The summer before my sophomore year at college initiated a very long-winded and (possibly) offensive struggle with my religious upbringings. It was a momentous part of my life - I became infatuated with logic and science, critical thinking took precedence over core values, and I'm sure I took time to debate religion with damn near everyone I met. There was a lot to be gained and a lot to be left behind in this period of my life, but I have no regrets.
I can say with (relative) confidence that if there will be a tail end to this period in my life, it's fast approaching. I'm happy to have left the limitations of Christianity behind me - it works for many people, but after 19 years it was quickly making me feel that I had yet to find my true self - and while I don't think I'll ever cling to one specific religion or another in the future, I will always be experiencing, seeking, or living a spiritual quest that I'm only just coming to understand. The Tao Te Ching mentions that overwhelming the "spirit" with knowledge and wisdom is akin to a newborn who has yet to learn to smile. I struggled with this; it's a notion that I will likely consider well beyond my education before I conclude its validity (that is, if one must be "right or wrong")
Why are so many people drawn to religion, or at a more whole level, basic spirituality? There are obvious quips in response, which I will leave to the reader to consider, but here's a theory I've been pondering:
People all over the world, provided they are "healthy" and "functioning" (terms which I will use loosely, based on their sensitivity), have a desire to reproduce. This is a biological response that most creatures experience. Likewise, we follow through with our hardwiring and produce offspring. Fully grown adults can be charted on an integral; if we ignore declining height (due to various "health problems" and age), a 20-year-old will (more or less) be the same size until they (hopefully) die of old age and well-being. This is the adult body, and following this logic, one could figure out an average height for all "adult-beings" on earth.
Now, compare the overwhelming existence of a newborn. One could deduce from the model illustrated above that there is an average size of "newborn-beings." Think carefully about that ratio of measurement (I'd guess that the average adult is 4-6 times bigger than the average baby, but that could be a shoddy estimate). As we grow older, both mentally and physically, the gap between "newborn-being" and "adult-being" is gradually narrowed, providing a continual sense of "reaching the adult world." And then, much to our surprise, we suddenly arrive.
This might provide one explanation for the difficult and confusing times of our teenage years - we no longer feel mentally young, but physically we're "not quite adult" which is, understandably, frustrating as hell. But I digress...
Again, think about this transformation - when else in our lives will we experience a being with a higher (or at least comparable) perception of the world around us with a body size ratio that is five times our average size? (This is ignoring the "baby genius" hypothesis, that our point of highest intelligence and clearest perception of the world is at birth)
To a newborn, the only way I can picture the world around me would be one of overwhelming proportions and complexity - this is likely why we forget the youngest part of our childhood; it's all simply information overload. And yet, through the haze of confusion that is this new existence, there are beings (what we will come to understand as "adults" "parents" and "mentors") who guide us, nurture us, and attempt to prepare us for "the real world."
I believe that as we grow older, spirituality arises from our desire to recapture the all-encapsulating omnipotence that we experienced from our nurturers during the early moments of our lives. We all build expectations for the adult world, but (at least most of us) realize that things aren't laid out for all to see when we get there. Adult life is liberating but challenging - we face higher responsibilities, live faster paced lives, attain further (but not limitless) understanding of our existence, and surprisingly, find that much of the bullshit that went on in high school never truly dissipates.
Perhaps this is a foolish conclusion to drawn, but this must at least contribute to the reason all cultures have stories of supernatural. We all have an innate desire for wisdom outside of ourselves or guidance that supersedes the current state of affairs...
Although I often reject the notion of a "higher power" I'm also fascinated by the limitations of human perception - we pride ourselves for our accomplishments while ancient teachings and cutting edge scientific advances both lead us to reason that we're not as in control as we'd like to think we are. A friend of mine once told me the story of the first viking ships seen by American Indians - to the few who had encountered such vessels, they saw ships; those who had never experienced such momentous manipulation of wood, metal and cloth, however, literally saw nothing.
If there are beings or powers that are truly "omnipotent" in this universe, I can't see it possible that they would be beings or powers to be comprehended in our limited understanding of the 3rd dimension and a handful of human-created languages and methods of education. Quantum Physics and String Theory suggest there are up to 10 dimensions, which often leads me to believe that humans know quite literally nothing about the "true" nature of the universe - even if we can try to stretch our brains to imagine higher dimensions, we will never truly "experience" them in the way we see, hear, touch, smell and taste our current surroundings. Even if we could, would a higher understanding of things lead to ultimate apathy? Would we not assume the mentality of Dr. Manhattan, the omnipotent character from the classic graphic novel Watchmen?
I often (guiltily) day-dream about the one circumstance in which I would be thrilled at the existence of a higher being, a la the narrative of the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still. Beings from another world, who have undergone a more "beneficial" process of evolution and achieved higher levels of understanding in the universe, would visit out planet in attempts to save it from self destruction. But, alas, if there were beings with a higher understanding of the universe, or energies that could perceive higher dimensions than our own, what purpose would they have to visit our self-destructing planet and malignant growth of our species? Even if they were benevolent and kind to one another, a perfectly peaceful species, who is to say they would feel any guilt in committing genocide on behalf of the betterment of the Earth, not the betterment of any particular species? Who's to say we wouldn't appear any different than a parasite? Who's to say humans would take precedence in the new world order, or furthermore, who's to say that we're not already part of a higher level of organization that we simply can't perceive?
I know this is drawing from a sense of fascinated paranoia, but like the story of American Indians mentioned above - if we were in the presence of something that is entirely outside of our normal scope of perception, or furthermore, something that has never entered our scope of perception, what information could we draw on to understand it? Would we sense anything at all?
This, of course, is all stemming from my original topic - the human desire to find higher spiritual being. I suppose while my bout with religion is nearing a close, my quest for further understandings of my own spirituality - my want to be a part of something larger than myself - is just beginning to unfold...
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