http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=273&fSetId=160&fArticleId=2628590

Way forward for West is religion of non-religion

At least fundamentalist muslims are honest
July 18, 2005

By Tim Lot

What were the suicide bombs made of? Acetone peroxide, say the police.
Hate and evil, add the rest of us, and outrage at something or other (no
one is sure what). But at a more fundamental level, the bombs were made of
an elemental ancient substance, a substance as crucial to human life as
oxygen or food. The bombs were made of meaning.

I suspect that in destroying themselves and the innocents around them,
each of the young men were not driven by any crazed bloodlust or need for
revenge for transgressions in Iraq. They were driven by what in their
terms would be a need for virtue, a need to send a fireball of meaning
into the uncomprehending world.

The meaning said this: my life is not futile and my death is not final.
This carnage has a higher purpose than anything the barren ceremonies of
the West can offer me with its expensive gewgaws, watered-down religions,
trips to the leisure centre and celebrities.

This is a terrifying reality - that these bombers want nothing in return
for their lives other than what they perceive to be the virtue of
martyrdom. But as usual in incidents where it is suspected that al-Qaeda
is involved, no demands were made. The point was to kill non-believers and
thus gain not only a place in heaven but also a paradoxical assertion at
the exact point of detonation of the absolute reality and significance of
their own lives.

This is not specifically a criticism of Islam, or even fundamentalist
Islam. In fact, there is something weirdly admirable in the fundamentalist
Islamist, however maniacal, compared, say, with his wishy-washy,
half-baked Anglican counterpart. Because the real difference between a
fundamentalist Muslim and a moderate Christian (or a moderate Muslim for
that matter) is surely that they really, really do believe.

They don't use their religious custom as social glue, or conventional
ritual, or a way of fitting in. They talk the deadly talk and they walk
the deadly walk.

The difference between a fundamentalist and a moderate is that the
fundamentalist is not playing games, at least not games that he is
conscious of. In fact, "I'm not playing games" is one of the meanings that
the bombings expressed. This is another way of saying: "I am the hero of
my own life. I have the courage of my terrible convictions. I will not
flinch in fulfilling my bloody destiny." Again, this is not suggesting
that Islam is "mad".

It is no madder than Christianity, where we have a whole raft of leaders
and politicians who seem quite happy to believe that 2 000 years ago a man
performed miracles and then died to rise again. The only difference being
that, I suspect, most Christians in the UK do not really, really believe
it. They just say they do, even to themselves, whistling in what they
secretly recognise to be the dark.
Christian faith is dying in the West, and in Britain it is nearly dead
(deduct all the people who are trying to get their kids into the local
school and it looks even more moribund).

In the meantime, man's desperate thirst for meaning and heroism continues.

What can we offer? A few drinks down the pub, some nice glittering
objects, sex, entertainment, a safe refuge for family and friends, a
reasonably rich and stable society. Surely that is enough? Sometimes, but
not for anyone with a spiritual imagination (and that may be most of us).

Many of us get by, happy enough to await our eventual extinction through
old age or disease, distracting ourselves with toys and work, bringing up
our kids till they push us aside and into the grave. Others find a
gigantic and growing void in the place where meaning should be, a place
they fill with endless millions of prescriptions of Prozac,
binge-drinking, self-harm, crack cocaine and reality TV.

The bombers are lying to themselves, just as we are, but they are doing it
in a more committed, one might even say, more honest way. This is their
way of saying life is not a joke and death is not a rumour. This, the life
we are living, is real and deadly, beautiful and terrifying. We must burn
away the illusion, they say. In their case, it is simply, tragically, to
reveal another illusion.

But is there anything but illusion, any truth about the world that could
give the atomised, lost century a meaning powerful enough to act as a
buffer and a prophylactic against suicide bombers? Are there truths worth
living for beyond family, finance and fun? Because if there aren't, make
no mistake, more bombers will come, and will succeed.

I believe that meaning is there - in the sacredness of life itself, in the
deep mysteries of science, in the magic of collective storytelling, in the
cage of time and space we all have to share. But we lack the language to
express it, at least collectively. We need to find one, and we will find
one, but it will take not years, but generations.

