My Sister's Church

(Warning! This post may change as I'm still thinking about a few aspects I don't think I developed properly in it)

One of my sisters goes to an interesting church. 'Interesting' simply means not one of the dozens of Catholic churches across the country I've been to. I must say that I like their format better than the Catholic model but overall I think Antioch (a Catholic youth group) has the best approach to communal whorship/gathering.

I must admit, after visiting my sister's church a couple of times in the last few weeks I did feel like going back again this week. Not because I'm in any danger of spontaneously discovering god. Certainly not for Pastor Garry's 'enlightened' opinions as to why we had the bushfires last year. But because watching them whorship was a far more emotional and moving experience than the typical Catholic herd. Although, I have seen communal forms of whorship so boring the only thing 'moving' communally about those services was perhaps the congregation's bowels from the endless cycling between sitting, kneeling and standing up, so maybe I'm not really qualified to judge.

Which has lead me to the very serious proposition of touring all of the different religious congregations in the area: orthodox, jewish, muslim, hindu, zoroastrian, protestant, buddhist etc... In fact I can already think of two friends who went with me to the Parliament of the World's Religions who are probably already anticipating exactly why I would want to do this and where this entry might be going.

Rabbi Irwin Kula is convinced that religion serves an important purpose in many people's lives. He also believes that the great number of non-religious people are having to give something up, as it were, when they leave the religious fold. I suspect that he and I are in agreement that it isn't the dogma of religions that they're missing either. Although the dogma serves to aid in the differentiation and establishment of battle lines between religions it isn't something non-religious people feel that they have 'given up' on. I believe that Irwin would probably emphasise personal wisdom or spiritual wisdom as being one of the main benefits of being involved intimately with religious tradition... but I would emphasise that behind every successful religion (and cult) is a powerful sense of community.

I urge you to re-read that last sentence. Community is the source of any religion's power. Community is also the powerhouse of society. Community is a tool and like every tool it can be used to help individuals florish and succeed but it can also be used to clamp down hard on individuals and fuel a horrendous war machine. It is important to consider that it isn't simply because of religions like islam that drive people to become terrorists but collective pressure from a community that feels under seige in the modern world that pushes individuals to go out and rage jihad against the west. Individuals generally struggle to act out against the wishes of the community even if they disagree with them. In fact extremists generally don't ever go it alone: they consolidate into communities first otherwise they wouldn't have the confidence to carry out the acts that they do. Heal the community and we effectively poison such terrorism... conversely we might also be establishing a system of control so rigid that no individual can think for themselves.

A challenge for the 21st century will be to create large cohesive secular international communities that encourage freedom, creativity and innovation but at the same time don't turn into mobs of angry, ignorant people afraid of change and differences. They must also be resistant to takeover from other hostile/disruptive cultures otherwise they will perish after a few generations.

These are altogther fine words and aspirations but building a new culture that encompasses all of humanity, promotes human rights, scientific progress, world peace, eudaimonia on a large scale, yet be sparring on dogma and resilient against totalitarian cultures is no small feat! It is to my mind entirely possible to achieve but the one million and one steps needed to reach it means it is a project that will require many prophets/visionaries/champions over many generations in many different countries to develop into a stable and practical form.

One of the things I learned from my sister's church is that the younger generation actually wanted to be there. They were involved, passionate and committed. Considering only 8% of the population in Australia reputedly go to church once a week my sister's church have already achieved sometime significant. Like Hilary Clinton, I'm a big believer that it takes a whole village to raise a child and that even the best parents in the world couldn't raise a child to their full potential on their own. So seeing a community of young people aged 10-25 gathering in a community socialising, going to movies, playing soccer, participating on working bees and countless other activities was quite impressive. Although I did notice that the 25-45 demographic wasn't very well represented. Maybe it was just the day I was there or maybe they have a high attrition rate over the age of 25?

It is all very easy to organise sporting groups, movie nights, camps and other groups but they tend to be very focussed squarely on the activity at hand. While focus is important what would count as a truly successful community for me would be more than just shared common interests but genuine affection, respect and desire to be with the people there not simply because of the common interest.

