objectivity and preferences

Sometimes I can offer some valuable insight about the inner life of the "other side": religious followers who construct their thoughts and behavior on top of traditional supernatural beliefs. (I estimate that I was like that for around the first 29 years of life—drawing a hard line between these phases is difficult.) Without this sort of insight, people can run into problems when they try to reach religious followers with sensible reasoning. Their statements can fail to connect with their audience due to overlooking an important point.

This is the case when someone comments that the beliefs are unattractive in some way. Why should someone sacrifice so much for beliefs that are at the very least off-putting and at most repugnant? How can someone disregard their feelings of repulsion when they're selecting the beliefs that they're committing to?

Yet the attempt to raise these excellent questions is missing a particular twistedness in religious followers' perspectives. Their view is almost the reverse. To them the difference between the beliefs and their preferences is evidence for the beliefs' objectivity. As they see it, if a belief were entirely subjective or invented, then following (or discarding) the belief actually would be a matter of preference. Some of them might even say it out loud, although their tone is firmly ironic. "A sense of unease proves that I wouldn't make these ideas up for myself. And I'm not fooling myself with ideas that I find comforting. I wish I could choose what to think according to my personal wants. But I simply can't do that, just as I can't choose to think that I can grow money on trees." They might say that it's similar to the challenge of appreciating an authentically prepared dish from a different culinary culture, or similar to the way that an accurate portrayal of ancient societies' ways appears more or less monstrous to contemporary people. 

In addition, it's crucial to remember that many followers—some more than others—aren't for one moment giving equal consideration to the radical concept that their supernatural ideas are groundless. It's not a fair competition from the start of the conversation. They aren't facing a fork in the road; they're already located a mile past the fork in the direction of the beliefs. To seriously consider the alternative, they'd need to backtrack on multiple principles first. The beliefs were taught in the form of indisputable facts at the same time as they were taught indisputable facts about gravity and the number of minutes in an hour.

I'd think of this factor as an attitude as much as it is a mindset. When they're justifying distastefulness as a sign of unsettling objectivity, their base attitude is "I have this set of integrated beliefs and my goal is to identify minimal reasons to permit myself to keep it." If their religiosity has been a vital part of them, then they're reluctant to give it up. The attitude they need, which is a significant shift, is "This set of integrated beliefs is a possible set of many that I could have and my goal is to identify competitive reasons to adopt it rather than adopting the rest."

The shift in attitude can happen. But the defense mechanisms are formidable, like perversely turning ideas' disturbingness into an advantage. For the determined person who's not open to honest self-examination, rationalization is practically infinite in what it can do. 

a triangular chisel

I've often mentioned that my mental outlook underwent a seismic change years ago. After the change, like a patient chisel, it gradually chipped away the solid bedrock of my former supernatural views. At the very end I could see the broken pieces for what they were and sweep them away. The work couldn't have gone any faster; these views had been part of my psyche since early childhood development.

But it's been some time since I simply stated what that mental outlook is. I like to think of it as a triangle, because its three parts interact and depend on each other. I classify it as Pragmatism-ish; it's too colored by my own preferences and too poorly laid out to be plain Pragmatist philosophy. The three parts are

• Ideas. Ideas are never in short supply, because people create ideas so naturally. This is good, but it comes with the inherent problem that ideas can exist without a connection to anything at all. Ideas fall into bewildering varieties of fiction and nonfiction, bare truths and elaborate lies, wild speculations and careful theories, literal confessions and metaphorical tales. Being too quick to grant credence to any idea in isolation is a fool's error, even if the idea is coming from a self-described Truth-teller. Supporting one incorrect idea with another incorrect idea won't be an improvement, obviously. The ideas must be firmly linked to something outside...
• Realities. In contrast to the ocean of ideas that people swim in, realities are scarcer and more difficult to obtain. Plus, all people encounter realities through the "lens of themselves". Each person is finite and they're able to think outside themselves only by significant effort. Therefore, at least by default, the realities a person proposes can't be assumed to be objective. The objectivity is a quality that needs to be demonstrated. And just because one idea's objectivity is firm, we can't assume that every follow-up idea about it is is as equally objective. (Side remark: Pragmatism-ish is a set of very general observations about what it's like to be a person existing in the world. It's real to the extent that the observations are good summaries of those experiences.)
• Actions/Outcomes. If the domain of ideas is distinct from the domain of realities, yet people don't have a reliable inborn "sense" for the overlap between the two domains, then what can people do to rectify this? The answer is they can take action. When they act according to an idea, the outcome is a clue for the connection between the idea and realities. The twist here is that the innocent term "action" covers an oddly broad range. Following a logical argument is an action. Opening one's eyes and interpreting what one sees is an action. Reading an article is an action. Calculating statistics is an action. Predicting a result based on one or more causes is action. And judging the outcome's meaning and significance is too, of course. The fact that a person thinking deeply in an armchair is performing an action is a reminder that mental actions can have similar problems as physical actions...such as fatigue or emotional compromise at the time. Brains are organs. I've sometimes written that thinking is a "brain action".

