The torch bearers of modern atheism like to make the self-congratulatory use of the ‘absurdities’ and ‘depravities’ of scriptures to punch religion right in its face. You have to hear Richard Dawkins cheekily say, “It’s ridiculous to believe that Muhammed would fly to heaven on a winged horse”, as if he had made a killer move and declared ‘checkmate’.
Sam Harris says in his book ‘Letter to a Christian Nation’, “Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath, and the God of Nature too. If you can’t see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world.”
Christopher Hitchens says in ‘God Is Not Great- How Religion Poisons Everything’, “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody-not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms-had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (and for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think – though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one – that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”
Touche’? That’s all? That is all the intellectual might you can muster? Let the uneducated, irrational believers believe, but we expected more from you, the world class public intellectuals, the torch bearers of reason! You may be getting it wrong, with your childish logic. No, the psychopathic god of Abraham might not exist and yes, even the least educated child can make these kinds of ridiculous, infantile arguments.
The power of the metaphor
“The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another, it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.” -Aristotle
“A bridge is a meeting place, a possibility, a metaphor.”- Jeanette Winterson
A)”I see all people rushing full speed into your mouths, as moths dash to destruction in a blazing fire,”- Arjuna to Krishna, Bhagwad Gita
B) “The trumpet shall be blown and at once they will be sliding from their graves towards their lord,”- Surah Yah Sin 51, Qoran.
C) “Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him, for the marriage of the lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready,” -Revelation 19:7, Bible.
All the above verses from three different religious traditions could be talking of the same supra-psycho-mental phenomenon. I urge you to suspend any disbelief arising at this mention of a ‘supra-psycho-mental’ phenomenon, at this stage of reading. I agree it sounds absurd, but dismiss your reactions for now. Till we arrive at the logic. Most esoteric scriptures carry a deeper meaning than what appears prima facie. Ofcourse, what appears prima facie is terrifying and repulsive, without a doubt.
The irony is that these phrases could be metaphorical and harmless. Benevolent even, as they could be speaking of one’s liberation from the sufferings of life. Benevolent or not, an immediate question about this metaphorical claim could trouble you. “Why on earth make it sound so terrifying?”, you could ask.
This dilemma has plagued many of us, leading us to become literalists, of two dangerous kinds. One, the ardent believer who has imbibed fear from the vibe of catastrophe emanating from the above phrases. The other is the militant atheist, who out of anger at these apocalyptic suggestions became fearless and revolting.
Why metaphors then, if they do more harm than good? Why sacrifice clarity to produce this unnecessary crisis? What is a metaphor and why use it?
A metaphor is an abstract mental construct required to create fresh new understandings when simple words fail. It stands to fill the gaps in our description of reality. On the boundary between the known and unknown, the metaphor is a window, constructed of materials of the known, to take a peak into the unknown. It creates a mapping between two domains, one being the source and other being the target, to builds access between them. A link, an identification.
“It was a heated argument” is an embodied metaphor, where you must feel the heat of intensity. “Love is a journey” is a simulated metaphor, where you need to remember the highs and lows on a road. Easy this part.
However, when a new concept has to be introduced, something beyond one’s cognitive landscape, a direct, factual description becomes impossible. See, a black hole is neither black, nor a hole, right? Scientist had no better way to describe this high-gravity, mass-collapsing area in space. It is a conceptual metaphor to describe something for which description failed, no?
Remember the flatland from a previous blog? How will you explain the third dimension to the 2D being? It cannot conceive a third dimension, so you cannot possibly say, “I am above you, at right angles to your flatland”. Can you? In such a case, the limit of knowledge becomes the limit of language. Expressing not only unknown ideas, but unimaginable ones is a tricky, catch-22 situation. Remember the unknown -unknowns, ideas which we are not only ignorant of, but ignorant of our ignorance of them as well? Ideas so beyond our cognitive horizon that there can be no language for their expression. The poor flatlander cannot understand a third dimension because it cannot imagine it. The dark matter, once an unknown -unknown, is a metaphor too. It is not dark nor made of known matter. In fact it is nothing we know about!
