When I was younger, as for most children, everything was much clearer. I was brought up with Christianity and that was able to answer most of the questions I had, but at the same time I used to read a great deal of science. As I grew older the influence of scientific thinking on me increased and by the time I reached my mid teens and discovered philosophy and Philip K Dick my Christianity crumbled under the weight of all the new ideas I was coming into contact with. This was a great turning point in my life and I certainly don’t regret moving away from Christianity, but because of it a great number of questions that I used to have answers to now seem to be bottomless pits of questions leading to more questions. These aren’t just big metaphysical issues like ‘is there a God?’, but also smaller things like how to manage relationships and what knowledge I should be acquiring. It means I am generally lost in a sea of questions and misunderstandings, however I’d rather be drowning here than commit to an authority just for the sake of providing answers and security for myself.

I first realised that I was seeking a form of life-wide clarity when I was last trying to work out my political opinions. I have read a fair bit of political and economic theory, as well as history and social commentary, but I still have no firm political stance or opinions on how society should be organised, I only have moral responses to things I see going on around me. If anything, as I find that as I learn more about social science, my views become increasingly cloudy and I find myself flipping between opinions as I read convincing (or unconvincing) arguments from different sides.

I think part of the reason I like mathematics and the hard sciences is that they tend to provide coherent and generally-accepted answers to questions, and the unknown questions are unknown for everyone until some sort of breakthrough occurs. This new knowledge then tends to be accepted fairly rapidly as it is scrutinised by other scientists (unless controversy is involved) and becomes part of the established scientific canon. Of course, there are revolutions in science, however in any given paradigm most people tend to be on the same page. In the social sciences, on the other hand, there can be multiple answers to questions and seemingly intelligent and convincing arguments to believe many of them. Even if I spent the rest of my life studying social science, my answers to questions and problems would be changing from year to year as I gained clarity in my knowledge and understanding. In the hard sciences there is a continuous process of clarification too, but there is often a distinct level of clarity required to understand an answer and once this is gained the answer is concrete, even if the full intricacies and repercussion of the solution are not apparent.

Why do I pursue this clarity? Well, that’s still mostly unclear to me (ha!). I think that I desire a solid foundation to work from. If I have a set political or social ideal to work towards and I know the path to realise that ideal then I can get cracking and work on it. As it stands, I have no idea what direction I should be heading in. I know what I want from a moral perspective, peace, love, tolerance etc, but I can’t begin to imagine what a society with those values would look like, how to work to create one or whether such a utopia is even possible. I’m reduced to acting on relatively small scale issues such as ‘I know it’s good to support amnesty international because they have clear moral aims’, I leave the logistics of achieving those aims for them to worry about.

I’m unlikely to ever gain the clarity I seek, and even if I do that probably wouldn’t be a good thing. Unless I have some sort of epiphany and join a religion or line up behind some towering intellectual figure I’m just going to have to make do with piecemeal, narrow and shallow knowledge I do have and try and live more by my moral convictions rather than my ever-shifting opinions.

Stadiums are amongst the largest, most open and community-centred buildings of our time. A stadium is one of the few buildings where tens of thousands of people can come together for a single purpose, or to view a single event.

Barack Obama’s recent address at the DNC presents a good allegory through which we can explore the religious aspects of the stadium. Here we have thousands of people coming together in ‘worship’ of a captivating figure; by observing some of the members of the audience and their emotional response to his speech, we see that this was certainly a borderline religious event in and of itself. The choice of a Hellenic themed stage and twilight timing only served to strengthen the ethereal nature of the experience. In our allegory we have Obama acting as both the God figure and the head of the church (the papal authority perhaps). That is, people have come to see him, but they have also come to receive a message, a political/ideological message that they can apply to their own selves and actions and also spread to others. We can see the vote as a parallel of belief, and the grass roots campaigner represents the evangelical nature of the lay christian, at least from a short term perspective. Just to round out the metaphor, the media and campaign team can act as the clergy, although there are of course key differences relating to vested interests and their structure is far from hierarchical.

