Feb 13

Dear Sam,

I will, I fear, regret violating my vow not to re-enter the fray.   But may I just say that I, who am professor of religious studies at the University of Aberdeen, know of no one--save Kierkegaard--who would define religious belief the way you do.   Aquinas offers five arguments for the existence of God.   Is the belief in God thereby independent of evidence or even contrary to evidence?   May I, politely, ask for your own evidence for your view of the basis for religious belief?

The issue of the relationship between religion and science has been debated for centuries.   How do you account for the religiosity of Robert Boyle, to cite one figure out of a thousand?    Nowadays no one pits religion against science--except Dawkins and a handful of others who have no knowledge of religion.   What is your response to the lifelong work of John Brooke, Ronald Numbers, John Henry, Peter Harrison, and scores of other professional historians of science who argue--from case upon case--that the relationship has fluctuated and that the worst thing to claim is that religion and science have continually been at odds, let alone remain at odds?   Darwin was an agnostic, not an atheist.   May I, again politely, ask for your evidence for the view that religion and science are inherently at odds.

As for, yet again, belief and ritual, it has been recognized for over a hundred years that religion is at least as much practice as belief--an insight that goes back to William Robertson Smith's LECTURES ON THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES (1889).   The balance may vary, and philosophers may emphasize belief.   But I have not come upon any scholar in religious studies who dismisses ritual.   At the same time I have never come upon any scholar in religious studies who dismisses belief.   Scholars in religious studies are not all Christian, are not all experts in Christianity only, and are often eager to show the unrepresentativeness of Christianity.  But all assume that religion is a mix of belief and practice.

"There is no god but Allah."   How this commitment is not the the clearest example of belief--and of belief that brooks no compatibility with the belief of any other religion--I do not fathom.

I really don't want to stir anew the pot.   If you want to spurn me as simply someone from a single discipline, with its own self-serving convictions, fine.   But persons in the field of religious studies have one advantage over persons--not all--from other fields.   They know the subject at issue here.


Robert Segal
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sam Webster [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 12:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Constellations Of Belief

Hello Ted,

Yes, actually.

First off, let's get clear on what we are talking about. Below, you are conflating the colloquial use of the word 'belief' with its more specific and theological use. I'm glad you used sunrise below, it is a favorite way of pointing to the difference. No one believes the sun will rise, even if they use the word. It is what has happened before and will again until the conditions change. That is simply knowledge from experience and a very high probability inference.

Belief specifically is the taking of a proposition as true without evidence or in the face of contradictory evidence.

Theological belief is the assertion or acceptance of a spiritual or religious doctrine (proposition) as true without evidence, or in the face of the contrary, but on the basis of authoritative report. Paul of Tarsus' focus on belief was his critical innovation in Christianity permitting men to join his religion without being circumcised (Romans 2:29). It is a peculiar interest of Christianity to assert a set of doctrines and require their acceptance. Blood was split over these matters, both individually and collectively, sometimes over an "iota of a difference," as between the churches of the East and the West.

Other religions don't have this need. In Islam they don't care if you believe in Allah, as long as you make submission by stating that there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is His prophet. Buddhism is quite explicit about not believing anything they Buddha says. Do the practices, results follow.

On the other side of the table, belief is an impediment to science. I'm sure some scientists 'believe' in the theological sense in what they are doing. However, it is the business of positivist and empirical science to ignore belief and focus on the collected facts and attempt to formulate propositions as to what is happening. This is the very point where it split off from natural philosophy.

So, yes, I am saying that most religious people don't focus on belief. That the focus in religious studies on belief is an artifact of being in a [formerly] Christian culture. And that viewing religiosity through a frame that privileges the collection of belief-data imposes categories and presumptions upon the results that distort our understandings.

One example can be found in Stephen Beyer's Cult of Tara, where he points out that in 150 years of the West studying Tibet, it focused on its philosophy (what they thought or believed about their religion) and ignored the ritual and magic, even though they constitute about 75% of that culture. That is a massive distortion and unacceptable if we our serious in our study of religions.

Cheers,
)O+
sam webster

On 2/12/11 9:08 PM, Ted Hand wrote:
Sam,

It's always cool to hear from other Starr King folks. Are you saying that
religious people are incorrect to focus on belief? I can understand why
in these modern times we want to problematize the notion, but when we
are talking about theorizing how people believe, it seems like throwing out
the baby with the bathwater to completely jettison the concept. We need
to look at words like "Faith" (which is used by Proclus as well as Christians)
in the ways that they actually work.