The American academic Sam Harris concludes his brilliant book The End of
Faith by saying that the way forward for the West lies in "religions of
non-religion", world humanist philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism.
These schemes of thought have also been hijacked by the religious, but at
their root they do not talk about God, but man.

They are rational, have no dogmas, are beautiful and if not "true" then at
least not demonstrably absurd to the modern, sceptical mind. Mysticism,
Harris adds, is a rational enterprise. Religion is not.
He's right and fundamentally, vitally, globally right. We need mysticism.
We need "faith" (I could spend another article defining what I mean by
that). But we have to outgrow the infantilism of our religions, both
traditional (primarily Judeo-Christian and Islamist) and modern
(consumerism, individualism, desiccated rationalism).

There is a life of the mind. There is a scientific basis that combats,
even destroys, the deadening modern myth of materialism. Quantum physics
reveals us to be ghosts flicking in and out of existence, each locked in a
private box of relative time and space.

There is no "material", no stuff. We are patterns of energy, in a timeless
now, forged in the stars, our ancestors fish and sea and gas and space,
the void itself.

Our lives do have meaning. Our deaths do not negate it, but affirm it.
Existence is mysterious, even magical. And you do not have to be religious
to believe it. Only intelligent. Only imaginative. Only human.

But until the religion virus disappears for ever, we will never, never
apprehend what the truth is about the illusion that the bombers were
pursuing - so lost are we in our own myths, lies and evasions, in our
pointless flight from and our relentless denial of the terrors and
beauties of both life and death and existence itself. - The
Independent

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=273&fSetId=160&fArticleId=2628590

Way forward for West is religion of non-religion

At least fundamentalist muslims are honest
July 18, 2005

By Tim Lot

What were the suicide bombs made of? Acetone peroxide, say the police.
Hate and evil, add the rest of us, and outrage at something or other (no
one is sure what). But at a more fundamental level, the bombs were made of
an elemental ancient substance, a substance as crucial to human life as
oxygen or food. The bombs were made of meaning.

I suspect that in destroying themselves and the innocents around them,
each of the young men were not driven by any crazed bloodlust or need for
revenge for transgressions in Iraq. They were driven by what in their
terms would be a need for virtue, a need to send a fireball of meaning
into the uncomprehending world.

The meaning said this: my life is not futile and my death is not final.
This carnage has a higher purpose than anything the barren ceremonies of
the West can offer me with its expensive gewgaws, watered-down religions,
trips to the leisure centre and celebrities.

This is a terrifying reality - that these bombers want nothing in return
for their lives other than what they perceive to be the virtue of
martyrdom. But as usual in incidents where it is suspected that al-Qaeda
is involved, no demands were made. The point was to kill non-believers and
thus gain not only a place in heaven but also a paradoxical assertion at
the exact point of detonation of the absolute reality and significance of
their own lives.

This is not specifically a criticism of Islam, or even fundamentalist
Islam. In fact, there is something weirdly admirable in the fundamentalist
Islamist, however maniacal, compared, say, with his wishy-washy,
half-baked Anglican counterpart. Because the real difference between a
fundamentalist Muslim and a moderate Christian (or a moderate Muslim for
that matter) is surely that they really, really do believe.

They don't use their religious custom as social glue, or conventional
ritual, or a way of fitting in. They talk the deadly talk and they walk
the deadly walk.

The difference between a fundamentalist and a moderate is that the
fundamentalist is not playing games, at least not games that he is
conscious of. In fact, "I'm not playing games" is one of the meanings that
the bombings expressed. This is another way of saying: "I am the hero of
my own life. I have the courage of my terrible convictions. I will not
flinch in fulfilling my bloody destiny." Again, this is not suggesting
that Islam is "mad".

It is no madder than Christianity, where we have a whole raft of leaders
and politicians who seem quite happy to believe that 2 000 years ago a man
performed miracles and then died to rise again. The only difference being
that, I suspect, most Christians in the UK do not really, really believe
it. They just say they do, even to themselves, whistling in what they
secretly recognise to be the dark.
Christian faith is dying in the West, and in Britain it is nearly dead
(deduct all the people who are trying to get their kids into the local
school and it looks even more moribund).

In the meantime, man's desperate thirst for meaning and heroism continues.

What can we offer? A few drinks down the pub, some nice glittering
objects, sex, entertainment, a safe refuge for family and friends, a
reasonably rich and stable society. Surely that is enough? Sometimes, but
not for anyone with a spiritual imagination (and that may be most of us).

