The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Hidey-ho.
Following some inquiries about spirituality and the deeply significant quests of the soul upon which some friends have embarked, I've decided to try and delineate some of my thoughts about the relationship between (from internal to external) spirituality, theology, epistemology, philosophy and psychology. But first, an important codicil: as an existential thinker, I tend to shy away from the concept of any sort of formulaic or structured institution which can provide enlightenment or authentic existence for any number of adherent acolytes. The individual is all, as far as I'm concerned. I'll save the potentially upsetting statements for last, thus keeping such readers as I've garnered for as long as possible, and getting the truly open-minded worked up with tension and anticipation.
First, the list of authors that you may want to read, should any of the thoughts expressed herein merit further inquiry. Chronologically, we'll start with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Diogenes and Polybios to get a schmattering of the Greeks; Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca to represent the Roman contingent; St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas for the early Christians; Hume, Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes for the Enlightenment Era or thereabouts; Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Camus for the Moderns; and Bloom, Fukuyama, and Derrida for the Post-Moderns.
With that auspicious list of thinkers behind me, I have no choice but to move forward in order to make room.
In short, I think that the search for a spiritual existence is cyclical, which is to say that the journey ends where it first began. With the self. People may say that statement leads to a certain egocentricity which some use to characterize Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy. To them I say, "So what?" The intellectual circles which dismiss Rand as being some form of pseudo-Nazi, and hence not worth academic consideration are not making the best use of the resources available to examine their lives and beliefs.
So let's think about the self and the soul. Like the Christian theological concept - the identity of an individual is a trinity. This definition stretches back to the Ancient Greeks, and carried forward toward psychological expression by Freud. The first part is the desiring part - the bit that deals with wants and needs. Freud labelled this element the id, and associated it with base animal behaviour. The second component of the soul is the seat of reason. Once a person understands what he or she wants or needs, the next step is figuring out how to achieve the objective. The corresponding Freudian concept is the ego, which Freud felt to be the central functioning element of a human being within society. Finally, there is the thymos. This has become somewhat of a fashionable term recently, as everyone from holistic yoga gurus to Republican political pundits wield adverbs like "thymotically" to advance their crackpot theories. The thymos is the part of each of us that deals with recognition and esteem. It's the bit that responds to approval, praise, appeals to posterity, etc. as well as criticism, denigration, and ostracism.
So, your id tells you that you're hungry, your reason tells you how to build a ladder to reach the apples on a nearby tree, and your thymos considers how to establish a system for future generations to continue harvesting apples and seeks someone to compliment you on being so clever.
When considering government (read: manipulating people), Hobbes thought that the id was the most important motivator, basically asserting that the fear of death was the big lever that could shift people into line. Locke also thought that the id was the critical point, but he went with the carrot rather than the stick, believing that people's acquisitive nature, greed, and over-reaching desires could be used to create a social contract which would modulate behaviour. But we are concerned with matters of the spirit, and that means we have to shift our attention elsewhere.
The thymos or superego is the kicker. For most, religious belief is a way of keeping that part of the soul happy and sedate. Of particular note are people who seem to express a co-dependence with their deity and seem to require the belief that their god is a loving caring parental figure who intercedes constantly in the minutiae of their lives. In these instances, the thymos is questing for external validation, and has previously been rebuffed (or interpreted a situation as such) by other people. The alternative is psychological projection of that need-gratification, and religion is a fantastic outlet, since it cannot be rationally resolved into a refutable concept.
Alan Moore's graphic novel "The Watchmen" has a fantastic little anecdote wherein a character is examining a Rorschach inkblot. At first, he thinks of it as a lovely sprig of flowers. Then he realizes that he's hiding from the awful truth that what he really associates the blot with is a dead cat he saw once as a child. Then he realizes that even that association is avoiding the true horror - that there is no pattern. There is no meaning, save what people impose upon the random and chaotic image. All of our illusions and delusions serve to shield us from the awful and ugly realization that we are absolutely alone, and there is no guiding principle or foundation for evaluation.
This is where Kierkegaard comes in. He thought that God is silent, and that true faith is expressed through a belief in the absurd. God will never prove he exists, because faith is more valuable when it is rationally unjustifiable. He said that faith is a leap which a believer must make without any reassurances or evidence. The courage to make that leap and believe in the unverifiable is what Kierkegaard thought made the authenticity of the spiritual believer. There might be a God out there or there might be the interminable void of non-existence. We can't know, God won't help us out in making a decision, and we have to make the choice based on the strength of our convictions. Kierkegaard used the example of the Persian prince who disguides himself as a beggar in order to find a wife who would love him for himself, and not his money or position. Kierkegaard said that Christ is the same way - you've gotta take what he offers, though it looks like emptiness and sackcloth in the absurd belief that it represents eternal life.
One step beyond that is Nietzsche. Like Kierkegaard, he saw the abyss not as a source of despair and despondency, but as a testing ground for the soul. Kierkegaard reckoned that the abyss was the source of fear and trembling which tested the mettle of an individual's character in the face of a crisis of faith. Nietzsche saw the void as a tremendous opportunity for the individual to triumph over the universe.
If there is no greater meaning or value to things, events, actions, then there can be no external sources of morality or ethics. Without tablets of stone to dictate what is right and wrong, Nietzsche thought that the truly great person could assume the responsibility of being the creator of his or her own values and codes of conduct. A single person could assume the robes of the Alpha and the Omega and use willpower and intellect to forge an entire belief system, custom-tailored to the needs and aptitudes of that individual. Such an übermensch would rise above the simple categories of good and evil and become an authentic being, complete unto him or herself.
If this is the case, what would motivate such an individual to act magnanimously or in any manner not self-aggrandizing or self-serving? As far as I'm concerned, that's your decision to make, but Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, Adam Smith et al. put forward many compelling reasons why it's to one's advantage to cooperate and behave considerately, using appeals to the id and the faculty of reason.
So, do I believe in God? Answer: I don't think I should have to. Nietzsche's Zarathustra declares, "God is dead and we have killed him," basically saying that moral and ethical maturity express themselves in the independence from external impositions of morality, and the development of the ability to do what is perceived as right both for its own sake and in the interests of the individual. In short, is it not better to be a good person of one's own nature than to be a good person because one is told/coaxed/forced/bribed to be that way?
OK, those of you still with me after my iconoclastic ramblings, sit really close. Particularly you. You know who you are. This is the good bit.
You are special. You are unique. There has never been anyone like you before in the history of humanity, and there will never be another you. Every cell in your body sings a song singularly perfect and true, and the countless casual miracles that make you laugh and cry and learn and dream are irreplaceable and inimitable. Gods change aspects and religions and mean a myriad many things to the multitudes, but you are one. Indivisible. Individual. Incredible. You are more valuable and significant than God could ever be. Every resolution you make and every promise you keep serves to make you more precious. Believing in yourself is far, far more important than believing in a God. Do I believe in God? I prefer to believe in you.
Now that I've finished saying that, I'm going to sign off and think some superficial thoughts about how much I despise Chelsea FC, and then go back to my theory of the unification of science and aesthetics. Or the application of topology to describe an accretion torus around the Chandrasekhar limit and the rotational energy used to emit Hawking radiation around black holes. Cheerio.