The Power Of Words: God, Atheism, Religion, And Spirit Revisited

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." -William Shakespeare

I've been thinking a lot about words lately and how they shape our lives, often with little conscious attention directed toward them. My thoughts came in the aftermath of last week's post where I discussed the variety of 'religious' beliefs and included atheism in the discussion. Per some feedback posts, I had failed to distinguish 'spiritual' in my discussion and subsumed atheism under a general classification of diversity along a religious spectrum (i.e. I meant for this spectrum to include all beliefs ranging from none, to spiritual, to religious orientations). My intent was to advance discussion of diversity in 'beliefs' and how to embrace such diversity as long as actions stemming from beliefs are not harmful or stagnating to more 'inward' discovery. Many comments were focused on my use of words such as religion, God, etc. and less on the point I intended to make, and that brought me back to the power of words.

I read in Chuang-tzu, The Inner Chapters (by A.C. Graham) that this Chinese poet and philosopher (living around 370-301 BC) was the first Chinese thinker to "appreciate that names have only a conventional relation to objects". So, while the 'rose' in Shakespeare's example may be easily accepted by convention, objects of internal experience, such as one's relationship to the universe, moral terms and the like, are much less easy to find agreement among people. In the approximately 2400 years since Chuang-tzu, this conventional relation of names to moral terms (or inward experiences) remains elusive at times.

It seems this difficulty in finding consensus in naming inward experiences creates a conflict of sorts because, following Chuang-tzu's observation, 'beliefs' or the words assigned to them require group consensus for strength. Again, the point of my previous post and this one alike, are to encourage each of us to let go of the particular system (word convention) we may have for such inward experiences and relationships and to explore more of the experience itself (as Shakespeare notes "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet").

If we were to each attend and investigate our 'inward knowledge' more and lessen our efforts to rally public consensus about what we call them (or groups that profess to have the same belief) we might find ourselves, our humanity, moving closer to the 'kindness' in humanity (cooperation and compassion) rather than conflict and violence.

Roget, who created the Thesaurus, recognized the value in classifying words reflecting shared meaning. He spent his life making lists of word synonyms, creating classifications of words in much the same way that Linnaeus had classified nature.

In both systems, the limits of classification need to be realized so that the classification itself does not hinder change. Many times our religious or secular institutions seem to work toward fixing 'beliefs' rather than encouraging their exploration.

The power of words to cause division needs to be brought more into our conscious attention. Perhaps if we each look more carefully at our own experiences of truth rather than the words used to describe it, we may find greater common ground.

As the Taoist saying goes, "The Way that can be told is not the constant Way." It seems to be an old truth that needs repeating again and again.

Comments

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Smalley,

Once again thanks for another excellent essay/post, and your disambiguation, that's why I heart ya. Your essay sure had my mind moving at light-speed, below I've tried to express where we (you and I) are in the same stream of consciousness and why I believe a new paradigm is called for, it is abstract but as you so eloquently expressed, words get in the way of concepts, as did Dr. Minsky, I hoped to put together enough of an abstract to make a clear point, it's so hard to do in this forum and with few words. These are concepts for 1000 page books.

Anyway, it is my contention that with a new paradigm the human "rose" will smell just as sweet, maybe even sweeter as a hybrid, (as we shall move closer to its true essence) should we take that effort, it's evolving, a state of flux) the Tao speaks to, The Path is always marked by change, truth indeed. Agape.

[Dap]

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"It often does more harm than good to force definitions on things we don't understand. Besides, only in logic and mathematics do definitions ever capture concepts perfectly. The things we deal with in practical life are usually too complicated to be represented by neat, compact expressions. (*note) Especially when it comes to understanding minds, we still know so little that we can't be sure our ideas about psychology are even aimed in the right directions.

In any case, one must not mistake defining things for knowing what they are."- Dr. Marvin Minsky.

(*) This view of Dr Minsky's on the direction of psychology is quite antiquated, it is 23 years old, and the direction of psychology and cognitive science has moved forward exponentially, in the correct direction I would add, especially in the last few years. That said, the other parts of Dr. Minsky's statement are profound.

Logic, is the science of reason, which encompasses the collective knowledge of all other scientific disciplines, with special attention to the cognitive sciences and how it applies to the others.

Cognition:
n.

1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.

2. That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge.

(*) In any case, one must not mistake defining things for knowing what they are." - Dr. Minsky's caveat applied. How aware are you really? Are your believes sound, or subjective well-being (SWB) emotions?

[Dap]

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Subjective well-being (SWB).

Subjective well-being (SWB), people's emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, includes what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfillment, and life satisfaction.

http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/paper1.html

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Culture is to a society, as persona/personality is to an individual.

Anthropology

Margaret Mead

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/margaretmead.html

Anthropologist Dr. Robert B. Edgerton (UCLA) "Sick Societies"

Also see Joseph Campbell's works like the "Power of Myth". and other anthropological works.

