Gospel & Universe 🧩 Introduction

Layout

Form & Tangent - Two Parts - Other Lines

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Form & Tangent

Gospel & Universe is an exploration of agnosticism, a philosophy which emphasizes the state of doubt between theism and atheism. In general I go from early aspects of agnosticism, such as Greek critical thinking and the challenges of astronomy, to latter periods, such as the Enlightenment, the 19th Century, and Modern existentialism.

The bulk of Gospel & Universe is written in essay form, although I quite often shift into fiction, poetry, and autobiography. For instance, in this introductory chapter I explain core beliefs and major influences, and end with “Lucia,” a short story about a young Italian who struggles with strange otherworldly visions.

Four chapters are largely fictional or autobiographical: in 🇫🇷 The Priest’s Dilemma a Parisian priest struggles with evolution and philology; in 🍎 The Apple-Merchant of Babylon Moe’s business troubles lead to a novel form of monotheism; in ☠️ Ars Moriendi I deal with the death of my father and brother; and in 🇲🇽 Señor Locke I take a personal look at Locke’s empiricism, memory, abuse, and violence.

Four chapters focus on well-known fiction, poetry, and prose that relate to agnosticism: the proto-agnosticism of Dickens in Bleak House and the agnosticism of Forster in Passage to India (🦖 At the Fog & Wild); the mix of existentialism & mysticism in “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid: Existential & Then Some); belief over doubt in Whitman & Zhuangzi (💫 Believing in the Mystery); and doubt over belief in the early novels of Salman Rushdie (🇮🇳 The Fiction of Doubt).

This veering away from strict logical prose argument is in keeping with my notion that while agnosticism is a philosophical system, it remains, like literature, fundamentally experiential, phenomenological, and existential. At its heart it isn’t as much an isolated abstract system as it is a mode of operating that urges us to think and feel critically, openly, eclectically, and ecumenically.

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Two Parts

While I use history as my overarching structure, my arguments are more about the nature of doubt than about the historical development of doubt. Historical timelines provide background to specific topics, all of which aim to explore the nature of agnosticism.

In Part 1: Philosophy, Science, & Literature I highlight the science & agnosticism of the Victorian Age, yet I often refer to 16th and 17th century astronomers, skeptics, and empiricists, to the Medieval world of Dante and Chaucer, and to the Classical and Ancient worlds of Greece, Rome, and Mesopotamia. I also move forward from 18th and 19th century debates about science and religion to 20th and 21st century challenges involving DNA, neurology, existentialism, media, the Internet, etc.

Part 1 contains a rough chronological order: I explore Greek & Roman forms of doubt in 🏛 Skeptics & Stoics (this section is in progress); 15th-20th century astronomy in 🔭 The Sum of All Space; the rise of science in 🔬 Science & Mystery; 16th to 20th century skepticism & metaphor in ♒️ A River Journey; critical distance from the Greeks to today in ❤️ Three Little Words; 17th and 18th century empiricism, seen through the lens of my personal experience while visiting Guanajuato in the year 2000 (🇲🇽 Señor Locke); science & religion in Pope’s 18th century, Dickens’ Victorian Age, and Forster’s 20th century (🦖 At The Wild & Fog); precarious Modern freedom in 🎲 Almost Existential; and the epic heroine & the existential world in🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid: Existential & Then Some.

Part 2: Currents of Religion also contains a rough chronological order, starting with an overview of religious history in 🌎 Many Tribes). I then explore the influence of Mesopotamian civilization on Judaism & Christianity in ♒️ The Currents of Sumer, changing religious paradigms in ⏯ Systems and ✝️ Saint Francis, a fictional Biblical & Mesopotamian scenario in 🍎 The Apple-Merchant of Babylon, religion vs. science in contemporary France (🇫🇷 The Priest’s Dilemma), mysticism in Whitman’s 19th Century & Classical China (💫 Believing in the Mystery), the battle against dogma in 20th century India (🇮🇳 Rushdie: The Fiction of Doubt), and the age-old puzzle of death in Coda ☠️ Ars Moriendi.

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Other Lines

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 appropriate in an 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 once in a while.

I follow timelines and threads, but beyond these are other grids and other 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’re suspect that the world is full of patterns and schemes, yet no clear and ultimate Scheme. To impose a pattern or gospel on the universe says more about us than it does about the cosmos. This is the meaning behind my title, Gospel & Universe.

“In this image taken on Oct. 30, 2021, an aurora dimly intersected with Earth's airglow as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 264 miles above the Pacific Ocean before crossing over Canada. Image Credit: NASA” (link here).