Honest Doubt Part 17 - Saving Doubt

This program looked at James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene and how doubt can help an institution survive through change. He contrasts doubt and change with repetition and changelessness, and how the latter is basically a form of hell.

The program seemed to come close to suggesting that change was in itself something good, rather than something that was sometimes necessary. The primary model we have for change is evolution - and related to that capitalism, which seems to me a form of evolution. Here we see change through whatever wins - I think Dawkins identifies the conditions of evolution as replication of a body, the possibility of change within that replication, and the battle for survival within those replicated bodies. Here "doubt" operates as the possibility of change, and is clearly therefore necessary for this form of change to occur, but it doesn't mean it will always be a change for the better.

We identified earlier that it is the common condition for religion to change and diversify, but how do we identify if it is a change for the better?

In some layers of the Bible - in the Old Testament - there is the idea that Yahweh exists as one God among many Gods. "You shall have no other Gods before me" says the first of the ten commandments, implying that there are many Gods and Yahweh should be the one chosen for worship. This is actually consistent with a polytheistic culture - although people acknowledged many Gods existed, they would only actually worship or follow a few of them. In this commandment Yahweh is saying that he should be the God that is followed, and if more than one are followed, he should be given the greatest respect - no one should come before him.

It was only in other layers of the Bible - such as in Isaiah - that we get the idea that God is the only God that actually exists and there "is no other". It seems healthier to acknowledge that there are many Gods and that indeed we may follow more than one God, but - perhaps if we are persuaded - Yahweh is the best one to follow. If we are not persuaded of this - as in a marketplace, or through the mechanism of evolution - we choose another, better, God or Goddess.

This doesn't mean change is better than stability - if we are unhappy with our God then we should change - but if we are in a good place and happy with where we are spiritually, then why go seeking something else?