Sitting in Jacob Needleman’s living room in the Oakland hills, I fished in my bag for the tiny microphone I planned to use with my iPhone, to record our conversation. “Is that what you’re using?” he asked, with great interest. He held up his own phone. “I just got one of these. Will this really work?"
He sat next to me on the couch as I pointed him through the app store on his phone. “There it is,” I said, pointing to iTalk. “That’s what I’m using.”
He tapped the screen, but the app that came up for download was... iTalk to God.
“That can’t be it,” he laughed. It wasn’t—but what a setup.
What is God? is an unlikely title for a book by a philosopher, unless the question is meant rhetorically, or as a starting-off point for a discourse on language, or on the foibles of the mind, perhaps. But Jacob Needleman asks the question in earnest, and then proceeds—in the course of this most personal of the dozen or so books he's written—to answer it.
What is God?, out last month from Tarcher/Penguin, is an intellectual autobiography—the story of Needleman's education and formation as a scholar and teacher—but it’s also a narrative of what might be called a conversion. A young Ivy-educated professor, "allergic" to religion, enthralled by science, finds himself obliged to teach a religious studies survey class; to his surprise, he discovers a world of rigor and inquiry in theological writing. The story he tells, of the intertwining of his intellectual and spiritual searches, has a real suspense to it: how does an atheist come to believe in God?
In a conversation earlier this month we discussed this question, the challenges of talking about religion in the contemporary cultural arena, fundamentalism and atheism, and the practice of real communication.
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RD: In your book you refer to William James’ discussion of religious emotion, how he says on the one hand that anything can generate a feeling of the sacred, but on the other, that there are some feelings that are purely religious. What does he mean by that?
JN: Yes it’s an important question. And apart from what James says, it’s a general question. Religious emotion is sometimes understood as an ordinary emotion about a religious entity, or a religious theme, or a religious object, or religious teaching. In other words, I can be excited at a football game by the San Francisco 49ers, and I can, with the same quality of energy, the same part of myself, be similarly excited by the Bible, or the teachings of Jesus, or Buddhism, or something of that kind. The object is different, but the actual emotion can be the same. You can even say, "I love hamburgers!" and then, “I love my child.” Is it the same emotional entity, only the object happens to be different? One wouldn't want to say that exactly.
And so that's one aspect of religious emotion, when we’re lost in a mystical thing, or lost in the Avatar movie, or something like that. How I understand it, is that there are different qualities of what we would loosely call emotion. I make a distinction between feeling and emotion in order to talk about them.
There is such thing as deep, essential feeling which is part of our human nature. And we have it under many conditions. In relationships, or with a child, and especially in a spiritual context. And that comes from a different part of ourselves—a literally organically different part of ourselves. We are born with that capacity, and it is an instrument of knowledge as well as feeling—and it doesn't always have to be positive, it can be even be anger. Like Christ in the temple, chasing the money changers out. There is divine anger as well. The distinguishing characteristic of this kind of feeling is that it is non-egoistic.
However, almost all the emotions that we know, especially in our “fallen” state, are somewhat egoistic; not necessarily always bad, it's just they're concerned about me, with my gain, and my social standing, or how I feel about myself, or what I want to get materially, psychologically, socially.
The question about religious emotion cannot be answered without making that distinction. And real spiritual feeling is an entirely different thing. it's non-egoistic. It's very personal, but it's not me me me.
Can an atheist feel religious emotion?
The egoistic emotions can be very violent, agitating, destructive— the result, to some extent, of what the Buddhists call attachment. There are other words for that: you might say one is "swallowed" by a personal reaction, an egoistic reaction, and it becomes someone's whole identity and there's a violence attached to it.
So one can believe in God in such a violent, attached way that it becomes its very opposite in terms of its quality, its action, its effect on human life, its effect on oneself. It can become as bad as murder. And one can be an atheist so passionately that one is willing to steamroll down and destroy anyone who disagrees. Most fundamentalists and atheists are not that extreme. But some are. And so we have to acknowledge, just because I say I love Man it doesn't mean I actually do.