Such a speech is a rare event, seldom does politics draw the masses in quite the way Obama has done. More generally, stadiums form the stage for sporting events. Club football stadiums especially, seem to be tightly analogous to cathedrals; a building where the local community can come together to worship, in a sense.

I came up with a few explanations for why people are drawn to stadiums to watch sport. Most obviously, people attend in pursuit of a feeling of unity, to be a part of an immense mutual desire to see a team win. Not only does this support the team and the team brand, but it provides a sense of warmth and belonging to the individual supporter. We can see this sense of unity not only through the almost militaristic use of team colours, slogans etc, but through the way a supporter tends to align themselves with one particular club whilst directing animosity towards all overs. This is seen more clearly from a national perspective, and represents a (usually) violence free manifestation of a more general national pride. In the past we would have had a war to relieve some of this national fervour, but now we can express it through international sporting events. The sense of unity in a stadium of people united together is tangible. There’s nothing quite like being with thousands of other people all cheering for the same thing to ignite passion and loyalty (as religious and political organisations well know).

We see a similar idea in churches and cathedrals, a community united towards a common goal of spreading the gospel and glorifying God; here again both the individual and the church (team) benefits and animosity is often directed towards unbelievers. The brand of the team is perhaps the most important ideological figure in the stadium; the team members come and go, but the idea of a club remains. This runs parallel to the gospel message, although ’the team’ is much more vague and fails to promise any sort of divine reward or effect the more general thoughts and actions of the supporter. Interestingly, many churchgoers I know seem to be primarily interested in the benefits of being part of the church community, rather than religion itself. Perhaps in our present day current-life rewards and concerns are often worth more than the eternal ones, even within Christianity.

Stadiums can also compete with the spiritual-architectural power of a cathedral. Take, for example, the Chinese bird’s nest stadium for the Olympics. Not only is it an immense physical construction, but it is positively soaking in ideological significance. A united China, a powerful competent nation, a celebration of sport and unity, a political statement; all these are valid depending on your point of view. Club stadiums flaunt the wealth and prestige of the team, the bigger the stadium the greater the club, the stronger the community (or, more cynically, the richer the chairman). Cathedrals were made magnificent with the clear aim of bringing glory to God, stadiums on the other hand are much more diverse in their ideological aims.

Stadiums provide a location for communal celebration, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that sport fans already outnumber religious people worldwide. Hence the stadium seems to be where at least a portion of our new religious pursuits lie.

The Mall (Shopping Centres)

If the religion of our time is ‘Consumerism’, then would that not make shopping centres our new cathedrals? They certainly seem to be the most widespread buildings where people come together to “worship” (or at least support the prevailing ideology). Products have replaced the holy spirit and cooperations form the new clergy. I see socioeconomic status as the ‘presence of God’ or ‘Heaven’, the big difference being that all the fruits of Consumerism are instant and here in this life, whilst heaven is a future reward.

The Christian clergy, for much of it’s instituationalised reign, controlled the Truth by being literate in a world of general illiteracy. This allowed it to get across it’s own message without having to worry too much about the common parishoner questioning what it was saying. Consumerism has had to take a different approach, preaching a much more abstract and subconscious message that is open to widespread criticism, but which has still managed to be stunningly successful. What constitutes authentic Consumerism is shaped and controlled through commercial power, capital and education to a certain extent (marketing men are educated in the manipulation of markets and individuals).

Art, often in the form of stained glass windows, is common in cathedrals and helped the illiterate surf to learn and understand bible stories, enabling them to advance in the religion or obtain guidance on how to live via the Poor Man’s Bible. With Consumerism, the stories have spread from the cathedral and now permeate all media, but their purpose remains broadly the same. The key emotional incentive drawing people to the cathedral has changed from one of fear (of hell) to one of potential rewards (a better life), but the other sides of the coin (Heaven and, for example, fear of crime) are still important. Advertisements have become the parables of our age, and PR departments are the new disciples.

