Growth

How do atheists view the concept of being born again?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://divineatheists.quora.com/How-do-atheists-view-the-concept-of-being-born-again-60“

I remember someone I once trusted approaching me for relationship advice.

I don’t remember the specific complaints registered against him by his then-recent ex, but I remember how he tried to convince her that he had changed overnight.

The next day after she ended her relationship, he returned to her and claimed he had changed.

After relating that to me, I tried to explain to him that’s not how change works. One doesn’t change oneself like they change their clothes, most certainly not overnight.

That wasn’t my best approach to helping him overcome his anxiety. He outright rejected what I tried to get him to understand. I believe that was the last conversation he and I ever had.

However, His attitude toward change stuck with me as I struggled to understand that thinking. I thought of it as chillingly superficial and worse as it appears to be an attitude which fits within the mindset that justifies telling people what they want to hear.

Everything about how a certain mindset perceives the world around them is based entirely on optics, and their behaviours are mere performances designed to elicit desired responses from their audience.

It left me feeling cold, and I’ve learned to understand how severe a red flag that is. I wish I hadn’t been such a slow learner in this regard because I could have saved myself a world of hurt if I had fully considered the implications of that behaviour then.

At any rate, the notion of undergoing a transformative experience had always intrigued me as I deliberately sought paths and methodologies for transcending limiting ways of being. From a very young age, I was aware that I was conditioned into being what I conceptually rejected but required something tangible to transform my desire for change into actual change.

Symbolically, the notion of being “reborn” is a ritualized performance in which people present themselves as if they had changed from committing to a belief system and being “remade” by that commitment itself.

People who have undergone such a ritual sincerely think they have transformed into a better version of themselves. Their exclamations, however, have more often been expressions of hopeful anticipation rather than observable reality.

Their subsequent behaviours and fundamental attitudes remain the same. From an outsider’s perspective, the only change visible was the compass setting they prioritized.

Although some stick with their new compass setting over the long haul, many returned to being who they always were while dismissing a temporary compass setting as one they outgrew and was no longer relevant to them.

Some remained within their faith but regarded it with their “old eyes” and treated their entire relationship with their beliefs and community as a game of optics. Others moved on as they acknowledged their experience as helpful but not enough to commit to it for a lifetime. I found this latter group more authentic in their journey of discovery. The clarity of direction or need they expressed as they described their choices through fogs of confusion they struggled to dispel always made them feel more human to me. In contrast, I found those who appeared to skim through emotional turmoil somewhat confusing. I didn’t know how to interpret their responses to emotional struggles. I must have envied them as I could never respond to my own in similar ways and often wished I could have. It seemed to make life easier for them.

These “performers at life” always made me feel cold, though, and it’s taken me a long time to understand why.

Understanding how a proportion of our population lives through a shallow lens may be conceptually easy to grasp superficially, but that’s not a satisfying apprehension of the phenomenon. One inevitably finds oneself mystified by its manifestations while wondering why they feel put off in ways they don’t quite understand. It can be a harrowing journey to fully grasp the implications of such a life on a visceral level for those whose feelings run deep.

Another example was an individual who had been married for about six years and who I had gotten to know as a close couple who seemingly shared everything. Conversations with either always involved extolling the virtues of the other and never was an unkind or critical word shared. I thought they were a remarkable example of a successful couple until the husband informed me they were getting divorced.

Their separation appeared as if life sped forward at super-speed for them because it all took place within a couple of weeks — from agreement to the formalized documentation of divorce. There was no emotional turmoil I could detect in the husband, as the ex-wife had already left, and I had no means of gauging her condition. In his case, however, I was more shocked at his ability to move on than I was at their separation.

For him, it was as if nothing of note had happened in his life. I couldn’t fathom that, particularly after having endured my periods of extended angst over far shorter and more superficial commitments. I remember envying his ability to rebound from what would have been at least a year or two of turmoil for me.

I didn’t realize until later that his personality was characterized by subtle paranoia and mistrust toward others on mostly innocuous levels. I first noticed that aspect of his character after he described a business venture I found myself intrigued by and expressed how much I liked it. His response became immediately cold and protective of it. He clarified that I had no place in his venture even though I had not expressed such desire or intent.

I remember switching the conversation at that point and inquiring about his ex-wife, and I was curious to know if she was doing well. His response was mainly dismissive, but he let the cat out of the bag by indicating that the reason for their divorce was his unfaithfulness.

The ability to move on quickly from a profoundly emotional experience had often been a source of admiration for me. That was before I understood the costs of such a state of being — to both themselves and those they inevitably victimize.

