“Imaginarium,” by Mucha Kachidza
It came to me as I rode bikes this week with Mary and a friend: “God” is a right-brain awareness, and I don’t know whether it lives there as a thought or a concept, so let’s just stick with “awareness.”
Our right brain doesn’t talk, but it is aware, always. It processes sight, sound, temperature, odor, touch, motion and everything else physical about us such that we’re aware of our spatial selves. Human beings are not unique in this, because all animals have bifurcated brains, and it’s likely for the same reason: It goes to keeping us safe or at least alert to the possibility of danger. It also, apparently, lets us marvel at our surroundings (and I do wonder whether animals other than humans do this. I suspect they do, and I hope they do.)
The right brain doesn’t do words. That’s the business of our chatty left brain, which is always trying to butt in and say something about whatever is going on with its next-door neighbor – the beholding right brain. (Yes, this is simplification almost beyond reason, but stick with me for at least a few more lines.)
My source for all this is author Iaian McGilchrist and his decades of research and commentary on the socio-cultural implications of the cranial dialogue that occurs inside every human being’s skull. (And, yes, there are notable exceptions, so let’s just say it’s normative for human brains to operate this way.) McGilchrist metaphorically names the right-side lobe of the prefrontal cortex “Master,” and the left-side lobe “Emissary.” It’s a metaphor for understanding the apparent functional relationship between these two distinct biological operations that give rise to the human mind: The Master is aware of every aspect of being human-in-the-world, while the Emissary “processes” this large and somewhat amorphous sensibility into communicable thought: ideas, language and an almost unimaginable array of systems for retaining and expressing these as artifacts, from hunting strategies and cave paintings to sophisticated astrophysical science and an impressive array of arts.
“God as Architect,” by William Blake
My point here is that “religion” is among those artifacts, and that its roots are in right-brain awareness – without commentary – of human existence anchored in a dangerous but awe-inspiring universe full of what German theologian Rudolf Otto named numinous moments. (Idea of the Holy, tr. 1923)
It no doubt took eons for humankind to develop “religion” from such moments, and it was almost certainly due to the persistence of our left brains to put numinous moments into words. Words like “God,” for example.
That’s where the trouble begins, or at least that’s what sets us on a path toward the apparent contradictions between science and religion when it comes to interpreting the whys and wherefores of human experience. Science, very clearly, is a kind of left-brain take on things, while religion – though it may have originated in our right braininess – has taken on a lot of left-brain baggage in the form of theologies, creeds, scriptures, traditions and, worst of all, beliefs. And to think it all began with awe and, perhaps, the awareness that we are but a part of an incomprehensible universe.
It’s not enough to agree with the late Stephen J. Gould that science and religion are separate but equal accounts – he called them “magisteria” – that ought not to be taken as being in opposition. I guess it’s another way of saying that both are “true” as long as each stays in its own backyard. And I’m sure it’s a way of persuading some twenty-first century religionists that it’s OK to recite sacred religious texts as long as they are not taken literally but only as, well, myths and metaphors, legends and fables: All “true” in a sense, but not in the strictest of scientific senses.
“Awestruck,” by Kathleen Strukoff
Which is heresy to fundamentalists – and here we touch upon the problem of “belief” – because … Well, I really don’t know how or why anyone in the twenty-first century would insist upon the idea that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, but there it is. The problem with beliefs, be they theological or spiritual, political or ideological, is that they represent a choice that, once made, becomes a species of moral commitment – absolute, resolute and, above all, no questions asked.
By the way, beliefs are just as fervent among the non-fundamentalists among us, those brave souls who try and have tried for generations past to reconcile ancient religious beliefs with what’s new in philosophy, a process in Christianity that began within that corpus of early writings erroneously known as the “New Testament.” If you think there is but one Jesus in the gospels or one Christ in all those other writings, think again and have another look. Theologians have wrestled with these conflicting theologies from the beginning of Christian history. Among other things, it made early Christianity as a movement a laughingstock among more sophisticated schools of religion, such as the Cult of Isis or the many forms of Gnosticism.
If only the Left Side had kept its mouth shut, you might say, but of course that’s not how we’re made. If only we had let awe be enough and not started chattering away about “God” and all the rest. The term itself is limiting as many theologians, especially mystics, have been saying for centuries. And how or why did we ever get the idea that Awe – yes, in this case, capitalized – had anything supernatural about it, or that the numinous was anything more than, say, a burning bush or a lily of the field?
It’s just that mysteries – and some would say Mystery – abound, and our minds have concocted unanswerable (or at least unanswered) questions, such as, “Why is there something and not nothing?” Science wonders that, too, by the way, and some even marvel that there is something because nothing was the more likely outcome. It has become clear, to me at least, that “God” is not the answer to these questions, but I’m just not willing – not yet – to give up on the idea that Awe is our best response to whatever lies before us that is more than the sum of its parts.
And it is consistent with the contemplative teachings of many religious traditions that Awe is best when it is silent, nonlinear, inarticulate and gently inclined toward respect and – what a pity this has become a cliché – “being in the moment.” Above all, it is enough – without creeds, without doctrines, without traditions of worship and prayer, and above all, without beliefs, which ever have been stumbling blocks in the way of understanding and appreciation of our neighbors and ourselves.
The pelican papers 