One of Tennyson’s prettiest lines are uttered by a sorceress — Vivien — as she attempts to gain the confidence of Merlin and put him under a spell so that he might sleep forever in an enchanted wood, “lost to life and use and name and fame”. When he disbelieves her she lures him on with this song. Betrayal comes in the guise of an appeal to belief.
“In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
“It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
“The little rift within the lover’s lute
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all.
“It is not worth the keeping: let it go:
But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no.
And trust me not at all or all in all.”
Faith, at least for those familiar with the story of Eden, is both the road to salvation and the path to perdition; and until recently regarded as a very potent quantity indeed. And maybe still. Caspar Melville of the New Humanist, intrigued by a recent spate of books which argue that atheism, not deism, is in decline, interviewed John Micklethwait, one of two authors of God is Back, to ask him why. Together with the other author, Adrian Wooldridge, another Oxford graduate also on the staff of the Economist, they explained that the answer must begin from the observation that, contrary to all 19th and 20th Western expectations, religion is booming, not declining; the question they have attempted to answer is why. Melville wrote:
But this “God book” is of a rather different order. Unlike its rivals it contains a wealth of fact and subtle argument, empirical evidence and expert witness. As we might expect from The Economist its perspective is global – it sweeps comfortably from the corridors of the Pentagon to a front room church in Shanghai, and speaks authoritatively about events in Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt. Altogether it lays down a very serious challenge to any of us who had waved God a not-so-fond farewell.
But that was not the worst, Micklethwait went on to explain. There were empirical hints that faith was not only not incompatible with modernity, but part of it.
“Well, I’m not sure we are the first people to say it … the difference is that as reporters we have gone out into the world and seen the evidence. We have seen that religion is not going away, that it is in many ways a partner with modernity and not in conflict with it. Many people in Europe, ourselves included, missed the signs that religion was coming back. It took 9/11 for us to take notice, but as a phenomenon it started well before. Even as a Catholic I grew up in an environment which completely accepted the notion that modernity and religion are incompatible – we all thought that if religion did survive it would be a kind of subtle Anglicanism, some version of a doubting Graham Greeneish religion. The evidence shows we were wrong.”
“Take the CIA looking at the Shah of Iran, just before the revolution. Someone wrote a report saying that religion was an important factor in what might happen, and someone else scribbled a dismissive note on it that it was ‘mere sociology’. Or when Hezbollah first appeared in Lebanon and people were trying to fit them into the old left-right spectrum – I mean this was a group calling itself ‘the party of God’. When the Americans were preparing to invade Iraq it was clear that no one in the State Department knew anything about the differences between Shia and Sunni – they just didn’t think it mattered. In Europe there was this same pattern. Immigrants from all over the world moved to the UK and set up organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain, and the secular British state kept trying to reinterpret them as national or ethnic groups – they didn’t understand the significance of religious identity at all. History does not record the dwindling importance of religion. Instead it’s a story of people trying to push the issue aside – until September 11.”
There was also the compelling evidence of the emergence of new forms of Christianity in China and Nigeria, the growth of Islam across the Arab world and in Asia, and the proliferation of different strands of belief in the USA. And all of this was happening while modernisation proceeded apace.
As might be expected of writers at the Economist, Micklethwait and Wooldridge turned to business models to explain both the resurgence and shape of the new religious age. Because faith fills an established human need for the transcendent and a search for meaning, as people escaped from the menial drudgery and oppression of the past, it was only natural for them to turn a large part of their energies to religious-like activities. If Augustine’s opening to his Confessions “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord” is a true estimate of human nature, then from the market point of view, Voltaire’s observation that “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” becomes a business opportunity. And one of the challenges that faced status quo all over the world was how to deal with it. The best model, Micklethwait, argued, was America’s, which created a dynamic marketplace of ideas and beliefs.
European secularists assume that the church is on the side of the ancien régime… but in America the evangelical movement advanced alongside democracy and liberal enlightened values. … in Eastern Europe religion has served as a battering ram for opening up the post-communist world because it serves as a focus for discontent. In Poland or Latin America even the Catholic Church has been a focus for dissent.
Melville confessed himself frankly shocked by these assertions and countered “this might well be true of America. But when, I asked, might we expect to see a free market of religions in Saudi Arabia?” To which Micklethwait argued that Islam was losing ground to Christianity when measured on a global basis simply because it lacked the ability to participate in “free market” of faiths.
Micklethwait happily conceded that Islam has a good deal further to travel but pointed out that it is losing significant ground to Christianity in the new markets of Asia and Latin America. “This is not what we expected given how well Islam did compared with Christianity in the 20th century in terms of expansion, and given that it was the arrival of Jihadi violence that alerted the world to the return of religion. Islam’s problems with plurality and individual conscience will drag it back. It has to go through a process – a Reformation or Renaissance or Enlightenment – which will be painful.
However that may be, the central subject of discussion — the decline of atheism in the world — which flashed like a meteor through the interview, is the unacknowledged elephant in the intellectual living room of Western academic and intellectual circles. The “of course God is dead” is only self-evident if it is evident. In my own view, man’s search for meaning, or his denial of it, are so deeply embedded in human nature that it seems fantastic in retrospect that sociologists would assume that populations, given a little public housing, a small welfare check and a tot of rum, would stop asking the ultimate questions. It seems far more likely that in the long run, they would return to the eternal questions with a vengeance. Whether or not one agrees with Micklethwait, the idea that atheism is the wave of the future must answer the empirical question of why God may now be a global growth industry.
The authors of God is Back understood that ideas and creeds could be both dangerous and beneficial. That even beneath the eaves of Broceliande freedom could not be wholly banished. And Vivien in deceiving Merlin, understood that faith could not wholly look out to the other; it had to turn in upon itself, at least if it were to betray. Love and faith were a bridge and not a road, and with these words beckoned Merlin to his sleep, yet from which one day he will return.
”My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine,
For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were thine,
And shame, could shame be thine, that shame were mine.
So trust me not at all or all in all.”
Men in the face of death.
Part 1: Prepare Yourselves
Part 2: “Lo, there do I see my Father!”
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One minor quibble: theism and religion are not necessarily the same thing. Religion needs theism (or some metaphysical/metaphysicalized entity functioning as the deity, like “there is no god but the tri-une Marx-Engels-Lenin”), but theism does not need religion.
I don’t know how any American over the age of puberty in 1979 could forget the images of tens of thousands of the faithful Persian Shi’a shuffling through the boulevards of Tehran, chanting and bleeding, chanting and making fresh cuts in their foreheads with 10-inch kitchen knives, and whipping their own backs and shoulders with lengths of chain.
It was the annual festival “Ashura”- The Tenth Day of Muharram, honoring the Martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, Grandson of the Prophet Muhammed.
This was carried along with the interviews with Gobtzadeh and Bani Sadr by Ted Koppel, and wide-eyed commentary by Dan Rather, for over a year EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, people!!!!
Well, I suppose you could have missed this if you were busy stuffing cocaine up your nose as a highly-paid Hollywood CREATIVE person…
BUT NO!!!!!
It’s been within living memory that we found ourselves fighting with Japanese soldiers who’d been raised from birth to regard their emperor as a living God. From our earliest encounters on the battlefield, their end-game tactic in defeat was a suicidal Banzai charge. Capture, or even to many just surviving, was dishonor for one’s family, while dying in battle for the Emperor was glorious.
Their Shinto beliefs held that spirits of those who died honorably in battle gather at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
And of course we have 14 centuries of Islamic Jihad, which resulted in the Muslim colonization of the Iberian peninsula within a century after the death of the Prophet, and more or less continuous military assault on various parts of Europe TO THE PRESENT DAY.
Oh, yeah, and how about the many videotapes of thieves, homosexuals, political dissidents, followers of Bahu’allah, and insufficiently modest women, all condemned by the MULLAHS of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Republic, hanging from industrial cranes as a warning to the others? What about the videos of women wrapped in white linen and buried up to the waist being stoned to death for adultery by crowds of Muslim men? How about the stinking coward Muslim fanatics in black hoods, sawing the neck of bound and helpless Nick Berg, while shouting “Allahu Akbar!”
What part of “religious fanaticism” are those people in the Foreign Service not grasping?
How – except by utter yammering cousins-marrying-cousins incompetence – could the U.S. Department of State offer a job to anyone too thick to understand that Religious faith has been and continues to be a crucial factor in international conflict AND cooperation?
The film industry is producing so many spoof fairy tales that I wonder: Do children ever get to see un-spoofed fairy tales these days? I came across a spoof lurking amongst the DVDs at the local library a few weeks back and gave it a spin. It was called Hogfather and seemed like an attempt to retell Christmas for atheists, pagans and, of course, children (The Holiday Hogswatch involves the sun, rather than The Son).
