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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who lit the fuse, under the bum of Christendom?
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One thing that used to puzzle me is that Christianity starts with a negative premise, that God is not here. As a kid, and afterwards, it struck me that s/he was.
Also different teaching, since I've never heard that God is not here though I'd put it differently than Evensong does. I'd say that two of the persons are not here, but the Holy Spirit assuredly is supposed to be here. Bad teaching perhaps?
I'm not saying that vicars get up in church and announce that God is not here! But isn't it a presupposition? Otherwise, if God is here now, then there is no need for Christ, no need to go to church, or pray, or believe in Jesus?
Definitely not a presupposition I have, or honestly one I understand. Jesus doesn't exist to fill in for a missing God. He exists to be a human God we can relate to among many other things. (I'm sure that summary is heretical because I didn't cover other important things.) Besides some of us think the Holy Spirit communicates with people or with the Church now, so that part of God-on-earth would be a reason to pray all by itself, not a reason not to pray.
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If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Well, I must be explaining this badly. It just seemed clear to me as a kid and later, that God is here now. I wasn't interested in Jesus.
Well, eventually I was a Christian for a long while, but for some odd reason, I have reverted to that position - God is here now. Jesus is irrelevant.
Anyway, I am probably beating the poor horse to death.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
The opening poem reminded me of a claim I heard many years ago in a sermon that, if you chose the six people who have most shaped modern western society, they would all be Jewish: Moses, Jesus, Paul, Freud, Marx and Einstein.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
... Interestingly no mention of Darwin.
Because faith and science and education are not incompatible. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
As Gamaliel says "Indeed they aren't, but people think they are incompatible". In the UK my impression is that some accepted Darwin as compatible with faith, others (older perhaps, more conservative) didn't. Some, like poor Phillip Gosse (responding to Lyell more than Darwin), tried to compromise and upset everyone.
None the less, Lyell and Darwin provided rationalizations for many to reject Christianity.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
For Brown the decline of Christianity isn't so much located in urbanisation or social class as the decline of religiosity in women.
I was just going to mention Brown myself when I saw your post.
I think he is onto something, but as I remember he does not tackle the question of why female religiosity declined - it was a little bit early for second wave feminism to be a factor.
A reason for the decline of Christianity which has not been mentioned so far is theodicy ie the issue of suffering.
This appears a massive barrier to faith today, but in the past it does not seem to have had much purchase.
Voltaire's Candide,which dealt with the Lisbon earthquake, and was written in the eighteenth century, is the first example I can think of which uses suffering as an argument against traditional Christian faith (Voltaire, of course was a deist rather than an atheist).
Until medical developments(such as the discovery of anaesthetics) along with agricultural, scientific and industrial developments, held out the possibility of a relatively comfortable life for all humanity, shaking one's fist at Heaven over the existence of pain, disease, starvation and lifelong backbreaking toil must have seemed as pointless as complaining about the weather or the laws of physics.
Now, it is the thinking person's most cogent argument against faith, and the greatest source of doubt with which believers have to grapple.
[ 05. September 2014, 06:02: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I think the attitude to suffering changed at some point. I read the diary of an 18th century clergyman (forgotten his name), and the usual awful things happened to him - for example, his young daughter died - and he accepted it, not as directed by God, but as somehow providential.
But this attitude changed; I'm not sure when. Possibly after the Enlightenment. There is such a thing as 'anti-providential' thought, but I know nothing about it. It is linked to changes in Puritan thinking in the 17th century.
Anybody know any more?
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I think you've highlighted an important point here, Kaplan, and it's not unconnected, I don't think, to the rise of more 'therapeutic' forms of Christian belief ... on both the liberal and conservative sides.
I'm going to be starting a new thread about the Toronto Blessing thing 20 years on and have noted that one of the essays by Martyn Percy about revivalist Christianity in the 1990s was entitled 'City on a Beach'.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Now, I've not read his essay but it's a clever title and represents what might well be a paradigm shift ... from Christian faith as a 'given' or an issue of life and death, heaven and hell - to one where it's concerned with 'lifestyle choices' and vague forms of 'spiridewealidy' ...
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Thinking more about providence, it's interesting that it's been secularized, for example in depth psychology. Here we get the idea that some kinds of suffering are brought about by the unconscious, in order to crack open the defences (or the ego, if you like), so that you become more open.
For example, this is often described as the route to compassion, which increases when your defences are breached. In fact, love itself increases, as your narcissism is broken.
A lot of this is curiously like religious views of providence, but it has become 'internalized', I suppose. God loves a broken heart, really.
