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varieties of experience
Carl Sagan said that in 1985, in response to questions from the audience at his Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. Having grown up with a belief in God, and having found that belief, and all peripheral beliefs, challenged quite severely in adulthood, I find Sagan’s comments on the topic completely fascinating. Moreso than the disdainful lectures of Richard Dawkins or other prominent atheists, or the urgency of religious speakers, I am appreciative of the approach that Sagan appears to have taken towards the question of God. This isn’t exactly the easiest subject to be objective about, but he seems to have managed it. What conclusion he drew, if any, I am unaware of, but it really doesn’t matter; the end result is a much more personal thing than the search itself. I write about this sort of thing from time to time, but I don’t generally talk about it very much. Maybe it’s because I don’t see the people who read it. Talking of something this personal, this complicated, isn’t exactly easy to do. I suppose it depends on the ear you’re bending, and how willing you are to allow yourself to be vulnerable. In the editor’s note at the front of Sagan’s compiled lectures, Ann Druyan writes of her husband:
I’m very much taken with the idea of challenging faith in order to strengthen it. Training myself to be a skeptic wasn’t really necessary; the faith I was raised in ultimately did it for me, providing few answers to important questions. When I left the church five years ago, I know a lot of people viewed it as a permanent thing — my flight into godlessness, or something equally dramatic. A couple of nights ago I talked about this with somebody unexpected, and she listened quietly. Talking it through is harder, but it also reminds me of things that I sometimes forget. My leaving the church was always intended to be a hiatus during which I would ignore the rituals of organized religion, and learn more for myself what faith meant. It’s been five years, and I suspect it’ll be a few more; this isn’t necessarily something I want to hurry through, given the circumstances. Eleanor is the vehicle I have used for much of my search, and continues to be a way to reflect myself for closer inspection. To ask myself the hard questions, and to hold myself to a real answer, rather than a sidestep or two. I find my mind on these things often. When I first read Sagan’s lectures, I was stopped on the second page by this:
I like the way he phrases it, so technically: “to engage the religious sensibility”. But he’s right. And I count such a moment as he describes as one of my few real touchstones as I attempt to find what I believe. I remember the moment very clearly, it being one of the few genuinely good memories that I have from a time of my life that was more educational than enjoyable. When I am staring at my manuscript, at the blank page that I have to fill with an answer, and one that I truly believe in, before I can continue writing, it’s moments like that one that give me the hope that one day I’ll know.
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February 6th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[…] This idea runs in a similar vein to one I have written about before, but is urgently more important. It is imperative that whomever we elect to run our country is capable of speaking plainly and openly about his or her religious or spiritual beliefs — capable of intelligent, animosity-free discourse about their faith, as well as discussion of its disadvantages or perceived flaws — for the simple reason that those beliefs will, to varying degrees, influence or even guide that person’s behavior in the most serious of scenarios. […]
February 6th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[…] This idea runs in a similar vein to one I have written about before, but is urgently more important. It is imperative that whomever we elect to run our country is capable of speaking plainly and openly about his or her religious or spiritual beliefs — capable of intelligent, animosity-free discourse about their faith, as well as discussion of its disadvantages or perceived flaws — for the simple reason that those beliefs will, to varying degrees, influence or even guide that person’s behavior in the most serious of scenarios. […]