Phenemenology of Spiritual Experience
“Phenemenology of Spiritual Experience” is a term used by Sam Harris in his debate with Jordan Peterson. Sam Harris espouses a sympathetic, but not a condescending view on religion, especially the non dogmatic aspects of Christianity. And he is equally dismissive of the other major Abrahamic religion as totally irreparable and irreconcilable with any acquired liberal-progressive socio-cultural traits. He argues in the lines that, a society aplenty with the spirit of free speech, thriving for a reasonable amount of time, tends to dissolve the dogmatic aspects of its major religion. Instead the religious experience of the believer probably gets transformed into spiritual experience, devoid of religious dogma. In fact this may have happened in already in Europe. Europe, the cradle of renaissance and the industrial revolution, progressive liberal thinking with the compassionate tenets of Christianity may have significantly contributed to the wild card idea that even “Christianity is not actually needed”, for a just and fair society.
Sam Harris believes that humans are inherently capable of being moral, much more than what Christianity advocates. On the other hand the pertinent question of Jordan Peterson is the “where did you get the concept of compassion in the first place?”. Hinduism advocates the primacy of one’s duty. Islam exhorts total submission. It is Christianity that consider compassion and empathy as its core principles. Well it is a compelling argument. The once bestial Christianity got reformed through various sub movements and has slowly acquired the empathetic, tolerant views which may have had a great role in the progress of mankind itself. Again these are the types of arguments, which cannot proved/disproved with the stroke of a pen.
The progressive thought may have been initiated by Christianity, but there are other avenues like technology, music, etc which are more of universal rather than the monopoly of a subpopulace, carries it forward. I would further argue that a technologically enlightened generation automatically neutralizes the inequity of social barriers like religion, caste or race. The not so recent phenomenon of urbanization, which is a corollary of technological advancements, also plays a neutralizing role in rounding the otherwise sharp edges of our wild, feral personality traits. For eg, let’s say a delinquent listens to music loudly in his own house. But once he moves into an apartment with other inhabitants, he is forced to contain that unruly attitude. The delinquent learns eventually that there is a social cost associated with every act. And he will be ostracized from the society if his net social currency is negative. Without the invocation of any religious principles, his sharp edges are rounded. He understands what is eventually considered as ethical and moral.
A society where the individual participants internally corrected is what eventually religion in a nutshell aims at. The religious ends are achieved without religious means. Such constituent individuals tends to overlook the dogmatic aspects of his own religion, to understand that religion is just one means to attain spirituality. Listen to some new age music, one attains the similar level of spirituality.
