Relatively... uninteresting.
I woke up this morning and stumbled upon a TED talk by Michael Shermer. Michael is called a "debunker" because he spends his time investigating claims of UFO sightings and other supernatural phenomena. Like the grilled cheese sandwich of the virgin Mary that was sold for $28000 or you know, any faces or patterns people tend to see in otherwise uninteresting and dull things. He prefers to be referred to as a skeptic, and I suppose I agree, because all he's really doing is adopting a scientific and empirical method to approaching these miracles. He talks about 'strange' beliefs and how human beings have a tendency to look for patterns.
"The tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and non-meaningful noise."
It's an interesting talk and I am personally keen on any topics involving the principle of belief and factors that play into it... so my interest in this man was naturally piqued and I went to the website of the magazine Skeptic he started and came across this provocative title–
"Does God have a future?"
What made it particularly provocative to me was the fact that it involved a debate with Deepak Chopra! Now I don't know so much about Deepak, except that I won't read or encourage the reading (read: entertaining) of his material... but I do think he can provide a great perspective on the matters of spirituality or the new-age religion as one could call it, seeing as how he is such a highly revered man in the industry.
It started as a correspondence talk on CNN about afterlife, when Deepak decided to challenge Mr. Shermer to a debate in front of a live audience and I don't know about you, but this seemed like a terrific way to spend the rest of my afternoon. Here's a promo to the face-off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lKyD8V3E3M.
It's five and a half minutes long and should give you a good premise to the entire soirée.
The URL to the 12 videos, each around 9 minutes is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AtheistMediaBlog#grid/user/EAAE2D3FFB6BCCA8.
The debate had two sides to it. Michael Shermer and Sam Harris (also TED talker) on the side of science and skepticism, and Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the side of spirituality and a deeper consciousness. It was being held at Caltech and was bound to be an engaging discussion, no matter which side of the fence you sit on. Or even if you're an on-the-fence sort of person.
Now on the face of it, I must admit, I didn't know what to expect. My ignorance on the ways and oratory skills of Mr. Chopra and my agnostic stance on the topic in general had me favouring Michael and Sam from the start, but not entirely dismissing the proposition of Chopra and Houston coming out on top. Shermer seemed pragmatic but as we get into the debate, I found myself disappointed at his argumentative skills and his unfortunate "cop-outs", as Deepak rightly judged them. I suppose it was for lack of a better term, but using "woo-woo" and "fuzzy language" as a means to describe your opponent's argument is not giving much credibility to your own.
Sam Harris, on the other hand was a delight.
Initially I was a little skeptical about Sam, even though I didn't know very much about him... because he seemed to have a smug demeanor and I didn't want some self-righteous, condescending chap defending the likes of a stance that is already laced with rows of self-righteousness and condescension. But then, I suppose those qualities are inherent to a debate where one is arguing the existence of a higher power and you are aiming to refute their claim.
Au contraire, Sam Harris was well-spoken, polite and prolific and managed to seam words beautifully to elucidate his cause. There were times his mocking was less subtle, but for the most part, he was clever and tactful and crisp and his background in philosophy and PhD in neuroscience held him in good stead all through the debate.
Besides talk of oxytocin and dopamine, locality and nonlocality, quantum mechanics and a few other unmentionables, a layman ought to be able to follow this debate pretty smoothly.
1. The side of science aims to increase the influence it has on our day-to-day lives, along with our worldview so that sooner than later, the need for a dependency like organised religion is diminished. This is not to say that they are against religion, but rather, asking merely to reduce it to its core nature and purpose - a support group and a self-help tool.
At least this is what I took from it.
2. The side of spirituality is urging science and well, the world, to join the quest for one-ness and infinite consciousness and although the word consciousness perplexes the smartest of minds, one can't help but empathise with the pursuit of an understanding and overall goodness... and see that aside from the misrepresentation of science in their "explanations", they are doing no harm.
So then what is the harm, really, of having people like Deepak Chopra roam the metaphysical/phorical streets amongst the hordes of people looking to find a deeper meaning?
The harm is that the process leading to it is lined with an arrogance, suspiciously disguised as humility and service to a greater power... and the product is analogous to the fundamentalism inscribed in the forces of terror the world so evidently despises.
Again, this is what I gathered.
To summarise the debate, and I urge you to read these paragraphs carefully:
The science guys are scrutinising the spirit guys' arguments so as to expose what we can all speculate to be the future of God and whether people will, not should, eventually stop believing.
While the spirit guys are more interested in asking the science guys to support their claims so that they can, during the moments of the debate and thereafter, create a new understanding of God and consciousness – with the help of science.
On the surface this seems noble and idealistic, but I believe it has deeper implications of conceited and absurd aims of putting the ridiculous weight of revolutionising the entire world of spirituality on their shoulders.
And whose shoulders are these? The venerable Deepak Chopra is worth 80 million dollars.
I'd like you to take a minute to understand the implications of his net value.
And Jean Houston! Boy, she is just a champion of misdirection and really, a pitiful character who didn't belong in an intelligent dialogue like this. Don't get me wrong, she's very sweet and definitely someone who can tell excellent and unparalleled bedtime stories... but I mean, she's the oldest person on the panel and the wisdom she has accrued through her 72 years of experiences is quite visibly infected. She spent more time relaying century-old quotes and telling magnificent tales from her life than actually contributing to the argument.
Why Deepak chose her as his accomplice is only a testament to his own intelligence.
I'm tired of people talking about this being the most crucial and intense and deepest time the world has ever seen. I'm tired of this banter about humans being the enemy of the Earth and the bane of evolution and the cause for the annihilation and proverbial apocalypse of the world.
And how we're in the most poetic of crossroads at this juncture of the universe – where we can either choose to save or destroy the planet.
This debate isn't an opportunity to entitle ourselves. This is a debate to critically evaluate the influence of God and organised religion and the patternicity humans tend to observe. And whether these forces will play a role in the future of humanity... and if not, how much longer will they survive?
Because let's face it, we're only talking about humanity here.
The other species are considerably less interested in the subject.
As Harris so eloquently put it,
"The God that our neighbours believe in, is essentially an invisible person. He is a creator deity, who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primate.Ridiculous. But very, very insightful.*smirks* Lucky us. *pauses* And he's got galaxy upon galaxy to attend to, but he's especially concerned with what we do, and he's especially concerned with what we do while naked."
I'd like to end this with an excerpt from a Deepak Chopra story. At one of these panel discussions, during the Q&A round, this lovely man who resembles George Lucas comes up to the mic.
Guy: "Deepak. You stated before that all belief is a cover-up for insecurity. Right?"
Deepak: "Mhmm."
Guy: "Do you believe that?"
Deepak: "Yes."
Guy: "Thank you."
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