on description vs. decision

A more refined way of asking about fundamental beliefs: not "do you believe in X?" but "what is X like?" Instead of asking someone if they believe in God, or free will, or the soul, or true love, ask them to describe the God or free will or soul or true love in which they believe or don't believe.

The merit of this approach should be obvious. Many popular conceptions of God are puerile and inane; the white-bearded thunder-hurler, gleefully dispensing either candy or spankings in accordance with one's "naughty or nice" status, is not worthy of being believed in by any but the most childish mind. If this is what one means by God, one is far better off not believing in God at all. Throw that word out; find some other language for the truths of the universe that are being unfolded to your eyes.

In some cases, the answer to the descriptive question provides the answer to the belief question. I was asked, several months ago, whether I believed in the soul. I hadn't given it much thought up to that point, but when a definition of "soul" was chosen (in this case, we agreed upon the idea of a non-material entity which is attached to a material body and dictates, like a puppet-master, the movements of that body) it became clear to me that I did not believe in it. It offended all my aesthetic sensibilities: whatever linkage there is between my physical brain and body and my consciousness must be much more fluid than that, much more organic. The idea of mix-and-match souls and bodies, of a reservoir of souls that are plucked out and placed into physical bodies, just seems silly to me.

That doesn't mean that the word "soul" cannot be useful to me, as a believable concept. As I stand right now, the word has two meanings: one, the puppet-master soul which I have described and rejected, and the other, a collection of perceived realities that I'm still working to understand. What is this thing that I experience as consciousness and sense of identity? Where does it arise from? How is it related to the movements of pulses in my brain? I don't know, but "soul" is a useful name for it.

To say, as some do, that thought, emotion, and consciousness are only a product of a particular pattern of chemical impulses, does little to answer the most important questions about them. Our instinctive human reaction is to feel that this deprives them of meaning. "Only" a pattern of chemical impulses... that's tantamount to saying that self-awareness is an illusion, that our thoughts and emotions are trivial byproducts of an electrical wiring system!

Well hold on a minute. To say that what we call "the soul" arises from the material processes of the brain is not by any means to say that it is a trivial byproduct. And to say that self-awareness is an illusion is nonsensical. We are self-aware; if any statement of reality can be verified by perception alone, it is that one. To know more clearly the processes by which a particular event happens, like the perception of identity or the formation of the earth, should not rob that event of its significance for life. On the contrary, it should increase the significance, yielding new insights into the truth of the world and our relation to it, and helping us understand better the consequences our actions and decisions.

If, however, one cannot see it this way, if a materially-based conception of the soul does nothing but deprive human thought, emotion, and consciousness of its meaning and reduce everything to a mere chemical sludge, then one is far better off holding to a more traditional belief about the soul. And so you see again what I mean about description as opposed to decision. If someone actually believes that self-awareness is an illusion, then that person is a moron; in the same way, if someone actually believes that God delights in torturing bad people, that person is a blackguard. A very sophisticated moron; a very moral blackguard.

In conclusion, then: I think the proper way to deal with questions of belief is to delve descriptively into the exact notions that one is believing or disbelieving. And if one finds at any time that, in one's own understanding, a particular belief leads to either idiocy or villainy, to drop it, and search for something better.