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Blunderov
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Face to faith : Julian Baggini
« on: 2006-05-01 08:28:13 » |
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[Blunderov] This leaped off the page.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1764127,00.html
Face to faith
Part of the problem with assessing how religious we are is that it is not clear what "being religious" means, says Julian Baggini
Saturday April 29, 2006
The Guardian
Although it is often said that Britain is not a particularly religious country, it is even less of an overtly irreligious one. Atheists remain in the minority, with the majority being what one BBC survey described as "vaguely spiritual".
Part of the problem with assessing how religious we are is that it is not clear what "being religious" means. There is, however, one sense in which being religious is extremely common indeed; so common, in fact, that even many atheists fall under the description.
This version of religiosity, however, is often missed, squeezed out between two competing notions of religion as logos or mythos, ideas which Karen Armstrong has been so effective in explaining and disseminating.
According to this account, religious truth is often assumed to be fundamentally about certain creeds that are literally true, sacred texts that describe historical facts and values that are absolute. This is religion as logos.
The alternative view is that religious truth should be seen as mythos - not myth in the dismissive kind of way, but as a source of insight into reality and how to live. To understand religion in this way requires a certain mental dexterity, since it rejects the attempt to treat religious teachings as "mere metaphors" that need to be translated into non-sacred language as firmly as it does the attempt to see them as literal descriptions of the way the cosmos is.
Yet logos and mythos do not exhaust the meanings of religiosity. There is a third sense, one which I believe is more important and more widely held. This is the idea of having a religious attitude. Attitudes are not beliefs at all, literal, analogical or otherwise. They are, however, deeply important to how we live, for they determine our entire orientation to the world around us.
Among the primary religious attitudes are those of awe, reverence, gratitude and humility. What each have in common is that they capture a sense that there is something greater than us, which commands us, and which we cannot control. And it is the perceived absence of these attitudes in atheism that lends it the reputation for arrogance. Yet although religion arguably allows for a more natural expression of these attitudes, they are compatible with even the most naturalistic cosmology.
A theist, for example, has a clear object for their feeling of gratitude: the creator God. But an atheist can clearly have a sense of their own good fortune and an understanding that any period of prosperity may be impermanent. Likewise, a theist feels awe and reverence for "creation", yet as even the atheist Richard Dawkins has described in his Unweaving the Rainbow, almost identical emotional responses to the natural world can be shared by materialist scientists.
As for humility, believing in an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenelovent deity certainly gives you clear cause to be humble. But so can an awareness of the limits of human knowledge, power and benevolence.
There are some, such as the philosopher David Cooper, who argue that secular humanism cannot sustain such attitudes. If man is the measure of all things, how can we accept that our own judgments are answerable to something other than ourselves?
Yet even for humanists, beliefs have to be answerable to the facts and to the court of human experience, not just the experiences of ourselves and those whose beliefs we share.
If atheists can hold such religious attitudes, is it therefore right to describe them as religious? That would be misleading, but the question itself is not important. We don't need to be religious to see that one of the great benefits and attractions of religion has nothing to do with its truth as mythos or logos, but for the attitudes towards the world, life and others it fosters. If that is correct, then believers and non-believers alike would do well to make sure that when they embrace or reject religion, they don't lose sight of what is truly good in it.
Julian Baggini is editor of The Philosophers' Magazine
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Hermit
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Re:Face to faith : Julian Baggini
« Reply #1 on: 2006-05-01 12:23:43 » |
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"If only the good were the clever,
If only the clever were good,
The world would be better than ever
We thought that it possibly could.
But, alas, it is seldom or never
That either behave as they should;
For the good are so harsh to the clever,
The clever so rude to the good."
Elizabeth Wordsworth (attr)
If only the religious were smarter
if only the the smarter were kind
But the world is much better tarter
Than cloyingingly sweet I do find
And the notion that believers are nicer
Requires delusion and misanthropy
For the religious have a long history
Murdering those with whom they disagree
So I would much rather be smarter
And prefer it in others too
And not liking the role of a martyr
The makers of saints, I eschew.
Envoi
Humility, is not for me
I rather like depravity
Hermit (c) 2006
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Face to faith : Julian Baggini
« Reply #2 on: 2006-05-01 18:06:48 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-05-01 12:23:43
"If only the good were the clever,
If only the clever were good,
The world would be better than ever
We thought that it possibly could.
But, alas, it is seldom or never
That either behave as they should;
For the good are so harsh to the clever,
The clever so rude to the good."
Elizabeth Wordsworth (attr)
If only the religious were smarter
if only the the smarter were kind
But the world is much better tarter
Than cloyingingly sweet I do find
And the notion that believers are nicer
Requires delusion and depravity
For the religious have a long history
Murdering those with whom they disagree
So I would much rather be smarter
And prefer it in others too
And not liking the role of a martyr
The makers of saints, I eschew.
Envoi
Humility, is not for me
I rather like depravity
Hermit (c) 2006
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[Blunderov] A rather nice Hermitic nuance which I nearly missed ('e wants watching 'e does):
total depravity
Function: noun
Date: 1794
: a state of corruption due to original sin held in Calvinism to infect every part of man's nature and to make the natural man unable to know or obey God
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Hermit
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Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
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Re:Face to faith : Julian Baggini
« Reply #3 on: 2006-05-02 06:33:11 » |
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Hermit, drawing near his cloak of partial invisibility (more holy than righteous that is), bows dis-gracefully (does this not suggest to you that, dispensing with singlet (perhaps to avoid entanglement), he spreads his doublet and provides a glimpse of something more stuponfucious than akin to Bacon's "mere cockatrice of a king" and possibly worth watching (as a cockatrice almost always is)).
It is always nice being appreciated. Particularly when the appreciation originates from somebody whose approbation is as refined as yours.
Thank-you once again Blunderov.
Hermit
PS Speaking of depravity, I had used it twice, once in each sense. But your observation drew my attention to the small group who would recognise the archaic form. So to strengthen that usage, I have switched the first depravity for misanthropy which scans as well, and perhaps conveys my communicative intention more compellingly.
PPS I hope you find the word-play in the thank-you note more fun thaneven an allegory on the banks of the Nile as Mrs Malaprop once said.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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