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God is just a human emotion locked inside the psyche of a human being because of the Human condition and perpetuated by those that are illusional (SWB) and those that seek to control others. (chauvinism)

While religion and spirituality require "faith" and too often a belief in "fate"also, non-belief is open to live existentially, or as H.D. Thoreau said: "Live deliberately". Transcendency aside.

It is my contention that ones SWB quotient can (especially in the long term) and will be improved by understanding of superstitions, mythology, and religious constructs in the human psyche for what they are; that it is a misconception (fallacy) to believe (common perception aside) that there will be a downside or something lost to Humanity by application of this new paradigm, believing in ourselves and our fellow human beings without an Omnipotent entity guiding force.

[dmmmd]

The problem with the word "atheist" is that it literally means "without god." This automatically presupposes that a god is out there.

Why is there a special word for people "without god"? One could pose the question of why we don't have words for people without Santa Clause, pink unicorns, ad infinitum.

I prefer the word "nullifidian," a person having no faith or religious belief.

[recless]

Uh, I don't know what dictionary you use, but atheist does not mean "without god". Atheism "is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist

[fairwitness]

Alan Watts used the "fishing net" analogy--words are a net with which we have learned, over millenia, to capture and fix the world. Very useful for survival, apparently. But he reminds us that the net is NOT the world and can be a distracting, disfunctional illusion when we take the world-as-netted for the real world of actual moment-to-moment experience. And very misleading when applied to the inner world of subjective consciousness.

Similiarly, in other Taoist analogies, "Eating the menu rather than the meal", or "Mistaking the map for the territory".

We seem to be carried away by the success of the left brain's ability to abstract experience and, even more so, take the words and images given us by our early upbringing and cultural mileau as the only reality we can perceive. We are programmed by the biology of human development to create an inner, mental model of the world and ourselves, and then to live as if it were the truth. Again, very effective for survival, but ultimately misleading, especially when combined with our inherent paranoia.

Rather than "seeing is believing", it's more accurate to say "believing is seeing".

But--apparently it is also possible, in the course of human development, to "outgrow" that programming. In fact, it may be that such a growing is built into our evolutionary trajectory, a universal aptitude for what has become known as "enlightenment" or "awakening". Let's hope so.

[recless]

"The power of words to cause division needs to be brought more into our conscious attention. Perhaps if we each look more carefully at our own experiences of truth rather than the words used to describe it, we may find greater common ground."

The power of words to cause division is equal to the power of words to cause unity. Looking at our own individual experiences of truth isn"t going to find common ground because that is were truth gets convoluted. We all experience "personal" truth differently, just as we all experience objective reality differently. The key to finding common ground is putting aside our own personal views and trying to find out what is the objective reality, free from our own limited and biased interpretations. It is important to remember that if we want others to understand us, we need a common reference frame; and that frame is words, grammar, and language.

[stevesrant]

Hi Sue, a few thoughts on your last two thought provoking posts. I found it interesting last week that there were so many more comments than your posts usually engender, even though it was in the same vein as many of your recent posts. It occurred to me that perhaps it was a result of your using a magic word - atheism - in the headline, which always seems to create an energetic response, both for and against. This week's post - ironically about the power of words - seems to refute that hypothesis, there being zero comments about a post with the same words in the headline. When I read it this morning, I thought I would comment tonight (when I had the time) about the many words ending in '-ism ' being the brand names that tend to seperate us into in-group and outsiders: atheism, theism, socialism, capitalism, patriotism, terrorism, etc. So this afternoon my 16-year old comes home with an assignment for his global studies class - to invent an 'ism'! So I HAD to post this comment. P&L, S.

[SmackwaterJack]

Must have been the Holy Ghost or the great cosmic force. No wonder ya can't make up your mind. lol

[stevesrant]

And I thought it was only a neat coincidence! Don't know what to think about your decision- making comment though...

[SmackwaterJack]

Good call on the "neat coincidence" thing, that must have been why you just "HAD" to post your comment. lol

http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/coincidence.htm

[Jonahson]

Our perception of phenomena whether internal or external and our response to it comes from our stored mental impression call memory. For example a child brought up in an island with only coconut trees will only see the shape of a coconut tree in his mind if mentioned tree. On the other hand if a child from a place that had only pine trees will see pine trees. Suppose if the two were to be brought together on a barren island and asked what a tree looks like, both will argue and insist their own perception of a tree is the right one and will argue on that.
Of course both are right. It is their clinging to their own views that made them argue. This is true for most people, some long married couples in agreement with each other most of the time may look like brother and sister as their facial features changes according to their shared thoughts, usually for the good of their children.

[mbaty]

I totally agree; people get very hung up on the words they use. I grew up in church, and when I go back, usually out of obligation, I realize that some of the words can be reinterpreted to actually signify a deeper truth, while on the surface, the word-based dogma remains. And as I go back through the bible, even though I consider it an old Catholic propaganda book, there is still deep truth, hidden beneath the centuries of misinformation and de-contextualization. Indeed, the words we use can become egoic statements of false identity, while the deeper inward feelings can be universal and transcendant. That is the place where all of our disparate ideas merge.