Towards Being Secular

By Daniel Goldman

Religion isn't for everyone, but some who prefer to remain secular act religiously. Towards Being Secular is a guide to maintaining a secular position in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Goldman
• Release date: Jun 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310248696

Book preview

Preface

Maybe I should start with something that differentiates me from a lot of people in the United States. I wasn’t brought up religious. My parents were reformed Jews. We didn’t go to temple. We didn’t observe Shabbos. My father wouldn’t eat seafood or pork, but he’d have no issue with a cheeseburger. I never bothered with that. I ate plenty of bacon and seafood. And when they did engage in ceremony, I think it had more to do with trying to find some kind of link to our ancestors than it did to a religious experience. I never really believed in any gods, at least not as far as I can remember. Funnily enough, I’ve never held any belief that there are no gods. I have no idea if a god or gods exist or not. I also have no idea what happens to us after we die. All that being said, I do ponder these questions, and have voluntarily immersed myself in an investigation of various religions.

I don’t consider myself a truth seeker, and I don’t consider myself a free thinker, in part because these terms tend to be thrown around without any real meaning. The topic of religion is just something that’s interesting to me. I’m a certified yoga instructor and am quite familiar with the religious origins of the practice. As part of the process of becoming a yoga instructor, and in order to further extend my knowledge of various religions, I’ve practiced tai chi. Tai chi is a Chinese practice involving chi or qi, which is the vital life force that many practitioners of traditional Chinese religions believe exist. I’ve experienced the polarity between my hands that some say it is possible to experience after practice. Do I believe that it has something to do with qi? No. I can’t use empirical investigation to determine whether or not qi exists. I have no means to do so. But I can investigate this experience in relation to current theories regarding the nervous system. I might consider myself spiritual, if spirituality means attempting to find answers to questions which lack a known method of empirical1 investigation." I ask a lot of questions. But unless there is empirical evidence for the answers to those questions, I remain skeptical. In that respect, I’m also an empiricist. I do not accept as true, anything which does not have empirical justification, with the exception of mathematical proofs. However, I’m not going to reject the concept of religion out of hand.

At the beginning of this text, I quoted Freeman Dyson, a well respected scientist, who is also quite religious. His window analogy is a very good place to start when thinking about the relationship between religion and science. Neither science nor religion necessarily provide a full picture, but they don’t have to be antagonistic to one another either. Some prefer the view from one window, some prefer the view from the other. Many have decided to look through both windows, and see an even larger