Buddhist Retreat
Why I gave up on finding my religion.
By JOHN HORGAN at Slate Magazine
Conclusion
That’s number three for me. The first two revolve around morality and immortality. Only God or a No God religious path can provide us with a sanctioned way “from on high” in which to differentiate our behaviors as right or wrong when confronted with conflicting goods. And only God or a No God religious path can provide us with a sanctioned way “from on high” in which to believe that death is only the beginning of our sojourn into eternity itself.
On the other hand, it is also far-fetched in my view to suppose that science has pinned down that in fact we are “incidental, accidental”. There may not be much in the way of evidence that our souls are intertwined in a spiritual quest for the final explanation, but who is kidding whom in regard to the gap between, say, what science knows now about that and what it will know even just a hundred years from now. The very existence of existence itself is a profound mystery. And I challenge any scientist to demonstrate otherwise.
So to conclude that…
…is to presume considerably more than we can given the gap between “I” and “all there is”. On the other hand, look at all that I presume here in regard to human interactions in the is/ought world. Dasein, conflicting goods, political economy. But I would never be foolish enough to presume that I actually am closer to whatever that “final explanation” might possibly be than others here.
On the contrary, that is only one of many “remaining questions” in regard to “I” in the vastness of what may well be a multi-verse. What always astonishes me is how men and women can latch on fervently to actual denominations like Buddhism and convince themselves that they really are on the One True Path. Until I remind myself that I once did so myself. And more than once.
And, again, the reason for this isn’t hard to come up with: What. Is. At. Stake.
Here and now, there and then.
Yet even this presumes human autonomy.