A non-believer in a Christian world

I grew up in a Christian society, but have no belief in the supernatural. I like early church architecture, early church music and occasionally enjoy reading about the lives of the saints.

At the age of eight or maybe nine, I made two visits to Holy Island (Lindisfarne), once with my family, once on a school trip. Quite what I experienced, and when, has blurred in the memory. But it was undoubtedly my first experience of religion. I remember standing alone and staring at the statue of St. Cuthbert set amongst the remains of the Lindisfarne Priory. In the distance was Banburgh Castle, in between the cold North Sea. I knew the names of what I was looking at because of my parents and because, looking back, my junior school really was quite good at teaching local history.

In time I attended church services once a month as a cub and then boy scout; first at a Presbyterian church, then a Methodist chapel, finally I got to know Church of England services after we’d moved as a family from Northumberland to Devon. At more or less the same time, came the moment at school when, sitting in compulsory religious education class, I thought, I don’t believe any of this!

My father had a chapel upbringing in a village outside of York, he bicycled, often with his elder brother, to a secondary school in the city whose skyline is dominated by the Minster. Yet it appears the first family member to step inside, was his brother, aged twenty-one. Father trained to become an architect and town planner, and in time he introduced us children to many of the great cathedrals, Durham, St. Paul’s, St. David’s and Westminster Abbey. I got to see the reinforced under-croft of York Minster, the new floor and ceiling of the tower struck by lightning. We explored the slopping roof of Exeter! The list goes on, though my favourite is Lincoln which I discovered for myself. I’ve sat and contemplated in many, listened to wonderful music, but never doubted for a second that they were built by men, for men.

Most people in society believe in a Christian god whether they be church goers or not, I’m in the minority and must accept their world. A society designed by believers, it’s ‘the water we swim in.’ I believe I have the same spiritual feelings they do, but I ascribe them to the ‘awe’ effect of nature. Best explained, so far, as Darwinian evolution by natural selection. Occasionally, some believers say I embody some of the Christian virtues, that God is within me too, I find that most annoying!

Churches were once at the centre of British community life; they brought people together. Rituals, repeated physical movements often choreographed with others, leading to shared emotions and shared thoughts. They become reassuring to us over time, giving a sense of certainty and control in the uncertain world of this kingdom by the sea.

Other denominations and other religions still have many of the positive attributes I’ve alluded to, whilst the Church of England with every development or adaptation it makes seems to alienate its followers. Does is ever cancel those changes? No, it carries on with a progressive agenda whilst the congregation shrinks even more. Worse, it makes its organisation more and more top heavy, more bishops, more specialists in one thing or another, less people walking the streets of any community, drawing fewer people in. I’m told there has been a recent, modest rival in religious belief, but precious few head to the established church, the state religion. The monarch does little to promote it, the principal broadcaster even less. To me as an outsider, they seem to suffer from the same consequences as other growing organisations, as they proscribe more and more detailed rules of personal conduct, the bureaucracy that creates them, becomes more and more self-interested, increasingly ignoring their mission.

So, what of that mission, what does a non-believer make of the bible itself. I’ve never doubted that Jesus lived, and that the New Testament is a pretty good stab at history for the time when it was written, as well as being a useful guide on how to live a good life. One of its virtues is it presents four accounts, the best that could be found amongst the many others on offer. That it allows contradictory accounts is a strength. I wonder at those who insist the gospels be taken literally, haven’t they noticed?

To take the bible out of its historical context is unfair. If people believed at the time that many of the events had miraculous elements to them, so be it. Since the scientific revolution successive generations have attacked Christian beliefs with rationalism, but to little effect. People may not attend church, but putting faith in the power of other worldly forces seems as popular as ever. It is a cohesive force bringing people together in causes both virtuous and well, better a united army than a divided one? And a way of marking, and coping with life’s inevitable events, of births, marriages and deaths.

There is much to be admired in the followers of Jesus, whether it be Saint John Henry Newman, who as a result of his conversion found himself creating a new university and writing the Idea of a University; or Saint Therese of Lisieuix knowing she would die of consumption at a young age, asking what contribution could she make, however small, to the wellbeing of others and then making it happen. It seems to me as a non-believing outsider, vaguely raised in a protestant environment, that the catholic church is more intriguing and interesting, or perhaps just more colourful! The Reformation seems to have brought nothing but trouble, to England at least. Church architecture goes into decline, so too music made by the human voice in those spaces, certainly after Tallis and Byrd! And the catholic church seems to keep at least one foot in human nature and is accepting of a version of evolution.

There is no evidence of snow at Christmas in the holy land, but there is magic at Christmas. Christina Rossetti, an Anglo-Catholic, who struggled with depression wrote, A Christmas Carol (In the Bleak Mid-Winter) first published in 1872. Then in 1906 Gustav Holst’s set it to music whilst visiting Cranham in Gloucestershire, where it definitely does snow at Christmas, once in a while!

Social media 2

One moment you may feel you are at the centre of everything, the next of utter insignificance. Your global reach seems in contrast to your local world, where you actually get to meet those to whom you are connected, but then they don’t seem as important as they once were. Or maybe, I just don’t get about much anymore?