It’s unfortunate that even with the vast wealth that Consumerism commands, it has been unable to build anything even remotely as majestic as a middle-age cathedral. Ultimately the mall is a building designed for utility; a blank canvas for where individual companies can display their own short term architecture and art. It’s difficult to imagine people travelling to look at our shopping centres in hundreds of years time. If they do it will likely be from a ‘look at this stunning squandering of the Earth’s resources’ viewpoint.

Who are we worshipping here? Ourselves? That’s what the individualistic nature of Consumerism would suggest. But perhaps that’s really an illusion, perhaps we are worshiping the characters in the stories, the people in the adverts. Or are we worshipping fate and fortune? The act of purchasing could represent a prayer to Fortune, as if to say ‘I’ve bought this, now bring me what I want like you promised - to be happy and successful (or whatever) like the people in the adverts’. If this is true, then Consumerism seems to revolve around the same core idea of Christianity and many other religions: action (or worship) yields rewards.

So how does the shopping centre fare as the new cathedral? It certainly has the physical presence, but its message and purpose is obscure when compared to the direct concrete ideology of Christianity, even if it has been arguably more successful. I’ll look at some more potential candidates over the coming weeks.

I don’t know whether the artist intended to write ‘looser’ or ‘loser’, but I like to imagine he or she spelt it that way on purpose, rather than it just being poor spelling (although this is entirely possible, the graffiti is from Lisbon, Portugal).

I have started dropping it into conversation now and then, if you say it fast enough people don’t catch the last word and it’s interesting to see the different responses you get, whether they interpret it as loser or looser; perhaps when it is ambiguous people are likely to hear the phrase which fits with the philosophy they believe, the christian hears loser, the ardent agnostic hears looser.

At different times in my life, or even from day to day, you could place me into either interpretation. Mostly I believe that you can be more ‘free’ without inflexible dogma, but I also believe in ‘cosmic-objective’ moral truth (as in good and evil are more than bio-evolutionary products); I believe in truth, but my idea of the nature of truth is flexible and constantly being knocked down and rebuilt. A good way to look at it could be “Without a truth you are the loser”, even if that truth is “there is no truth”; the place not to be is that of not caring or not thinking about truth.

As time goes on I find myself less attached to truths I once held dear, especially those of a political or philosophical nature; as I learn more I realise just how limited my knowledge is, I am infinitely ignorant. I have become less eager to subscribe to any ideology or movement or to place myself on the political compass because I don’t want to commit without enough information, but I will never possess enough information. This give me more freedom to criticise and to move between ideas, but also means that I have less constructive ideals of my own to share.

What if all our goals are simulacra? Does this present any problem? Or even hold any relevance at all?

I think it’s important, especially for the agnostic, to be aware that everything around herself is in flux, isn’t constant, is (perhaps) simulacra. Things are slightly different for the theist, as they have god, a constant non-simulacrum (subjectively at least); she has an eternal, unchanging aim in life; not even just on a whole-life timescale, every action of the theist is directed towards god. Even if the manifestations of god can be interpreted as simulacra, there exists an eternal god figure transcendent of his “actions” who is a copy of nothing else (as the theist perceives him).

The agnostic might be able to obtain a similar eternal cosmic non-simulacrum goal as well. For example “The Good” as described by Plato in the metaphor of the sun, which is briefly outlined as follows.

The sun … not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. … In like manner, then … the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. (509b)

Learn more about it here.

What he is getting at is that there is an eternal constant (The Good) divorced from sense perception that “shines” on objects of knowledge to give them existence, such that everything around us comes from the Good. So the good would not be a simulacrum, although it’s so abstract it’s pretty much in the “god sphere” of belief anyway.