Here is the synopsis from IMDB:
In the city of Ankh Morpork, most important city on the Discworld…it is Hogswatch – a midwinter festival of celebration and gift-giving which might remind you of quite another holiday on another world entirely. The Hogfather – a jolly fat man, dressed in red – is distributing presents from his flying sleigh and all the children wait to hear trotter-beats on the roof. But this Hogswatch, they may have to wait quite a while… Someone, or something, wants the Hogfather out of the way. And if you’re an anthropomorphic personification, you can’t be helped by humans – but perhaps a, shall we say ‘colleague’, could assist. And so Death (voiced by Ian Richardson), his manservant Albert (Sir David Jason) and his granddaughter (don’t ask) Susan (Michelle Dockery) set out to save the day, er, night. But while they’re doing that, the redoubtable Mr Teatime (Mark Warren) of the Guild of Assassins and his team…set in motion a devious plan which means much, much more than just the end of Hogswatch…
After they save Hogfather, Death tells his granddaughter, Susan, that since they don’t believe in God, and they can’t believe in nothing, than it is very important that they should believe in anything. At least that is how I interpreted what Death said in his summing up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4oxrTSRkC0&feature=related
If this is the best atheist can do, no wonder religion is making a comeback. I almost returned to the Church myself after watching it.
I yearn to believe, but remain agnostic. As with so many others, however, 9/11 was an epiphany for me. The world was not as I’d imagined. It would not go on messily but merrily in a roughly upward trajectory from now on. We had not transcended anything much, despite the illusion that the world was “progressing” in a way that I could embrace.
I haven’t read this book, but the authors appear to make the same mistakes in analysing Islam that nearly everyone in the West does. For Islam’s “reformation” is before us, and it is a terrible thing. And “religions” simply can’t be commoditized, as the authors appear to attempt, into something resembling salami, as if they’re all roughly equivalent.
My thesis about the resurgence of Islam is quote simple. Islam’s reinvigorated Jihad is simply a manifestaion of the inflow of trillions of unearned dollars into Muslim coffers for nearly a century. Without that, the insanity of Islam would represent nothing to us. But because of that staggering unearned wealth, Muslims now threaten the future of all humanity.
Islam is like a death star, or better yet, a black hole. Tv terrifying celestial phenomena collapse into themselves and suck up all light, matter, and vitality. But when matter comes in proximity to the beast, when there is something to consume, the rapine beast feeds in a frenzy of annihilation. Islam is similar in that it ultimately requires external wealth and victims to sustain and grow its mass. In return it leaves devastated damaged humanity, and gives off no light, and nothing of value. Without “infidels” to feed on and destroy, Islam festers within itself and dwindles down to the dark singularlity we saw when the Ottoman Turks fell in rotten turpitude. It’s how Islam began its bloody rise, feeding in a rampage first on the ME, then on Persia and Africa, India, Spain, and Byzantium. Today, without the accident of oil and the commensurate influx of trillions, Islam would have moldered away until, perhaps, one day it would have truly died.
But to our grave detriment, we’ve fed the vile beast on a gargantuan feast of money, and more recently we’ve allowed millions of its infected acolytes into our dominions. We permit these Muslims to live amongst us waging their eternal Jihad without comprehending their stated intent. They tell us every day what they intend. They show us every day too. But still we disbelieve.
We have lost our minds. Have we no eyes?!?
Islam’s reformation is unfolding plainly before our eyes. The black hole of this accursed disease is spreading everywhere, even in our own body but we are wilfully blind to see it. Our disbelief blinds us there as well. In that I’m not agnostic.
In the deep dark, in the vastness of the plain
The fires gleamed, winking clear and bright
In the wild field where a lion’s cubs had lain
A family band was settled for the night
What are those lights there, a tiny voice was heard
Why they are sparks, son, from fires keeping warm
Why do they fly, like a tiny little bird
They fly to keep you well and safe from harm
Where do they go, for I see them climb the sky
Do they join the stars that I see far above
They do, for the sparks are the life that will not die
As we are the fire, and the stars that shine their love
Why are stars love, do they love us even though
We are here far away, where they surely cannot see
The stars are the eyes, son, of a God we cannot know
And so He sees the world and you and me
He sees us and loves us, and guides us in our ways
He gives us his love and asks nothing in return
He asks not for wealth nor for fame or hollow praise
He asks only that our fires burn
I see, said the child, both the fire and the sky
Are gifts to us from God, but God is where
He lives in our hearts, son, and will ‘til day we die
We only need to know that He is there
The mustard seed in global strategy
http://eepurl.com/bv-f
Spengler – Mar 26, 2008
. . . Osama bin Laden recently accused Benedict of plotting a new crusade against Islam, and instead finds something far more threatening: faith the size of a mustard seed that can move mountains. Before Benedict’s election, I summarized his position as “I have a mustard seed and I’m not afraid to use it.” Now the mustard seed has earned pride of place in global affairs.
See also:
Are the Arabs already extinct?
http://eepurl.com/bv-G
Spengler – Mar 26, 2008
. . . Life is not possible without meaning, and meaning does not exist outside of culture, especially for a people defined not by political circumstances or territory but by language, namely the Arabs. In his essay “Poetry and Apoetical Culture”, Adonis makes the remarkable claim that the nature of Koranic revelation destroys the possibility of poetry, and with it the possibility of life. Before Islam, the Arabic language was rooted in poetry; after the advent of Islam, poetic language became impossible.
——
The modern intellectual is separated from the world of faith and God by his veil of vanity. He dishes snark and ridicule and above all he is cool.
Abraham Joshua Heschel has always been my favorite lantern in the darkness of the modern desire to reject God and religion:
“How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it! How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not to sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment, embarrassment not only precedes religious commitment, it is the touchstone of religious existence … What the world needs is a sense of embarrassment. Modern man has the power and the wealth to overcome poverty and disease, but we are guilty of misunderstanding the meaning of existence”.
Walt, you have outdone yourself this time.
You have just jolted me like nobody has since I read A. E. Housman and his “Epitah On An Army Of Mercenaries”.
The concept of a transcendent God and the resultant agape has just been delineated in
a few lines of verse, my friends. We should all feel ourselves privileged.
Thanks, Walt. If I have a son he’s going to hear that one.
Thanks Walt, for that.
It has always taken as much faith for one to believe in no god as believe in God. Neither proposition yields to scientific inquiry. But scientific inquiry has been the driver–this in turn was driven by the greek philosopy which states that “man is the measure of all things.” Of course, if you could measure God then he is no God at all.
the greeks were lost to the west until ferdinand and isabella took the libraries of cadiz and the libraries of a few other moorish cities in spain in the late 1400′s. Bacon and Decartes systematized scientific inquiry in the late 1500′s-early 1600′s. In They created a tree of knowledge which inverted the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden. The tree of knowledge in the garden made God the measure of all things.
The natural outworking of any inquiry that presumed that man is the measure of allthings — was that 100 years later Newton and the continental ” higher criticism” school debunked the deity of Jesus and 100 years later in the 19th century–God was thrown out altogether by the like of Schopenhauer, Nietzche & Marx. Curiously they didn’t prove that God doesn’t exist. They merely presumed that God doesn’t exist and went on from there. Of course, its tough to live without any invisible means of support. That was Nietche’s boast.
100 years later you could read bumper stickers on cars that read “God is dead” –Nietzche.
“Nietzche is dead” — God.
In my own view, man’s search for meaning, or his denial of it, are so deeply embedded in human nature that it seems fantastic in retrospect that sociologists would assume that populations, given a little public housing, a small welfare check and a tot of rum, would stop asking the ultimate questions.
It’s my view too that the assumption is fantastic – way more fantastic than any belief in God. According to secular humanists, you’re born, you die, and in between you try to be a good person. It is utterly fantastic to expect this to be received by all as in any way satisfactory.
My favorite satirical summation of the atheist’s stance is from J.F. Stephen’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: “The human race is an enormous agglomeration of bubbles which are continually bursting and ceasing to be. No one made it or knows anything worth knowing about it. Love it dearly, oh ye bubbles.”
Because that is more or less what atheists offer. Wholly inadequate and senseless, but there it is.
“Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief” by Andrew Newberg, M.D., Eugene D’Aquili, M.D., Ph.D., and Vince Rause, a work that might be termed neurotheology, bridges ‘faith and reason, mysticism and empirical data’, as the blurb on the back cover says. Doesn’t put faith or spiritual experiences down, just tries to explain it in biological terms.
To paraphrase William James–we all long for the transcendent, and many of us drink or drug ourselves to death trying to get there.
To sea 7: soon as I get some sleep, I will read your links and recommendations.
If, as you say, the Quran destroys poetry then it has to qualify as the Devil’s Own Work.
So may ALL its verses are Satanic ones????????
Morton – Not quite the same as a black hole. There is a chance that, before the end of technological civilisation (and therefore eventually the extinction of humanity) under a global Caliphate, the darkness will be driven away by the Light. This time, the light of a thousand suns:
“If the light of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, it would be as the coming of the Mighty One. I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
For the Enemy, Death will come for them all on wings of fire. “And the smoke of their burning will rise unto heaven”.
Regarding the Hogfather; I think the point has been missed. He is no more and no less a myth than Santa Claus, at least the red suit and big boots version. And there is quite a lot of evidence that Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ in the first place – at least in terms of the timing of the festival. Christmas is a pagan festival taken over by Christianity. So is Easter; why, if it is not, is the celebration of Easter timed according to the seasons and the phases of the Moon?
Karen Yvonne: Heard from Buddy lately? He seems to have gone AWOL again.
If you care for Science Fiction, one of my favorite authors was the late Gordon W. Dickson. Most famous for his “Childe Cycle”
and its Splinter Cultures> (1) Men of the Mind (Exotics); (2) Men of Faith (Friendlies) and Men of War (Dorsai).
Some good in-depth speculation as to the
essential nature of all three to species survival.
Will check in tomorrow. Gots to get some sleep now.
