Projections of Reality

We as human beings are professionals when it comes to projecting. From projecting election results to projecting our noses into other people’s business- it just comes naturally. In fact, we do it everyday. We define our reality by projecting what we want or need to be true onto existence. No matter how much we claim to be objective about our interpretation of what is real, we just can’t seem to escape subjectivity. We want something to be true, so we say it’s true and then find reasons that make it true, projecting our morals and measurements onto nature. This is true of religion, of social standards, and even what we consider to be the most fundamental laws of reality- being, identity, causality, and time. We can’t or don’t want to understand the world in any other way. This of course does not mean that all of our projections are false, but it certainly calls into question the soundness of our beliefs. So how, when so much of our truth is faith-based, can we claim that one way of looking at the world is better than another? It’s time that we start being more honest with ourselves and accepting that we are addicted to projecting. Hello, my name is draco and I am a bona fide projectionalist.

Meet The Dragon

As a missionary, I was pretty much as “flecha” as they come. That’s Spanish for “arrow” –it means that you’re really a stick-to-the-books, no nonsense, sometimes-bordering-on-overbearing kind of a missionary. I was so sure of my testimony and what I taught, and sure that people needed to know what I knew.

In the mission you hear questions like, “Why does it matter what church I go to? All of them teach you to be good...” or “Why should I go to your church? God already led me to a different one.” These questions come up all the time and you eventually find out the best ways to answer them; “Well Christ only organized one church when He was here, so there should only be one true church today…” or “God always conducts the church through a prophet…” and a number of other responses which help people understand our claim of absolute truth. Sometimes investigators or hecklers present more challenging questions and doubts, but truth be told none of them were faith-shaking or scary for me. I was confident in my testimony and knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel and in my ability to defend our doctrines.

But now that I’m back at school and studying philosophy, I regularly have to deal with questions that can be pretty frightening if you really think about them. I feel like most people in my classes have blinders on; they either shrug away the questions with a quick answer or insist that asking such questions is a waste of time or dangerous because they lead people into apostasy. Orwell was right: Ignorance is Bliss (sorry- that was a little bit cynical). If I want to keep and fortify my testimony, I have to find answers to these questions because they are sources of doubt; I see no element of faith in dismissal. Isn’t the most repeated message in the scriptures “seek and ye shall find?” So by now you’re probably wondering of what kind of wild questions I could possibly be thinking. Well they’re not simple questions, so I’ll throw out just one for now. If you’ve ever read Plato, Aristotle, or a number of other philosophers, then you’ve probably seen the dialogue format of presenting an argument. I think I’ll try that here so you can see that this is a real battle that goes on within me. Let me introduce you to the Dragon:

The Dragon: “If most religions help people to be better and to feel closer to God, does it matter what faith a person follows?”
Draco: “He should seek out and follow the religion that teaches only true doctrines. This is the best religion.”
The Dragon: “How can he know that the doctrines of any given religion are true?”
Draco: “He must rely on spiritual experiences.”
The Dragon: “You mean miracles?”
Draco: “Not in the usual sense of the word. I mean that he must pray and receive an answer from God as a feeling or reassurance.”
The Dragon: “I see. So “God,” or perhaps more appropriately “some divine source,” since not all religions believe in your idea of “God,” should tell me what religion I should follow.
Draco: “Precisely”
The Dragon: “And He will tell me that I should follow what you call the best religion, or that religion that teaches only true ideas.”
Draco: “Yes.”
The Dragon: “And does He always give the same answer?”
Draco: “He is one God and thus has only one truth- so yes, He will always guide people to the best religion.”
The Dragon: “But there are millions of Christians belonging to sects that claim opposing truths. And there are millions of people belonging to other religions- Buddhists, Muslims and Jews. All of these millions of people profess and are sure that they have had equally confirming spiritual experiences that justify their faith over other beliefs. So if millions- many more millions than those belonging to your church- assert that they know that their religion is the best religion, how can we be sure that your spiritual experiences are more valid and truth proving? Perhaps there are just as many millions of people who have had spiritual experiences specifically guiding them away from your church as those who have been led inside.”
Draco: “Then their experiences were false or inspired of evil sources, because this church is the only one that contains a fullness of truth.
The Dragon: “How do you know? Perhaps it is you who have had false or evilly inspired experiences.”
Draco: “But I know that what I believe is true!”
The Dragon: “Prove it.”

Man, that Dragon is tricky! I’m sorry to say you’ll probably be hearing more from him in the future. This argument is inspired by Hume and William James, just fyi- not that you probably care. I just didn’t want to take credit for someone else’s idea.