The consistent use of the triangle leads to a few consequences. One is the same point from the introduction: that each vertex of the triangle is kind of flimsy without the others to give it structure. An idea detached from realities and actions isn't that convincing. A so-called reality that is beyond the comprehension of ideas, or a reality that has no impact on anything people do, isn't convincing either. Neither is an action that's carried out without reference to anything thoughtful or real, such as a mysterious ritual or superstition. Like a cord of three strands (mixed metaphors ahoy!), the triangle is self-reinforcing and stronger as a whole. Prioritizing mind over matter or vice-versa would be a mistake.

A second major consequence is that actions can take many different shapes, so outcomes can take many different shapes, so the ideas found to be realities can take many different shapes. The degree of confidence can vary greatly too. This is the reason that we describe realities more than we describe "Reality". In the same way, we describe truths more than we describe "Truth", or we say an idea is more accurate or less accurate than another.

Another inescapable consequence is that progress tends to be incremental. Even an action that seems to be a clear confirmation could be misleading in the long run. Individual actions aren't generally that grand, and people cope by repeating and accumulating outcomes from such little actions. There isn't a hotline that we can pick up and instantly receive whatever perfect truths we seek—when someone offers such a hotline, or offers to be that hotline, we should be supremely skeptical. A truth is more like a brick building that we must construct layer by layer, and the materials we have to build with are nothing special.

The final consequence might be the most radical of all. Perhaps the triangle's usefulness goes further. What if it became the way that an idea's meaning is analyzed in the first place? Instead of people talking in circles when they disagree about a complex idea, they could (honestly) explain the effects that their version of the idea has on real actions (actions considered in the above broad sense). And certain extremely abstract versions of the ideas, which have no impact on anything, would be either dropped for discussion altogether or demoted to a calmer level of passion.

Based on this approach, by the end, I wouldn't say that I was thinking as much about whether some of my beliefs had been true as much as I was thinking about what many of the beliefs had truly meant...if the beliefs had meant anything other than wishful or compassionate feelings.

a massive growing snowball of subtlety

From time to time, I hear a seemingly innocent statement from someone, but to me it has an effect more like a huge flashing sign that exclaims, "Ideas like this are part of why I dropped my old beliefs!" 

Today's example is when a reasonable-sounding person says with an amused chuckle, "I understand that you wish my beliefs were stark and sharply defined. That would make it easier for you to scrutinize and pick apart the beliefs. I'm sorry I must let you down. I'm simply more subtle than that. My philosophies are more like an art that I've mastered over time, not a science that produces dead numbers."

And of course the response has some merit. I certainly admit that reality is complex, and the complexity shouldn't be dismissed. The problem is that the escape hatch of thoughtful subtlety wears out pretty quickly when it's put to use in all the contexts that demand it.

• Reapplying ancient texts to fit contemporary dilemmas? It's a subtle art.
• Seeing the handiwork of the divine in everyday life? It's a subtle art.
• Translating all possible outcomes of a prayer into a usable viewpoint of how the god reacted to the prayer? It's a subtle art. (Hint: just say that the reaction can be "Yes", "no", or "later". Presto! All the bases are covered.)  
• Detecting the guidance of one or more gods or spirits about what to do? It's a subtle art.
• Defining the intersection between physical reality and an intangible soul or mind, which is perfectly free in the sense that it only causes and is never caused? It's a subtle art.
• Explaining why different sects of a religion all claim the same exact gods yet differ constantly about the correct rituals and doctrines? It's a subtle art.
• Justifying why religious experiences and feelings are excellent ways to reach accurate conclusions for one religion, yet the same experiences and feelings are terrible ways to reach accurate conclusions in the context of all the incorrect religions? It's a subtle art.
• Renovating foundational myths about creation to fit the facts of geological and evolutionary time? It's a subtle art.
• Reforming morality from a very different historical period in order to remain sort-of the same as always, while not violating contemporary non-negotiables about how people should be treated? It's a subtle art.
• Inventing solutions for beings that can have amazing powers and be compassionate without using their amazing powers to stop real evils? It's a subtle art.  

For me at least, the crux wasn't any single subtlety out of the list. It was the unceasing pressure of the whole list at once.  The mass of subtleties on subtleties on subtleties lost credibility. It's quite possible to maintain these subtle arts and to continue doing it for decades, especially if someone is motivated to not pay close attention. The most important rule is that one must never step back for a second, look around curiously, and ask the piercing question "What if the more sensible viewpoint here is that rather than something being very very very very subtle...that something was never there to start with?"

church as lottery investment pool

Followers of supernatural beliefs are advised to band together. This advice has some savvy reasons behind it. One is the social pressure to keep followers from deviating. Each individual wants to avoid the loss of status in others' eyes, so none will dare even one step toward withdrawing. Another reason is that being surrounded by a large group of followers offers comfort about the reasonableness of the beliefs. It's much less unnerving than the feeling that their belief is like walking out alone on a ledge, clinging to ideas that nobody else accepts. Yet another reason to encourage solidarity is so that the followers can consult each other to justify their beliefs. They can ask and answer each other's questions. This is especially handy because some beliefs provoke a very predictable set of questions. The group can continually repeat the common set of responses to those common questions. Beyond helping to address each other's questions in words, followers can model the beliefs. Seeing the beliefs demonstrated is more compelling than reading the beliefs from a book. 