Peacemaker Be With You
Dave, nope, haven’t heard a thing. He’ll be back when he’s ready, I guess. Hope it’s not too long.
Fletcher, I think you’re right about Christmas but Easter was never originally a pagan festival, despite pagan rites of spring. Easter’s timing is connected to Christ’s resurrection on Passover, 14th of Nissan. The actual day of the resurrection was a Sunday, but the Jews used a lunar calendar. So which day should Easter be each year, Passover day or Sunday? They compromised by making it the first Sunday after the full moon preceding the vernal equinox, which made it always a Sunday but closest to actual Passover day. Is that clear as mud now? Anyway, Easter observance has nothing to do with pagan festivals.
Charles, the so called “Arab Transmission” is pretty much hokum.
1) The main body of the works existed quite strongly in the Eastern Empire throughout the whole Medieval Period, It was the ejection of those scholars following the fall of the Eastern that influenced the spread of classical knowledge in the Late Medieval Period, not an “Arab transmission”.
2) There is now evidence that even in the eary Middle Ages that traveling monks disseminated classical knowledge though the courts of Europe. Recent scholarship has discovered references to preservation of classical literature in Gothic courts at surprisingly early dates (I will Google around for this, as it is a relatively recent finding. I cannot remember links to the studies off hand at the moment).
It is certain that to the extent that there we a rekindling of classical knowledge, that the source of it was not Spain but Constantinople, and it was the Byzantines that “transmitted” it, not the Arabs. The so called “Golden Age of Islam” is largely a myth.
This whole business is beginning to look more and more like a mixture current multicult and earlier anti-chatholic propaganda.
Charles, here is a reference for my first point above:
http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Byzantium-Empire-Shaped-World/dp/0553803816
In truth, the Arabs world had very few of the ancient text whilst the Eatern Empire had all of the text that survived the collapse of Antiquity.
These Arabic translations, BTW, were really the work of western Dhimmis and hardly major currents in Islamic intellectual life. A possible exception here being the Arab commentaries on Galen.
For an earlier reference to the Eastern Empire’s transmission of Ancient Greek knowledge in late Medieval Italy, see this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Qzc8OeuSXFMC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=dissemination+of+greek+text+early+middle+ages&source=bl&ots=iIHf7hToWo&sig=TZoQszCYpXaUmdPHD7YZG-UlSHg&hl=en&ei=ZRkhSoX5LInFtgfutdW6Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3
But again, recent scholarship is questioning the very notion that Ancient knowledge was ever really “lost” completely in the West, or at least pushed back the discovery date my centuries. (I will dig around for an online link to support this assertion.)
Whatever the case, we must not confuse Western Gothic Europe with European Civilization as a whole. “Western Civilization” lies west of the Urals, not west of the Alps.
Walt, I am awestruck. You certainly have been touched by the hand of G_D. May he bless you and yours for all time.
What is it with my comments? If they have an external link they get held up “in moderation” for a very long time.
Is there a way around this? It never happened to me before here at BC.
Karen – That just takes it back a step. It looks as if Passover is also a spring festival; it would be interesting to find out, if it’s known, at what time of the year the Jews escaped Egypt – assuming, that is, that this event ever happened at all in the way set out in the Bible. I suspect that the timing of Passover has nothing to do with that event either.
“I don’t know how any American over the age of puberty in 1979 could forget the images…”
Because our liberal educators and journalists have worked overtime to make us forget. God forbid we should understand our enemies or even know that they exist.
@#21
Following your line of reasoning, what are the Christian summer and autumn rituals?
“I don’t know how any American over the age of puberty in 1979 could forget the images…”
Because our liberal educators and journalists have worked overtime to make us forget. God forbid we should understand our enemies or even know that they exist.
Scrubbed, like the images of people leaping to their deaths from the top floors of the WTC buildings.
Twenty years from now … how many young people will even know about the jumpers, let alone have seen the pictures and video?
How many will recognize that the character of our enemy is so succinctly summed up in the fates of the jumpers — the diabolical torture visited upon them — the choice between jumping or incineration?
#23 FoulHarold – Easy. Pentecost (a little early, and the weakest of the four ideas). And of course for autumn, the Harvest Festival. (a.k.a. Lammas)
Harvest festivals are traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon. This is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox (about Sept. 21).
Christianity has always been very good at co-opting ancient festivals and rituals, to say nothing of some of its ideas, from far more ancient traditions.
One of the strengths of poly-deist belief systems is they train the mind to accept an interplay between human humors, and to only contemplate singularities skeptically.
This empowers the citizen to hold contradictory ideas firmly in one mind better than the monotheistic citizen can. I think it also trains the mind to avoid dialectical encomiums to act, whether the action is to buy, war, vote or send money. This renders the citizen invulnerable to the simplistic A-vs-B formula so prevalent in modern consumer- and political-marketing campaigns.
Poly-theism was the strength of the Greek and Roman belief systems. Using a Chaucer-ian lexicon to describe this, the Greeks essentially assigned a deity to every human humor. The individual, or a society, when described by the equilibrium between these 8-12 “humors” will present a more honest picture of that society or individual than that ascribed to a singly driver or adjective.
To tie this to the modern Catholic Church (and, later, to America’s entrenched, bi-polar political machinery), the Church actively attempts to decentralize its dogma by proliferating Saints. From Francis to Patrick, each one represents a tranche of human notions (or “a humor”) that the church would like its members to heed. In this, the Church is rectifying monotheism’s weakness by attaching multiple “legs” to its tableau. This assures that Christ, the singular, has a firm, redundant and mutually reinforcing foundation.
So, you see, even the Catholic Church understands that a diverse, redundant underpinning is essential to “getting” God. Thus, a call to atomize the singular into the multiple need not be read as blasphemy by Christian thinkers (as has been the reflexive reaction to this thesis in the past).
Perhaps this is what makes Christianity least resemble modern Islam: Rome knows better than to tie its reams of evangelism and the Church’s next thousand years of future to a singular, satirize-able, Mohammed-like entity.
Me? I think the Greeks and Romans had it pretty much right, and that Christianity simply capped their polydeist format with Christ. This worked, I think, because the demand for religious and political unity in Europe outstripped Europeans’ desires for their personal “humors.”
The rest, they say, is history.
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” -Carl Jung
The primary problem with modernity is that it largely limits its search for truth to the empirically verifiable. The unknowns that fall outside of the verifiable are to be ignored or disbelieved, no matter what intuition says. I respect scientific skepticism, but the real truth-seeker applies skepticism to both sides and asks not only “How do we know this is true?”, but also, “How do we know this is not true?”.
Do we need a placebo test to know that parachutes work? If we conducted this test, the empirical results would be obvious, but clearly intuition doesn’t always require empirical confirmation.
We may someday prove that the “hardware of the soul” (our brains) pushes us towards a search for meaning, but would that make the meaning (or more importantly, the Source of meaning) any less meaningful?
Great topic, Wretchard.
Some random thoughts:
We know from history that a pattern has held true for at least three of the world religions:
Judaism has survived all attempts to annihilate it.
Islam grows most speedily by persecution.
Christianity grows most speedily under persecution.
********************************
There are 100 million “underground church” Christians in China. The more the Chicoms try to crack down and eliminate Christianity, the faster it seems to spread. (see above)
A not insigificant number of those 100 million Chinese Christians are convinced that their persecution under the Chicoms is God’s way of preparing them for a massive evangelical outreach to Muslims in the Middle East. Boot camp, as it were, before the deployment.
*******************************
It is estimated that thousands of “reverse missionaries” — immigrant preachers from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe — are now working in the United States, which they see as a fertile mission field.
Excerpt from an article in Flyp (online mag):
“They are themselves the products of missionaries, and they’re often very conscious of that,” said Tony Carnes, president of the Values Research Institute, who has studied churches in New York since 1985.
Carnes’s 2007 survey found 17 percent of all English-speaking New York pastors are foreign-born. “It’s the 19th-century movement coming back,” he said. At the forefront are preachers from Nigeria, Brazil, Ghana and Korea.
Nigeria’s Redeemed Christian Church of God includes over 200 U.S. churches and is currently constructing a complex on more than 500 acres of land in Texas. Brazil’s Universal Kingdom Church of God initially reached out to the Brazilian diaspora and Portuguese-speaking world, but now is seeking multiethnic congregants at churches in the U.S. and Britain.
Worldwide, South Korea ranks as the world’s second most prolific source of missionaries, trailing only the U.S., according to Edith Blumhofer, director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College.
The Bible describes how God moves the lampstand of His Spirit around, so to speak, throughout history. Not only is there no guarantee that Christian fervor and vitality will remain seated in any country or geographical region permanently, but this is contradicted by both history and Scripture.
The conclusion by secular intellectuals in the West that “God is dead” is not only insular as a secular view, it is insular as a Western view as well.
********************************
Given the robustness of religious fervor in so many parts of the world outside of the West (and in certain pockets and in certain proportions in the West itself), yes, you would think it would make sense for Western governments, America in particular, to have a religiously sensitive ear to the ground.
There is, however, an institutional bias. The personnel pipeline of who ends up in our central corridors of power tends to come, if my understanding is correct, from a very narrow nozzle of certain select universities. None of which, I think, you could describe as currently having a religious focus as an institution.
Perhaps instead of recruiting for analysts from Harvard and Stanford, maybe our intel agencies should be scouring places like Wheaton College and Grove City College in addition?
