“Understanding the world doesn’t remove the mystery, except in the narrowest sense. It enhances it.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 4, “The Sweet Mystery of Life”)
(Image description: above text, juxtaposed next to image of Earth seen from space)
I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)
I think this quote and chapter are very important. The fallacy of worshipping mystery for its own sake can be seen by considering some opposite scenarios. For example, what would we think of one who says: I love poetry, so I am careful never to study poetry, nor to think about poetry? That’s not what most consider the deepest love for poetry.
Or imagine a lover of painting, who says we must never study any other paintings. We might try to say that we think the artist is making an artistic response to some other paintings or artists or styles, or that they are continuing an artistic conversation that can only fully be appreciated through an awareness of what has come before and how this differs from it. But our friend might reply that they feel the best interpretation would be an uninformed, child-like response that says I like it or I don’t or I don’t get it and there’s no more to think about.
People who prefer to avoid knowledge or understanding are not respected as being the top analysts / critics of poetry nor of painting. So if we see art talk as being better when informed, this should also apply to thinking about reality as a whole.
Generally when religious people think that archaeology or geology or linguistics or any other scientific approach might back up their faith, they are eager to have it pursued. So those who avoid science may be doing so because they might already suspect that science is likely to disprove their chosen stories.
Thanks, Greta, for your great writing.