After almost 15 years away, I returned to Quakerism in 1997. During a difficult patch of my life, a friend said I needed to do something for myself. So I started going to the meeting house on Sunday mornings. What I rediscovered was the simple fact of space. It was a hiatus, a parenthesis inserted into a complicated, twisty life. Even if it held nothing but breath, it was a relief, and in that relief, quiet notions emerged that had been trampled into the ground of everyday life.
I am an atheist, but I’ve been bothered for a long time by the mushiness I’ve found in the liberal spiritual communities that admit non-believers such as me. I’ve spent the better part of two decades trying to put my finger on the source of this unease, but it is not a question to be solved by the intellect: it must be lived through.
Several years ago, Marshall Massey, a fellow Friend, pointed out to me that ‘truth’, in the sense that it was used by 17th-century Friends, had less to do with verifiable evidence, and more to do with sense of being a ‘true friend’, an arrow flying true. It was about remaining on a path, not about conforming to the facts of the world. This points to a deep truth: we humans are built for a different kind of rigour than that of evidentiary fact. It is at least as much about consistency, discipline and loyalty as it is about the kinds of repeatable truth that we hold up in a scientific world as fundamental.
...Here’s a peculiar sense I’ve been getting in Friends committee meetings: we often don’t know how to seek the will of God; we are uncertain whether God actually possesses will. And yet, I suspect that the way out of our tortuous debates is to stop arguing and submit. That submission — because that’s what it is, in the same sense that islam means submission — is what pulls us out of ourselves and gets us lined up to do what needs doing instead of arguing about whose idea is better."
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"That submission — because that’s what it is, in the same sense that islam means submission — is what pulls us out of ourselves and gets us lined up to do what needs doing instead of arguing about whose idea is better."
That may feel attractive after you've been arguing a while, but think about what it says. Is it saying abandon looking for the truth or the better path and just get busy doing. Lovely if you are lucky enough to have already found a path of decency, but ISIS is doing exactly that too. They stopped considering if what they do is right or best, and are just getting on with it as true arrows on an evil path. Personally, I think arguing and challenging your ideas is the only way to be sure you are not doing terrible things. Don't submit. Don't give up the fight. Even if you are quite sure of your path, be open to the possibility that you are missing something. Submit to agnosticism!
"...I think arguing and challenging your ideas is the only way to be sure you are not doing terrible things."
Yes, but only true if you are open to reason. This creature is in the grip of feelings, feelings that make him terribly uncomfortable. Therefore paramount to him is to escape those feelings. Submission. That's the best most direct route out of his dilemma. It doesn't matter to what he submits as long as he submits and the torture ends. Which is why there are literally millions of prime candidates for dhimmitude.
Of course, this author is using the example of traditional Islam, not ISIS. I'm not saying Islam is the way to go, but let's at least keep the subject clear.
Submission is a very big idea in Christianity, and with a slight twist, in Buddhism. I once read a good idea of how to be led by the Holy Spirit: as ideas pop into your head about things you could/should do, like write your grandmother, act on them immediately. No muss, no fuss, no guilt at procrastination, no torturous to-do lists of things that never get done.
My point with ISIS is that they are also doing what he suggests: giving in to the group, the dogma, and giving up on challenging, and questioning. So it may feel good, but it a dangerous practice. I guarantee you that in that soft warm environment, someone is calculating and scheming to take advantage of your submission.
Definitely, as it is now and ever has been.
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