For all these reasons and more, shepherding followers into tightly packed flocks is widely recognized as important, if not indispensable, for maintaining their beliefs long-term. A follower who is merely starting to break away is like a flashing warning sign that their beliefs might be at risk. No wonder followers who move are strongly urged to rejoin other followers nearby. And followers who don't show up regularly can expect to be asked about their absence ("for their own good").

But there's a more subtle reason also at work. A huge difficulty with any supernatural idea is that its impact on detectable reality is normally so slight. In fact, someone who examines the impact in a neutral and careful way may begin to wonder whether it's there at all. Needless to say this could reflect very badly on their confidence that the idea is real. It might seem to "pay off" about as frequently as a lottery ticket.

To some degree, followers can cope by conveniently forgetting almost all times when the idea "misses its chance" to have an effect. (I once compared this to playing Battleship without any white pegs, so the player can go on thinking whatever they like about their opponent's fleet positions.) However, they can do even better through the combined effort of a group: the more followers there are, the more players are contributing to the "supernatural confirmation lottery". The group can pool their results by eagerly keeping in touch about anyone's payoff. Perhaps follower A hasn't seen any good signs lately that their supernatural ideas are credible, while follower B has seen an adequate sign last week—or a sign that meets the need if the viewer tilts their head and squints just right, anyway.

The lottery comparison is apt because some events are certain to happen eventually purely by chance. There are such things as beneficial coincidences from time to time; these would occur naturally without any behind-the-scenes supernatural fiddling. Assuming beneficial coincidences are reliable signals of the supernatural intersecting with reality (a bad assumption in my opinion of course...), then a sizable group of followers can expect to see these signals more than an isolated follower. This is just the same phenomenon as how a pool of investors buying lottery tickets can expect to experience a greater total of winnings over a specific period. 

And it's boosted further when the group doesn't keep track of the group's total number of misses any more consistently than an individual does about their own. For that matter, the followers simply don't bother to report their misses to the group anyhow. (Neither do they exchange notes with groups of followers of drastically different supernatural beliefs. If they saw this strategy working equally as well for groups who follow "false" religions then that might lead to hard questions.)

Far too often I've gotten the impression that followers of supernatural beliefs are viewed as sloppy or lazy thinkers. This stereotype might be about as accurate as their stereotype that atheists are amoral schemers whose goal is to outlaw every form of religion. The truth is more interesting and could be described with many metaphors. Their thinking is compromised. It's functional but infected. They've been fed skillful misinformation. They're aimed at the wrong targets. They're viewing the world through colored goggles that filter out contrary clues. They're perpetuating a time-tested system of beliefs that have endured because so many humans are susceptible to this system. I wouldn't say that this is a full excuse for how they think and especially not for how they act, but it's a basis for understanding them. 

unfinished skepticism

Not long ago I saw a YouTube video about the drop in U.S. evangelical Christian church attendance. It suggested that one cause is that younger adults are rejecting the beliefs they were raised in. And they're doing this as they're educated more about the wider world and also about how to question ideas. At the same time, they see flaws in the morality promoted by their former churches, which only accelerates their rejection of that culture.

My reaction to this part of the video was "yup, that checks out—nice work all around, everyone". My path out was similar in some ways.

However, the video then went on to say that many of them end up shifting into a personalized mixture of notions. They draw these from many potential sources. For some of them, a source can even be a version of Christianity with the unlikeable portions crudely shaved off. They're still "spiritual" and "deep". They find meaning through connecting with the supernatural plane. They might say that people are beings who are more than crude matter and that they stretch out with their feelings to make contact with their concept of a god.  

My reaction to this part of the video was a massive (mental) facepalm and an exasperated sigh.

Don't misinterpret. I'm pleased that there's a trend of younger generations setting themselves free from the tyranny of the inaccurate beliefs that ruled the generations that came before them. But come on. This end result sounds much more like embracing shallow fashions than genuine philosophical sophistication. 

It reeks of straightforwardly replacing your parents' beliefs with your peers', or perhaps with beliefs spread by a popular cultural figure or some anonymous internet blogger. The crux is that swallowing the replacement beliefs also actually requires heaping portions of faith. Admittedly, the necessary faith might be less obvious than reciting the traditional verbal creeds pushed onto religious converts.

On the other hand, replacing the old faith-based beliefs with faith-based beliefs from other cultures is hardly an improvement either. Just because a faith-belief is less familiar doesn't imply that it's a window on some larger untapped reality. (Nor should embracing a faith-belief from another culture prove that the believer is amazingly open-minded and interesting.) 

Finally, a faith-belief that's more vague isn't an automatic upgrade from a faith-belief that's sharply defined. Real stuff tends to support hard ideas. A real brick wall isn't "sorta there and sorta not", at least when you're trying to walk through it. I'd venture that if supernatural stuff were real, the beliefs that express it in solid terms are more convincing than the beliefs that (rather suspiciously) won't make any claims that could be checked. 

In short, I'm disappointed that their skepticism remains unfinished. They stopped short. By all means, skepticism of U.S. evangelicalism is a prime starting point. But I think they would reach more accurate conclusions if they turned a skeptical eye on the alternatives as well. The truth is that the experiences of getting tingly sensations and sensing an oceanic awareness are more or less universal. Using them as supposed evidence of any one viewpoint about reality is unjustified. People fit them into whatever frame of faith-beliefs they had beforehand, or they make one up in response.