In terms of the scientific outlook (which I've been arguing can't really be
jettisoned in favor of postmodernism or whatever without good reason),
when you have made a scientific determination, don't we say that you
then have a reasonable belief? I believe there is a sun in the sky. You
seem to indicate that you believe (based on experience+reasonable
thought, I'm assuming) that ritual should be done a certain way (you at
least want to "know what you're doing", vs. chaos magic "switching).
As much as I can understand your discomfort with "belief" so-called, it
sure seems to me like you are expressing your beliefs and arguing for
them. I don't think it's an "imposition" to talk about beliefs when we need
them to keep our subject intelligible. What I think is the mistake would be
to base our theory on some personal distaste for what we see as the
results of this "enforcing." Because that's obviously leading to violence,
I can understand why you don't like it. But it would be a mistake to say
that because you don't like "belief" therefore we shouldn't study it.
While I can understand the discomfort folks have with "dogma" or
however you like to put it, I don't think you're correct to argue that
only Christians "believe." Perhaps its true that Christians have an
especially problematic emphasis on doctrine, but that doesn't mean
faith is not a concept that applies to other religions. Of course we
shouldn't evaluate other religions by how they measure up versus
Christianity, but I don't think that's what we mean when we say a
Muslim believes in the proposition "Allah exists." It sure seems like
you believe strongly in the proposition "science is better than bullshit."

This problem of "enforcing doctrinal hegemony" is a different one from
the simpler question of belief. People can believe things without falling
into the trap of this pathological "enforcement" style. I believe that 2+2=4
but I'm not about to start a war over it. When people believe in a God,
that's a more difficult case than 2+2, and of course we need a complex
epistemological/psychological approach, but I don't see how we can
get rid of belief and still have a religion. Buddhists don't believe in a God
but they do believe in their own methodology, and I hear them confidently
talking about the benefits of their practice all the time. I don't see how this
is any different from Christians talking about the benefits of holding dogmas.
Buddhists don't have any more access to information about their future
incarnations than Christians do about Heaven (unless you ask Swedenborg),
according to a scientific evaluation, so why should we see Buddhism as
"more scientific?" Sure, they have a complex and admirable psychology
millennia ahead of its time, but they still "believe" in things you can't verify.
That's an important dimension to the reason why we call it a religion.
Otherwise why not call it a meditation practice, or agnosticism? Christians
may have a fucked up way of making their beliefs matter, but that doesn't
mean that beliefs don't matter to people who follow other faiths.

I'm with you in being puzzled about the focus on belief in chaos magic.
If you don't believe in anything, why believe in magic? If you can really
change your beliefs that easily, there is no way to justify being optimistic.
I've seen so many kids get interested in chaos magic then fall into a deep
depression because they convince themselves life isn't worth living
since there's no way to believe that it is. Sure, this doesn't lead to violence
like Christian enforcement does (although it does lead to violence in some
cases), but the point is that one can find flaws in any style of belief, so
long as it is causing problems. It seems silly to pathologize Christianity and
exalt operational spiritualities if there isn't any epistemological grip to be had
anyway.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Sam Webster <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Lovely, Pitch. A fine expression of engagement with belief. (I suspect we are of a similar age.) I think Marshall McLuhan would have appreciated your words. . . .

When looking at things religious, it deeply puzzles me that the focus is so much on belief.
While if you ask some one planet-wide what they believe they will likely have something to tell you, the only religion that really seems to care is Christianity. (Islam is similar, but submission is more the point.) Other religions are called 'faiths' but that seems to me rather Christo-centric, they don't seem to call themselves that except in a western context. In Shinto, Buddhism, Cherokee, Shuar and other traditions I've come across, there dosen't seem to be a focus on doctrinal homogeneity. While folks clearly have an idea as to what they think is going on, there is not a need for everyone to agree, and even less a need to enforce it.

Having been raised in a culture that uses experimental science, belief has never attracted me as a way of knowing. It always seemed deficient. I'm a practicing magician and priest. I invoke Gods and other spirits regularly. Why would I believe in Them? If I do a good job I experience Them, if I don't, I don't. The ones I know about are the Ones who came. I presume (hypothesize) there are others. That assumption just seems reasonable, given my experience.

Like you Pitch, I think my exposure to media makes coherent reality spaces easy to tune into and accept that in that frame certain rules apply, or said another way, certain results are predictable. In Chaos magick much is made of belief system switching, and was the part that always puzzled me most. Not that it would be done, but that it was considered remarkable. When I go into circle I ask where do you put the elements and which tool do you use for fire. I don't care, any of them can work for me. I just want to know what we are doing tonight. I just seems like the focus on belief is an imposition on our subject when we study religiosity.

