This is a modest attempt to put in paper (or in digital format) my life as a Japanese living and interacting among wholly different groups of people like atheists, Christians, Buddhists, parapsychologists, spiritualists, ideologues of every kind and other who claim to know the truth.
When I arrived to Canada and US many years ago, I was already very interested in phenomena like psi (precognition, telepathy, etc.) and in spirituality. Coming from a faimily sympathetic to systems like taoism, zen, buddhism and similar, I had a set of beliefs (not necessarily shared by all of these systems, since I had my own view of all of them and wasn't entirely convinced) that shaped my view:
1-Monotheistic religions are based entirely on faith, dogmatic authority and are seriously misguided.
2-There is probably no God (no "big daddy" in the sky, I favorite expression of mine which I now see as strongly ignorant and stupid) and if something like this exists is in the universe as a whole (see point 4).
3-Human beings have probably a soul which could survive death.
4-The "universe is consciousness" (another favorite expression of mine, which now I see as largely uninteligible and philosophically naive) and each of us is a finite part part of that universal consciousness.
I had a lot of other beliefs, but for the sake of this post, let's to stick to the above four. (This was the ideological baggage that I brought to America).
Now, first let me stress that I don't see any of the above beliefs as demostrably false. I'm even sympathetic to some of them (like the number 3), even though for different, more informed reasons.
What I found in America (specially in US) was a kind of cultural battle between Christians and secularists (evolution vs creationism, etc.). At first, I thought these battled was justified because Christians were basically religious dogmatists and bigots who weren't interested in scientific research and evidence.
But I very soon find that "secularists" had an ideological agenda which include suppression of any view which could suggest that materialism was false (including honest scientific research by atheists and agnostic researchers about phenomena like psi or the afrterlife). So I realized that they had an axe to grind against whatever view, opinion or research program which could destroy their beliefs.
I was shocked to discover their dishonesty and how they misrepresent the evidence of parapsychology, for example.
In this point, another thought appeared in my mind: The view about Christians being essentially ideologues and dogmatists who are enemies of scientific research and their only motivation was to predicate their ideology is true? I had bought that idea reading the books of atheists and secularists.
But my confidence in them fell apart. So, I began studying carefully the books of the best Christian philosophers, theologians, scientists and other scholars in order to see what they defend and believe. And in this point I was shocked again.
What I found (with some exceptions) was a rigurous, evidence-based support of their belief system. I found sophisticated philosophical and scientific arguments for God's existence and (for my absolute astonishment) for Jesus' Resurrection which I saw in that time as something beyond historical, rational evaluation and only believed "by wishful thinking and faith" (again, I bought the highly efficacious atheist propaganda!).
Also, I realized that Christian intellectuals had a desire to discuss and debate rationally their beliefs. This was another shock for me, since in the atheist books that I had read, Christians are portrayed as irrational individuals who knows next to nothing of logic, reason and the scientific method, are wholly credulous people and are afraid of discussing their beliefs (and my direct experience with some normal Christian people tended to confirmed this view). I realized that atheists were attacking the weakest Christians, not the better ones (exactly as Richard Dawkins has made recently).
I noted a certain pattern in the atheist argumentation against Christians which was very similar to their arguments against parapsychology. Stereotypes, facile (and long refuted) objections, misrepresentations and straw men, labels, attacking the weakest version of the argument, etc. were common in atheists in their "campaign" against religious and parapsychological believers.
I thought that perhaps I was buying too much in the popular atheist literature. So I began to studying intensively scholarly books and papers by the best defenders of metaphysical naturalism and materialistic atheism. My library had (and probably even HAS) more books defending atheism than books about any other topic. And I was astonished again.
I found that (otherwise serious and rigurous atheist thinkers) posed crude objections and obvious fallacies (repeating long and already refuted arguments) when arguing against the best Christian scholars. I couldn't understand this, since that if religion is false, then its falsehood should be easily shown, specially if religious believers are ignorant and stupid, and atheists are rational, smart and scientific.
Since I shared with atheists the view that religious believers were essentially irrational, ignorant and wishful thinkers (even thought I never had any strong emotion behind this opinion), all the above caused on me a profound and very strong cognitive dissonance. I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing. I never expected such a thing.
In this point I began to suspect that I had been subtly fooled or "taken in" by the atheistic literature that I had read. And I discovered that most non-Christian people in US were fooled into the atheistic-caused anti-religious stereotypes too.
I discovered too that most Christian pastors were anti-intellectual , dogmatists and tended to confirm the stereotypes created by atheists. So, I understood why people in US (who are likely to have more conctact with Christian pastors than with sophisticated Christian scholars) believed the atheistic propaganda.
But this excuse couldn't apply to me, since my anti-religious opinion wasn't based on the time in any experience with Christian pastors and other anti-intellectuals. I bought the atheistic propaganda almost entirely based on books and my own prejudices (+ some ocassional encounters with religious fundamentalists).
So, I concluded that secularism had largely won (with cheap shots and an astute aggresive anti-religious propaganda + the anti-intellectualism of Church pastors) the cultural battle, at least among "intellectually sophisticated" people.
At that time, I was more or less convinced that "spiritualists" had the right answers to a whole of topics which atheists had stigmatized as unscientific "religious fallacies".