That said, everybody loves to intentionally misunderstand such recommendations. Thorough skepticism about a unifying force behind reality doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to be unified. Thorough skepticism about an afterlife doesn't mean that people shouldn't be compassionate and thoughtful about the effects they leave behind on reality when they pass. Thorough skepticism about an Ultimate Meaning of the whole cosmos doesn't mean that people shouldn't strive to develop and follow a comprehensive meaning for their own lives. Thorough skepticism about a soul that inhabits a person, like a ghost haunting a house, doesn't mean that people shouldn't do what they can to improve their handling of their brain's thoughts and emotions.

The aim is to recognize that we as people can thrive without any of the nonsense. We can just leave it behind and reapply whatever behaviors from the old culture that we find beneficial, simply because the behaviors are beneficial, not because the behaviors must continue to be backed by inaccurate views.

revenge of the private life

It's often illuminating to actually read the classic books that have become famous cultural references...even clichés. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an excellent example. Before, I would've parroted the common idea that Jekyll and Hyde are two sides of one person that are in constant conflict. Now, it's abundantly clear that the relationship between them is far more nuanced in the source. And this loss of understanding comes with a loss of the insights the book portrays about the tangled complexity that a person's private life can take on. 

To start with, Jekyll admits upfront that he's always had a hidden side of himself, and it's a side that's had antisocial (...to say the least...) tendencies. His potion for manifesting the soul in a more direct bodily form merely provides a channel for that hidden side. The shallow interpretation that Jekyll is good and Hyde is bad fails immediately. Rather, Jekyll is the complex ambivalent whole and Hyde is one part temporarily separated. Hyde is Jekyll's opportunity to live out a private life freed from the blows to reputation that would normally be the consequences. He's Jekyll worst sets of impulses driving full-speed with all the brake lines cut. This is a form of freedom, despicable as it is. 

The pair share memories and in that sense they cannot be separate people. Personal memory is part of the essential definition of what distinguishes one person from another. And, just like setting up the mundane details of a private life, Jekyll starts by being all too happy to accommodate for Hyde. Hyde is provided with his own entrance and own discreet servant. To his upstanding lawyer's alarm, Hyde has a right of inheritance to all of Jekyll's possessions if Jekyll is gone. Finally, there's the obvious point that Jekyll drinks the potion regularly to give Hyde time to enjoy himself. Two beings in all-out war wouldn't keep drinking the potion to let the other take over for a while. Jekyll wants to give himself over to his private life, personified by Hyde...at first. Similarly, Hyde is fine with escaping into Jekyll to preserve the neat arrangement. Private life or not, the pair need to continue to make a living and take part in the public life of society with its interactions with lawyers and bankers and so on. They each recognize the uses for the other. Hyde's psychopathic selfishness approves.

Yet again this is the source's greater nuance and allegorical insight. To me the text is explicit that Hyde isn't an unthinking beast, just as Jekyll is no perfect angel. In the time periods that someone is gratifying their immoral and/or socially-shamed private life, they remain capable of normal thought. As already mentioned, this capability to think about long-term ramifications is how they're able to justify giving up the private life's, er, liberties again. Hyde's lack of empathy or any concern for society, as well as the greater strength and speed of his passions, results in a truly despicable level of self-control in the moment. But he can form coherent plans, albeit fear-driven ones, and manage to speak with some minimal courtesy when he must.

Naturally, the conflict does develop further. The need for rising dramatic action demands it, of course. It wouldn't reach a climactic ending if it stayed in a harmonious compartmentalization of public and private lives. My guess is that more people manage this sort of split than we hear about—by definition these successes are quieter than the catastrophic failures. I'd say that the best moral is that people need to find a compromise between their desires and the rules they live by. Jekyll's hardly the first who's ever needed to find a productive or at least harmless outlet. Smacking strangers in the face is bad, but punching a punching bag isn't. An extremely strict society that has no place for meeting the needs of the whole person isn't great. Generally speaking people are better off when they live authentically instead of setting up a private life. I don't think that's much of a revelation these days, though.

The striking aspect of the developing conflict between Jekyll and Hyde is its similarity to the experience of the addict. As with an addiction, the actions of Hyde escalate. The urges that drive Jekyll and Hyde adapt by requiring more and more drastic acts to achieve the same satisfaction. With Hyde this is accelerated because he isn't repelled by the more drastic acts in the way that a whole person would be. Jekyll narrates that while releasing Hyde was difficult in the beginning, his growing adaptation to Hyde gives him greater hesitation—represented by requiring greater doses of potion—in going back to his complete self. At the same time, he feels obligated to spend more and more effort undoing or compensating for the shameful things he does as Hyde. He feels that he's begun to go too far, but like an addict he cannot give it up or slow it down. After all, Hyde's appeal to Jekyll is a lack of moderation: normal limits on the self are inactive in that persona.