Hence the only way to talk of it is in purely metaphorical terms. See?
So the need and use for a metaphor arises out of constraints of expression. A simple factual statement as “This exists” or “This is the reality”, might have zero cognitive appeal. For example, how would you explain the internet to a scientist in the sixteenth century, let’s say to Newton himself? You could simply say there is a worldwide virtual information platform arising from computer networks. You could try. You would draw a blank, or incredulous dismissal. The sixteenth century genius will either label you as uneducated, stupid or crazy, in the confidence of his rationalism. (Sounds suspiciously like our modern day rational atheist, don’t you think!). Next you will try by giving references to a library, which is not physical, but is carried through air particles (sounds absurd even as one makes that analogy), which anyone can access through their individual tablet like portals (sounds like fantasy, does it not!). Effectively and not, you will have used many metaphors. Maybe he will finally get you, somewhat. Maybe you will still draw a blank. Or outright slander. You could be hanged for being a heretic who was spreading impossible falsities. His rational, scientific logic could prove you wrong. He would tell you that science tells him that air particles cannot carry information! He could publicly vituperate you for believing in magical portals to access this internet. So then, all your metaphors would fail.
One has a strong suspicion that this accurately describes the fate of religion, and of the religious ‘God’. You can understand this quote from the book ‘Cat’s eye’ because you know the type of relationship being talked about. You don’t literalise these expressions, do you, because you know what it means!
What if you literalise scripture because you don’t understand the phenomena being talked about? What if the people who wrote it had no better words to express it? Imagine if you took every line of the above expression prima facie. It will seem like a terrifying relationship, won’t it?
Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, “grace” metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, “Why don’t you say what you mean? We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct” – Robert frost
Some of the oldest writings in the world like Odyssey, Homer, or the Vedas are poetic, because poetry is the most effective metaphorical language. With poetry one can compress description, impossible in another way. Why do we read literature? Why can’t we have a discussion without a narrative or a metaphor? We read for a simulation, we want to experience ’embodiment’ of ideas and emotions expressed. We want to feel what the characters are feeling and thinking. A successful book or movie is one which makes an emotional or an intellectual connection with the reader/audience, usually a novel, unprecedented one. A narrative, a story, a metaphor is thus important to transfer an experience to a subject who may have never personally experienced it. See?
Metaphor creates transcendence, through integration. One rises above the familiarity of the known, and the inscrutability of the unknown, onto a higher plane of sudden understanding.
As a matter of fact, the entire gamut of arts – painting, photography, filmmaking, dance, literature, drama is metaphorical, intended to bring about the effect of supra-cognition. Supra–cognition means beyond cognition; moving of one’s conceptual frame beyond its boundaries to a new horizon. Metaphors work by integrating contents of our memory with new data, to reach a higher level of understanding. A new cognitive plane. Thus the work of a metaphor in any art form is to provide growth and maturity to our mental models.
“Art’s function is to generate a higher cognitive outcome, by assimilating old concepts with new data,” Merlin McDonald, cognitive scientist.
So I urge you to consider two things. First, the scriptures could be speaking in metaphors about unknown phenomena that could not have been expressed any other way. It might have been a constraint of expression more than anything else. Let us say two thousand years into the future our civilization is obliterated and what remains are manuals of physics which talk of dark matter and dark energy. What if the intellectuals of the future civilisation derided and patronised us for calling some matter or energy ‘dark’? What if us or they never solve the puzzle, which is quite likely, as dark matter does not interact with ordinary matter; just chose to call it something different? Do you see?A constrained, indirect expression is bound to be misunderstood.
Second, in evaluating literature from many millennia ago, when the cultures and modalities were vastly different, using literalism is an exercise in stupidity. We’ll see why.