not the only galaxy.
So: a blind, literally pointless string of complete accidents of which man is a product is “a source of transcendence,” which produces a “spirituality” which is “warm and fuzzy and religious.”
To have any use at all, the word “transcendence” must mean an authoritative word from outside, something greater than you by which you are transcended. I’m afraid I don’t see how the process of evolution can be said to transcend us who are one of its products, any more than the factory assembly line can be said to transcend the car made on it. A process does not in any useful sense transcend its product — unless, that is, the process itself is the creation of an external personal intelligence and can be treated as representing him.
I'd like to add, for the record, that religion and spirituality aren't about feeling warm and fuzzy inside. They're about radical demands and dark nights of the soul. Modern secularism is about feeling warm and fuzzy, which is why it's so big on sex and self-affirmation. Don't confuse the two.
So: a blind, literally pointless string of complete accidents of which man is a product is “a source of transcendence,” which produces a “spirituality” which is “warm and fuzzy and religious.”
To have any use at all, the word “transcendence” must mean an authoritative word from outside, something greater than you by which you are transcended. I’m afraid I don’t see how the process of evolution can be said to transcend us who are one of its products, any more than the factory assembly line can be said to transcend the car made on it. A process does not in any useful sense transcend its product — unless, that is, the process itself is the creation of an external personal intelligence and can be treated as representing him.
I'd like to add, for the record, that religion and spirituality aren't about feeling warm and fuzzy inside. They're about radical demands and dark nights of the soul. Modern secularism is about feeling warm and fuzzy, which is why it's so big on sex and self-affirmation. Don't confuse the two.
