"Religion is like sex...you can't suppress it" [View All]

[Jim__]

An very short interview with the somewhat iconoclastic John Gray. An excerpt:

So what is the purpose of religion? To tell important stories? You’ve written about the value of ritual and practice.

The rituals give a structure and a pattern to life, regardless of the belief. When asked about which religion to follow, the Dali Lama said, ‘Follow the one that suits you’. I think that’s absolutely wonderful. Religions do contain myths which can be more or less truthful. That is to say, they can address fundamental features of human experience. Some myths are deeper than other myths – they appeal to more commonly occurring, profound experiences. In that respect, religion has more common with art and poetry. You can’t falsify a painting. But you can judge a painting as being better or worse. You can say, ‘This is weak because it doesn’t get to the depths’. What religion seeks is meaning, rather than explanation. The interest served by science is predominately one of control – theories which help give us a handle on the physical world. Neither give us access to any absolute point of view; neither penetrate into the true nature of things.

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We seem to find it very difficult to escape myths. Would it be foolish to think science offers an escape?

In the 20th century, if you belonged to the French communist party, for example, it would permeate your life – you would belong to a trade union, you’d go to meetings all the time, it would give you structure, and the story associated with it would give meaning to your life. There was a narrative in which you and your fellows would prevail in the long run. Life acquires meaning. People who hold very tightly to myths, including modern secular myths; political and economic myths. They won’t give them up, even once they are falsified by experience. If you’re inside a myth it seems like fact, like science.

Some of the worst things done in the 20th century were carried out by people who thought they were implementing science. The Nazis can be distinguished from previous bigots because most of them believed their racism was backed up by science – their bogus science gave their genocidal projects a kind of imagined authority. So although it’s not the fault of science, forms of science have become a vehicle for new myths of progress.