I am only paraphrasing Leonard Cohen, 'there's a crack in everything; it's how the light gets in'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Damn and blast, I was going to finish with something about secularism nicking the best bits of religion; so ideas such as confession and providence found their way into depth psychology.
Even the idea of a higher power is found here, in figures such as Freud and Jung, who saw the unconscious in many ways like that.
But many people have pointed out that Freud, while furiously rejecting religion, absorbed many of its ideas, rather inevitable I suppose.
Jung of course, actually incorporated ideas such as the numinous and transcendence into his psychology. But Jung was not hostile to religion.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, eventually I was a Christian for a long while, but for some odd reason, I have reverted to that position - God is here now. Jesus is irrelevant.
.
The Christian story certainly says God is here now. But Jesus is not irrelevant because Jesus is the lens through which we discern how and perhaps when God is with us.
Jesus provides the interpretive framework and communal structure of what "God is here now" looks like, tastes like and feels like. It provides the lens through which we interpret our various experiences of what God is.
Other people may believe that God is here now but they will use different lenses to make sense of that experience. They will use their different lens to discern the nature and character of that presence.
They may call themselves "spiritual but not religious" but it is impossible form them to be "spiritual" without some kind of interpretive framework that creates meaning.
For the overtly religious, the framework is obvious. For the "spiritual but not religious", the framework is often mostly unconscious and usually less communal.
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a theological scrapbook
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
OK, but Christians talk about a loss of relationship with God, don't they? Or a separation.
Well, they are not unique in that, obviously, since humans have often commented on the paradox of being with God, and not being with God.
A friend of mine says jokingly, God is here, but I am not. But you can turn that round - God is here, but is obscured by my narcissism.
[ 05. September 2014, 11:02: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Thinking more about providence, it's interesting that it's been secularized, for example in depth psychology. Here we get the idea that some kinds of suffering are brought about by the unconscious, in order to crack open the defences (or the ego, if you like), so that you become more open.
For example, this is often described as the route to compassion, which increases when your defences are breached. In fact, love itself increases, as your narcissism is broken.
A lot of this is curiously like religious views of providence, but it has become 'internalized', I suppose. God loves a broken heart, really.
I am only paraphrasing Leonard Cohen, 'there's a crack in everything; it's how the light gets in'.
This makes me want to ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) because I have been subject to so much of it in my training.
Thank you for your psychological insights. A lot suddenly makes sense of what I was subject to (by untrained people I might add).
The trouble is, I don't think God likes a broken heart. No wonder I've come to blows so many times with my superiors and tell em all they can stuff their psychology where the sun don't shine.
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a theological scrapbook
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Evensong
That's a bit confusing actually. Do you mean that you were subject to being broken, or taught the idea that being broken leads to openness?
I think in many varieties of therapy, the idea is not that any individual smashes your defences down, but that life has a habit of doing it. But therapy can also do this.
But the added thing in depth psychology, is that the unconscious actually sets it up. However, this should be on a different thread really.
The idea of repetition is crucial here, and the idea that we repeat problems (unconsciously) in order to find a solution.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Voltaire's Candide,which dealt with the Lisbon earthquake, and was written in the eighteenth century, is the first example I can think of which uses suffering as an argument against traditional Christian faith ...
You could quote Bayle whose highly influential Dictionnaire Historique et Critique was one of the most read books of the C18 (Voltaire praised him very highly). While his beliefs were complex, one well known aphorism was "God is the good father who breaks his children's legs to show how well he can mend them".
Susan's Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought argues that dealing with theodicy is a (if not the) major theme running through philosophy.
The Lisbon earthquake was said to be more shocking than any event since the fall of Rome. It also highlighted a direct conflict between religion and Enlightenment values: between Pombal the Portugese prime minister ('What now? We bury the dead and heal the living.') and the Jesuit Malagrida (the earthquake was "God's punishment on Pombal's godlessness") who wanted everyone to drop everything and spend six days praying and fasting. Pombal won, the weekly paper didn't miss an issue, there were no epidemics and Lisbon was rebuilt in a year. Malagrida was later executed as a blasphemer and heretic after being tried by the Inquisition (headed by Pombal's brother ...).
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Thinking more about providence, it's interesting that it's been secularized, for example in depth psychology. Here we get the idea that some kinds of suffering are brought about by the unconscious, in order to crack open the defences (or the ego, if you like), so that you become more open.
For example, this is often described as the route to compassion, which increases when your defences are breached. In fact, love itself increases, as your narcissism is broken.
A lot of this is curiously like religious views of providence, but it has become 'internalized', I suppose. God loves a broken heart, really.
