Description
Non-Abrahamic and eclectic spirituality are rooted in experiential understanding and inclusivity as opposed to rationalism and authority. At face value, these seem like pleasant ideas, but as Lao Tzu says, “the truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.”
These arguments begin with a preface, then attack different aspects of spirituality in a sequence.
A Preface on Essence
The difference between a material thing which exists and nothingness is quite simple: a material thing exists in spacetime. But spiritual things are not material; if something is immaterial, what distinguishes it from nothing?
The answer is also quite simple: immaterial things which exist have an essence. Essence is a bit of a slippery term, but I think the best way to define it is, “that which is expressed by its definition,” or, more concretely, “the basis by which nature is expressed.” So, for example, the “essence” of a guitar would be “to be a stringed musical instrument, with a fretted fingerboard, and six or twelve strings played by plucking or strumming.” If something expresses that essence, it is a guitar. If something does not express that essence, it is not a guitar.
Now, bear in mind that I am addressing religious and spiritual people here, not naturalists. Consequently, I have not argued that essence exists; I have only made the point that if you are religious or spiritual, you must believe essence exists. If there is no such thing as essence, then immateriality is synonymous with nonexistence, and there is no spirituality to begin with.
Olympus has Fallen
Nothing can create itself, for that would require existing before one exists, which is a contradiction. But not every essence can rely on another for existence, for this would result in an infinite regress, and nothing could exist – imagine plugging your TV into an infinite chain of power strips; it would never turn on. Thus, one essence must be identical to its own existence. That is, it is existence – it is self-evident and uncreated. There can of course only be one such being, since any distinction from this essence would be a distinction from pure existence, which is the exact sort of thing which requires pure existence to precede it. Let us call this one being “To Be.”
To Be cannot change, since it cannot be distinct from its essence, and so To Be is immutable. And what is immutable cannot be material, since material is inherently conditional (here or there, big or small) – so this being must be immaterial. Further, because To Be is immutable and uncreated, To Be must be eternal. To Be cannot be composed of parts, because a composite being’s existence is dependent upon its parts, and this being depends on nothing. So, it must be absolutely simple. This being is the principle by which all things exist, and is in this sense present to all beings. But because To Be is simple, it is wholly present to all things, whether the smallest particle or the entire set, and present to its whole self. So, it is omnipresent.
Power is the ability to act upon something else. An agent’s power is greater the more it has of the form by which it acts. For example, the hotter a thing, the greater its power to give heat; if it had infinite heat, it would have infinite power to give heat. This being necessarily acts through its own essence, for it does not rely on anything prior to itself. But it is one with its essence, and thus both must be eternal. Likewise, this being’s power must be eternal, so it is omnipotent.
It is demonstrable that knowledge has an inverse relationship with materiality. For example, a rock knows nothing. An animal knows through sense-images which are immaterial – that is, physically free from matter constituting them. A human knows through immaterial sense-images and immaterial abstractions derived from them. The human’s knowledge is more complete than that of the animal precisely because it accesses an additional layer of immateriality. Consequently, this non-contingent being must be a mind, because what is immaterial is mind, and this being is entirely immaterial. Further, this complete immateriality means there is no constraint on its capacity for knowledge. Because this being is also simple, eternal, and wholly present to all things, it is thus omniscient.
So, To Be is eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. A supreme being.
Though there is no logical contradiction in believing in gods and spirits, if you believe in gods and spirits, you must admit as a corollary that all of them are inescapably dependent upon one supreme being. If you are religious or spiritual, there’s no way around this series of deductions.
This is not an idea that first came along in the Christian era. The Hindus have Brahman, who fits a very similar description. Socrates was executed partially on account of embarrassing the priest Euthyphro using a version of this argument. Xenophanes and Anaxagoras came up with the idea 100 years before him and were notorious critics of the pantheon. To be frank, the idea of polytheism or spirituality without a supreme being has been obsolete for 2,500 years.
Now, why do I bring this up? Partially to define the logical boundaries of polytheism. But also partially because, with rare exceptions like Sikhism, non-Abrahamic spirituality is centered on gods or spirits no one can be sure exist while largely ignoring the one supreme being who is logically certain under the spiritual paradigm. It’s as backwards as giving prodigiously to an online charity that might be a scam while giving nothing to the Red Cross next door.
Evidence
I think believing in essences is a reasonable intuition. It derives from the common human experience of intentionality and coherence in the universe. We know from the last section’s deductions that (given essences exist) one essence must be eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Reasonable again. But we can know no other such things about any other essences from deduction alone. For example: how many exist? Do any essences desire interaction with humans? Which rituals are appropriate? For which essences? Will this ritual please one essence but anger another?
Without evidence, we have no other good information about the spiritual world, nor how to respond to it. So what is the evidence for gods or eclectic spirituality? A series of myths, the teachings of priests and prophets who “privately” spoke to gods, books written by poets or unknown authors claiming to be of divine origin, and the clandestine practices of renaissance aristocrats.
Greeks officials say that the Pantheon must be worshiped; Xenophanes says their gods aren’t real. Spiritualists say seances are valid practice; occultists say seances are gateways for malevolent spirits. One occultist thinks magic is real; another thinks it’s just confirmation bias. Pure intuition is the only reason to think one occult ritual is better than another, or one god is real and another is not, or that all gods are real, or that the Homeric myths are false but the Norse myths are true, or the Vedas were really written by Brahma, or that self doesn’t exist, or that the Tao impels all things, or that Zarathustra was a prophet, and so on.