Lammas is almost exclusively a northern European regional phenomenon. I can tell you that is is not observed in my local Catholic church. As for Pentecost, its oldest historical context is with God’s presentation of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Any association with solstice or equinox related rites is spurious at best.
Were some Pagan rituals co-opted by early Christian missionaries? No doubt. A missionary was not sent to make his new people exact copies of those in his native land, nor does the modern citizen try to convert his catechumens to the customs of whatever nationality they hold. They are sent to make Christians, world citizens. So long as native customs and habits are not in opposition to the law of nature or the law of God, they are not to be taken from the people.
The entire year is filled with any number of Christian related observances. But given the flexible and ever changing nature of the Liturgical Calendar, it is a stretch at best to claim that more than just a very small handful of those which are universally practiced can be directly attributed to ancient Pagan festivals.
[...] than that ascribed to a single driver or adjective.
Oops!
This is amusing.
In my work, refrigeration, we get people wanting to get jobs, citing qualifications in ‘digital controls’. They come in thinking they understand and have experience.
The first thing they have to learn, and it is painful, too painful for some, is that they know nothing.
Then they can start learning, and find the appropriate application of the snippets of knowledge they came in with.
We are in an interesting historical situation. All the hard lessons that the west and democracies have learned through blood and sweat have been passed on to a generation through study and learning. That generation has the reins of power, and they think they know so much. Such learning, such experience, such vaunted education.
The hardest lesson that they, and we since we share the same space, is that they know nothing.
They will learn the lessons the same way that previous generations have learned.
Derek
The primary problem with modernity is that it largely limits its search for truth to the empirically verifiable.
Yah, and this is the the central problem with the naturalist worldview as expressed in culture today.
When your starting position is, “Nature is all there is, and all basic truths are truths of nature,” you are objectively assuming an omniscient scope of knowledge just to be able to make that claim.
Logic is a useful discipline in that it allows us to back off from the strictly empirical to where we can at least debate and posit what is rationally possible or, to put it another way, what is logical and what is illogical.
IMO Aquinas succeeded in showing that there is nothing illogical about basic theism — i.e. that the notion of the existence of an uncaused cause, a prime mover, does not in and of itself offend reason.
If a “transcendent being” untied to nature and the cause of nature is logically defensible, then naturalism is not only epistemologically challenged but logically challenged as well.
I have no problem with science as a pursuit of empirically verifiable truth, am extremely grateful for all the improvements that various scientific discoveries have made to the human condition, and in fact believe that people should be disabused of silly forms of supernaturalism.
But the knowledge that science is able to impart, and therefore science itself, has its limits. Lack of proper recognition of those limits, and scientific “mission creep” are, IMO, some of the most damaging blind spots of the modern West.
Morton @ 4 and others have noted a resurgence of islam. Others have noted the ascendancy of Christianity. Spengler has written of the threat posed by modernity to “traditional societies”. Islam is the very manifestation of a desert/tribal/nomadic society. What I think we now see in islam is an existential crisis, where modernity has run up against the wall of a defunct and unsustainable social system. The wall is showing the strain. It will collapse. It will be ugly and bloody. Western governments are not equipped (by virtue of Bogie’s Nozzle (TM)) to deal with it. The people will.
I have read that the traditional churches in at least American Christianity have grown substantially at the expense of the less traditional evangelical mega churches. This may be because the 2000 years of really meaty nourishing theological debate has provided a system that sustains and advances belief. The debates have been about symbolism, liturgy, history and canonicity, but most importantly about the individuals relationship with God and his fellow man. As I understand the mega church’s theology (and this may only be prejudice) they are heavy into the admission of faith and the offering of praise at the expense of understanding. Its pretty thin gruel and I think most people are wanting more – even the islams.
Walt — Thanks so much for that. Well done.
Mongoose,
The moderation engine largely operates by a link count. If you have two or fewer links, it typically lets you through. I doesn’t seem to have the ability to “learn” who is an OK guy. It will moderate me, but since I can go in as an administrator for the site, I can unhook the comment from the digital barbed wire. But my advice is, keep the link references down to two or less.
Kind host, Wretchard, and fellow members of the loose association of Knights Errant of the Belmont Club:
Of late, I have not felt moved to comment much, (which the few methaphors left unmangled in the world are probably greatly thankful for), but I find myself reading Belmont Club several times a day. Coming here to read is like walking through a dark forest and, seeing a warm light ahead on the path, going forward to a warm, convivial inn where good company and erudite (and some not so erudite) conversation abounds. Thanks good people.
@ #21 fletcher
Are you saying that the passover might actually a pagan holliday that was made-over by jews?
…cause that’s a real stretch. Especially given all the anti-paganism in the Old Testament.
also as regards the timing of the passover. I could be wrong here but don’t sheep have a “lambing season” as were? That is aren’t all the lambs born at the same time of year? If so that would be an indicator of the timing of the passover… ya know, lambs blood and all that?
just sayin’
I stood in the parking lot of a business facing shutdown recently talking to a key employee who had just been axed. As he tried to make sense of it, near tears; I thought , how do men face a churning, frightening world without God? I am so glad that 31 years ago , ravished by a war, dope, stupidity and existential barrenness, the hound of heaven caught up to me in a park in Tucson “just when I spent the last piastre I could borrow”. 31 years later, like the thought in Walt’s lovely poem God is there in the life of my family and community.
Hebrews 12:26-28 (JB Phillips translation)
Then his voice shook the earth,but now he promises;
Yet once more will I make to tremble
Not the earth only but also heaven
This means that in the final shaking all that
is impermanent will be removed, that is, everything that is merely made and only the unshakable things will remain.
Since then we have been given a kingdom that is unshakable, let us serve God with thankfulness in the ways which please him but always with reverence and holy fear.
5. Walt:
He asks not for wealth nor for fame or hollow praise
……..
praise for God is not hollow. For he is worthy.
The purpose of worship is to ascribe worth to the living God.
“from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever!” (Rom. 11:36)
“You are worthy, our Lord and God to receive glory, and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Rev. 4:11)
…………………………….
Probably no text in the Bible reveals the passion of God for his own glory more clearly and bluntly as Isaiah 48:9-11 where God says,
For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
There has never been a benevolent regime controlled by atheists, in fact more people died violent deaths at the hands of atheist regimes in the last century than dies in all the religious conflicts in history COMBINED.
The more atheist an institution becomes, the less open and free it becomes. A prime example would be the educaction industry in the U.S., where, as the population of professors has become increasingly atheist and secular (or, at best, some anemic form of Christian), freedom of speech has declined. Another example would be postmodern Europe.
Groups of people who claim to be Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu can do and have done bad things, but they have, historically, also created enlightened and free societies. There has never been a society controlled by atheists which has done this, and I suspect there never will be one.
I can say that all – every single one – of the most intolerant people, with regard to religion, that I have met have been atheists. More so than any of the Muslims I’ve encountered, and that’s saying something. It’s been my observation more often than not that an atheist is not someone who doesn’t believe in God but rather someone who views themself as godlike.
My own view, as always a thought experiment only, is that religion is directly correlated to uncertainty. The old saw, “there are no atheists in foxholes”, describes this perfectly. Conversely, if life seems safe and predictable, it becomes easier to decide that God doesn’t really exist and we control our own destinies. God exists in the interstices of life, when the world becomes random and we need to believe that we are not just paving stones on the road of history whose only function is to be crushed. While Western civilization was safe and prosperous, we could safely disregard God – though perhaps God still paid attention and took names so He could kick a** later and demonstrate the error of our ways.
Once there was a man of great faith. One day a great flood came. Trapped in the middle of rising waters he prayed for deliverance from God, certain that it would come. Soon a large log drifted to his perch. The man saw the log, and certain that God would save him, continued his prayers. Presently the log drifted away. Then, a boat came up and offered him a ride to safety. He declined proclaiming that God would save him. The boat left and shortly thereafter a helicopter appeared overhead. Their offer of rescue was waved away, the man proclaiming that God would save him. At this point the waters overwhelmed him and he was washed away to his death.
The man found himself in heaven in the presence of St. Peter. St. Peter said “My son, what are you doing here? Your time is not yet?”
The man replied that his faith is great and he was waiting for God to save him.
To this, St. Peter replied, “Didn’t you see that log we sent? Or the boat and the helicopter?”
Chesteron summed this all up very nicely: When men cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing. They believe in anything. And the Bible said it earlier: Put not your trust in princes.
Richard,
“For all you do, this one’s for you.”
The Leap of Faith @ AMERICAN DIGEST
If man is the measure of God, who then is the measurer?
In leading a good life, being a good man of the west is an individual proposition. It is a proposition that requires free will and self determination and a firm foundation in a morality that teaches us to turn the other cheek and do unto others as we would have others do unto us. It is a concept not readily translated into Koranic prescriptions of an eye for an eye, or other tribally based solutions.
A tribal system absorbs an individual’s flaws and determines the fate of a person based on the needs of the tribe as well as the talents of the individual. There is nothing to stop a man from ignoring the tribe and doing what he wants other than the cultural bias instilled and reinforced in people from youth. It shapes the conscience and nurtures attitudes toward behaviors that are successful in the survival of the species. Most of those behaviors have been codified, or ritualized over time.