When this gets into the political sphere it always becomes violent. It becomes destructive. Not necessarily physically, but legally, emotionally, socially. All kinds of ways. You must love your neighbor or I'll kill you! This is not an exaggeration. You see this kind of thing. That's one of the things that happens with religion. The statements, the expression can be very nice, but the forces through it are deadly. It can be atheism or Christianity or Judaism, or it can be a soccer game. That’s the thing.
Now, an atheist can not believe in the conventional religious gods of the culture and still feel a great sense of the sacred, even if you don't call it sacred. And there are many people, great scientists, who feel this way.
When I was younger I was totally allergic to what I saw as religion: Judaism and even worse, Christianity—it was my enemy. But I loved nature, and for me nature was sacred. I didn't use that word, but it made me quiet; it made me feel a sense of something greater than myself; it made me wish to serve something. So I was an atheist, but I recall it as spiritual—a spiritual atheism.
How did your ideas about religion change?
Well, as I say, in my life it was more or less thrust upon me. I needed a job. It was 1962—ancient times—I was hired at San Francisco State and I was obliged to teach a course called the History of Western Religious Thought. For me I had no desire to teach anything like that. I was totally allergic to religion. But I had training as a philosophy student, a grad student, a PhD. I did very well, was at the best colleges, best universities— Harvard, Yale—and I was willing to undertake preparing myself to teach such a course. Philosophers generally don't want to come anywhere near that kind of stuff—nor did I. But I honorably tried to prepare myself.
It meant I had to read theologians, Christian writers like St. Augustine—whom I had hated. You see in my book where I talk about burning the pages of the book, that’s exactly what happened. I'm not exaggerating. I was so happy to see it go up in flames; I had suffered so much from that book. And later I read it and I loved it—a great, great man.
So it forced me to read and prepare myself, and I couldn't believe how superficial my understanding of religion had been, even with a liberal education from the best universities. I discovered things about religion; I couldn't believe how good, how interesting, how profound—and how distorted it had become, how shallow it had become. So more and more I got deeply interested in religion because I had to teach it. And then I got personally interested in my own personal, spiritual search which I started to undertake.
Which came to you by happenstance, as you describe it.
Yes, by happenstance. There's a long story there too. I encountered the particular teaching of Gurdjieff when I was quite young, in college, and abandoned it. And by chance in San Francisco someone who was part of that was in my class and at first I thought, No, I've already tried that and I'm not interested. But he urged me to read a book. I read it. I realized there is something here after all.
So that was a parallel. My personal inner work was parallel with my academic work in a way. Although I never made the connection between God and what I had studied with the Gurdjieff teaching. It was not a religion, it was something else. It wasn't called a religion, wasn't meant to be equated with religion. And there were reasons for that. I think Gurdjieff felt that the language of religion had become too associated with things that were not really sacred. It’s a complicated story.
I am a Christian and almost an atheist. I think it hard to take the traditional supernatural claims about deity seriously.
I must confess that, even though Dr. Needleman’s name shines through my education, I have not yet read him. Thanks for this great interview. I love the comments about Augustine. I had the same experience.
Funny, I am an atheist and almost a Christian.
Debating the (non) existence of an entity, or its salient qualities ("God is love" "God seeks vengence" "God is triune" etc.) shadowboxes questions about which we can gain genuine insight. What is the nature of the soul? Of consciousness? Of death? What is our obligation to one another? To the natural world? To the social order? To the universe?
If you hang your entire worldview on the qualities of God (and frame your debates around that question), what happens to your worldview if those qualities are conclusively disproven? This is an impoverished mentality from which to approach sacred questions. In the 21st century it feels very much like counting angels on pinheads.
A better question is, why do people continue debating the one question about which we can pretty well agree will never be settled by evidence or debate? Have you ever heard someone say, "y'know, your arguments have convinced me God exists"?
People can be spiritual (in different ways) because we have that nature.
Problems occur when people don't know they are dual natured: a physical soul (body) and a supernatural spirit (God's image given to Adam).
In our soul (body) we are 'evolved primate' but in our spirit, we have something the other animals don't have; a higher consciousness.
The rules that govern a supernatual spirit would be very different from our animal self, and in ways, the two would actually be opposed, creating a lot of confusion.
If however, we understand we have two natures, we can perfectly reconcile the two witin us.