Organized religions without some sort of concrete evidence only present plausibility to people who are already disposed toward their teachings. Eclectic rituals and beliefs are picking a batch of gods, spirits and practices, claiming they exist because of a fondness for them, and then imposing that idea on reality. These are indistinguishable from worshiping one’s own desires, opinions, and preferences and calling it transcendent. Fondness for an idea does not make it true nor real. If one is serious about spirituality, then they should seek real, concrete evidence pertaining to the spiritual world. A religion without concrete evidence is just worshiping confirmation bias.
Inclusivity
For millennia, Hindus practiced a ritual called Sati. “Sati” is burning a widow alive on her husband’s funeral pyre so she can join him in the afterlife. During the British colonial era, General Charles Napier witnessed some Hindu priests preparing the ritual and ordered them to stop. The priests complained that this was a Hindu tradition and demanded permission to continue. Napier replied, “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom; when men burn women alive, we hang them. Let us all act according to national customs.”
The ritual immolation did not occur that day.
Non-Abrahamic spirituality prides itself on inclusivity, and inclusivity is indeed a virtue when all options are valid. For example, a society being inclusive of people with different skin colors, languages, and physical or mental capabilities is good. But being “inclusive” of ideas that are unsubstantiated or plainly wrong is a vice. It results in people having a warped view of reality. Let me address a separate fact of the Sati story: most evidence suggests that Sati was almost always voluntary on the part of the widows. Education and critical thinking are tools we give people to protect them not just from others, but from themselves. Bad ideas hurt people, even (and especially) when those bad ideas are spiritual.
To use the same quote from Gandhi that I used on the previous page, “Yes, [I am a Hindu]. I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.” Gandhi is not transcending boundaries with this idea; he’s just sinking below common sense. Not everyone can be right in a disagreement; everyone is aware of this. Systemically rejecting logic for the sake of inclusivity is not being enlightened, it’s being brainwashed.
Descartes’ Evil Demon
Descartes’ Meditation I begins by pointing out that the human senses are notoriously untrustworthy. For example: when one is dreaming, they often think they are awake, despite nothing in the dream being congruent with true waking reality. Only upon actually waking does it become clear that the dream was a dream. Only then do all the nonsensical parts of the dream become clear. Until that point, the dreamer is helpless.
He follows with a thought experiment dubbed, “the evil demon.” It goes like this: imagine an evil demon so powerful that it can manipulate all your sense faculties. The demon’s manipulation is just like being in a dream – you’re incapable of noticing anything is wrong, but your entire reality is false. Descartes uses this image to clear his (and the reader’s) mind of all assumptions, even the most basic, before “rebuilding” life with logic throughout the rest of the book.
Here, we will use a similar version of the evil demon: imagine that there was something in the spiritual realm which wanted to do you harm. Now imagine that this creature was manipulating your mind to perceive harmful and false things as good and true.
At the purely philosophical level, this experiment simply reminds us to be skeptical. We have no reason to believe we’re good at judging divinity. Why should we assume our relationship with the divine is so profound that we can judge it intuitively? Would we ever feel comfortable buying a car, finding a spouse, or trusting someone with our child based entirely on intuition? No, and we can at least see and touch those things. What would possess us to think we can adequately intuit the nature of the unseen, the untouchable? Need I bring up the ubiquity of human sacrifice to point out how easily mankind can be mistaken on spirituality?
However, there’s a second layer to the evil demon thought experiment in this context. If you’re a spiritual person, then you believe in spirits of some sort; if you believe in spirits, you must admit there could be actual evil demons; if there could be actual evil demons, then the thought experiment is no longer just a thought experiment, it’s a real possibility. It is really, actually possible that your entire experience of “spirituality” is just a demon manipulating you into believing false things.
The theme of Descartes’ Meditation I is that assumptions are untrustworthy unless their foundation is logic, since assumptions are otherwise manipulable. Spirituality does not require less rational inquiry than our normal assumptions; it requires more.
Conclusion
Having the wrong ideas about life is dangerous. Non-Abrahamic spirituality appears uncontroversial and kind: live and let live, believe what makes you happy. But in reality, they are a groundless imposition of personal beliefs onto a world which may well not reflect them. Not only do these types of belief systems tend to ignore the one certain conclusion they can draw – the existence of a supreme being – they also rely on an irrational brand of inclusivity and unfounded assumptions to continue existing. Believing things which just aren’t so is what makes a man insane, and assigning transcendental value to your unsubstantiated claims is a recipe for disaster.
“The essence of these megalomaniacs, these Christians who talk of men ruling this world, must stop and be put back in its proper proportion. Man is nothing special; he is but a part of this world. Man must once again look with deep reverence into this world. Then he will acquire the right sense of proportion about what is above us, about how we are woven into this cycle.”
This is not a quote from a shaman, a Hindu priest, nor a monk. It’s a quote from Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust.
I am not implying that modern spirituality will lead to mass murder; I am implying that the common spiritual idea that mankind is not special, merely “a part of mother nature” has been a cause of insanity since time immemorial. As I pointed out before, many Hindu widows mounted the burning funeral pyre freely. Human sacrifice was ubiquitous among ancient polytheistic cultures. Perhaps we have socially risen above murderous superstition, but does that mean there is no danger at all in being wrong? Do the consequences need to be death for us to reject groundless, banal superstitions?