It seems to me that Racism and religion are formed as a part of a similar process as are other behaviors. As each individual in each generation struggles with the technology that challenges the behaviors enforced by cultural bias, our faith in our selves and in our culture is challenged. When faced by new challenges that do not match our culturally enforced bias, returning to the wisdom of the ancients (ie what works), seems to me to be no more than trying out another solution. Some will opt to reject the technology while others will change or adjust the cultural bias. Challenging the bias is always a loosing proposition in the near term.
Without the sustaining belief of an individual’s right and reason for being, the cause of the tribe or village becomes uppermost. Through the pursuit of global trade we have set ourselves upon a course of infusing a tribal culture with principals of democracy. That some pushback occurs is a law of physics. That action is met with an equal and opposite reaction is to be expected.
It seems to me that we are experiencing a clash of cultures, and the bias that defines us. Thus the challenge to religious values both east and west, and the falling back upon older notions of goodness and religion, as the challenge either succeeds or fails.
Could this be religious Darwinism?
Trangbang – wonderful.
As he tried to make sense of it, near tears; I thought , how do men face a churning, frightening world without God?
Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” is probably in the permanent top 5 of my personal booklist.
He actually quotes Nietzsche (oh the irony) in the book, something to the effect of, “Man can always find a ‘how’ to live, so long as he knows a ‘why.’”
God is a why. Some would say, the ultimate Why. (And the ultimate Who.) Frankl writes that those who survived Dachau all, to a one, had found a why, though it took on a number of different expressions — God, reuniting with a loved one, surviving so that their child would have a parent, surviving to testify & seek justice, etc. In Frankl’s case he put his professional training to work and survived by seeking purpose in understanding the why of human nature — why some lived and others did not, why some were decent and others indecent.
Lots of skeptics over the years have discounted the idea of God as a crutch, invented by humans to help them cope. If so then it appears God is certainly no worse than all the other “crutches” that Frankl witnessed — the motivations of love, justice, and meaning.
As for myself, I’ve found God to be not so much a crutch as a yoke. Believing might make some things easier, but it makes others much, much more difficult. So why Christ’s yoke?
Well, first off, I don’t think there is such thing as a yoke-free existence for anyone. As in, it’s not a question of *whether* you wear a yoke in this life, only a question of *which one.*
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Second – His burden is, indeed, lighter than all the others I’ve found.
Just my two cents’ worth.
Who said religious practice is dead (or went through a near-death phase) in the West? Religious practice is alive and well, and has never diminished one bit. Christianity was simply challenged by and lost many followers to the first religion invented by Europeans since Norse mythology – Leftism.
Leftism has no one written dogma like the Koran or the Bible, but it has its commonly agreed teachings (Man is perfectable; Social history (ethnicity, class, etc.) defines and controls both the individual’s psychology and his moral authority; value is created by the worker’s labor, not a purchaser’s perception; economic progress is sinful; politicians can be trusted; etc.) which attempt to answer “the big questions” and provide emotional solace in a world full of uncertainty. These teaching are even further from probability than a God that created the world in seven days or speaks through incendiary shrubbery, and they’re even subject to empirical inquiry, but among the true believers they resist all appeals to ethos, logos or pathos (the true sign of religious faith).
The West didn’t just fail to appreciate the religions of the Other, they failed to appreciate the fact that they themselves were believers! But that’s what happens when one of your religious tenets is that “God is dead.”
****************************************
There are big questions that need answering. I do not deny that. But to understand the need for religion you must understand only one thing: We know the real answers, and they frighten us. Fear drives us to God.
Why are we here? To have children and die.
What happens when we die? Nothing; we are lost. Our mind ceases as a candle flame quenched by rain.
What punishment is there for those who do evil? None but what we ourselves meet out.
What reward is there for those who do good? See above.
Who defines good and evil? Each of us must do so for ourselves; this is our responsibility to bear and we cannot hand this responsibility to any other without also giving over our freedom.
That much uncertainty and responsibility is too much for most people to handle, and so they retreat to either the sedative of calming alternative answers involving angels & afterlives, or the sedatives of alcohol and drugs until the questions are forgotten.
****************************************
Is God disprovable? Obviously not. But Charles is wrong to suggest that atheism requires just as much faith as theism. It’s a question of probability, and atheism is much more likely to be correct. All the evidence to date points that way, and none at all to God. How close to 100% do you need to get to concede the answer? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99999999%? However close we are to 100%, I am comfortable that the evidence is “close enough” to conclude that God does not exist and that the “scary” answers are the correct ones. The fact that the answers frighten me is no excuse to retreat into fairy-tale alternatives.
Not in my experience. You can live without a yoke, but only if you can get out of bed in the morning knowing that the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to you too, and not just “the rest of the universe.” If you can’t, then get a crutch. And I agree with you – Christ’s crutch is the least burdensome, and the most liberating, of all the crutches I have studied.
******************
Wadeusaf,
I think you’re on the right track. Successful religions beat tribal ones because they are pan-ethnic and not limited to one tribe or people. And yes, they are subject to Darwinism. This is why even if the Nazis had won WWII they would have eventually dies or metamorphized into something kinder, as their central theology was based on German ethnicity and would never have scaled to the limits of their “new Roman Empire.”
Brock,Brock…
“Who defines good and evil? Each of us must do so for ourselves; this is our responsibility to bear and we cannot hand this responsibility to any other without also giving over our freedom.”
This is the essential problem of the decline of the West; moral relativism and the rejection of transcendent moral law.
The Bible is a wonderful document, not just for its revelation of God, but also for its spot on portrayal of fallen man in all his folly and delusion. The book of Judges paints a grim picture of a “generation that knew not God”
Judges 17:6- In those days there was no king in Israel ,but every man did that which was right in his own eyes
This commentary is woven into an account of gross depravity and breakdown. Societies where every man defines good and evil for himself have already lost their freedom as well as any hope of community. If you don’t believe this, take a hike through South Central L.A. some evening where many young gangstas subscribe to the credo that jacking you up and relieving you of your wallet is perfectly acceptable behavior.
Your speculation that the Nazis would eventually evolve into something kinder is typical humanist blather that totally ignores human history .
We call it faith, but
faith the word and faith
the experience, faith
the objective experience,
are a substance before
hope and the substance
of hope fulfilled, with
the western wind resting
in pines, resting in
dark, the one voice
among the toppled stones of
the fallen world.
Wretchard –
A couple of observations.
One, Atheisim in the Western Concept is itself a religion, often entangled in Gaia worship, and other stuff, with it’s own received dogma, doctrines, priests, rituals, and so on.
Two, the decline in faith in Europe among Catholics and Protestants is real, and likely permanent.
Three, the decline in faith in America among mainline Protestant Churches and Italian/Irish/Polish Catholics is real, and likely permanent.
Four, the Catholic Church in Latin America faces challenges by Mormons and Evangelicals who offer a more personalized approach to faith and spiritual as well as communal fellowship. Mormons in particular put a great deal of emphasis on “civil society” institutions within the Church to provide economic and spiritual assistance outside the State.
Five, the decline in both secular Atheism/Gaia worship and traditional Christianity in the West is driven by the lack of participation by women who are at the heart of any religion. At the same time most Western Women find Evangelical or Mormon Christianity unappealing.
Six, the West DOES have a huge crisis of Faith, as no system tried or sampled seems to satisfy the needs of Western Women who want/need like all human beings spiritual comfort and fellowship but remain unwilling to sacrifice some freedom and individuality that spiritual comfort and fellowship require.
This is part of the broader problem of Women in the West, who have no real models or culture (unlike Men with Sports and War stories/movies/novels/etc) that “explains” or has “rules” on how to create large-scale cooperative ventures, beyond intimate friendships and such. Faith and Faith institutions usually play a critical role in modeling that behavior, but that has not been the case for women who don’t have any model for cooperating large scale (with people they may not like or feel close to) without losing essential parts of liberty, freedom, and individuality.
While I’ve harped on this many times, the key to understanding the decline of the West is the fractured relationships between Men and Women, particularly in cooperation. [Men DO have the Sports/Military model which generally balances cooperation and individuality.]
Willdomath,
“[...] Religion is directly correlated to uncertainty.”
I’ve come to believe that God is all that we do not know. Carried on the shoulders of humanities natural virtues, this is a concept that unifies all human beings with the humility to admit they do not know everything.
This may be the reason why technocrats, socialists and communists tend to disparage the concept. The arrogance implicit in social engineers’ choice of such a self-selecting enterprise reeks when juxtaposed to their intellectual and civic competitors who identify as “the faithful.”
Still, if one were to list atheism and agnosticism along with the other singular -isms, they begin to all look like firm, mono-focused belief systems. This is the fate that a diffused, multi-foundational Christianity appears to have avoided.
Wow. Speechless.
Fletcher Christian @ 15 (in reference to my no.3) commented:
Regarding the Hogfather; I think the point has been missed. He is no more and no less a myth than Santa Claus, at least the red suit and big boots version.
Actually, that was not the point I missed. The point I missed was if there was any other point.
In the movie Hogfather, “Hogswatch” is a solar festival. In traditional mythology the Hog, which roots in the earth, would be identified with the underworld, and, hence, Death. The Cosmic Auditors (shadowy forces, literally shadowy forces) want to kill Hogfather — and will do this in order to kill “all belief.” I took the “Auditors” to be the Spirit of Hard Nosed, Skeptical Empiricism that despises what they see as hogwash (if I may insert that term).