Does this make any sense to any one else?
)O+
sam webster, m.div






On 2/9/11 6:23 PM, Pitch wrote:
Aloha,

On 2/8/2011 1:22 PM, D E wrote:
 as a great fan of the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram with *Charlies Angels* replacing the 'traditional' forms at the quarters (it also evokes Fox Mulder, Leslie Nielsen, Colombo and Sherlock Holmes), I am not in the 'finding it flippant' school
I'm assuming that the five agents in the ritual comprise the three female
angels plus Bosley and the never seen Charlie? Do you favor the original
TV version or the later movie reboot?

at the risk of igniting a different and difficult thread,, not read all of these here today, has any mention been made of the chaos school of thought, that beleif in any particualr deity is fine, for the purposes of ritual, but after that, not necessailry?
Let me say upfront that I'm going at this more seriously than frivolously,
but informally, in the spirit of sharing ideas rather than assembling a
methodology.

I grew up watching television from a young age.

One of the foundations of TV watching is the proposition that storytelling
relies on a willing suspension of disbelief. I learned at a young age, years
before I could have described it, how to intentionally and actively suspend
or disengage or unclutch various means and modes that we humans
employ to evaluate the world around us and how that world works.

I watched cartoons in which animals wore clothes, talked, danced, sang,
piloted steamboats, suffered mortal injuries without lasting harm, and all.
I loved funny animals, and I still do.

I watched a bunch of science fiction space-faring dramas chock a block
with scenes of SFX model rockets venturing to faraway planets and
uncanny adventure. I loved space rocket adventures, and I still do.

But I also watched news shows, documentaries featuring a range of
scientific and natural history and ethnographic themes, and commemorations
or celebrations of military history and technologies and such.

As I recall my young awareness. I was comfortably able to activate or
unclutch my belief or sense of the real world according to circumstances or
situation or context in a very brief span of time, without any disruption
of consciousness or activity. I could shift immediately from a state of
imaginative play to a state of alert attention to the real world. And back.

A couple observations:

1.) I think that the technologies via which we disseminate our popular
culture and the fullness or thoroughness or apparent reality with which
those technologies do so does influence our facility or skill at suspending
and engaging our sense of belief/disbelief.

Watching TV provided me with skills that may not have arisen had I grown
up listening to the radio or looking at static pictures or learning this and that
from local wise folks. What's more, I did not seek these skills so much as
they happened in me. I had them and used them in my everyday life from
such an early age that they made my reality what it was--more expansive
than the physical/sociocultural world around me.

2.) One of the basic skills that happened in me involves an ease and
quickness and existential unconcern vis a vis the reality status of things
in worlds.

A cartoon mouse is a "real" mouse in a cartoon world. An actual biological
mouse is a "real" mouse in a documentary world. And in the world where
I walk around looking for clues about how "real" mice live. What's more,
I can create "real" narratives about both cartoon and biological mice. And
both narratives possess a similar reality status as narratives.

I think that is sort of skill set enabling rapid and repeated shifts among
realities without much concern for their belief/disbelief status is quite
widespread and common these days. Certainly it is common and widespread
among Wiccans and Pagans and such that I know.

One of the outcomes of using this skill set tends to make belief/disbelief
irrelevant in magical or spiritual activities. Skill at doing, including doing
rapid shifts among many potential realities with moderate facility is
what counts.

As Sabina and several other list members have pointed out. Wicca is about
practices. Wicca is operational spirituality. So are other approaches to magic
and spirituality, such as Chaos Magic. Practitioners select among a range
of worlds, and they accord each world an equivalent reality status. A
cartoon mouse or a character in a made-up story serves the same as a
deity from a particular cultural legacy or a tangible landscape feature or
whatever.

Maybe what's going on here has to do with various skills we rely on and
various approaches we take in living in and among realities. Even though
it sounds quirky when I say it, belief of the sort that I observe among
plenty of Christian adherents just does not seem all that important or
crucial to Wiccan and Pagan practitioners that I know. It's not that
important or crucial to me in my magical or spiritual activities.
Let alone the use of  *made up deities which didn't exist ten minutes before*
You mean like iConfessor, the deity who perceives confessions on
smartphones and assigns virtual penances?

Musing The Map May Not Be The Territory, But Still, A Simulation Simulates! Rose,

Pitch




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