The reason I like Haidt's z-axis isn't that I find it so compelling conceptually in combination with the X- and y-axes, but that it strikes me as unequivocally true that an impulse toward the sacred is universal. If we don't have the sacred writings, objects, histories, rituals, etc. already given to us by an institutionalized religion, we'll find something else to sacralize; we have to. For many people, family becomes the primary sacred grouping, but there are many other instances, and I think the feeling of oneness or vastness in the presence of nature is just one type. Secular societies have, though, drained everyday life of the sacred, and many rational moderns like it this way. When Haidt lived in India for a brief time, he saw how the Indians had conceived of life as a complex interplay of sacred elements. When he returned, he experienced a carry-over, adopting at least the Indian custom of removing his shoes on entering his house. He could appreciate the reasons that Indians felt it was essential to continue these seemingly arbitrary customs.geo wrote: My “theory” is some of us are oriented to belief in God and some of us aren't. That sounds a little too much like the woman in the beginning of that video who says there are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Jesus and those who don't.
But what Haidt seems to be saying and what I’ve always suspected is that all of us are capable of that feeling of “oneness” with the universe. It’s just that believers—those with an orientation towards God—will usually interpret that feeling as a connection to God, while an atheist will interpret it as something else entirely.
I appreciate what Haidt has done because I feel I have a better basis for using the word 'spiritual.' That has long been a problem for me. What does it really mean? It means that we feel this significance in things and experiences that the things and experiences would not seem to possess inherently. But we invest them with something that is akin to love. I'm not ready yet to embrace 'transcendence,' but I'll let it be known if I do.
Here's where I could agree with Richard Dawkins, who famously equated religion with child abuse. It's unconscionable to take brains that are not fully formed and subject them to this treatment. Mystical sensations of oneness I believe are reserved for mature brains. Kids are different. In any event, what this horrible woman is doing is nowhere close to opening up spiritual experience.Back to Jesus Camp, I'd like to see some data on the long-term consequences of Jesus-camp style of indoctrination. How many of these kids actually became mindless devoticons (a word I just made up)? Does such indoctrination actually enable these kids to feel that sense of “oneness” in a church setting as opposed to a nature setting? I suspect it does. This is nature's way perhaps, giving us those bursts of dopamine, as the carrot to guide us into bonding with the group. And if that's true, it seems rather like a function of natural selection that is increasingly at odds with the modern environment. Haidt sees some good or at least empathizes with the conservative ethos of elevating our society with sacral elements:
He's all about the trade-offs. He can't be a partisan these days, is what he tells us. To be one, you probably need to maintain belief in pure evil.Haidt wrote:I believe it is dangerous for the ethic of divinity to supersede the ethic of autonomy in the governance of a diverse modern democracy. However, I also believe that life in a society that entirely ignored the ethic of divinity would be ugly and unsatisfying.