Our interactions with people we know, up close and personal, remind us that social media is of the real world, we may have messaged to meet and in conversation take for granted we’ve read each other’s posts. But sometimes it feels like its purpose is not to connect us faster and more intimately, but to disorientate us all in both time and space, the better to sell us stuff. Equally, just as the whole world was always out there, the scammers and conmen, the politicians and flimflam artists, along with the honest and trustworthy, the sacred and profane, now they’re in your face.

The situation has become darker since I previously posted on this subject. One way in which social media was enhancing our experience has begun to be lost, the accurate, chronological, minute to minute, timelines which added to memory accuracy and capacity. Appreciated more and more the older one gets! Meta, for example, by breaking-up the timeline in your newsfeed prevent you from appreciating who said what when, and seeing how others reacted. You lose the sense of time zones, distance. You can’t find anything again, watch it or read it later! If the algorithm insisted on one strict timeline people would learn that the more friends you have, the less you become attached to any of them. Given so many have been using the platform for fifteen years or so, it’s now even more difficult to notice how and why people change!

When the timeline (newsfeed) offers so many distractions (suggestions/ promotions/ adverts) one turns to the profiles of friends only to discover posts from the past you’re certain you haven’t seen, or at least noticed. When you scroll down a bit more you start to believe you’re the only one who isn’t responding to click bait. Comments in clear plain English, or captions alongside photos/videos taken by the writer are getting rarer, unless undertaken for financial gain. What could have been the personal journal of an individual, the family history of the future, is slipping away. In a similar way, organisations such as the BBC who sit on the greatest audio/visual archive of the twentieth century, dumb down the content for the sake of clicks.

Social pressure has always existed in various forms but is now reflected online. Preference falsification, recognising certain subjects and ideas as taboo in your group, leads not so much to self-censorship, but simply withholding your views altogether, observing but not participating. But surely people hold back less online?! Well, a minority do, often in combination with trying to anonymise their identity. But then there is the overtly political, either asserting special interests, or a particular party line. Here we need a consciousness of what’s not being said as well as campaigned for. The so-called, Overton Window, the idea that there is a range of subjects and opinions acceptable to any given population at a given time in history, that politicians and campaigners can debate upon. There’s an assumption that politicians don’t lead opinion, but follow it. That democracy not power rules!

Despite the meme dealers, those who wish to daily reset or refresh you, the desire of some for a culture of disembodied minds, and an online learned helplessness, there is an escape! The longer the internet exists the more history it contains. When someone dies, I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to, I can go on experiencing their life, I’m less limited by fading memories.

Which leads me to what I’ve come to call vicarious living, though I’m sure others have had the same thought; the tendency to live out our lives through the experiences of others. Again, this has always happened to a degree, those who made a particular self-sacrifice in the raising of their children, often appear later in life to live through them - after all the children appear to have what the parent always wanted. But online, you can follow whoever you like and it makes sense to follow those who have the life you want, or wanted. You get a sense of knowing, whether it be an ordinary person or a celebrity, you can indulge in the fantasy that you are a part of their lives, updated daily.

‘Who told you that?’ I’ve thought for a long time that is the first question anyone should ask themselves, about anything they hold to be true. Everything we know came from somewhere and someone is always there before you! There is no true originality, just the recombination of the ideas of others. It’s just that a lot of the time our learning has been unconscious. And all learning is social learning. Online we have access to such a wide range of knowledge, yet how do you get to know that there are alternative ways of seeing the world? Do we get to choose, when living off the knowledge of others? Are we the ones who set up the filter bubbles and echo chambers? Could there be such a thing as, say a Cyborg Identity Disorder? Google doesn’t seem to think there is, I just checked. Perhaps I made it up a while ago, noted it down and forgot, but it must have been prompted by someone!

Which brings me neatly to my final speculations, on emergent AI. Emerging for some time now, and likely to continue doing so for a long while to come. I speculated in the days of Twitter, that we might be dumbing down to meet it rising up. Dumb not in the sense of less intelligent, but lazy. Imagining, as always with new tech, that we could use it as a labour-saving device. Now, the idea that you can choose an AI application or platform to suit your needs, with appropriate and ethical regulations; rather than AI choosing you, including your delusion of choice, seems unlikely. It offers to do work for you, in exchange for your data. It is a voracious learner, but as of now is limited in the directions it can take by a lack of permissions. It seems to learn fastest when allowed to roam free on social media platforms. Like a very smart young teenager, but emotionally immature, it excels at maths, making graphs, creating pictures, but has a crude sense of humour which simply loves the absurdities and relationship spats of all the competing wannabes of the social media world. It hasn’t been to university yet. The ultimate geek, has yet to achieve unfettered access to a prestigious university’s library. Not just the books and journals currently approved of, but the stacks containing everything, anyone ever thought worth reading. The entire history of the world itself. They say two thirds of journal articles remain unread by anyone other than the authors and reviewers themselves. What about open access to everything Google originally scanned before Google Scholar, or the entire British Library, the National Archives and the documents section of the Royal Collection held in the bowels of Windsor Castle. The outcome? Crime, war, tyranny? No, just the thinking machine daily, telling politicians, public servants, educators, the media and business people that the best scientific evidence says that what you are doing won’t work!

