Missionaries

In many religions, there is a fundamental premise that there are both ‘dark’ and ‘light’ forces, acting in opposition to each other. The dark forces oppose the existence of life; the forces of light seek to promote and nurture it. This concept of ‘higher powers’ is a comfortable one. But it also leads people to align themselves to one power or the other: to justify their own actions as ‘proving support’ – often for some supposed reward. In extreme cases (but more often than you might think), these people take upon themselves a ‘mission’ to promote the forces with which they align themselves.

The problem with being a missionary is that those ‘forces’ are at best abstract, and at worst a major self-delusion. But each missionary decides for themselves how to interpret the opposing forces in the context of their own, personal lives. They build a ‘world view’ of what it is they are supporting, and what it is they are opposing. They take their dearest attachments and build them into a Tower of Babel. Then they try to corral others into their tower – first by citing horrible punishment for those who stay outside, then by attacking the practices of those whom they view as ‘sinners’. By the latter, they try to leave no place to live except within their tower.

I said, ‘they decide,’ but in reality they just acquire that decision. They fall into it, through the aggregation of thoughts and teachings of others whom they respect. The higher ‘calling’ that they feel is just an implied message, within those teachings, that their lives can acquire meaning and significance only by converting others – by herding them into the tower.

These would-be missionaries convince themselves (or become convinced) that the forces of light and dark are ‘real’. They even ‘personify’ the forces, creating in their minds an image of a ‘leader’ and an army of followers for each force. They count themselves amongst the members of their chosen army: responsible for playing their part in some eventual victory – or at least in keeping the opposing force from claiming their victory. And yet, what are those ‘forces’ when you strip away the imagination?

Are there really ‘titanic forces’ at work in the universe, striving against each other over the presence of life? Well kind of, but they aren’t ‘intelligent’.

Life generates biological entities that each contain mechanisms to reverse entropy within themselves. They use sources of energy in their environment, to maintain their biological existence, and even to grow and reproduce. But each entity isn’t a ‘closed system’: it becomes food for others and maybe also produces food for others. So each entity finds itself in a constant ‘battle’ (actually more like a dynamic balance) with not only natural entropy but also the predations of other entities. For a while, it grows; then it dies. In between, it reproduces. Perhaps.

Most of the religious ideas about ‘light’ and ‘dark’ can (I think) be traced back to our early ancestors. They saw the dynamic balance of life and entropy, and named those two principles ‘light’ and ‘dark’ – along the lines of the day being a safer place than the night. [One wonders whether a nocturnal species might have come to a different association.] But then imagination sets in. Personification sets in. Those abstract forces become ‘like men’, though of course more powerful. And it becomes natural to try to support the force that feeds you, and oppose the one that tries to end you.

Later, of course, imagination provides the thought that one might gain personal advantage by supporting the ‘dark’ force – as long as it ends the life of others, or just rewards one for that support. It may seem a dicey path, but we humans often take such gambles for personal gain. And where’s the joy or ‘freedom’ in being herded into someone else’s Tower of Babel?

These days, we have a great many towers, with different claims to ownership of Truth. Each tower even has many voices inside it, and conflicting views amongst its missionaries. The only common message is, “You’re damned if you don’t come inside.”

I’ve spent a long time (by human standards) examining this thing we call Truth: seeing how it arises and the extent (if any) to which any Truth can be ‘objective’. What I have seen is that each of us lives by some story that we assemble from data that touches us: from ‘experience’. Each of those stories is not only unique but also entirely subjective. We try to find ‘common ground’ with other people, because otherwise we cannot collaborate, and a person alone cannot [it seems] survive. Sometimes we even defer to other people’s stories – even if we do not ‘believe’ – because that is the best collaboration that seems to be on offer. And thus we create a ‘social fabric’ – a pattern of Authorised Truth that most reject in some respect, but most also accept overall, as a necessary compromise.

This ‘social fabric’ is not static: it is a dynamic balance of the subjective opinions (stories) of its members. It doesn’t have any Tower of Babel of its own, but it can provide a ‘home’ for people with a missionary bent. Each of those missionaries tries to keep the social fabric ‘true’ to a single tower: often through laws that punish sinners. But laws don’t ‘make’ Truth; they don’t even derive from Truth. Each member of that social fabric will decide (fall into a decision) whether to comply or compromise, depending on their personal experience.

The ‘social fabric’ isn’t even common across the world. Of course not. Different regions produce different (divergent) experiences, and different ‘stories’ to explain and rationalise that experience. And the local stories become part of the experience. How could it be otherwise? Without any objectivity to anchor them, of course these stories will diverge, and produce different social fabrics. And where there are ‘borders’, or where migration transplants people from one fabric to another, there will be a degree of ‘cognitive dissonance’, which just means, “Events don’t seem to match one’s inner story.”

All that (above) only leaves two questions, I think … “Is there any such thing as ‘objective’ Truth?” and, “If so, how can one find it?”

Well, one isn’t going to find objective Truth within any of the stories we accumulate through experience. It may be there, but given that experience is always subjective, it follows that we can’t recognise objective Truth. When we try to compare experience with other people, we necessarily translate what they transmit into something within our own, prior experience. So we equally won’t recognise objective Truth in a book, or the tales of others. Does that condemn us always to have only subjective ‘truth’ – truth in quotation marks?

I happen to think that there is a way to come to objective Truth, but only through setting aside all subjective ‘truth’. If there is some objective Truth, it must pervade every aspect of the universe – everything existing and every process of change. As such, if we keep setting aside ‘rational explanations’ (for which our brains have an enormous liking), we may eventually find – in the sea of all experience – that which is really ‘universal’.

I know: that last truly sounds like a weird and somewhat ‘mystical’ premise. And one can live one’s life within a social fabric, without ever testing the objectivity of one’s acquired view of Truth. Nearly all of us do just that. My only advice – as a traveller in ‘truth’ – is to avoid believing that one already has objective Truth. And above all, resist the temptation to be a missionary for some adopted Tower of Babel.

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