Montana Freethinkers

Promoting skeptical enquiry into religion, philosophy, politics, history, and economics in Montana and beyond.

Dear Justin:

I have a point of view about the argument between Atheists/Humanists/ Freethinkers and organized religion/Christianity that I think you might find interesting and useful. My contention is that "Gnostics" may be a more appropriate term for Atheists, Humanists and Freethinkers than "heretics". It'll take me a bit to explain that.

I wrote a book entitled Meaning - The Secret of Being Alive. It views our "human condition" in the context of General Systems. This perspective reveals that all social systems, including small organizations, social institutions and entire societies definitely have two and potentially have three phases of existence - the "formative", the "normative" and the "integrative". As far as I know, the "integrative" phase has never been achieved by any human social system in history, but it certainly can be done. Individual people have achieved it.

Before I get into that, let me define how I think about "spirit" and "spirituality". To me, "spirit" is synonymous with "original intent" or "original purpose". "Spirituality" simply means acting according to original intent. Here's one of my favorite quotes on the subject because, although he never uses the words, Don Coylis distinguishes between a "normative" view of reality (doing) and an "integrative" one (intent).

"The leadership systems currently in place too often look at us as our doing, as they say do differently in order to change. But the Indian way says we're not human doings, we're human beings. If we want to change the doing in leadership, I need to change my being. And the way to change my being is to change my intent."
----Don Coylis, Mohican, 1993 quoted in Native American Visions, 1998 Calendar, published by American Indian Science and Engineering Society

Here's a very brief review of the phases of a system. I need to communicate this in order to explain my point of view.

The Formative Phase

The "formative" phase is the very beginning. The system originates as a purpose, an intention, a concept, an idea, a philosophy, a solution to a problem in someone's mind. People then move to manifest it - give it forms and processes that accomplish its purpose. This gives it a material state. We call the material state "reality", even though it's only the material portion of reality. Decision making is based on highly qualitative issues. The key questions are "What are we trying to do, and why?". The answer is always some specific form of "We're trying to materialize our original intent". Once "successful", that is, people "buy into" what is created, the system shifts into its "normative" phase. This is typically the beginning of its end.

The Normative Phase

The normative phase of all systems has the same purpose, which is completely independent from the originating intent of any specific system. It is to perpetuate the material forms and processes that were created in the formative phase. It actually disregards original intent or "spirit" because of its concentration on form and process.

The normative phase is about control and conformity. A normative system is built for repetition - doing the same things, pretty much the same way, under the same conditions, day after day after day. It overtly punishes creativity - free thought, if you will - because that threatens its rules, policies, practices and procedures - its "norms".

People in normative systems, which is effectively all of them as far as I can tell (Christianity, all organized religions, all social institutions) concentrate on refining and standardizing the institution's forms and processes, ignoring their original intent, the reason the system and its forms and processes exist in the first place. This is the all too familiar - and mindless - "This is how we do things around here. Don't ask why. Just do it this way".

Exclusive focus on forms and processes heightens complexity, which becomes increasingly incomprehensible without a central purpose to keep all that detail organized and integrated. As a result, the "meaningless factor" - the "nonsense quotient" - increases as the system ages.

Dualism is the mechanism normative social institutions use to specialize - to increase predictability and control over their participants. It causes the fragmentation which eventually destroys them. Dualism is the practice of viewing the principal complements of any system or sub-system as enemies rather than as partners in a larger whole. As such, it progressively divides systems into smaller, isolated antagonistic pieces until they become battlefields of tiny soldiers, each fighting for himself. Think of Dualism as a slow fission reaction in human social systems.

Dualism gives normative systems their "either-or" character: "Either you're with us or against us." Because their perspective of reality is confined to form and process - material reality - normative systems say, "Either you look like us, you act like us, you do what we do, or you don't. If you do, you're in. If you don't, you're out." When the system's objective is to perpetuate its status quo, deviance and diversity are "out" - very, very out. Therefore, talented, creative, original thinkers, are "out" - very, very out.

Eventually, however, (and this may take hundreds or even a few thousand years) the progressive fragmentation creates so much entropy that the system collapses from its own lack of meaning, substance and relevance.

The Integrative Phase

If you understand the formative and normative phases of a system, the integrative phase is relatively easy to understand (but very difficult to do). Conceptually, put the formative and normative together, that is, integrate the system's original intent or "spirit" with the forms and processes for accomplishing it. This lets you see the whole system. The first thing you'll see is that much of what it has become is antithetical to its original spirit.

An "integrative" system is an open system. People practice inclusion of diversity rather than exclusion. They transcend dualism. That keeps the system integrated even after it is concretely complex. People care about both function and form because they focus on how things are complementary, how they "fit together". They remember that their goal is to accomplish the system's original intent. Subsystems evolve interdependently rather than independently.

