Confessions of an Evangelical UU

An interesting discussion came up on one of the online discussion forums. Someone posted the results of an fMRI study where researchers found patterns of brain activity that predict people's decisions up to 10 seconds before they're aware they've made a choice. The poster then asked the question whether this was the end of the belief in free will.

The study itself does prove there's no free will. But it does highlight how disassociated our "consciousnesses" are. We perceive ourselves as an integrated whole when in reality, different parts of the brain attend to different things. We are, as Buddhism teaches us, collections of aggregates.

But even tho this study doesn't disprove free will, if one understands the nature of science, one understands that there is no room for the concept of free will within science, just as there is no room for the concept of God. Let's be clear here. This isn't to say that science says there is no God/free will. Science doesn't say anything about either; it can't by its very nature. 

And so, even if/when in the future neuroscientists map out our entire complex brains and find predictive correlations between neural activity patterns and what we perceive as our "decisions," even when science gets to the point where it says it can explain "choice," there will be no room for free will in there.  Any scientific explanation of "choice" has to be a reductionist, materialist explanation.  The only reason why we can hold onto the illusion of free will is because the decision making process is as of yet unexplained.  When it is explained, it will be in terms of synaptic weights and stimulus strengths - wiring, environment, and chance.

It was this realization that caused me to leave science. Not because I was disillusioned - I still love science - but because I realized that I most wanted was not to be found there.  I want meaning, which for me necessitates free will.  I need to believe that I have a choice (even if highly constrained) and that my choices matter.

My theology is that God and creation work together in partnership to co-create creation. (I am that I am. I am becoming that I am becoming.) In my theology, which is a process theology, free will is that which allows co-creation by us having the ability to choose differently. To create the new, the surprise. Without it, there is no "creation." Just... randomness constrained by patterns playing itself out.

What's more, I can't make sense of ethics/morality without a concept of free will. What does it mean for someone's actions to be moral or immoral if there is no choice? What would it mean to try to cultivate moral character as Aristotle encouraged us to do?  Ethics and morality are based on the assumption that we have a choice in the actions we take. There is no point in delineating what is a moral action and what is an immoral action if, in the end, we have no choice in what we do anyway.

First there was the post on Making Chutney, talking about the feudal and oppressive governance in pre-communist occupied Tibet.  I was very happy to see a UU presenting the other perspective and recognizing an "anti-Chinese" sentiment in the Western response. But during the discussion within the comments, I became a little uncomfortable.  Understanding that Tibet was a theocracy ruled by the lamas should not then automatically become, "Tibetans are better off now under the communists."  That runs the danger of us not responding to oppression that continues to exist.

Second, a member of A/PIC posted a link to a YouTube video that gave the Chinese side of the story.  In the discussion that followed, someone brought up the very real possibility that some UUs will probably try to present this as an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW).  The idea of a UU statement that mirrors Hollywood, the Western media, and your standard, white "free-Tibet" protesters turns my stomach.  I'm not sure that I could stay a UU if that happened. 

I am still wrestling with how to respond to this.  Every time I argue with someone who makes the claim, "the Chinese are torturing Tibetan nuns!!" I run the risk of sounding like I condone these acts of oppression or am arguing for complacency.  I do not and am not. 

So what is it that I am reacting against? 

1. People romanticizing Tibet as a completely peaceful land of smiling Buddhist monks.  I dislike it when China is romanticized too - it's just offensive.  They're not seeing people as real people.

2. The Western media and some people presenting the violence as the evil, cruel Chinese who just like to torture Tibetans for the fun of it versus the peaceful loving Tibetans.  Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese think that Tibet is part of China. The brutality displayed by the communist govt towards the Tibetans does not come from ethnic hatred mainly, but rather a) a brutality levied against anyone that it perceives as a threat, even Han, and b) ethnocentric paternalism and disregard for the value of Tibetan culture.

3. I can't help but think that many people (not all) are using what is a very legitimate concern in order to justify expression of their latent anti-Chinese bias.

Otoh, I don't want my need to defend China to convince anyone not to act for Tibet.  What disturbed me about the conversation in the comment area of Making Chutney is that, once it was acknowledged that Tibet used to be a feudal theocracy, the sentimant seemed to swing to the opposite extreme.  Tibetans=bad, therefore Chinese=good.  I honestly don't like that any more than Chinese=bad, Tibetans=good.  Surely we are able to grasp a more complex view of the situation.  Whether it's the Mongolians, or the Han, or the British, or the Tibetan aristocracy, the bottom line is that the Tibetan people have never been free. A well-crafted, informed, fair, and ultimately firm AIW bearing witness to the suffering in Tibet (and indeed the rest of China) would be completely appropriate.

In case it was possible for anyone to not know, the Pope is in town.  And DC seems to be agog.  All week long the metro platforms have been announcing that you can take the train to Nationals stadium (if you have a ticket).  On the trains, I've heard several cellphone conversations about the pontiff.  And the Post is running stories about people who paid thousands of dollars to fly here, or drove all night... And of course there is stuff like this.

