Can religious faith & reason/logic complement each other?

[Demosthenes]

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/laing.htm

Natural science knows nothing of the relation between behaviour and experience. The nature of this relation is mysterious - in Marcel"s sense. That is to say, it is not an objective problem. There is no traditional logic to express it. There is no developed method of understanding its nature. But this relation is the copula of our science if science means a form of knowledge adequate to its subject. The relation between experience and behaviour is the stone that the builders will reject at their peril. Without it the whole structure of our theory and practice must collapse.

Experience is invisible to the other. But experience is not "subjective" rather than "objective", not "inner" rather than "outer", not process rather than praxis, not input rather than output, not psychic rather than somatic, not some doubtful data dredged up from introspection rather than extrospection. Least of all is experience "intrapsychic process". Such transactions, object-relations, interpersonal relations, transference, counter-transference, as we suppose to go on between people are not the interplay merely of two objects in space, each equipped with ongoing intra-psychic processes.

This distinction between outer and inner usually refers to the distinction between behaviour and experience; but sometimes it refers to some experiences that are supposed to be "inner" in contrast to others that are "outer". More accurately this is a distinction between different modalities of experience, namely, perception (as outer) in contrast to imagination etc. (as inner). But perception, imagination, phantasy, reverie, dreams, memory, are simply different modalities of experience, none more "inner" or "outer" than any others.

Yet this way of talking does reflect a split in our experience. We seem to live in two worlds, and many people are aware only of the "outer" rump. As long as we remember that the "inner" world is not some space "inside" the body or the mind, this way of talking can serve our purpose. (It was good enough for William Blake.) The "inner", then, is our personal idiom of experiencing our bodies, other people, the animate and inanimate world: imagination, dreams, phantasy, and beyond that to ever further reaches of experience.

Bertrand Russell once remarked that the stars are in one"s brain.

The stars as I perceive them are no more or less in my brain than the stars as I imagine them. I do not imagine them to be in my head, any more than I see them in my head.

The relation of experience to behaviour is not that of inner to outer. My experience is not inside my head. My experience of this room is out there in the room.

To say that my experience is intra-psychic is to presuppose that there is a psyche that my experience is in My psyche is my experience, my experience is my psyche.

Many people used to believe that angels moved the stars. It now appears that they do not. As a result of this and like revelations, many people do not now believe in angels.

Many people used to believe that the "seat" of the soul was somewhere in the brain. Since brains began to be opened up frequently, no one has seen "the soul". As a result of this and like revelations, many people do not now believe in the soul.

Who could suppose that angels move the stars, or be so superstitious as to suppose that because one cannot see one"s soul at the end of a microscope it does not exist?

The whole chapter is worth reading.

also: http://mv.lycaeum.org/M2/laing.html

 

[deeplight]

It would be a better start for religious folk to realise that if God is omnipotent and omniscient then he must have put all disease and suffering, all pain and misery, all anguish and hopelessness, all injustice and cruelty here for humanity to endure. The child dying from AIDS, the cancer sufferer writhing in pain, the tens of thousands drowned by tidal waves and the millions slowly dying of privation all have God to thank. He's a right bastard!

Freedom involves a great many things, misery and illness being just two of them. When we humanise God we do Him/It and ourselves a great disservice.

The Kabballa or mystic background to Judahism explains it better than I have seen any other faith do with their parable of the little candle which I will endevour to do justice from memory:

In the beginning there was only light. And this light was one and many at the same time and always blissful.

One day a part of this light. A little candle if you like, had a thought. "How can I see myself shining?" He asked everything.

This was a strange thought to everything and it had to think, but it realised what must be done for the candle to realise its dream, and said. " If you truly wish to know yourself little one you must be plunged into darkness. This will be painful, although you do not understand what that is. Your flame may go out almost entirely, but when it does and you find the courage to reignite yourself. Then, then you will know your light.

Needless to say the candle is us. And without pain and darkness in the world What whould there be to triumph over? How can we know anything without contrast?

You may wish to live glowing in a white room, but I doubt the reality of it would excite you for long.

There is a sufi (islamic mystic) story about spirituality being like a pail of milk. If we leave it it can go sour. But if we churn and do the right things all becomes as creamy butter.

Something like that anyhow but my memorys hazy.

Salaam, Namaste, and God bless.