Sans Fig Leaf
w
"Meaningful"
21 February, 2008
I was watching a show that was trying to tackle, in a meaningful way, questions concerning the intersection of faith and science. Some reviewers had claimed that the show was insightful and gave both sides a fair shake.
The review could hardly
have been less accurate.
Usually these things fail
by giving one side of the argument only the most token and sophomoric
of representations. It becomes quite clear where the author's
sympathies
lie. It is equally clear that the author's only research has been to
get into drunken discussions with friends who agree with his side of
the argument in which they discuss the pros and cons of what they think
the people who subscribe to the other side would say if they were there.
This particular show was
even worse than that. I knew, from non-fiction the author had written,
which side of the debate he favoured -- but he presented his side in
this show just as poorly as the side he disagreed with.
And the whole thing was
very grim and dramatic. The actors had clearly been directed (the
author directed his own script, don't you know) to deliver certain
lines with an amount of dignity and wonder to communicate to the
audience just how profound the conclusions the characters had reached
were. Except they weren't profound at all. "Can god make a rock so big,
he can't lift it?" is worthy of a triple-doctoral degree in Philosophy,
Theology, and Logic by comparison to the lame clichés in this
show.
Yet there were people out
there who sincerely believed it was profound.
It's hardly the first time
I've encountered the phenomenon. There are some authors and artists
(not to mention wannabes) who have based their entire career on
projecting an aura of deep, meaningful thinking, while delivering work
that is trite and derivative. Everything they say or do is shrouded in
layers of gloom masquerading as worldweariness, beneath layers of
cynicism pretending to be wisdom.
The part that really
annoys me, I think, is it is all so grim. A person will be explaining
why one should seize the moment and live life to the fullest, for the
most depressing of reasons. They will speak of the wonders of the
universe in the driest, least enthusiastic tones possible. They will
extoll the virtues of faith and hope in terms of joylessness with
frequent references to divine retribution.
It's all backwards!
A rational skeptic should
not be focusing on what isn't there. Science and discovery are cool! It's supposed to be thrilling
and exciting and mind-boggling to gaze into the wonders of atoms and
orbits and the adaptibility of organisms. It isn't about rejecting
intangibles--because logic itself is intangible, after all.
And transcendental
believers shouldn't quail in constant fear of the evil potential of the
human heart. Faith is supposed to be about hope and joy and love. That
we can even form doubts about any and all of creation is a miracle, is
it not?
The tangible things in
this universe--from the most fundamental laws of physics to the great
super-clusters of galaxies and everything in between, can be looked at
as a miracle of great intricacy and beauty. There is no reason the
believer shouldn't learn about and understand them.
While the intangibles:
hope, kindness, reason, mercy, and curiousity--can be looked about as
fantastic puzzles to study. There is no reason the nonbeliever
shouldn't learn about and understand them.
Except, in both cases,
laziness. That's why so many settle for that grim sense of superiority.
Because experiencing joy and acting on a sense of wonder takes work.
It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.
--G.K. Chesterton
.