I don’t think he was ever capable of connecting deeply with anyone, and I didn’t understand, even then, how profound that was. I knew it was essential for me, and I accepted how that might not be for others. I didn’t think of it as a toxic dysfunctionality — even though I should have known better after having experienced it with many others so often throughout my life.

From a ritualistic perspective, there can be some benefit to undergoing a formalized process that symbolically represents change and, more importantly, a desire for change. However, it’s all done for optics more than acknowledging the necessity of change and its role in one’s personal growth.

I always have felt this way, but I never understood how that attitude itself, on my behalf, was present even as a child when I underwent my first confession. It wasn’t conducted in a booth but in an empty classroom on a chair across from the minister. We were in full view of each other without obstruction, and he asked me to speak.

I struggled to find words while suppressing a broad smile as I found the experience entirely superficial. After all, how could I possibly be exonerated of guilt over actions I may have taken that were considered sinful by simply uttering them to this stranger? At the age of eleven, the most egregious sin I could think of was masturbation, and I suppose that might have been why I struggled to suppress a broad smile.

Within a belief system that purports to provide adherents with pathways for growth, I can understand and support the prescriptive manner of formalizing rituals to celebrate that growth. The shortfall in converting subjective experience into an objectively procedural system is that it fails to account for individual differences. It is a process that cannot account for or mitigate abusive misuse.

Much like the reporting systems across all social media, the symbolic ritual of change is a tool that can be weaponized for personal gain. The emphasis on optics is a form of corrupt thinking which overlooks the critically ineffable in favour of supporting shallow expedience.

The concept of “being born again” is just a formalized process of stripping profundity from life in favour of optics because we do not, as a whole, value depth in a world that has industrialized human existence and reduced the human condition to the level of a disposable commodity.

We have evolved into an increasingly dehumanized existence while being led by institutions that claim to represent higher states of being. Our only hope for reclaiming our existence as human beings capable of achieving our potential is completing our transformation into a fully automated society. It will only be once we cross this threshold that human beings will be free of the superficial trappings of optics made necessary by the industrialized herding of our species. The function of symbolic optics is an inherent limit to our potential as individual beings within what we refer to as “civilized society.”

I believe the concept of “being born again” should be viewed with great suspicion and mistrust because it reflects nothing of an individual’s inner world or the foundation of their character.

It can, however, be a practical means of applying a metric for identifying differences between that standard and one’s words and deeds to triangulate a more accurate picture of one’s internal world.

Has humanity only just begun to scratch the surface understanding of the fundamental nature of reality?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “As clever as humanity considers itself to be, has it only just began to scratch the surface of a true understanding of the fundamental nature of reality?”

This question reminds me of the Epistemology course I took at a local university over a summer off from art school. I was accepted into a third-year program without prior university-level philosophy course experience. I successfully leveraged my art school experience toward my application.

This was my introduction to understanding how language can be utilized with the same disciplined approach toward meaning as mathematics. The course material I read felt more like I was interpreting algebraic formulae than English text.

During this period, I realized access to new knowledge domains began with mastering the grammar that defined a domain.

At first, I read and reread sentences until the language made sense. I plodded slowly through the material and expanded beyond spending upwards of half an hour reading sentences to over an hour reading paragraphs and several hours reading entire pages to ensure I had developed what felt like an adequate understanding of what I had read.

This was not my first time having such an experience. Many would be surprised to discover the art world is also filled with jargon and concepts that require an equal measure of effort at the outset to comprehend the information conveyed. However, the grammar defining the art world can be even more complicated and confusing than intermediate philosophy.

Unlike the disciplined rigour of mathematical precision found in the language of philosophy, art world jargon is often subjectively defined and expressed through abstractions rather than through concrete concepts based in a material world. It makes for mixed messaging among instructors, where one adopts interpretations of concepts based on interpersonal dynamics rather than objectively defined definitions of concepts. I remember often tripping over the concept of chiaroscuro because it seemed no matter how I interpreted what is arguably one of the objective terms in art, every instructor had a different definition. I chose to favour the art history instructor’s definition over the conflicting definitions offered by my painting instructors.

At any rate, my painstaking journey through reading my philosophy assignments left me tired enough at the end of the day to sleep soundly at night and wake up feeling like I was prepared for the class discussion of what we had all read. I would attend class feeling confident that I understood the material — until the class discussions began and the instructor interjected with dialectical curveballs to illustrate limitations on some of the arguments forwarded by students.

About halfway through the class, I felt utterly overwhelmed, as if I had no idea what I had read. I felt like my confidence was entirely misplaced and that I should have started my formal training in philosophy at a more junior level.