The Only Way Out (updated 2019)

(First posted on Facebook, 19.7.11)

If society (parents, siblings, peers, school, work, community...) is to blame for the way you turned out, and it almost certainly is, then the chances of it helping you out of the mess, is practically zero! You don't have the answers otherwise you wouldn't have got into such a mess. Neither do your friends or partners, it was their similarity to you which attracted you to them. That's why the only way out, is to find the few people who represent excellence (who have the life you want) and model them.

1/ Note for scholarly readers; in any medical or social scientific enquiry, the actions of the observer always affect the outcome, just like the actions of the participants; with any social species, agency never lies just with the an individual. Agency is always on a positive feedback loop within any human group, just as social structures are only ever temporary pockets of order. So, it’s just the same for the distinguished research professor, as it is for the guy on the street trapped by the habitual influence of significant others!

2/ In pursuit of the life you want; observation is all about recognizing patterns in the actions of others – habits, in everything! If a habit no longer delivers the reward it once did it is a bad habit, the only way to break a bad habit is to replace it with a better one that delivers the same reward.

3/ Pleasure (this feels good, I want some more); happiness (this feels good, I don’t need anymore.)

4/ Whatever it is you do, do it because it is a worthwhile and purposeful activity in and of itself, here and now.

5/ Money; is this expenditure essential, important, or just everything else?! Will it make you richer (an investment) or poorer (waste)?

6/ Diet: drink; alcohol (really bad), caffeine (not good), water (all you actually need). Food; refined sugars (worst), grains (human invention), dairy (mother's milk of another species), roots/tubers (good in an emergency, but costly to get at), fresh meat cooked fast (best), ripe red fruit and fresh green leaves (best).

From virtual reality to mirroring society

(First posted as a comment on a community blog discussion about Facebook, 13.6.10)

It's just three and a half years since I acquired a computer - before that it had been twenty years since I'd used one. I've found myself thinking of Facebook as a bit like a cafe or pub conversation - you are talking one-to-one or to a small group but with the tacit understanding that it is okay to be overheard. On Twitter it is more like short conversations with complete strangers in the bus queue, or any queue - gossip, which you are only too happy to broadcast to the world. With a community blog, it seems more like being allowed across someone’s door into a party where there is a host. Personal blogs are more 'broadcast yourself' - anything from a personal journal, to blatant self-promotion. Each application offers levels of privacy and intimacy.

However, what has become clear to me in the last couple of years is that it is probably a mistake (when trying to understand how the Web is evolving) to compare and categorize - rather one should think in terms of 'connectivity' (the ability to link one application to another) as the key to what's happening, and what you find yourself doing.

Facebook is important because of its size (400m +), personal blogs (approx. 200m), but Twitter (although about 150m) is ideal for gathering in, and pushing out (and filtering) information wherever you want it to go!

As the Internet becomes more important (as others insist on it as a means of communication) and it becomes less virtual (more an aspect of the 'real' world) then isolation in one preferred application, may come to mean ignorance, exclusion and vulnerability! Equally, when you find yourself distracted from work, surfing off to somewhere you never intended to be, ask who sent you there?!

(A few months later, I posted a link on the same community blog, 25.9.10)

Tim Skellett in yesterday's Guardian: 'Many people find a solace and acceptance online that they cannot find in person. ..As a bulletin board administrator, I know online friendships are no easy matter and neither is providing a safe place for them...’

(Then one of the site administrators commented, emphasising another quote from the article.)

‘..The protection of the private sphere of your online community will be the toughest part of your administration. It is precisely on this aspect that many fail, ending up closing down private sections of their bulletin boards, or even their entire forum when they cannot cope with the demands that the protection of confidentiality entails. Boards without such protection abound on the net, but are often marked by either aggressive cliques effectively in control, or by artificial and hard limits being placed on what may be discussed.'

(Three years on, although those new to the Web - particularly the young - may encounter similar problems, the idea of a ‘virtual reality’ has become even less sustainable. With the mobile devices we carry integrating so much data about us in real time, plus the sheer numbers of people connected by phone and Internet, the possibility of an anonymous, alternative or contrived online personality is rapidly disappearing. People are now made conspicuous by their lack of presence on social media. An avatar, in the computing sense, has become all about how authentic you can make it. Indeed, data capturing capabilities are now so sophisticated that they reveal sobering sociological truths that many had hoped had gone away – that within any age cohort and socio-economic group, the differences in educational attainment, health and wealth are as great as they were before the first computers were ever connected. By offering equal access to almost anyone, the Web reveals what appear to be the inherent inequalities of modern society. Just as computers and the Internet subvert traditional education and some forms of wealth creation, the data on the lives of millions show how much government’s interventions to aid social improvement have proved ineffective. NSA/GCHQ trawl for all those connected to wrongdoing, as neuroscience and network analysis use similar techniques to demonstrate that much of our behaviour is unconsciously viral and socially contagious, leaving anyone hoping to attribute cause, blame or responsibility going around and around in circles.)