And even though I still believe that spiritualists have important things to say, I found in spiritualism something that I had never expected...
I will tell you what it is in part 2.
When I arrived to Canada and US many years ago, I was already very interested in phenomena like psi (precognition, telepathy, etc.) and in spirituality. Coming from a faimily sympathetic to systems like taoism, zen, buddhism and similar, I had a set of beliefs (not necessarily shared by all of these systems, since I had my own view of all of them and wasn't entirely convinced) that shaped my view:
1-Monotheistic religions are based entirely on faith, dogmatic authority and are seriously misguided.
2-There is probably no God (no "big daddy" in the sky, I favorite expression of mine which I now see as strongly ignorant and stupid) and if something like this exists is in the universe as a whole (see point 4).
3-Human beings have probably a soul which could survive death.
4-The "universe is consciousness" (another favorite expression of mine, which now I see as largely uninteligible and philosophically naive) and each of us is a finite part part of that universal consciousness.
I had a lot of other beliefs, but for the sake of this post, let's to stick to the above four. (This was the ideological baggage that I brought to America).
Now, first let me stress that I don't see any of the above beliefs as demostrably false. I'm even sympathetic to some of them (like the number 3), even though for different, more informed reasons.
What I found in America (specially in US) was a kind of cultural battle between Christians and secularists (evolution vs creationism, etc.). At first, I thought these battled was justified because Christians were basically religious dogmatists and bigots who weren't interested in scientific research and evidence.
But I very soon find that "secularists" had an ideological agenda which include suppression of any view which could suggest that materialism was false (including honest scientific research by atheists and agnostic researchers about phenomena like psi or the afrterlife). So I realized that they had an axe to grind against whatever view, opinion or research program which could destroy their beliefs.
I was shocked to discover their dishonesty and how they misrepresent the evidence of parapsychology, for example.
In this point, another thought appeared in my mind: The view about Christians being essentially ideologues and dogmatists who are enemies of scientific research and their only motivation was to predicate their ideology is true? I had bought that idea reading the books of atheists and secularists.
But my confidence in them fell apart. So, I began studying carefully the books of the best Christian philosophers, theologians, scientists and other scholars in order to see what they defend and believe. And in this point I was shocked again.
What I found (with some exceptions) was a rigurous, evidence-based support of their belief system. I found sophisticated philosophical and scientific arguments for God's existence and (for my absolute astonishment) for Jesus' Resurrection which I saw in that time as something beyond historical, rational evaluation and only believed "by wishful thinking and faith" (again, I bought the highly efficacious atheist propaganda!).
Also, I realized that Christian intellectuals had a desire to discuss and debate rationally their beliefs. This was another shock for me, since in the atheist books that I had read, Christians are portrayed as irrational individuals who knows next to nothing of logic, reason and the scientific method, are wholly credulous people and are afraid of discussing their beliefs (and my direct experience with some normal Christian people tended to confirmed this view). I realized that atheists were attacking the weakest Christians, not the better ones (exactly as Richard Dawkins has made recently).
I noted a certain pattern in the atheist argumentation against Christians which was very similar to their arguments against parapsychology. Stereotypes, facile (and long refuted) objections, misrepresentations and straw men, labels, attacking the weakest version of the argument, etc. were common in atheists in their "campaign" against religious and parapsychological believers.
I thought that perhaps I was buying too much in the popular atheist literature. So I began to studying intensively scholarly books and papers by the best defenders of metaphysical naturalism and materialistic atheism. My library had (and probably even HAS) more books defending atheism than books about any other topic. And I was astonished again.
I found that (otherwise serious and rigurous atheist thinkers) posed crude objections and obvious fallacies (repeating long and already refuted arguments) when arguing against the best Christian scholars. I couldn't understand this, since that if religion is false, then its falsehood should be easily shown, specially if religious believers are ignorant and stupid, and atheists are rational, smart and scientific.
Since I shared with atheists the view that religious believers were essentially irrational, ignorant and wishful thinkers (even thought I never had any strong emotion behind this opinion), all the above caused on me a profound and very strong cognitive dissonance. I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing. I never expected such a thing.
In this point I began to suspect that I had been subtly fooled or "taken in" by the atheistic literature that I had read. And I discovered that most non-Christian people in US were fooled into the atheistic-caused anti-religious stereotypes too.
I discovered too that most Christian pastors were anti-intellectual , dogmatists and tended to confirm the stereotypes created by atheists. So, I understood why people in US (who are likely to have more conctact with Christian pastors than with sophisticated Christian scholars) believed the atheistic propaganda.
But this excuse couldn't apply to me, since my anti-religious opinion wasn't based on the time in any experience with Christian pastors and other anti-intellectuals. I bought the atheistic propaganda almost entirely based on books and my own prejudices (+ some ocassional encounters with religious fundamentalists).
So, I concluded that secularism had largely won (with cheap shots and an astute aggresive anti-religious propaganda + the anti-intellectualism of Church pastors) the cultural battle, at least among "intellectually sophisticated" people.
At that time, I was more or less convinced that "spiritualists" had the right answers to a whole of topics which atheists had stigmatized as unscientific "religious fallacies".
And even though I still believe that spiritualists have important things to say, I found in spiritualism something that I had never expected...
I will tell you what it is in part 2.
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