As if all this weren't intriguing already, the story makes another fine point that rings true: the revenge of the private life is that the lines blur. His mounting horror and desperation about his private life is accompanied by increasingly spontaneous switches to Hyde. One subtle effect is that this can be simply embarrassing, given that Jekyll's clothes are too big for Hyde. Addicts too are subject to any embarrassments that their out-of-control addiction leads to. Furthermore, he's eventually unable to conceal Hyde from his staff at home, in the manner that addicts are rendered unable to conceal their addictions from close associates over time. 

Jekyll becomes so fearful of transforming that he puts off sleeping or relaxing his self-resolve. The side of him that's primary is arguably changing from Jekyll to Hyde, bit by bit. Hyde was akin to a mask worn by Jekyll, but is Jekyll becoming more akin to a mask worn by Hyde? The more that a particular identity is engraved into someone's brain, deepening neuronal paths, then the harder it is to disrupt its activation. Reactions that are appropriate for the second identity start to cross over. Jekyll stops playing with fire by embracing Hyde, but he continues to feel the desire to give in, as if Hyde is growing restless. This is like someone who discovers that a starved urge will "take on a life of its own" after it's been indulged many times. When he releases Hyde to get some relief, Hyde's passions are stronger than ever. 

Then Hyde does his worst, which as everyone knows is "hitting rock bottom". Hyde is in trouble with the law and escapes by switching to Jekyll, who's absolutely contrite now. After rock bottom, he's more than eager to cut off Hyde altogether. Only now is the shallow picture of "good and evil sides fight" relevant. Again like an addict who's recovering by remaking himself, Jekyll commits himself to doing all the good he can and resuming his normal life before the potions. And again again like an addict in recovery, he's protected from the temptation of Hyde by his feelings of repulsion at the kind of person he once was. 

For him there cannot be a happy ending. One day he's feeling particularly complacent about his present moral superiority, and in that moment Hyde returns. His fear of the law's punishment motivates him to try to mix up the potion, but an ingredient is unavailable. He locks himself in at home, only for others to assume that he's murdered Jekyll and break in. He resorts to suicide; in fact Jekyll has been murdered at last by Hyde.

While an eternal battle of good and evil is a superb theme in its own right, I must say that the day by day struggle to keep caring is one that resonates with reality better. If one's EEEEEEEVIL side grows into a formidable enemy, that's usually because we've made it into one ourselves. In the past I might've agreed that there's a terrible Hyde evilness lurking in every "human heart from conception"; now I'd rather say that we as humans just have the starting material, both biological and cultural, that we've inherited over many many generations. It's up to us to choose what to do with it.

out of order

Here's a quick way to express the change in perspective that helped dislodge me from my former faith-based beliefs (which were in the US white evangelical category). Back then, my commitment to those beliefs was the starting point of my thinking. Those beliefs literally were introduced to me first before I learned various other ideas. Then, because those other ideas happened to correspond very well to reality, I was obliged to try to harmonize those with the faith-based beliefs. I had to cram the pieces I'd been handed into the crooked frame that I'd been handed long ago.

The epiphany was to stop assuming these grandiose ideas were accurate to begin with. The reason behind this tactic is simple: ideas like talk are cheap. None should be necessarily trusted because an idea can be fabricated and spread so easily. The way to cope with the deceitfulness of ideas is to decide that each one, no matter where it came from, is only as accurate as the results of the the methods that are used to hold it up next to reality. The details of the results matter of course, but equally as important are the details of the methods. "Good" results obtained through unsound methods haven't gained much credibility for the tested ideas.

I'd gotten the order wrong. Another way to put it is that people shouldn't start with an end result in mind and then proceed to manipulate the facts so it remains feasible. The instructions to follow are: take the idea that you wish were accurate, consider what facts you'd reasonably expect to find due to the effects of the idea, then finally examine reality through appropriate methods and judge whether the expected facts have been found in practice. 

The change was like asking myself, "If I weren't someone who'd been raised to treat my beliefs as presumptions, who instead had to treat my beliefs as conclusions to be demonstrated, how well would that go?" The mental shift to giving the honest answer to this question was a lengthy process. After thinking out of order for so long, backtracking was the only way forward.

my response to the newest exvangelical book

The book I'm responding to is Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon, an author in my generation. Overall it's both thorough and heartfelt. The thoroughness resulted in more chapters than I would've expected. Each one is devoted to a different topic and does an admirable job at covering it. Rather than speak in generalities, the book contains direct quote after direct quote expressed in actual interviews. (This has the side effect of displaying the value of expert hard-working journalism.) It strikes from many angles, all of which are worthwhile.

At the same time, this book's heartfelt nature stands out. While this is more than a memoir, the author is impressively blunt about her personal background and long journey. Her story rises to the front time and again, and it's always relevant when it does. Yet she also brings in concrete stories from a wide range of people who have different experiences than hers. It's striking how emotional it all is.

After reading these accounts, I find myself surprisingly grateful for the middle-of-the-road evangelicalism I came through. (I'm going to use "evangelicalism" to mean "typical U.S. white evangelical Protestantism".) I wasn't part of theologically-liberal, metaphorical-Bible, Northeast-respectable Christianity. Nor was I part of an ultra-conservative, literal-bible, Southern-country-fried Christianity. My family was in the conservative but somewhat laid-back camp, as paradoxical as that might sound. Hell for the unsaved was there, the distrust of modern culture was there, the belief that real miracles took place in olden days was there. But I wasn't taught in a school with a dubious "Christian" curriculum, or forbidden from the local library, or kept completely isolated from mass media, or attacked by "physical discipline". 