What is needed to link all of these things is revelation. I'm not sure if I am capable of thinking up the kind of revelation needed but I am convinced that the human capacity for affection (love) has a key part to play.

Affection is important. Love, it seems, is a scarce commodity in our world. You have to love some people more than others and in doing so you have to divide your love and apparently when love is divided it ceases to be as special. For example, we consider it unusual for a person to have more than one best friend or more than one romantic partner. We might say that this because one can only give one other person the time and commitment that is required to make them feel special. But if this is the case then the love a parent has for their first child will diminish with each additional child. The first child gets all of their parents love so total love (TL) = 1/child. Then a second child comes along so the TL must now be divided accordingly, TL = 0.5/child. Then a third and forth child: TL = 0.33/child and TL = 0.25/child respectively and so on. I think you have to admit this arithmetic doesn't quite describe love as we know it. So why only have one best friend? Why not have several and love them all equally? As for loving one adult romantically totally to the exclusion of all others one wonders why an adult needs more care and attention than a child?

I'm not even necessarily promoting polyamory with that statement, just pointing out that defining love as a finite source is rather absurd. There really is no limit to the number of people we can love. I for one argue that the more open a person is to loving other people the more open that person is to new experiences, ideas and approaches to problems (because other people are new experiences, ideas and problems). Such a worldy and eclectic person tends to also be a peaceful and calm person. Simply because they are more accepting of the messiness and chaos that is other people and the world. I'm not saying I'm not chaotic either, I challenge people constantly by pushing them out of their comfort zones. When people learn to love another person, they learn to expand their world because everyone is different to us so learning to love others means learning to accept those differences in them... just as we had to learn to accept ourselves (assuming one has learned to accept oneself).

I'm an atheist and I will put this out there as simply as it is: pushing oneself to love more is a good thing. For yourself, your family, your friends, your community, your country and for your planet. It is hardly going to solve all of the world's problems by itself. But if we're going to move from followers of dogma to individuals guided by creativity and rationality we need to stop competing with other people to fit a mold and start competing with ourselves to grow as wise, strong and capable as we can be. How can we keep pushing ourselves, from within, onto bigger and greater challenges? By expanding our love. I believe that quite literally the more things we love, the more we can be.

In a sense, our minds need to eat. As appetite is to food, love is to people. For a healthy growing mind we need plenty of experiences and relationships to feed it. A good love, like a good appetite, helps us to eat everything we need to grow strong and healthy.

Of course, once we have a good appetite for experiences and relationships, we need to start thinking about the kind of experiences and relationships we allow our minds to consume, because our minds are what they eat. Another point is that sometimes we just need to have a strong stomach to digest the tough experiences and relationships we can't avoid. For those we need to learn coping mechanisms. All of these things can be best shared and transmitted through a community because a community is a rich source of affection, experiences, relationships and wisdom.

We have so many great reasons to build these great communities now that all that is left is a revelation that can be shared to bring people together from across the world to start building them. Of course previous revelations have been "I am the lord thy god, thou shalt have no other gods before me", "I am the son of god who has risen from the dead and he who believes in me shall not die", "reincarnation and kharma are the basis of justice and order in the universe", etc... But to be frank, these are hardly revelations that are going to stand the test of time or intense scrutiny. Nor are they going to promote world peace or cultural diversity.

Once upon a time the idea that a Pharoah could turn into a god if people whorshipped him was a revelation sufficient to create a vast unified community... but such an idea is now laughable. No, we need a revelation that is altruistic, enlightened, adaptable, expandable and resilent. Or maybe just better than what we have so far and when the next generation grow too wise for it they can simply replace it and step boldy forward once more.

I feel I should end this entry now lest I stay up all night. But the point I am most anxious to get across tonight is this:

One doesn't need to believe in god or supernatural phenomenon to realise that love has enormous potential to produce positive results in the growth an individual, a relationship and a community. Love probably simply evolved through natural selection precisely because it was advantageous in this way. Learning to master this emotion would be a great virtue for anyone to possess. Essentially what we need are love 'technologies' (literally love 'philosophies') for the 21st century.