In his personification as Mr. Grim Reaper, Death tells Susan that, had she not saved Hogfather from the Auditors, “The sun would not have risen.” When I heard this it seemed a deliberate echoing of the Christian “He is risen.” The Resurrection of Christ is, of course, at the center of Christian belief. Or, as Death might put it, it is the big lie at the center of Christian belief. In order to swallow the big lie, we must cut our teeth on the small lies like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. But Death seems to think it is important that people believe these lies, otherwise humanity will go extinct and, I might add, he will be out of a job (for death to exist, it needs beings that are aware of their mortality, perhaps the more morbid their awareness the better).
Now, if you will allow me to read way too much into this, there is another Irony here, as well. For the Risen Christ has conquered Death, and emptied it of power — at least in terms of Christian belief. So Death would not be a totally disinterested observer when he terms that belief “a lie.” By treating all systems of belief as more or less equal (Death struck me as properly multi-culti), perhaps he is advantaging those systems which put death at the center? Certainly, it opens the door to “group truth” and a pagan approach to life.
It is possible I am doing Terry Pratchett a disservice in all this. Hopefully, he won’t hear about it.
trangbang68,
Who said anything about moral “relativism”? I certainly didn’t. I have a very strict morality, and it’s not relative at all. It merely arises from first principles other than “because God made it so.”
You are wrong about the freedom part, I’m not sorry to say. But you are correct that certain assumptions need be held in common in order for community to function. That’s why the American Bill of Rights is so important, and why America can absorb immigrants more effectively than any other nation. Our Bill of Rights is our common morality and hope of community (What? You thought Christianity is what unites America? Certainly not.). That’s why it’s so important to safeguard it.
South Central L.A. is an example of a culture not where each person defines good and evil, but rather one where gang leaders have abandoned the very concept of catholic good and evil in exchange for power.
Brock @ 47,
If you limit a persons possible perceprions of reality to either hopeless nihilism or willing self-delusion, then the idea of any sort of ACTUAL god hasn’t really been allowed for … has it?
Also there are several flaws with your “questions”. For one they are presented in the reverse of the correct order. Existence (and along with it good and evil) necessarily comes first, what that means for man comes after.
For another your final question (which, as i said, really should have come before the others) which was “Who defines good and evil?” contains a serious flaw in that it assumes both a “who” and an arbitrary decision on the part of that “who”.
A less presupposing asking might go like this “Is there a difference between anything? If so what is that difference?” This will set you on to all sorts of interesting journeys.
best regards
Five, the decline in both secular Atheism/Gaia worship and traditional Christianity in the West is driven by the lack of participation by women who are at the heart of any religion.
Wow, whiskey, what church do you go to that is chock full of men? I have several single female Christian friends who would love to go to such a church!
My churches over the past 20 years have been Catholic and Presbyterian (both mainline and evangelical), with a couple visits to different Lutheran churches sprinkled in. Without exception, the female proportion of the congregation of every one has been about 60/70 percent women. Anecdotal, to be sure, but it fits with what I hear from various Christian ministries I follow. I have heard not one single news or info item in 20 years (i.e. since I’ve been paying attention to such things) that has ever contradicted the picture of about 2/3 female attendance in churches. If such evidence exists I would surely be glad to read it, since it would brighten the gloomy picture I’m seeing.
My impression, again reinforced by descriptions from other Christians, has been that what has driven men (esp. young, single men) away from churches has been the unfortunate “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship meme of a lot of the music and preaching. To wit:
Jesus I love you
Jesus I need you
Jesus I want to touch you
Jesus I will dance with you some day in heaven
Jesus you are beautiful
Jesus you make me sing
Jesus you make me happy
Now, there is indeed a place for the theology of affection for God, and the Bible does depict the Church as the bride of Christ. But when worship and liturgy become one big neverending teenage mash note to God (“nothing more than feeeeelings”) to the virtual exclusion of all the other imagery, it’s very easy to see why hetero guys get turned off and drop out.
Returning to some emphasis on Jesus as victorious king and (spiritual) battle leader, and Christians as soldier-servants, won’t in and of itself bring the guys back into church, but at least it will restore some balance to the worship and perhaps even improve the treacly environment.
PS – The “feelings” emphasis is very much bound up with the commenter (sorry, too lazy to scroll back through & see who) who noted the decline in intellectual rigor and the unwise attempt to frame Christianity as subjective experience.
‘The next morning the camp moved again, and I was riding with some boys. We stopped to get a drink from a creek, and when I got off my horse, my legs crumbled under me…the next day the camp moved on…and I rode in a pony drag..for I was very sick..my legs and face all puffed up..when we camped again I was lying in our tepee my mother and father beside me. I could see out through the opening, and there were two men coming from the clouds, head first like arrows slanting down..they came clear down..looked at me and said: “Hurry! Come! Your Grandfathers are calling you” ‘
Then the great vision unfolds page after page.
‘I was all alone on a broad plain now with my feet upon the earth. I could see my people’s village far ahead..then I saw my own tepee, and inside I saw my mother and father bending over a sick boy that was myself. “The boy is coming to; you had better give him some water.” ‘
Black Elk Speaks
Not a matter of faith but of experience.
“I did not have to remember this vision all these years, it has remembered itself”
“Nothing I have ever seen with my eyes was clearer…”
“Not a matter of faith but of experience.”
Awesome Bob, I couldn’t agree more. I’m gonna have to add that to my reading list.
“Why of course, of course, said Miranda, without surprise but with serene rapture as if some promise made to her had been kept long after she had ceased to hope for it. She rose from her narrow ledge and ran…the small waves rolled in and over unhurriedly, lapped unpon sand…moving towards her leisurely as clouds through the shimmering air came a great company of human beings, and Miranda saw in an amazement of joy that they were all the living she had known. Their faces were transfigured, each in its own beauty, beyond what she remembered of them, their eyes were clear and untroubled as good weather, and they cast no shadows. They were pure identities and she knew them every one without calling their names or remembering what relation she bore to them. They surrounded her smoothly on silent feet, then turned their entranced faces again towards the sea, and she moved among them as a wave among waves.”
“Pale Horse, Pale Rider”
Katherine Anne Porter
This episode, she says, divided her life right in two.
Not faith, but experience is the basis of religion.
I, too, check in several times a day. The Belmont Club is a refuge from the coarse rants that have become standard currency in our society. Reasoned opinions, politely stated, are refreshing. Passionate belief does not have to be strident in order to be effective or persuasive. For example, see just about everything posted above. Thank you, host wretchard and clubbers.
Bob,
To tweak/expand a bit … experience is the basis of genuine faith. And the experiences that build faith are not always (or even usually) external manefestations that are thrust upon a person.
Common experience is enough to lead one to faith. For instance Jesus taught many spiritual principles through parables drawn from people’s common every day experiences (a lost coin, a corrupt official, household lighting, a mugging).
And since the human experience is necessarily similar for all people, it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that faith should continue among mankind as long as mankind lasts.
The aggregate of our experiences continue to whisper to us to us about the idea (and the reality) of God… God just won’t die. Go figure. The question(s) we all face indiviually (you , me, brock) eventually boil down to whether or not we will listen to the message our experiences convey… and act on it (thus gaining to more experiences)
Its been a pleasure.
Walt, that was a great poem! Proud of you, Pop.
#39 Charles- yer a buzzkill. Walt is obviously not saying that all praise is hollow, but that hollow praise is, well hollow. Quit the pointless bible-thumping.
#57 Bogie wheel- Jesus is my boyfriend…perfect. Finally someone has put into words what makes me so uncomfortable about modern praise rock.
Wretchard and to all, what a refreshing discussion! Especially since I have spent weeks studying Islam extremism and explanations thereof….
Wretchard’s comment: “In my own view, man’s search for meaning, or his denial of it, are so deeply embedded in human nature that it seems fantastic in retrospect that sociologists would assume that populations, given a little public housing, a small welfare check and a tot of rum, would stop asking the ultimate questions. It seems far more likely that in the long run, they would return to the eternal questions with a vengeance.” – for me, it is this last sentence. Studying the most recent 30 years in the US has shown that once there is a surfeit of money (admittedly, everyone’s ceiling or floor is different), the BIG questions of existence come back in strength – if money does not make you happy – a constant renewable source of happiness, than what does? Is happiness possible? Is there a difference between happiness and joy? Why am I here? What is my purpose?
Two sides of a horizontal line – on one side the haves and on the other end the havenots – is religion an exercise of control?
For me, I have been on the line at both extremes and what has proven true for me is that a belief in God creates an endless upwelling of joy; an idea that there is purpose and merit in being. My sense of God has enriched my life.
Brock, you may be right and I’ll take the sedative of belief in a higher power.
Whiskey, what is it with you and women? I agree Women’s Liberation went to extremes – note: it is working its way back to balance. (Sorry, couldn’t let it go).
A correction to my reply to Fletcher Christian: Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, not before the vernal equinox, as I said earlier.
Also, it may be that our English word “Easter” does come from the name for a Saxon goddess of spring but, as someone said above, it seems quite the stretch to conclude that ancient Israelites made up their Passover based on pagan spring festivals. The Dead Sea Scrolls dating back to 3rd century BC include the story of the Exodus – strong evidence of the account as historical, not mythical. But this is always the rub. Ancient documentary evidence for Biblical historicity is always subject to far more stringent demands for certainty than any non-Biblical ancient documents.