I even was permitted to ask honest questions about what I had been taught—although years later I tore apart the standard evasive answers to these questions ("free will *mumble mumble* ", "God's mysterious ways *ahem ahem* "). Furthermore, I'm not part of a minority group that would've resulted in knee-jerk mistreatment by this culture. In a nutshell, my evangelical story was just far less traumatic. This is partially why it took me longer to exit the beliefs, of course. In that way I was privileged by comparison. I remember reading once that the unplugged people in the Matrix movie trilogy tended toward minority groups because they were the ones who were less likely to find the Matrix's reality acceptable... 

I had the luxury of not being shocked into moving on from evangelical faith-beliefs. I gradually discarded them based on my own growing awareness and internal realizations. Because of this important difference, I suppose I'm in a closely related but distinct category to most of the people McCammon is fixated on. Several other differences spring from that one. Perhaps the most obvious is that I feel that the word "deconversion" fits me (the reversal of conversion i.e. de-conversion), where the book consistently uses "deconstruction". Along the same lines, I wouldn't particularly mind the label "atheist" or "agnostic", where the book is abundantly clear that exvangelicals, such as the author, are frequently settling down in flavors of Christianity that suit their taste better: flavors with loose and/or progressive-compatible beliefs.

Let me emphasize that I'm not strongly opposed to these flavors. And I'm fine with exvangelicals drawing vaguely defined inspiration or comfort from these sources. They may claim that they derive a few beneficial moral teachings from these, too. I'll roll my eyes a bit but won't complain; I know there are many devotees of many religions throughout history who've preached wisely sometimes. The vital point is that exvangelicals have moved to the driving seat of their brains and lives, rather than following inaccurate ideas. They themselves are filtering out inaccuracies, rather than trusting in religious authorities and texts to do the filtering for them. In fact, my suspicion is that more than a few evangelical church attendees, especially in popular megachurches, quietly take this approach. They attend out of family pressure or a lingering appreciation for the rituals, for instance, but their own stances and behaviors don't align with the church's official standards (and they like it that way). 

I can't help thinking that a crucial philosophical difference is at work. "Exvangelicals" in my mold haven't reacted to the evangelical mindset by adopting softer (or "more flexible" if you prefer) definitions of religious "truth". Nor do we start worshipping questions and declare that real answers are impossible. Nor do we replace one set of premodern doctrines with a set of postmodern doctrines. We're much less determined to salvage or adapt the faulty belief system we were raised in. A zealous few pour effort into undermining it and pursuing deconversions—I don't do that myself but I certainly care about stopping its policy ideas from affecting the rest of society. Naturally, the people who actively "de-evangelize" are a small subset of us, similar to the small subset of evangelicals who actively evangelize.

Our discarding of the mindset was accomplished by adopting harder (or "more substantiated" if you prefer) definitions of the accuracy of ideas. We re-weighed the accuracy of the ideas we'd followed, and the ideas simply and honestly didn't measure up. "The love of Jesus is bigger than conventional religious concepts have said" isn't equivalent to "Whoa, every religion including mine has consisted of a massive self-perpetuating loop of disinformation". We're "exvangelicals" insofar as we share a past, because we were once part of that evangelical culture as well. 

Yet the distinction in where we ended up is illustrated by the statements of some exvangelicals in the book that atheism is nothing more than another "rigid perspective". I'd counter that I might or might not be atheistic; we should proceed as we would with any question, by laying out the practical boundary tests for what counts as atheism and comparing those stark specifics to the details of my beliefs. Words can be annoying, but my mold of exvangelical reacts to that by firming up a word to make it more useful instead of pretending that words don't serve purposes.

Fortunately, philosophical disagreement isn't a barrier to allying with each other on U.S. politics. This book is upfront about the major boost to exvangelicals' numbers by recent political shifts. As evangelicalism's totalitarian (or "Christian nationalist" if you prefer) impulses have risen to the surface, it has driven away the people who've never wanted their religion to be a force of oppression. I appreciated the focus on this phenomenon, which I hadn't noticed. I'd only noticed how blatantly satisfied most evangelicals appeared to be—from the famous leaders at the top all the way down to the high-turnout voters in the pews—with idolizing politicians who promised unmerciful control, and revenge against ideological enemies, and the rollback of cultural advancements. 

It makes sense that the sharpening of this knife-edge in the culture would prod people to finally make some hard decisions about what they're willing to be part of. My own exvangelical views had blossomed years before the present era, around the midpoint of Obama's first term. Disillusionment with W.'s terms had played some relatively minor role in the process. I was repulsed by two things. First, evangelicals proved themselves to be unconditionally supportive of multiple drawn-out wars. Second, they were enthusiastic to cast all Muslims, at home and across the world, as not merely the "tolerated believers in false religion" they were before but now as demonic tools. So the ugliness of the politics had already begun to show, but of course there was much more to come. All it took to push the ugliness further were politicians who have no capacity for shame.