Many of us get by, happy enough to await our eventual extinction through
old age or disease, distracting ourselves with toys and work, bringing up
our kids till they push us aside and into the grave. Others find a
gigantic and growing void in the place where meaning should be, a place
they fill with endless millions of prescriptions of Prozac,
binge-drinking, self-harm, crack cocaine and reality TV.

The bombers are lying to themselves, just as we are, but they are doing it
in a more committed, one might even say, more honest way. This is their
way of saying life is not a joke and death is not a rumour. This, the life
we are living, is real and deadly, beautiful and terrifying. We must burn
away the illusion, they say. In their case, it is simply, tragically, to
reveal another illusion.

But is there anything but illusion, any truth about the world that could
give the atomised, lost century a meaning powerful enough to act as a
buffer and a prophylactic against suicide bombers? Are there truths worth
living for beyond family, finance and fun? Because if there aren't, make
no mistake, more bombers will come, and will succeed.

I believe that meaning is there - in the sacredness of life itself, in the
deep mysteries of science, in the magic of collective storytelling, in the
cage of time and space we all have to share. But we lack the language to
express it, at least collectively. We need to find one, and we will find
one, but it will take not years, but generations.

The American academic Sam Harris concludes his brilliant book The End of
Faith by saying that the way forward for the West lies in "religions of
non-religion", world humanist philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism.
These schemes of thought have also been hijacked by the religious, but at
their root they do not talk about God, but man.

They are rational, have no dogmas, are beautiful and if not "true" then at
least not demonstrably absurd to the modern, sceptical mind. Mysticism,
Harris adds, is a rational enterprise. Religion is not.
He's right and fundamentally, vitally, globally right. We need mysticism.
We need "faith" (I could spend another article defining what I mean by
that). But we have to outgrow the infantilism of our religions, both
traditional (primarily Judeo-Christian and Islamist) and modern
(consumerism, individualism, desiccated rationalism).

There is a life of the mind. There is a scientific basis that combats,
even destroys, the deadening modern myth of materialism. Quantum physics
reveals us to be ghosts flicking in and out of existence, each locked in a
private box of relative time and space.

There is no "material", no stuff. We are patterns of energy, in a timeless
now, forged in the stars, our ancestors fish and sea and gas and space,
the void itself.

Our lives do have meaning. Our deaths do not negate it, but affirm it.
Existence is mysterious, even magical. And you do not have to be religious
to believe it. Only intelligent. Only imaginative. Only human.

But until the religion virus disappears for ever, we will never, never
apprehend what the truth is about the illusion that the bombers were
pursuing - so lost are we in our own myths, lies and evasions, in our
pointless flight from and our relentless denial of the terrors and
beauties of both life and death and existence itself. - The
Independent

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=273&fSetId=160&fArticleId=2628590

Way forward for West is religion of non-religion

At least fundamentalist muslims are honest
July 18, 2005

By Tim Lot

What were the suicide bombs made of? Acetone peroxide, say the police. Hate
and evil, add the rest of us, and outrage at something or other (no one is
sure what). But at a more fundamental level, the bombs were made of an
elemental ancient substance, a substance as crucial to human life as oxygen
or food. The bombs were made of meaning.

I suspect that in destroying themselves and the innocents around them, each
of the young men were not driven by any crazed bloodlust or need for revenge
for transgressions in Iraq. They were driven by what in their terms would be
a need for virtue, a need to send a fireball of meaning into the
uncomprehending world.

The meaning said this: my life is not futile and my death is not final. This
carnage has a higher purpose than anything the barren ceremonies of the West
can offer me with its expensive gewgaws, watered-down religions, trips to
the leisure centre and celebrities.

This is a terrifying reality - that these bombers want nothing in return for
their lives other than what they perceive to be the virtue of martyrdom. But
as usual in incidents where it is suspected that al-Qaeda is involved, no
demands were made. The point was to kill non-believers and thus gain not
only a place in heaven but also a paradoxical assertion at the exact point
of detonation of the absolute reality and significance of their own lives.

