Boy, that was something.
Peter wanted me to watch this show. I did. I've a lot of thoughts. And I'm going to start with what I disagree with in this show. Understand I do not do this to show disrespect. On the contrary! This is a good show worthy of your time. But I need to get the bile out of the way. So bear with me please.
This is the most accurate and cutting take on modern Catholicism and Orthodoxy I've ever seen. If you are a believer in either Church you owe it to yourself to watch it. Period. It's not a question. Flanagan is an Ex-Catholic, who has measured and reasonable critiques of both Churches.
Yes, oh smug and self-satisfied Orthodox, especially you.
We'll get there.
But first, my critiques. Flanagan makes two points I think need to be broken, and hard. I think them a smudge on what is an otherwise pristine production. Flanagan's thoughts on why religion exists are catastrophically wrong, and his ending statement on pantheism is a bandaid on the gaping wound which is theodicy.
Now, to the best of my knowledge, Flanagan is an atheist. And I will respond like he is. And, like most atheists, Flanagan posits that religion was developed for two reasons: the fear of death and early mankind being stupid. These aren't new claims, of course, and are just as tired and trite here as the first time I heard them. Religion was not invented due to a fear of death and needing to explain it. We think of Egypt and its detailed murals of the afterlife for its Pharaohs... and then forget Judaism didn't really have an afterlife. And that the Greek's underworld was a sad and dismal place for most, except the favorites of the gods. Norse mythology certainly doesn't have great options. I could probably go on.
But I won't.
Here's how religion came about. I think.
Go into the woods. Or on the prairie. Mountains. Somewhere isolated from our society. Leave your phone behind.
Quiet, isn't it? It's a different kind of quiet than being in a city. Cities have always felt dead to me. All that concrete, you just get used to things around you not being alive.
Not out here, though. Everything is alive. Stay out there for about an hour or three. However long you can. And listen. Soothing, isn't it? As you walk through the place you're in you'll find places quieter than others, where it almost feels.. well.. personal! There's an awareness you can find there. It's not an awareness like yours, of course, but if you sit in it and actually listen, jettison your expectations and just... exist... you can be aware something is there.
Now imagine if you couldn't get away from it. Imagine you didn't have that phone. Or anything else in your modern life. We're not aware of it, but electricity actually does make noise. It pulses all around us and blocks out everything else. But if you could hear that silence, all the time, and didn't really travel all that far, you'd get used to that presence, in that place. You'd probably go there just to feel like you're not alone.
And then one day the thoughts in your head aren't yours. It's Something Else. And, after some initial shock, you might find yourself talking to it. It doesn't speak in a way you'd normally recognize but it is communicating. Turns out you have to have an open mind to the idea that not all consciousness works like yours. You have to accept real diversity.
No, the basis of religion is wonder and joy, as Carlyle says. And it is a wonder and joy that is now alien to us, living in the wreckage of the world wars. Men were different before World War I, that is a fact of history. Only a time as disllusioned and stupid as our could say something so ridiculous. So I don't fault Flanagan. I think that's a far more accurate take. Pre-moderns weren't cowards like us. Death was so present they didn't notice it the same way we do now. To even bring death into the center of the picture is so laughably modern that it almost doesn't deserve a response, except that it's a central idea in this show. So yes, it's wrong, and can prove it by picking up any pre-modern story and forcing yourself not to sneer. It's a titanic effort. But it's worth it.
Flanagan, through the words of Riley, who is really the hero of this show, posits that man likened stars to campfires, and that they had to be incredible because they were in the sky. Basically, since man had limited ways to figure out the world he anthromorphized everything. It is with reason, with science, that the world needs to be examined. Standard new atheist stuff, right out of that modern playbook of foolishness, The Golden Bough. The problem isn't just that this is inaccurate to every single actual shred of evidence we have of ancients, it's that science can only give is information about the material world. You cannot ask what the best way to raise a family is, whether or not morality need exist, or even why we exist. Those aren't scientific questions. Science has its limits, being a method for getting information about the material world. Morals aren't material. Neither is joy. You can't figure those out with science. You can collect material data on them, sure, but that doesn't make thing you're talking about material in itself.
The other thing that Flanagan does that I disagree with is he makes an open case for pantheism as a solution to the problem of evil. The self is just a dream of the cosmos. This sounds familiar.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God! He sits in the center of the cosmos, where many profane beings play on their discordant flutes to make sure he keeps dreaming. See, we are his dreams. If he wakes up we wink out. He is all. I'm not sure he even counts as distinct from us. And what a horrifying dream it is, isn't it?? Death and disease and terror and despair and people singing insipid Marty Haugen songs at Catholic mass and dictators and the World Wars and all the petty personal evils I commit involuntarily and paperwork and-
Have I made my point? If we are God we deserve what we get. The child sleeping on my chest as I write this, her energy comes from someplace evil and profane and I owe it to the world to snuff it out, so that way the dream doesn't turn into a nightmare again.
No?
Too dark?
I didn't ask if it was too dark. If you're going to follow the logic follow the fucking logic, all the way to the end. If the abyss blinks you may as well smile and wave and hold its gaze, cause I got news: you came out of it and to it you will return.
No, painted pantheism doesn't solve the problem of evil.
And Flanagan saying it does is the true horror of the show.
Next week let's be more positive. Flanagan gets so much right. And I can't wait to talk about it. So much good can come out of this show, and I can't wait to share it with you.
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