Thus the exvangelicals have my earnest sympathies. It's awful what they've had to endure, but I'm glad  they've escaped. I'd consider them as being on my side...to the extent that's meaningful for either of us. The deconverted and the deconstructed shall get along just fine. And they'll have very familiar stories to exchange.

footprints

I've published a lot of entries here about the seismic shift in thinking I went through when I journeyed out of supernatural beliefs. That shift involved confronting a lot of philosophical hairsplitting and arguments—of varying quality. I must admit that some could seem too abstract to matter. But it's still worthwhile to counter the faux-intellectual justifications that people wave around, even as they're committed to their beliefs for different reasons altogether.

Despite what other faults philosophical discussion may have, it's managed to establish one conclusion beyond all doubt: metaphors are fantastic for communicating these ideas. I'll heed this lesson and offer one:

On one glorious mid-morning in summer, the owner of an all-too-costly house on a small hill near the sea decided to take a short walk along the beach. She made her way down by the water. To her surprise she found a set of fresh footprints already there. The trail of footprints started off in the distance from the left and continued to the right as far as the eye could see. She noticed that the footprints were like her own, but she hadn't gone for a walk here for more than a week. This shook her to the core, because she thought of herself as someone who had specifically paid a premium for special access to a secluded private stretch of beach. So...she needed to explain how these footprints could have happened.

The first explanation for the surprise footprints is the one anyone would leap to: another neighborhood resident took their own extended walk earlier in the morning. This explanation is obviously reasonable. But at the same time it might disturb the homeowner in the story, because it challenges her desire for privacy. 

Fortunately for her, people could easily come up with far more explanations. For example:

• The laws of physics have changed over time and diverge between places. Different laws of physics were in effect when the footprints were laid down, and these footprints only survived to the present day because of this. 
• The footprints are a hoax carried out by a frighteningly competent yet invisible conspiracy. This conspiracy is motivated by a scramble for grant money to investigate footprints. Or perhaps the evil corporations in the conspiracy are hoping to provoke people into paying for beach security or upkeep.
• At the time that Earth was created from out of nothing in the blink of an eye, footprints were also simultaneously created on the beach. Perhaps the footprints were included to test the faith of anyone who'd dare to believe that the Earth wasn't created from out of nothing in the blink of an eye.
• The footprints were miraculously formed by a sea-witch, whose goal is to draw people away from the truth. Or perhaps the sea-witch merely touched the soul of the homeowner so that she was blinded to the truth and thought that she saw footprints (or forgot that she made the footprints herself).
• The footprints were made by a spiritual being (albeit with human-like feet) that made a short visit to our mundane plane of existence. Or perhaps there was a visit from an earthly mystery creature unknown to biologists. Or perhaps a creature from far space traveled a tremendous distance for the sole purpose of taking a stroll on exotic Earth.

The point of comparing the first explanation to the alternatives isn't to necessarily claim that any in the group are flatly impossible. It's to underline that, at least to those who aren't trying to drag in their preexisting assumptions or aims, the alternatives deserve far more skepticism than the first. Could someone work hard to defend their preferred alternative as a valid "theory" just like any other? Could they concoct chains of reasoning that make their preferred alternative seem a bit more plausible for other reasons than the footprints themselves ("presuppositions")? 

Well...yes. Regardless, the first explanation continues to be the one that requires the least stretching to fit the plain footsteps that were seen. I came to a similar realization as I changed my perspective about the supernatural beliefs I was raised to follow. All the straightforward observations of reality I learned about were like multiple sets of footprints. Each set was unfabricated and unbiased and pointed in the same direction. Meanwhile the difficult project to integrate these observations into my former beliefs began to seem like outlandish avoidance of the inference that human footprints are usually left by human feet. 

I kept returning to the undeniable truth that I wasn't simply arguing with slick philosophies written by combative loudmouths who hated the viewpoint I identified with; I was in some sense strenuously arguing with the direct implications of the objective data. I was twisting my thoughts to steer clear of what mere footprints were "saying".

Furthermore, I had an ingrained queasiness for the theologically-liberal solution of fully adapting supernatural beliefs to fit reality. In my mindset at that time, following it would've involved dropping and/or rewriting significant chunks of my beliefs. I wasn't ready for that...and I couldn't get past having a lingering distaste for it. As I mentioned in past blog entries, I was taught to wholeheartedly follow beliefs that were accurate, not beliefs that were "inspirational". (Let me note that in the present I'm much less opposed to the liberal solution, although I'm still not interested in putting any energy or time into following it myself.)

The opposite strategy, preserving the beliefs and mentally rewriting the facts, also didn't occur to me. As quaint as it might sound now, I didn't assume that I could easily discard the well-supported facts I disliked. Experience since then has shown that all that's needed is to reframe them as lies told by journalists and societal elites...who are the Enemy of the nation. Or I could do the same by reframing them as lies told by people with socioeconomic power who are either consciously or subconsciously enforcing the oppressive status quo of inequality between classes and/or races and/or sexes. The next step after that would have been to latch onto infamous "alternative facts" instead, which come from sources that are careful to amplify only the bits of dodgy information that can be bent to fit the target's imagination. 

