Overview

Sections - Tangents

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Sections

The Doouble Refuge begins with two wide-ranging introductory chapters, 🍏 Starting Points and 🧩 Complexities. In these two chapters I range from Khayyam to Shakespeare, from Heraclitus to Camus, from prose to poetry, from critical analysis to fiction & autobiography — yet always with the aim of introducing 🔺 the many-sided beast of agnosticism, 🔺 the ways that agnosticism is compatible, though distinct from, both atheism and theism, and 🔺 the way that agnosticism and theism can co-operate and even reinforce each other. In general, 🍏 Starting Points is more introductory, while 🧩 Complexities goes into more involved questions of zero-sum philosophy, paradox, infinity, negative capability, etc.

After these two introductory chapters comes the two main sections, Pathways to Doubt (8 chapters) and Currents of Religion (9 chapters). Pathways to Doubt emphasizes the effect of science on religion, especially how astronomy and natural science eroded Medieval certainties, and led to the formulation of agnosticism in the late 19th century. Currents of Religion emphasizes the diverse history of religion as well as aspects of mysticism that survive the collapse of certainty. I’ll argue that this mysticism, with its open borders and lack of doctrine, can act as a conduit between agnosticism and theism.

Throughout The Double Refuge I use historical timelines, yet my arguments are more about the nature of doubt and belief than about historical development. My range is quite wide and varied — from early expressions of doubt and belief in Mesopotamia, India, China, and Classical Europe to the empiricism and agnosticism of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the liberalism and existentialism of the 20th century. I highlight literature that’s especially relevant to the relation of agnosticism to belief — for instance, the proto-agnosticism of Dickens’ Christianity in Bleak House and the Modern agnosticism and mysticism of Forster in A Passage to India (🦖 At the Wild & Fog).

The bulk of The Double Refuge is written in essay form, although I often shift into fiction and autobiography. In 🇫🇷 The Priest’s Dilemma a Parisian priest struggles with evolution and philology. In 🍎 The Apple-Merchant of Babylon the business troubles of Moses lead him to a novel form of monotheism. In ☠️ Ars Moriendi I look at how the death of my father and brother affected my thoughts about the afterlife. In 🇲🇽 Señor Locke I look at how Locke’s theory about sense impressions works in regard to traumatic experiences — getting robbed at knifepoint in Mexico City and being held by criminals in Istanbul. This veering away from exposition and argument is in keeping with my notion that while agnosticism and theism have abstract philosophical dimensions, they are based in experience. This is especially true for agnosticism: at its heart it isn’t as much a system or doctrine as it is an open mode of operating and being. It urges us to think and feel critically, openly, eclectically, and ecumenically.

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The first large section, Pathways to Doubt, follows a rough chronological order. I start by looking at the revolutionary impact of astronomy (🔭 The Sum of All Space) and at the parallel rise of science and skepticism from the 16th to 20th centuries (🔬 Science & Mystery & ♒️ A River Journey). I then look at the skeptical and empirical strains in agnosticism, from the Greeks to the 19th century (❤️ Three Little Words), after which I look at 17th and 18th century empiricism in light of my personal experience while visiting Guanajuato in the year 2000 (🇲🇽 Señor Locke). I then look at the shift from pre- to post- Darwinian thinking in Dickens’ England (🦖 At the Wild & Fog), at the relation between agnosticism and theism in the 20th century French existentialists Sartre and Camus (🎲 Almost Existential), and at a mystical version of the contemporary existential heroine in the song, “A Lighter Shade of Pale” (🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid).

Currents of Religion also follows a rough chronological order, starting with an overview of religious history (🌎 Many Tribes). I then look at the influence of Mesopotamian civilization on Judaism & Christianity (♒️ Currents of Sumer), at changing religious paradigms (⏯ Systems & ✝️ St. Francis), at a fictional Biblical & Mesopotamian scenario (🍎 The Apple-Merchant of Babylon), at religion vs. science in contemporary France (🇫🇷 The Priest’s Dilemma), at mysticism in Classical China & Whitman’s 19th Century Transcendentalism (💫 Mystery), at the battle against dogma in the Indian subcontinent in the 20th century (🇮🇳 Fiction), and at the age-old puzzle of death (☠️ Ars Moriendi).

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Tangents

While chapters have themes and threads, I have a laissez-faire attitude in the pages themselves, taking tangents wherever I think they might yield some insight. A certain amount of latitude seems especially appropriate in the exploration of agnosticism, which seems to me a sliding, floating endeavour. It may be that if you’re willing to explore anything, you’re likely to shift your bearings quite often, and at times quite abruptly.

I follow timelines and threads, but beyond these there are other trajectories and fabrics. The lines we type onto the page or Internet stretch so far from us that eventually they become other, our scheme intersecting with other schemes, until we suspect that the universe is full of patterns and schemes. To impose a pattern or gospel on the universe says more about us than it does about the cosmos.

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Next: 🍏 Core Beliefs

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