It’s Wednesday…my morning without children! Andrew is at preschool and Sylvia is at Donna’s house, and I am at the library uploading sweet pictures from a recent photo session.
While I was waiting for my computer to go chug, chug, chugging along (it needs quite a bit of time to process these things…), I wandered over to a display and picked up a book called, When God Is Gone Everything Is Holy by Chet Raymo (2008). As I flipped through it, I came across a couple passages that really struck me. I don’t know that they are exactly how I feel, but I have rarely found printed words that capture my sense like these did.
I wanted to write some of these down, and I thought I’d write them down here to share them with you. My readers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and I’m curious what you all think of this.
Here’s the first passage I read…page 22. And this is one I really relate to:
I am an atheist, if by God one means a transcendent Person who acts willfully within the creation. I am an agnostic in that I believe our knowledge of “what is” is partial and tentative – a tiny flickering flame in the overwhelming shadows of our ignorance.
Here again is a passage I thought was interesting on page 19
The religious naturalist forgoes a personal God. God defined in our own image. God invested with human qualities: justice, love, will, desire, jealousy, artifice, and so on — in short, the attributes of human personhood.
the author goes on to quote the Greek novelist Nikos Kanzantzakis from his book Spiritual Exercises:
We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir the heart profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic.
That was interesting, but this part…page 91…was really cool. A geneticist, Dean Hammer, wrote a book called The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes. Our author says,
The gist of Hamer’s argument is this: he has identified a gene that correlates with a personality trait called self-transcendence, as measured on a standard test called a “Temperament and Character Inventory.” Self-transcendence is a term used by psychologists to describe spiritual feelings that are independent of traditional religion. It is not based on belief in God, frequency of prayer, or any other conventional religious practice. Self-transcendent people are self-forgetful, and tend to see everything, including themselves, as part of one great totality. They have a strong sense of “at-one-ness” with people, places, and things. They are likely to be environmentalists, or active in the fight against poverty, racism, and war.
wow. Reading that I was thinking, “My goodness…I’m super self-transcendent! Cool! A category!” But then he goes on…
Self-transcendent individuals are mystical. They are fascinated with things that cannot be explained by science. They are creative, but may also be prone to psychosis. In short, they are spiritual, and inclined to believe in God.
Hmmm. Well, maybe I’m half self-transcendent. Can’t say that I identify with anything in that second part. While I’m not the kind of person who feels like everything must be explained or proven, I am happier when they are. And I’m really not mystical.
Well, the book goes on, but I need to return to my regularly scheduled work. Enjoy!
I realize that this is almost completely tangential to your post, but I spent a week or two last fall talking about Dean Hammer in another context. He was the scientist that pushed the idea of a gay gene back in the late 90s and I read a book he wrote about his work on “finding” it and the sort of attention it received in a class called, “Science, Sex, and Politics.”
The only thing I would have to say is that there are some really interesting questions to raise about what it means to say there is a God gene. Why was Dean Hammer as a scientist looking for such a gene? What would it mean if there were a gene that gave us the propensity to believe in God (or even gave us a tendency to be self-transcendent)? What do we hope the existence of such a gene will explain? I suspect that are certain evolutionary bird biologists that read your blog regularly that might be able to dispute me or back me up on this next point, but its also really, really difficult to say there this is exactly one gene and that it correlates directly to a trait and that it can simply be present or not present in an individual. The title of “God Gene” or “Gay Gene” is really…misleading and unreasonably deterministic of what nature (rather than nuture) controls.
Yay! Two cents. Sorry for the random liberal arts rant.
Hi Joe,
I love your liberal arts rant:) Thanks for writing!
I think that silly “God genes” concept aside, I like the idea of there being a personality trait that can be measured…like introverted/extrovertedness that relates to spirituality or feelings of connectedness with the world around us. I’m really familiar with many personality tests, but I haven’t run across this “self-transcendent” concept before. I thought it was interesting.
Sounds in general Dean Hammer must be the kind of guy who likes to spin his “findings” broadly in the popular culture:)
Love you, kiddo!