Unlike a normative system, whose complexity is incomprehensible, people can comfortably function in the complexity of an integrative system because they have the foundation of purpose for organizing all the specific details.

This is a very simplified description of the phases of human social systems. If you want to know more, go to my book's website - http://www.forseekers.com. There, you can download, for free,
Chapters Two and Three, which give a much fuller explanation.

Now, how does this apply to Atheists, Humanists and Freethinkers in the context of organized religion? Have you ever read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels? It's a classic study of the argument between an integrative view of reality and a normative view. The Gnostics continually challenged Orthodox Christianity's adherence to a literal interpretation of Christ. They kept trying to focus on his intent. If you read the New Testament and draw your own conclusions about what Christ was saying instead of the church's, I believe you'll find that he was essentially promoting an integrative view of life - as did Einstein and many others. In fact, in Chapter Three, I use Christianity's progression into antagonistic denominations as an example of "normative", while Christ, himself, as an example of "integrative". From what I can see, the practice of Christianity became the antithesis of Christ's original intent. (And, by the way, this condition is not limited to religion. It applies to all our social institutions - business, education, healthcare, you name it. Effectively, they are all antithetical to their original intent, or nearly so. That's why so many things don't work, don't make sense, throughout society.)

Here are a couple of paragraphs from a letter I wrote to Elaine Pagels when I sent her a copy of my book.

"I was stunned to find, in The Gnostic Gospels, a precise example of the schism between a 'normative' view (the Orthodox Christians) and an 'integrative' view (the Gnostics). The integrative view incorporates intangible intent, the meaning behind tangible forms and processes. It is centered in cause. The normative view is concerned only with the material, the physical forms and processes generated by the original intent. It is confined to effects. You made quite a point of the Orthodox Christians insisting on literal, material interpretation of events while the Gnostics focused on the intent the events symbolized.

The closing sentence of The Gnostic Gospels said 'Only now are we beginning to consider the questions with which they [a powerful alternative to what we know as orthodox Christian tradition] confront us.' I'm sending you this book because I believe it provides some answers to the questions posed by the Gnostic perspective."

Antagonistically opposed to organized religion, Atheists, Humanists and Freethinkers are "heretics" (taking a "normative" position). But given the basis of their disagreement with organized religion, might they not be more appropriately described as "Gnostics"?

Sincerely,
Cliff Havener

My reply:

Cliff,

First, thank you for the email. I appreciate, and I am sure the others on the list appreciate the time and intellect devoted to your response. In the next Helena Heretics Newsletter (which is being renamed the Montana Freethinkers Newsletter, and soon, just the 'Freethinkers Newsletter') I will respond with my own views, and invite praise or criticism from the other web masters. You will receive the newsletter probably at the same time that you get this one, as I am working on it even as I send this to you.

It will probably take some time, and perhaps a couple emails back and forth between us, but I will try to attain a full understanding of what you are saying.

From your email I believe you would put the whole 'freethought movement' into the formative stage, correct? There really is no structure, simply ideas ideas ideas. I cant even say that there is a clearly stated 'intent' with this 'movement.' I apologize for all of the quotation marks, but these simply signify that I don’t know if the word I am using is really the correct word for what I am describing.

Then I see that you put Christianity in the normative stage, stating that they have lost their original intent. -Which was?- From my point of view, the original intent of Christianity was to get people to live a 'nicer' life, and to relieve the fear of death. Now the point of Christianity seems to propagate Christianity - Simply to create more followers.

I understand your dualism views, only I believe that this practice does not necessarily impose the view of other systems or sub systems as enemies, it simply requires an either-or stance: either they are close enough that they are with us, or they are too different and therefore oppose us, as you stated. But many, if not most institutions do not hold an exclusive duality, saying that either you exactly the same, or you are different. They usually will accept some differences and still consider the other system to be 'with' them.

I will agree though, that this does create a difficult situation for those who would wish to introduce entirely new notions. But I believe that this is indicative to basic human intuition that different=bad. It is so easy for any thinker to dismiss something new as wrong or negative without carefully examining it. It takes much more patience to really examine new ideas; remaining open to the possibility that they may be better, especially when these are ideas of philosophy or theology, where good and bad are almost purely subjective.

Moving back to the 'freethought movement,' I think/hope this 'institution' will never reach a normative stage, but rather, shift into the integrative. By it's very foundation, this movement is about individualism, promoting it's own sub-systems of humanists, and atheists, and agnostics, with very little or no actual dualism.

I think I could possibly write on endlessly about the philosophies and beliefs of the 'Freethought Movement' (only as I would choose to define them) , but I would like to simply post your email, as well as this response to my web site, and invite others to take a look and share their own thoughts.

Thanks again, I hope we can generate a lively discussion on this topic.

Best wishes - keep in touch -

Justin Whitaker
Montana Freethinkers
www.mtfreethinkers.org