Beauty In the Art of Being Human

Everyone's Agnostic podcast

Cass Midgley often does great in depth research with his podcasts. In this episode, something called the theodicy of divine silence comes up. He explains what that is at the beginning of the podcast and in the text, but I want to add how it relates to secular versions of worldviews. These include people who believe organic farming is better, that our election systems are rigged, that the CIA is in charge of our government, that aliens are working with that secret government, that the earth is flat or any other number of ideologies that have some basis, some facts that can be demonstrated, but have become belief systems to many.

This podcast is about religion and questioning its precepts and tends to focus on the more extreme, evangelical end of the spectrum, but the psychology of belief is the same no matter where you look. Just as evangelicals point to Billy Graham in the White House and cathedrals as evidence they are right, people point to Whole Foods Grocery and the popularity of documentaries as proof they are on the right side. It gets nearly impossible to have a conversation when it becomes tribal. When you can’t point out that chemicals are used in organic farming without being considered a shill for a corporation, discourse has broken down.

Cass comes from a strong religious background, so he sees how this occurred in that environment. My background began with the counter culture and coming together as community to create something we couldn’t do alone and a little Taoist spirituality. The language however, is exactly the same. I heard “you have to believe it to see it” and “fake it ‘til you make it” from people in sandals communing with the trees. The more subtle version would be something like, “well, I just see things differently” or “you can’t look at this from an intellectual point of view”. Whatever way, it is putting blame for not seeing something on to the seer. It’s not a matter of missing evidence. It’s a matter of accepting something a priori.

For those who are open to it, it creates guilt and distrust of self. Once that is created, the readymade answer is there to fix it, the welcoming tribe is there, ready to embrace you with more reassurances, week after week, YouTube after YouTube, bad science after bad science. In the podcast, they discuss ways of deconstructing the narratives that people have. Personally, I would be happy just getting to a point where people would agree with me on ground rules for conversation.

I do want people to see the reality that I think is real, but I don’t think I have a lock on what that is. If I had not questioned my own assumptions from 20 years ago, I wouldn’t see things that I do now. That leaves the possibility that 20 years from now, I will see things differently. Knowing that, all of us should be interested in finding methods and tools for figuring out if we got it right or not. All of these belief systems, dogmatic or not, say they are seeking truth, desiring truth. I’m not convinced of that if they can’t first demonstrate their methods are sound.

I know these podcasts are longer than many of you care for, so here are some highlights.

Cass does his intro, which is also mostly in the description provided. They discuss Ryan’s history for a bit and then after a half hour or so get into how he talked to people on the street as part of his gospel mission. He explains how he would get people to answer questions about things they had done wrong in their life. This is how he would “give you the disease” then offer you the cure. At 34 minutes, he talks about once getting punched in the face for doing this. The story is interesting because it leads to him being proud of being a martyr for that happening. Cass points out that this is a helpless situation that the church is in, because if they get feedback about doing something wrong, or have used logic poorly, it becomes a blessing, that they are “persecuted for my namesake” (referring to Jesus). The world is lost, so you can’t get your truth from there, they say. It’s a very difficult line to engage.

Cass then does a little demonstration of using guided imagination to do a little of this “prophesying”. The theodicy of silence comes up after that, around 40 minutes. The text in the description of the podcast goes into more detail. Ryan uses the analogy of saying that God is like a radio, that you have to tune into. If you aren’t, it’s your fault. Cass’s experience is that he was told he had to be humble for God to show himself.

About 45:30 Cass looks at this idea of looking for the truth. He says he believes Ryan’s intentions were pure. He asks if this pursuit took him “past Jesus”. Ryan agrees. He doesn’t like it when people say he walked away from faith, he went “through it”. If you are searching for a perfect or even just superior being or spirit, you shouldn’t be afraid of where you look or what you might find. That knowledge, supernatural or not, should be findable. Any flaws in the knowledge should be explainable.

Cass and Ryan agree that the pursuit can lead you past the human traditions that led to the pursuit in the first place. Bible study supports this, as Moses found YHWH and David challenged Saul and Amos spoke against the king and Jesus spoke against the Pharisees. Ryan talks about the evolution of Christianity, from something more static to something that is allowed to grow wild and see where it takes you. Ryan covers his own journey from the narrow theology he had to thinking it was either that or nothing. He moved on to seeing there are many variations of Christianity then to the possibility of there being something else that is a better expression of his feelings on the cosmology of the world and what it is to be a human being.

This leads to a great summary from Ryan in the 50th minute. They use the analogy of gardening then he says, “There is something compelling about it, about religion in general, why different cultures throughout all human history keep finding ways to reach beyond themselves. That’s interesting to me, even if what they are reaching for doesn’t exist. There’s something inviting and warm and comforting to me about the reaching itself.” (umms and other connecting words were removed from this quote)

They talk about mental illness and it leads to the path to free thinking. It’s no less interesting than the rest of the podcast. It starts to wrap up around 1:03. Cass talks about someone who went back after becoming an unbeliever and read the Psalms and saw them as a search for meaning. Unfortunately he doesn’t remember who it was. I find this type of appreciation for different viewpoints so rare. We are a very large species, spread out over the world, yet we have so much in common. As Cass says, “there’s a beauty in the art of what it means to be human.” Ryan adds a little to that about interpreting the Bible from a humanist perspective.

Cass always ends with questions about his guest’s hobbies and for this episode, plays some music.

Ryan’s blog http://www.theholyapostate.com/