Brock – as a person of strict morality that is based on “first principles,” can you say why those principles have authority to rule? Would it be because reasonable people would have to agree that they work the best? This might be fine as long as reasonable people could be counted on to STAY reasonable. But we know we CAN’T always count on that.
Trangbang: Just want to say I did track down Herbert Schlossberg’s Idols for Destruction. It seems to be out of print but used copies are available. Excellent, excellent book and I wanted to thank you for pointing it out.
Ah, re experience being the basis of faith – I’ll stand witness. My own experience of the inexplicable – something that bypasses words or rationale, but is rooted in a “knowing” has happened enough times that act as deep roots on my own tree of knowledge. Thanks to Bob and El Heffe for putting it so well.
Karen Yvonne, You’re welcome on Schlossberg. I read it in the 80′s after my Christian conversion when I was re-formulating my worldview. I still go back to it. His chapter on Consequences and Expectations for a post Christian society is coming true around us,but his prescription of the church returning to authenticity is very hopeful.
Brock, your idea of every man deciding what is good and evil or right and wrong is by definition moral relativism. You may feel morally equipped to define these things, but many or most of our society are influenced by garbage schlock culture, feelings, poor exampleship, etc.
The aforementioned Mr. Schlossberg made the profound statement that: “After Biblical faith wanes, a people can maintain habits of thought and self restraint . The ethic remains after the faith that bore it departs. But eventually a generation arises that no longer has the habit and that is when the behavior changes rapidly. When Israel began worshipping the Canaanite gods it was only a matter of time before the nation began shedding innocent blood. There is no protection against this in statutes and constitutions which become scraps of paper when people come to despise the law that stands behind them. We learn historicist notions of destiny in the schools and find it hard to imagine the fragility of our institutions. They can survive the domination of wicked people in high places. They often have, but they cannot long survive the people’s insistence that wickedness be dominant, the continuing boast that evil is good.”
We are not united by Christianity, but to deny the role of the Judeo-Christian ethic in the thought of our founding fathers is a shallow view of history. They were greatly influenced by Samuel Rutherford and other English churchmen. The Bill of Rights didn’t grow in a Petri dish . It grew in the hearts and was watered with the blood of patriots who among other things believed they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
The catalyst in South Central and other urban hellholes is not gang leaders seeking power but a broken culture defined by illegitimacy, instant gratification, class envy and hatred and other sins and lawlessness.
Walt (#5):
That is truly beautiful.
I’m sorry to be late to the thread.
The subject of faith has preoccupied me. Just in the past day or two I am finally getting around to reading Miguel de Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, which has much to say on the subject. I wish I had been smart enough to read this book when I first heard of it many years ago as an undergraduate.
Another very useful volume is Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be, which closes with the mysterious and wonderful sentence
The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.
Jamie Irons
There’s a lot of spiritual anxiety, tilting at windmills and such in Unamuno. I’ll take this:
5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-weed.
Whitman
47. Brock:
It’s a question of probability, and atheism is much more likely to be correct. All the evidence to date points that way, and none at all to God. How close to 100% do you need to get to concede the answer? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99999999%? However close we are to 100%
……………….
unless you’re a real numbers guy–you want to be careful about this kind of argument.
I, too, check in several times a day.
Recently I had the good fortune of a friend recommending to me that I read a novel by Flannery O’Conner, Wise Blood. Since it deals with the subject of a church without a God I could not help but find that it fits with the theme of the post. I abstracted the following from Wikipedia’s summary.
“Hazel is a believer without belief and a seer without vision. Each of O’Connor’s stories has, she said, a moment of grace, but it is a Roman Catholic grace – grace that brings a person to the brink of belief, but not grace that saves by itself. It is transformative, but those to whom the grace is given must choose to either accept it or not.
O’Connor herself said that a chief theme of the novel was “integrity.” For those people who think belief in Christ is “a matter of no great consequence,” O’Connor writes, “Motes’ integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind,” but for her “Hazel’s integrity lies in his not being able to.” Free will, she says, “does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man,” and freedom is a mystery that cannot be reduced to a simple definition.”
It is an extraordinarily powerful American novel which becomes more relevant each day.
Ditto with regards to #36 Programmer and #61 erc rodson.
18. Mongoose:
Charles, the so called “Arab Transmission” is pretty much hokum.
1) The main body of the works existed quite strongly in the Eastern Empire throughout the whole Medieval Period,
…………….
This is pretty much what I learned in hs/college. That the Greek works filtered back westerward from Byzantium during the Crusades.
Its only been in the last couple years that I’ve read the stories of Moorish libraries. However, when I tried to google the stories–I couldn’t find them. So.
#51
Women actually have a higher rate of participation in Christian religions in Europe than do men. The gap in religiousity, measured by this criteria, between men and women does not vary by faith to a large degree. More men than women describe themselves as “agnostic” or “atheist” than women. If you care to, you can read many studies on the subject, some of which argue that women’s innate interiority tends to aid in the bequeathing of the importance of religiousity between generations of women.
And all this despite the continuing patriarchal nature of organized Christianity? Good grief. Just how powerful can feminism be, Mr. Whiskey ;>
This isDH Lawrence’s Take on Walt Whitman.
It takes a steam-engine to ache with AMOROUS LOVE. All of it.
Walt was really too superhuman. The danger of the superman is that he is mechanical.
They talk of his ‘splendid animality’. Well, he’d got it on the brain, if that’s the place for animality.
I am he that aches with amorous love:
Does the earth gravitate, does not all matter, aching, attract all matter ?
So the body of me to all I meet or know.
What can be more mechanical ? The difference between life and matter is that life, living things, living creatures, have the instinct of turning right away from some matter, and of bliss- fully ignoring the bulk of most matter, and of turning towards only some certain bits of specially selected matter. As for living creatures all helplessly hurtling together into one great snowball, why, most very living creatures spend the greater part of their time getting out of the sight, smell or sound of the rest of living creatures. Even bees only cluster on their own queen. And that is sickening enough. Fancy all white humanity clustering on one another like a lump of bees.
No, Walt, you give yourself away. Matter does gravitate helplessly. But men are tricky-tricksy, and they shy all sorts of ways.
Matter gravitates because it is helpless and mechanical.
And if you gravitate the same, if the body of you gravitates to all you meet or know, why, something must have gone . seriously wrong with you. You must have broken your main- spring.
You must have fallen also into mechanization.
Your Moby Dick must be really dead. That lonely phallic monster of the individual you. Dead mentalized.
Brock/47
All the evidence to date points that way, and none at all to God
Let’s hear it.
How close to 100% do you need to get to concede the answer? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99999999%?
50%/50%, statistically. Can’t be anything else, because there are no means to prove or disprove existence of god — the concept can’t be falsified. You should be honest enough to acknowledge that. I am a theist and I do acknowledge that.
Karen Yvonne said:
Brock – as a person of strict morality that is based on “first principles,” can you say why those principles have authority to rule? Would it be because reasonable people would have to agree that they work the best?
Yes, though the moral principles don’t have ‘authority’ over anyone, if that’s what you mean. Individual liberty means that we much each submit voluntarily to moral restrictions; there is no moral authority that can command a conscience. The most we can do is use physical force to coerce those who refuse to “play nice.” But that’s force, not moral authority.
This might be fine as long as reasonable people could be counted on to STAY reasonable. But we know we CAN’T always count on that.
Indeed. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment then.
**********************************
twobyfour, you ought to learn a bit more on statistics to learn the difference between number of outcomes and the probability of those outcomes.
God never dies. He just seems to be ignored when people feel too comfortable in their lives and become too arrogant to realize how insignificant they are. When things begin to go wrong, and people realize how little control they have over life. They begin to actually realize that there is a power much greater than them.
Religion is not only going to church or mosque, etc. It is about believing in something bigger than ourselves. All religions focus on the whole of humanity and the need to behave in certain ways to preserve the livability of life. Some do a better job than others.
One of the most profound lessons I learned came when I was a teenager. When a bunch of us were having a debate about religion, arguing what little disconnected knowledge we had. A man of the cloth, walking by, stopped to listen. A moment later he interrupts the heated debate about the various religions to explain. “Religion is not about going to church or mosque. It is not about how many times you pray, or how loud you proclaim your belief. It is all about TREATMENT OF OTHERS. The truly religious and spiritual will show the face of God in everything they do, through kindness, generosity of heart, understanding, humility and productivity”.
It took almost 25 years for that statement to completely ferment and mature in my mind. Maybe it took the witnessing of all the mindless killing in the name of God, and the counter-religious actions in the name of religion. I got to the point where I asked myself: If everyone is being killed in the name of God, whose side is God on? Why is not on my side? Why is he not saving us?
I do not believe God has asked any of us to kill the others. If the others are wrong, he has the power to deal with them himself. Narrow-minded killing of those who pray differently is not the command of God. It is the work of much more sinister hand.
It will shock you that the religious man was a Moslem Imam. I never knew who he was. He moved on after his brief statement. Unfortunately men who think like him have been silenced or even killed by the fundamentalist. His kind of Islam is considered heresy by the powers that be. But, his words are ever true.