I am an atheist studying theology, and I definitely resonate with what Mr. Needleman says about his thought processes. Though I have not come to the same conclusions!
I was also very excited to read what he says about community, a favorite topic of mine.
However I have to object to the notion of debate as a blood sport. When was the last time you heard a debate in the sense of a real argument? I have not heard a debate for a long time. Hostile words flung back and forth have nothing to do with debate or argumentation in the best sense of the word. A true argument is the mutual disclosure of the logic behind disparate opinions. It presupposes respect and a willingness to be the one who is wrong, or at least a willingness to shift one's views. I see our society as deficient in debate.
In the last 10 years the science of evolution has been advancing faster than ever, and because of all the information that can be gained from DNA sequencing it will continue to advance at a far faster rate than it is now. This makes evolution the perfect issue to learn about debate, and how people relate to the debate. If people are willing to shift their views because of advances in the evidence, then we can move forward. If people reject the evidence, then how could you respect anything they might argue on any subject?
I happen to agree with you! The rigors of good debate have, it seems, been lost. Even the debates during the 2008 election process were, in effect, sound bites with a bit of back-biting. I saw no blood in any of them either. As for real debate and argmentation, does it really connote that one has to be right and one has to be wrong? If someone really sat down with me and talked about their faith and what they are doing with it as well as “showing me” through their own body language and the energy that they give off, I would love to hear it. However, I would also love for them to hear me out as well. This reciprocity required in real debate (respect, care, even love toward the one with whom one is debating) has become extinct and to classify what people call debate today as “debate” at all is a malfeasance of the word itself. Argumentation requires the same rigorous discipline as does debate. I would call some of what people call debate these days “shouting matches” (whoever can shout louder and longer than the other wins - which is not winning at all) or “put-down sessions” (whoever can insult the other with the best oooohs and aaaaahs from the audience wins - which, again, is not winning at all). Should there ever be a really good debate sometime, I want to be there in order to appreciate the civility, the knowledge, the discipline, courtesy and, yes, the love between them. Now, that would be a debate!
I appreciated this very good interview with Dr. Needleman. As a former (passionate) fundamentalist who is now a PhD candidate in religion and theology (and who is now personally agnostic), I found Needlemen's journey interesting. One "nugget" of value here is the possible use of dialog to unwind the connection between fundamentalists and political action.
Really, I've come to see fundamentalism of all stripes as being intellectually untenable but really fairly harmless for humanity. It becomes dangerous only when fundamentalist belief melds with political action. Whether it's the fundamentalist Islamic jihadist or the fundamentalist/evangelical Christian who continues to vote conservative and (unknowningly) allows his vote to be hijacked by powerful neo-conservative interests. Both are problematic for humanity.
So the "nugget" here is that religious scholars really do need to engage their fundamentalist students in both head and heart in order to hopefully defuse this radical sense of needing to act in the world. To ignore or minimize the heart component only radicalizes their position and in this way the religion scholar owes it to future society to attempt to de-radicalize as many students as possible.
I appreciate your comment. I have a Southern Baptist background, yet I am disturbed by the absence of the social Gospel within my church. A social Gospel is true to the Scripture. What I have encountered is, as you say, religious individuals that have been "hi-jacked" by neo-conservatives. Neo-conservatives are not truly religious, they only use the Christian substructure to attain political goals.
I have moved all through the South and have experienced many views on politics in relation to spiritual practice. It is as Dr. Needleman said, we don't listen, we prepare for our response. Most political conservatives have an agenda that benefits them monetarily, not spiritually. What is alarming is that people have lost their skepticism when it comes to opinions of others. We need to listen and then approach our response with earnest understanding of their point of view. Being able to carry on a "non-violent" discussion allows us to experience others position and passion.
Our society's problem stems from the absence of independent decision making. Every one should desire to make their own decisions, our culture has created a people that allow someone else to make those decisions for them. In layman's terms, we have become intellectually lazy.
As a member of the Religious Society of Friends I found many wonderful ideas in Dr. Needleman's interview. I am also a student of Native American religion and I find that Quakerism and Native American religion are quite compatable - at least for me. In the Lakota Pipe Religion one of the basic prayers is translated as "to all my relations". The idea is that one is interrelated to all of creation as a starting point. The idea that we reach the divine by listening deeply to another and that other is not just a human but could be an animal or a rock or a tree. My tag line on my emails is "listening comes first.
