fom | 
11 10th, 2009| 
If a religion is to save me, I must possess an unproblematic self. If my self is problematic, then which bit of me is to be saved ? All of me, presumably. But how would that work ? I would have to be all that I was, all that I am, and all that I will be, all at once, so that none of my experiencing is denied me. If some of my experiencing was denied me, then I couldn’t be fully saved, but I’m not sure how experiencing everything at once, all the time, would work out in practice. God has it worked out, is the reply. Maybe, but I feel a sense of defeat at the prospect of a comprehensive salvation, like the one outlined above. It just seems like a piece of nonsense, and an unattractive one at that.
Interestingly, none of the religious books speak about salvation in these terms. So if we are to be saved in this way, then none of those already saved have thought to make this clear. This is puzzling. Don’t they know what’s happened to them ? Or perhaps they aren’t really saved, but only think they are. More likely still, we are dealing with imaginings, and nothing else. Not much of a salvation, and not much for the rest of us to hold on to.
Normally, when people say they are ‘saved’, they mean that they have had a positive psychological experience reassuring them at the time when they thought about such matters. If I think about what Jesus or Krishna wants of me, and then have an experience of psychological reassurance, I feel myself to be ‘taken care of’, or ‘saved’, by the God of my choice. I have no other evidence for my conviction: it justifies itself. Intellectual considerations are put aside, or made to be subservient, to the experience of psychological reassurance itself. This experience ‘feels’ profound, and self-justifying, but it doesn’t stand up very well in the cold light of analysis. It starts to look very sentimental and not a little embarrassing in its self-absorption. Is that all I’ve got, when I say that I am ‘saved’ ?
Where is this line of analysis going ? Back to the problematic nature of the self. Which bit of me is worthy of being saved, and how can I be sure that, when all is said and done, that I am truly saved, and not just deluding myself ?