This is not specifically a criticism of Islam, or even fundamentalist Islam.
In fact, there is something weirdly admirable in the fundamentalist
Islamist, however maniacal, compared, say, with his wishy-washy, half-baked
Anglican counterpart. Because the real difference between a fundamentalist
Muslim and a moderate Christian (or a moderate Muslim for that matter) is
surely that they really, really do believe.

They don't use their religious custom as social glue, or conventional
ritual, or a way of fitting in. They talk the deadly talk and they walk the
deadly walk.

The difference between a fundamentalist and a moderate is that the
fundamentalist is not playing games, at least not games that he is conscious
of. In fact, "I'm not playing games" is one of the meanings that the
bombings expressed. This is another way of saying: "I am the hero of my own
life. I have the courage of my terrible convictions. I will not flinch in
fulfilling my bloody destiny." Again, this is not suggesting that Islam is
"mad".

It is no madder than Christianity, where we have a whole raft of leaders and
politicians who seem quite happy to believe that 2 000 years ago a man
performed miracles and then died to rise again. The only difference being
that, I suspect, most Christians in the UK do not really, really believe it.
They just say they do, even to themselves, whistling in what they secretly
recognise to be the dark.
Christian faith is dying in the West, and in Britain it is nearly dead
(deduct all the people who are trying to get their kids into the local
school and it looks even more moribund).

In the meantime, man's desperate thirst for meaning and heroism continues.

What can we offer? A few drinks down the pub, some nice glittering objects,
sex, entertainment, a safe refuge for family and friends, a reasonably rich
and stable society. Surely that is enough? Sometimes, but not for anyone
with a spiritual imagination (and that may be most of us).

Many of us get by, happy enough to await our eventual extinction through old
age or disease, distracting ourselves with toys and work, bringing up our
kids till they push us aside and into the grave. Others find a gigantic and
growing void in the place where meaning should be, a place they fill with
endless millions of prescriptions of Prozac, binge-drinking, self-harm,
crack cocaine and reality TV.

The bombers are lying to themselves, just as we are, but they are doing it
in a more committed, one might even say, more honest way. This is their way
of saying life is not a joke and death is not a rumour. This, the life we
are living, is real and deadly, beautiful and terrifying. We must burn away
the illusion, they say. In their case, it is simply, tragically, to reveal
another illusion.

But is there anything but illusion, any truth about the world that could
give the atomised, lost century a meaning powerful enough to act as a buffer
and a prophylactic against suicide bombers? Are there truths worth living
for beyond family, finance and fun? Because if there aren't, make no
mistake, more bombers will come, and will succeed.

I believe that meaning is there - in the sacredness of life itself, in the
deep mysteries of science, in the magic of collective storytelling, in the
cage of time and space we all have to share. But we lack the language to
express it, at least collectively. We need to find one, and we will find
one, but it will take not years, but generations.

The American academic Sam Harris concludes his brilliant book The End of
Faith by saying that the way forward for the West lies in "religions of
non-religion", world humanist philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism.
These schemes of thought have also been hijacked by the religious, but at
their root they do not talk about God, but man.

They are rational, have no dogmas, are beautiful and if not "true" then at
least not demonstrably absurd to the modern, sceptical mind. Mysticism,
Harris adds, is a rational enterprise. Religion is not.
He's right and fundamentally, vitally, globally right. We need mysticism. We
need "faith" (I could spend another article defining what I mean by that).
But we have to outgrow the infantilism of our religions, both traditional
(primarily Judeo-Christian and Islamist) and modern (consumerism,
individualism, desiccated rationalism).

There is a life of the mind. There is a scientific basis that combats, even
destroys, the deadening modern myth of materialism. Quantum physics reveals
us to be ghosts flicking in and out of existence, each locked in a private
box of relative time and space.

There is no "material", no stuff. We are patterns of energy, in a timeless
now, forged in the stars, our ancestors fish and sea and gas and space, the
void itself.

Our lives do have meaning. Our deaths do not negate it, but affirm it.
Existence is mysterious, even magical. And you do not have to be religious
to believe it. Only intelligent. Only imaginative. Only human.

But until the religion virus disappears for ever, we will never, never
apprehend what the truth is about the illusion that the bombers were
pursuing - so lost are we in our own myths, lies and evasions, in our
pointless flight from and our relentless denial of the terrors and beauties
of both life and death and existence itself. - The
Independent