Christianity has always spread under duress. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the world was surprised to find that the majority of Russians were baptized Christians, including Gorbachev and Yeltsin. They secretly received their baptism in the Orthodox Church of Antioch. The Russian church was considered a state institution by the Communists and all records of baptism were monitored. The Antiochian church was a foreign body and thus did not report its baptism. The church grew from a single bishopric representative into almost 20 churches all over Russia, just to handle the baptisms.
Today, in spite of the extreme restrictions on any other religion in Moslem countries, there are large numbers of conversions, even at the risk of death. The death penalty is applicable to conversions away from Islam in most places.
Moslem coverts to Islam have operated a radio station out of Cyprus for years, and are working on a TV station, dedicated to preaching Christianity to Moslems. They explain where Islam has gone wrong and how it has veered away from what they believe it should have been.
It is surreal to hear Father Mohammed, or Father Ali. But it is happening. They do not preach hatred or death. They do not incite people to fight and kill. They simply explain the words of God: love, understanding, humility, kindness and generosity of the heart. Sounds very familiar.
Belief in God is not a luxury people adopt when it is convenient. It is a faith people adopt all the time, regardless of consequences. True believers are those who stay the course under adversity.
Finally, Santa Claus is not a pagan tradition. The story is rooted in the life of St. Nicholas, who was a forth century Bishop of Myra in today’s Turkey. He had inherited a lot of money from his family and would go around distributing gifts to people on Christmas. He would slip into the houses of the poor at night and leave them money and other necessities to avoid embarrassing them. He even tossed money through open windows. One of those times the coins landed in a sock hanging near a fire place to dry.
One day the people of a near by village noticed a glow over the horizon. When they went to investigate, they found St. Nicholas dead against the trunk of a tree, and his halo had lit up the whole tree.
It has been the tradition in the Middle East to light candles on trees at Christmas and exchange gifts ever since. It has nothing to do with German Tannenbaum – where Christianity would not arrive until much later. Sure the tree fit well with their tradition and made them feel more at home with Christianity, but it not start there.
In those days, Bishops wore colorful clothes, including a lot of red.
The exact day of the feast is really secondary to the event it commemorates. Will the resurrection of Christ be any more or less meaningful if it fell on a different date? NO.
Cadmus
Brock,
In this case, the number of outcomes and statistical probabilities are meaningless.
I see that you chosen obfuscations rather than supplying proofs that you claimed you have and that I asked you to provide.
It looks to me that your claim is more of an article of faith than anything else.
Cadmus,
Moslem coverts to Islam
Should read: “Moslem coverts to Christianity”.
You’re welcome.
Cadmus,
Not too long ago, Chinese government funded a study to explain what were the major elements contributing to why the western civilization was so successful. The conclusion of the think tank group was: christianity.
Aching with amorous love–heheh. I think Lawrence’s essay was humourous too. Poor Walt, never making love to anything but his own hand. I’d ache with amorous love, too. Aching with amorous love, merging, living in igloos with Eskimos. (Sarah Palin seems to like her Eskimo!). But my point wasn’t about amorous love, just contrasting spiritual anxiety against assurance.
Bogie Wheel said: My impression, again reinforced by descriptions from other Christians, has been that what has driven men (esp. young, single men) away from churches has been the unfortunate “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship meme of a lot of the music and preaching.
I think this is an issue, but even beyond that I think it’s the lack of meaning and purpose being presented. It’s very much there, waiting to be had (I’m an evangelical Christian), but in many churches it’s (sadly) not conveyed.
This is why hate groups of all stripes can successfully recruit new followers, especially males. Whether militant white power or militant Islam, it all has the same underlying theme: “Your life can mean something as part of this cause, it will be tough, but in the end you’ll be a man with meaning, even in suffering or death.”
Christianity promises the same thing, but it substitutes a relationship with God for hatred and violence towards other groups. This makes it a harder sell, since violence and hatred are more charismatic and easier to understand.
But just as heroine is all you need when you’re on it, you can’t stay on heroine constantly. The hollowness will eventually find you out.
And thanks for your earlier response to my comments- very thoughtful. You’re obviously better trained than I, whether formally or informally.
Bogie. “Jesus is My Boyfriend” — exactly what I was talking about at 34
I commend Russell Kirk’s Roots of the American Order. Now out of print (hardbacks are $100 and up on Amazon but some paperbacks are avail) Walks American political culture all the way back to the Old Testament and forward through the Greeks and Romans and the City of God. Clearly demonstrates the necessity of Christianity to the success of the Republic.
Thank you, Cadmus, for your post at #77. It was a joy to read.
And I thank the Lord for keeping alive in our hearts the desire to know Him and for the kindness, love, and intelligence kindled within us because of His grace.
God is making a comeback.
Excellent discussion.
Remember the diversity of religion in our founding Fathers. Clearly there were many freethinkers there, but the respect for the moral strengthening that can come from religion was also very clear and used to take the apart the reliance on kings for authority.
“We are endowed by our creator” indeed.
This is part of why our country is special and has been blessed.
This begs the question of what the motives are of those who would declare God dead.
What is their goal?
#79 twobyfour
You are correct. Thank you.
#84 fred.
My pleasure.
Cadmus
Brock:
Better minds than ours have been at the issue of the existence of the Divine. The most famous was Blaise Pascal. You can go argue with him if you like, but he invented some serious and sharp tools to evaluate the problem.
BTW the Divine won, in Pascal’s view
Bogie,
Life is a yoke?
Clearly demonstrates the necessity of Christianity to the success of the Republic.
It is time you Christians got right with God and returned to your Jewish roots.
If it was good enough for Jesus….
“This makes it a harder sell, since violence and hatred are more charismatic and easier to understand.”
This is the explanation for the cult of Che Guevara.
Check out Arnold Kling’s writings regarding the appeal of Marxism vs capitalism to the adolescent some time.
Herb,
You misunderstand Pascal’s Wager. He did not conclude that God existed, but rather that you have nothing to lose pretending that God exists. I disagree with that (I think you do have your freedom to lose by letting a Church choose your morality for you) and also would posit that if God did exist he would expect true faith & love, not hollow praise from a pretender going through the motions “just to be on the safe side.”
Further, one thing that Pascal did not factor is is “If you’re going to believe in a God for safety’s sake, which one?” His work doesn’t help me choose between Christianity and Hinduism.
Lacking faith, I chose honesty. It so happens that I live by a morality very similar to Christian morality in many respects (it’s good stuff), but I arrived by by means of my own reason. If God exists I hope I get points for using the tools I’m given, rather than punished for being born without the ability to believe without questioning.
Hillel was a teacher and a founder of a school (Beit Hillel) in the first century B.C.E.
Hillel was born in Babylonia. At age forty, he went to live in Jerusalem. There he became the spiritual leader (Nasi) of the Jews from about 30 B.C.E to 10 C.E.
Many of Hillel’s decisions concerning Jewish Law (Halacha) were recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud. Interpretations of Jewish Law (Halacha) handed down by Hillel’s school (Beit Hillel) tended to be more liberal than those of the Shammai school (Beit Shammai).
When asked by a non-Jew to relate all the Torah had to say while standing on one foot, Hillel replied, “Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do until you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.”
Late to the party, again… oh well.
As I’ve mentioned in more recent threads, what I find most interesting about faith isn’t whether or not the beliefs in question are founded, but what effect faith has on the believer. Specifically, the incentives created by the notions of eternal salvation or damnation, incentives to which believers are subject but nonbelievers are not. Belief in such things may not be rational in itself, but once you’ve made that leap of, well, faith and chosen to believe in them, your most rational course of action is to live in such a way that maximizes your chance of eternal salvation, regardless of the real-world consequences to you or anyone else. After all, what’s this measly little finite existence of ours next to eternity?
Where things get hairy, of course, is when maximizing your chances of salvation requires things of you that would otherwise be quite insane. If, for example, science and common sense both say X, but the Bible/Qur’an/whatever (or at least your understanding thereof) says Y, and you believe your good standing in eternity rides on your acceptance of what the Bible/Qur’an/whatever says above all else, then Y becomes, not the right answer, but the only logical one to adopt, because your aforementioned stnading in the afterlife is your overriding incentive.
Also as I mentioned in those other threads, this becomes an even bigger problem when Y involves antisocial behavior or outright violence. Yet the secular West has yet to figure out how to overcome the overriding incentives of eternal salvation or damnation, much less come up with satisfactory secular substitutes for them. Unless and until it does – and whatever the over/under is on how long it may take, I wouldn’t bet a red cent on the under – faith and religion aren’t going anywhere, in the West or anywhere else.
Brock,
For some reason Pascal went to some trouble to reason on the existence of God. He couldn’t prove He exists, Him being beyond the writ of subpoena, and a negative being unprovable, he had to settle for likelihood.
Acting on that likelihood is an act of faith. Joshua makes an excellent point about the effects of faith and the twist it can take when wrong.
On the other thread is a discussion of what happens when things go wrong. There we have a lutheran church that harbored a man who murdered children. I cannot understand the reasoning that led them to think he was a Christian or worthy of the companionship and support of Christians. One has to choose a church that is consistent with your understanding of Scripture, Reason and Tradition.
Im sorry for your situation but can only hope you find faith.
I loved the story about Hillel. “Do unto others…” is truly what it all comes down to. I am sure all of you like me have used that with kids, without any thought to religion. “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” Or, “Put yourself in his shoes!” Or, something to that effect. We can pretty much include all the commandments and all religious teachings under that one commandment.
If all people can only remember that!!!
Cadmus