Nope, I was stuck. I accepted the strange notion that findings can be independent of people and their desires, even to the point of justifying a broad change in their thoughts. Eventually, my thoughts did indeed change. The apt metaphor for this phase is another well-known one for de-conversion: I began to understand that I was looking through the "goggles" of belief. The better I became at cautiously removing the goggles and taking a second look at observed reality, the more I had to confess that those beliefs were distorting instead of magnifying what I saw. Or it might have been worse than that. The goggles had misled me to interpret the footprints as the traces of something that had never really been there at all throughout the various scenes of my life.

evasiveness was an essential ingredient in the message of Lost

The tv show Lost evoked a wide range of reactions. One of these was the common complain that the show's writing was perceived as excessively evasive, especially during the show's second and third seasons. "I'm tired of the way that Lost never stops to explain everything that's going on." Fortunately, the creative minds (I will never refer to people as "creatives"!) working behind the scenes were able to negotiate the endpoint, which allowed them to plan and pace their episodes more evenly.

Of course, the project of keeping the show going was a crucial reason why some degree of evasiveness was always going to be needed. It would've hurt the show tremendously if its plot took a halt and had a character—probably a mythological figure suddenly appearing out of nowhere by a burning campfire—deliver a monologue with answers for every question. That would've been a lecture, not a show. And in the case of Lost, the unsettling lack of knowledge was actually one of its major emotional engines (complete with quivering strings on the soundtrack). Eliminating that would've drained its effect as surely as eliminating the "will they/won't they" question has drained the effect of many shows that have a central couple. Out of the many shows that copied the Lost formula, some were much quicker to reveal the explanation of the mystery in the premise...and then those shows spun wheels in-place trying to go somewhere interesting after the big revealing.

Nevertheless, as I watch the show again from my present mindset, I'm convinced that evasiveness was more than a practical requirement. It was essential to one of the very ideas that it played with: faith. The writers have admitted that the concept of faith was one of their inspirations. The characters have conversations about it several times, and their attitudes toward it change over time. 

To put it bluntly, Lost couldn't portray faith as thoroughly as it did and yet not be evasive. Faith needs evasiveness in order to be maintained and to be labeled "faith". If faith in the show was intended to be meaningfully comparable to the supernatural faiths of real people, then it had to share those faiths' evasiveness about precisely how reality is affected in any way by the things in those faiths. Evasiveness was a show ingredient, not an accidental oversight.

Why did the show need to be evasive about...

• ...faith in the personification of "The Island"? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about faith in the personification of a "Good Force". 
• ...the source and meaning of various visions that characters have? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the source and meaning of various visions that religious followers have. 
• ...why numbers are bad luck or significant in some other way? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about why numbers matter in numerology. 
• ...how or why people are healed—or not—by their faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about how or why religious followers are healed—or not—by faith. 
• ...the connections between paranormal "scientific" occurrences and the island faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the connections between paranormal "scientific" occurrences and religious followers' notions about the supernatural. 
• ...the connections between popular religions and the island faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the connections between popular religions, which would be part of explaining how it's logically possible for all the popular religions to be equally accurate.
• ...the unseen actions of the competing supernatural figures on the island? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about the unseen actions taken by their competing supernatural figures. 
• ...the details in the plans and goals of those figures, as well as how those plans and goals directed events? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the details in the plans and goals of religious followers' supernatural figures, as well as how those figures' plans and goals direct real-world events. 
• ...the definition of a good or bad person in the eye of the island? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about how to definitively sort people into good or bad according to religious followers.
• ...whether any one character is lying or simply incorrect about island secrets at any moment? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about whether someone is sincere and knowledgeable about what they say about supernatural things.
• ...the so-called rules about what people (and human-shaped beings with uncanny powers) are allowed to do? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about exact behavioral rules, which they debate amongst themselves endlessly.
• ...abnormal abilities or mental links that some people have? So that it could imitate the evasiveness regarding the abnormal abilities or mental links that some religious followers claim to have, such as clairvoyance and divine guidance, etc.
• ...the ancient past of the island's inhabitants who left behind exotic ruins and other structures? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about admitting that ancient societies' "false religions" were every bit as vibrant as current religions. 

Having said all this, I must be clear that I wasn't one of the people who objected to Lost's perceived evasiveness. I don't demand that fictional stories be upfront about everything at all times. I believe the show's writing staff have been honest about their motivation to leave some things unsaid so that the audience could have differing interpretations, similar to the way that songwriters may refuse to decisively explain their lyrics. Questions are fascinating; the unknown lurking below the surface is thrilling and dangerous. (Lodge 49 too has a vibe of people pursuing an amazing realm which always seems perpetually a little out of reach,..although it's far more laid-back about it.)

That's why I'm in a position that's curiously opposite to any complainers who are also religious followers. When it comes to stories that anyone claims to be nonfictional, I echo their complaints. Evasiveness is an appalling quality for supposed truth-tellers to have. I'm stumped by how they aren't displaying the same attitude and criteria toward the stories that they consider to be simultaneously nonfictional and dreadfully important. Why should the faith stories someone was raised in be granted blanket exceptions—considering that the same people often have no qualms whatsoever in denying the same exceptions to the faith stories they weren't raised in ("how could they believe such nonsensical things?").  Lost can be evasive because, in the end, it's a TV show. Real-life ideas about how the universe works should not be.