As for the strict atheist naturalist, perhaps they could argue that everything is simulacra of everything, meaning that together all objects make up a unique whole…

Regardless, does it matter? Should we care if our lives have no eternal goal? No solid foundation? I’m comfortable in constant flux, comfortable with a non-eternal lifetime if that’s the way things turn out to be, I’m comfortable not knowing. I think it is entirely subjective. Some people need a firm goal, some people don’t; some people “naturally” have one (the “natural” theist), some people don’t.

Allegory of the cave 

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since birth deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals, plants, and other things are carried by people. The statues cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows.

Similarly, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. At first, he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows and, only later, brighter and brighter objects.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free "his fellow bondsmen," but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey).

He then goes on to explain how this enlightened individual would be thought of as crazy, as he has such a different viewpoint now he has seen the bigger picture; but it is his responsibility to stay there in the darkness and lead the people in the cave to the truth, explaining how the philosopher should take this role in his Republic.

I think the freed man represents so many people, or at least many people believe they are the freed man. From religious people sharing their eternal truths, to politicians building societies from their enlightened ideals; academics publishing their discoveries to parents raising their children; philosophers (as in Plato's case) building ideas to editors writing papers. All these people have other motives as well, some of them probably more significant, but all of them share at least a spark of Plato's idea.

Everyone can gain some sort of enlightenment, maybe not to be a leader, maybe not to find the truth, but to have something to share no-one else has, an individual's unique perspective.

"Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner"

I found the effect of this was to make the physicality of death a lot more lucid. It was an incredibly strange feeling to know that just in the other room there was a human body that was now just a physical thing, it had no life, it was no longer the person it had been. Reasonably enough, many family members choose not to take part in the viewing, however I can understand how it can help with coming to terms with the fact that the person inside the body has departed; although I am not sure I would be able to sleep in a house knowing that my loved-one's body is lying it the next room.

The whole closeness to death involved in the process in Ireland is quite different to the far more detached process in England; and I am not sure which one I prefer. The Irish way certainly brings death closer to home, and helps to make death a part of life; but the English way seems more sensitive and leaves much more room for a certain romanticism or mysticism about the soul and the afterlife by not involving the soul-less body, especially in the case of cremation. I believe there is a place for both forms of funeral; we have to be careful not to ignore death, and be prepared to a certain extent that it will effect us all, but also not to place too much emphasis and unnecessary ceremony on what is already an incredibly difficult and emotional time.

If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair? If it were thus, if there were no sacred bond uniting mankind, if one generation rose up after another like the leaves of the forest, if one generation succeeded the other as the songs of birds in the woods, if the human race passed through the world as a ship through the sea or the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless whim, if eternal oblivion lurked hungrily for its prey, and there were no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches — how empty and devoid of comfort would life be! But for that reason it is not so, and as God created man and woman, so too he shaped the hero and the poet or speech-maker.

This is perhaps the greatest opening to a book that I have ever read. The bit before this is a run through different versions of the story of Abraham and Isaac; then Bam! he comes right in with this all-encompassing explanation of existence, outlining his view on life, and in part justifying his evaluation of faith that comes through the rest of the book.

Perhaps I identify with the passage particularly as it kind of sums up my general intuition that a God exists, or perhaps more accurately, one of the reasons that I am not an atheist. I wouldn’t go so far as to use the despair of an independent, temporary existence to rationally argue that there is a God, but it resonates with my core feeling. On the other hand, you could say believing in a God purely to give life meaning is merely delusion through hope, or just a means of avoiding the reality of the despair described above. 

Regardless, I think it is an excellent passage, with great imagery, and fantastic depth; I especially like “the wind through the desert”, which is the image of humanity I often take from science, especially geology or astronomy. Is it wrong to go searching through faith or mysticism to find an antidote this world view? To create a image of warmth and hope, even if it is irrational? (I’m not suggesting this is the reason all people look to faith, but I think it can be for many)