I am an atheist. One of those open, easy-going types who does nothing to condemn the religious beliefs of others (with the usual proviso that they not harm anyone else or condemn others negatively in some way for their beliefs). I like what Needleman has to say about the head to the heart and heart to the head. I have had this experience as well. I do feel rather “spiritual” in some crazy way; however, I shall never tie it down to something to do with God or some other deity or spiritual being. My belief is that each person is a conglomeration of ideas, mythologies, beliefs, metaphors and such and, with these, each person is informed about the reality around him/her and can act in the best manner possible if the information is used in the best possible manner. Yes, if used most negatively, then we can have people who will tell you that Haitians got what they deserved because they made a pact with the devil or can say that they love their Jewish friends to death but that they most assuredly will go to hell! The openness of this student, the openness of his heart and soul (or deeper sense of consciousness) was most astounding. I have always said that, “Once one starts talking about their religion, they have ruined it,” meaning, if they lived the message, they would not have to say a word or their physical presence (the positiveness of Needleman's student) would speak for them. Needleman was most fortunate to have this experience for I, too, love this experience and I actually get it as I spend time with a student in religious training who is neither defensive nor carries his religion (like some part of one's ego) on his sleeve. I have learned much about the idea that “everyone is right and that no on is wrong.” With our binary system of thinking (black/white, good/evil, right/wrong), it is difficult for far too many to grasp this idea and to let it help them to be able to truly reach out without judgement (Needleman certainly judged this wonderful student at first, even when he sense that he was somehow different). Yes, Needleman is teaching us something we all need: to be honest with and open to others at all times. Sure, I could have said, “It’s like a box of chocolates . . . ” (I did, though, didn’t I?). However it is essential to be open in terms of faith (I see my atheism as a form of faith in a way) and to keep our hearts open to others, for we never really know anyone until we do so. We most certainly will get hurt or burned here and there while doing so, yet, as has been my own experience, the reward of just one “special” person outweighs all the hurt experienced in dealing with all the others with whom one has deal before him/her. As Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel speech: “One word of truth outweighs the entire world.” You go, Needleman (and your student), you go!
Almost seems like you guys are keeping score.
Hmm, interesting comment. Could you please elaborate further? Who are “you guys” and what “score” do they seem to be keeping? I am truly interested.
Augustine's observation "cor ad cor loquitur" - Heart speaking to heart - comes to mind in the act of mutual comprehension that is also the apprehension of the divine. Martin Buber's "I and Thou" is also based on a similar ecstatic encounter of the other as distinct and one with me. What a strange notion that we would follow Jesus injunction to love the other as ourselves and that this should be the measure of ethical systems.
I must admit that I am disappointed in Needleman's statement that "real scripture, though it might on the surface seem contradictory or violent, these things are often symbolic." As a feminist scholar of religion who reads the Bible critically, I assure you that the 'violence' of scripture as it has been written and interpreted as a tool for women's subordination in the Christian churches has been anything BUT merely, "symbolic."
You are on target. Thanks.
Dr. Needleman was merely pointing out that scripture is figurative. It's because it has been read literally that inconsistencies have been created. The red dragon in Revelation is obviously symbolic. If the red dragon is symbolic, so is all of Revelation! People are picking and choosing what is literal and what is figurative, rather than being consistent.
The interpretation of women's roles is taken literally as, "women are to keep silent in the churches", though the actual word is silence (1 Cor. 14:34 and 1 Tim. 2:11). The term 'keep silence' doesn't just apply to women though:
"If any man speak in an unknown tongue...if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence" (1 Cor.14:27-28). Man is interpreted as both genders.
"Let all the earth keep silence." (Hab.2:20)
It's obvious this expression is used to mean a 'prayerful and meditative (peaceful) state' as it's also used in the sense that 'God's wisdom is so agreeable, no one can argue against it'.
Blind faith is surrendering your right to question. Atheists and agnostics don't allow themselves to be herded into church stalls where someone else is going to do their thinking for them.
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