Then it happened — the discussion veered back onto the topic I thought I had read. I couldn’t fathom how the conversation took a journey to an alternate dimension, but I was happy to see it return to the reality I was most familiar with.

By the end of the class, I was dumbfounded to discover that I was correct about understanding the material at the outset before becoming completely confused. I expressed my frustration publicly. My instructor’s response to my confusion was to say simply, “Yes, but now you know it better.”

This was a lesson for me to understand that knowing what I know is merely a product of my confidence in believing I know what I know, while what I know constitutes only the tip of an iceberg of what is possible to know about what we think we know.

For a real-world example, I still recall my experience in an interview with a recruiter who seemed impressed with me when he remarked, “Wow. You quoted Voltaire. I’ve never heard anyone quote Voltaire in an interview before.” He presented his surprise in a way that made me feel he would be in my corner and support my candidacy. As it turned out, that was the moment he decided I was disqualified as a candidate. He ghosted me after that, and I never got another opportunity presented to me through that agency.

It took me a while to figure out what had happened, but when I did, I connected that experience with a much earlier one in which I was on the phone with someone about a temporary labour assignment. I remember asking specifically, “What does the job entail?” The response I got was a very dry, “Welllll…. it entaaaaaaaails moving stuff.” I lost out on that opportunity, and the memory of that experience lingers as a reminder of my language choices and their impact on others.

I’ve had to learn to become very aware of how my natural self is interpreted from a young age when I deliberately chose to use the shortened form of my name to fit in. As a kid who became fat to gain approval from an abusive mother, I had to become aware of responses to my natural state of being from a very young age.

I know that my language choices can be offputting for some. I know that when some stranger uses the short form of my name to address me, it’s a form of disparagement that speaks volumes about their attitude. I’m pretty aware of subtleties many miss, even if I don’t catch them immediately — mainly because I’m not naturally focused on the underlying cynicism many naturally wallow in, so it can take me some time to tune myself into their frequency.

I’m using myself as an example to answer this question because I know I’m pretty self-aware and more than most, but it doesn’t matter how much I know about myself; I’m still discovering new things about myself. This isn’t to say that I’m primarily interested in myself for the sake of knowing myself, but knowing myself is a conduit to a better understanding of the world I live in — for several reasons.

One of those reasons is inspired by an expression I’ve been primarily familiar with as an attribution to Voltaire — yes, precisely the quote I referenced above:

After being inspired by this quote for about thirty years, I discovered it wasn’t a quote by Voltaire. These are words from someone far earlier in history, Publius Terentius Afer, a Roman playwright otherwise more popularly known as Terence.

“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.”

These are words from a play entitled “Heauton Timorumenos” (The Self-Tormentor) — Act 1, scene 1, line 77, written in 165 B.C.

The Wisdom of a Former Slave

I had lived with these words, inspiring my pursuit of knowledge of the world through the understanding of self for more than half my life before learning the truth of their origins. I’m still learning new things about it — even though I deeply value what they imply — to me.

This brings me to another quote I treasure by Picasso that he uttered in his 60s after already transforming the art world with his visions, “I am only just learning how to paint.”

I loved these words the moment I encountered them because they confirmed that I was on the right track in wanting to become an artist in this world and this life. I understood that what one does to find fulfillment in one’s life is contingent upon loving what one does. The fact that there was no end to learning within art, as expressed by a historical giant, inspired me.

I would never get bored by being an artist. I would never find myself outgrowing what exceeded my grasp, and I could give myself wholeheartedly to its exploration — infinitely — or at least within the context of a finite life.

There was no way I could become complacent and detached from life by choosing a vocation of exploration of life itself. The fact that I would never learn all there could be to know wasn’t a deterrent but an inspiration and a challenge to motivate me to learn as much as possible within the finiteness of time available to me in this life.

Within this microscopic pool of choice available to me as an individual, I found enough inspiration to carry me through a life of discovery. When I imagine the vastness of a universe, we have no clue how large it is or what there may be to discover, and it seems to me that the human species can find millions, if not billions, of years of motivation for discovery.

We have certainly learned a lot about the nature of reality, from a psychological to a physiological to a physical and materialist nature, and beyond, while exploring reality on a quantum level. The fundamental characteristic of learning is that with each answer to a question answered, many more questions emerge. Answers to questions about the nature of reality appear like fractal algorithms that can spawn infinite questions.

No matter how long or how well we succeed in surviving — mostly the challenges posed by our hubris, we’ll never run out of room for discovery.

This, to me, defines the very core of the most basic lesson in life: it’s not the destination which matters; it’s the journey.

Temet Nosce