I am a little taken aback by all this.  Not that I ever put much stock in us being the capital of the "most powerful nation on earth," but still, I would think that Washingtonians would be used to visits by really important people.  And I suppose the other part of it is that I don't like the guy.  Now, Pope John Paul II, I could understand waiting all night to see. But Benedict...he doesn't have a kind face, and I'm not convinced he can't control that.  JPII was the first pope to visit a mosque.  Benedict, otoh, one of the first things he does as Pope is to attack the Muslim faith.  JPII visited Auschwitz and kneeled in repentance for the sins of the Church.  Benedict reinstates the Latin Mass, part of which describes Jews as deluded.  JPII seemed to approach the world with love.  Benedict seems to be out to bring the faithful in line.  

The frenzy over this man whom I do not find at all appealing drives home to me the fundamental difference between Catholics and UUs, or Protestants for that matter.  I can like people and dislike people based on what I perceive of them.  I can even understand a particular amount of respect for a title.  But I can't for the life of me understand the adoration of a title.

A friend of mine once said that real sports fans are loyal to their team, not to the players on the team.  I guess Catholics are real sports fans.

Catholicism has traditionally been a "love or leave it" religion.  What the Vatican said went without question (because it was the discerned will of God) and you either follow or become a heretic/apostate.  Given the position that the Church still holds on women clergy, celibacy, contraception, and BGLT equality (man, the Church must really be against sex), it's been harder and harder for many American Catholics to stay within their Church.  Many just leave.  That's why I was especially impressed by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend when she exhorted disenchanted Catholics to not give up on their Church, to work for reform.  Do not simply walk away from the religion that you love.  Work to save it.

That is what some very dedicated progressive Catholics are trying to do during this Pope's visit - advocating for women and BGLT clergy.  They are working to make the Catholic church, which btw means "universal," more Catholic - to make it a church that fully embodies the power of God's love, which embraces all.  I still think Benedict looks mean and have no faith that he will listen, but I applaud the work done by these loving souls.

Addendum (2008.04.18 21:04)

Hey, so I just saw that Pope Benedict visited a synagogue in New York.  Well, good on him. :)

All this talk of perpetually peaceful Tibetan monks standing nobly in the face of the evil Chinese reminds me of a related pet peeve I have with respect to how many (not all) Westerners approach things Asian.

When the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life came out with its report on religion in the U.S. a couple of months ago, one notable yet unsurprising finding was that, unlike Hinduism and Islam, most people who identify as Buddhist are home-grown (mostly white) converts, not (Asian) immigrants.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Buddhism is a proselytizing faith; it is open and welcoming to converts - spreading from its native India, throughout Asia, and now the rest of the world.

Nor is there anything wrong with the fact that Buddhism in the West tends to be different than Buddhism in the East.  Everywhere it's spread, Buddhism has been influenced by the local beliefs/cultures.  When it came to China, it blended with Taoism and formed Ch'an, which the Japanese call Zen.  It also blended with other aspects of Chinese culture to form other schools of Buddhism.  When it made it to Tibet, it blended with the native Bun religion and formed Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism.   So when Buddhism came to the West and was embraced mainly by white intellectuals, it's not surprising that Western Buddhism tends to minimize any reference to what many consider "supernaturalism."  And since belief in deity is not necessary for nirvana, it is completely compatible with non-theist positions.

What *does* bother me is the frequency with which I am told by white Buddhist converts that "Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion."  Or that "Buddhism is completely rational and devoid of 'supernaturalism,' unlike Christianity." And I'm like, "Really... because I have relatives who are life-long Buddhists, I've been exposed to it since I was a little kid, and from what I've seen their Buddhism is every bit as much a religion as Christianity, complete with the so-called supernaturalism."

And then these people actually have the nerve to argue about this.  "You don't understand," they say.  "Those gods aren't really gods; they're just projections of the mind."  To which I point out to them passages from the Pali scriptures, the oldest known Buddhist scriptures, thought to be the closest to the Buddha's actual life and teachings, and lo and behold, there are devas (gods) mentioned in the stories. (I strongly suspect that most of these Western converts have read precious little of the original scriptures, given that the Buddhism section of most book stores consists of modern writing about Buddhism.) Even still they persist, "Well, you obviously can't take those stories literally."

It is true that one need not take the scriptures literally.  It's perfectly legitimate to interpret Brahma's conversation with the Buddha as allegorical, symbolic.  But what I want to know is, if you can do that with Buddhist scripture, why can't you do that with Christian scripture?  Why do you insist on taking the bible literally and in the process reject it while you feel free to interpret the scriptures of another culture in whatever way you please?  And what makes you think you then have the authority to say that your interpretation is correct, suggesting that those Buddhists who actually do believe in a real Kwan Yin or rebirth (for example) are somehow backwards?

Conversion to Buddhism is all very well.  Interpreting Buddhism in ways to which you can relate is all very well.  But when white converts feel they can "cut and paste" Buddhism but not Christianity, or when they think they can dismiss other interpretations of Buddhism as inferior to their own, that is not "conversion."  It is colonialization of someone else's religious culture - taking it and using it for their own purposes.  Chalk this up as another example of the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural MISappropriation.