I am only paraphrasing Leonard Cohen, 'there's a crack in everything; it's how the light gets in'.
This makes me want to because I have been subject to so much of it in my training.
Thank you for your psychological insights. A lot suddenly makes sense of what I was subject to (by untrained people I might add).
The trouble is, I don't think God likes a broken heart. No wonder I've come to blows so many times with my superiors and tell em all they can stuff their psychology where the sun don't shine.
My experience is that defences are there because without them we would be overwhelmed. Love comes about when we feel secure. There are a few exceptions - notably the kind of Awe that arises in the face of utterly overwhelming forces (such as the Dresden firestorms).
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Interesting point that the red-light area of Lisbon suffered only minor damage, no doubt leading to much discussion about divine judgment. It still exists, the Alfama.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
itsarumdo wrote:
My experience is that defences are there because without them we would be overwhelmed. Love comes about when we feel secure. There are a few exceptions - notably the kind of Awe that arises in the face of utterly overwhelming forces (such as the Dresden firestorms).
Well, I agree, we need some defences, as you say, to feel safe, and to protect us.
However, they can become too thick and rigid, leading to a kind of emotional cut-offness, and love neither emerges nor gets in.
But it's inadvisable to try to smash them down; however, you find that life itself can do this in different ways, such as a breakdown.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
Alfama being the red light equivalent of an Alfamale?
Again, imo, fwiw, breakdowns do not necessarily get rid of the boundaries - they just alter the coping mechanisms and ideally give a greater cognitive understanding - the boundaries are more embodied, and the heart, in case you hand't noticed ![[Biased]](wink.gif) is a physical organ. Opening the chest, heart, lungs in an unforced way so that physically, emotionally and behaviourally we become more open and capable of love - may happen through Grace, but I doubt that it ever happens through desperation or hopeless overwhelm (or "breaking" someone). wrt breaking horses, Seabiscuit is worth a read, as are the horse whisperer books. Something is encouraged to emerge - not trashed and cracked open.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
itsarumdo
I was going to say we are going off topic, but it's odd how a conversation like this can proceed both in psychological language and religious language. Maybe this partly answers the OP.
I don't agree about despair. I would say that over 30 years, about 80% of my clients came to therapy in despair. To quote Gramsci, from another field, the old is dying and the new cannot be born.
Well, it can feel that way; but quite often, there is a way for the new to be born. But certainly, not by smashing defences down, they are probably crumbling already.
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
C.S. Lewis said, in "The Decline of Religion,"
quote:
Now it is quite true that chapels which were quite full in 1900 are empty in 1946. But this change was not gradual. It occurred at the precise moment when chapel ceased to be compulsory. It was not in fact a decline; it was a precipice. . . . The withdrawal of compulsion did not create a new religious situation, but only revealed the situation which had long existed.
And indeed I think this is a good thing. Honesty in general is a good thing.
He also said in 1954, in "The Great Divide" (De Descriptione Temporum):
quote:
... there is the great religious change which I have had to mention before: the un-christening. Of course there were lots of sceptics in Jane Austen's time and long before, as there are lots of Christians now. But the presumption has changed. In her days some kind and degree of religious belief and practice were the norm: now, though I would gladly believe that both kind and degree have improved, they are the exception.
I don't know if the kind and degree have improved--in the US there are some pretty scary people doing some terrifying things in the name of Christianity--though in the UK it does seem to be better, so perhaps kind and degree have improved even now.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
The metaphor of lighting a fuse suggests setting in motion a process that means it will all end in a bang. Maybe the answer is "not with a bang, but with a whimper".
Those church communities that do die out do so quietly, with a whimper, as the old fail to convince the young.
Youth culture, which also dates from post-WW2, may be part of the story. Children being better educated than their parents were may be part of the story. Pace of technological change and resulting social change ?
Maybe God as Father, central to received Christianity, ceases to mean what it used to when society looks at parenthood differently ? The more society sees children as people with rights who are owed the best care the parents can provide, rather than the almost-property of parents from whom obedience is owed, the less well God-as-father fits ?
Not saying that such a change is all-bad or all-good, just that perhaps there's a challenge that Christian thought hasn't really risen to ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure about Spinoza, but I agree that Marxism and depth psychology have been like acids eating away at religion; also post-modernism as well.
I wonder if religion has been too hierarchical and too undemocratic really; today is the age of pluralism.
Are the more democratic expressions of religion doing better than their less democratic counterparts? It would seen the opposite is true.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The equation of increased welfare with declining religion seems to have some credibility, and explains the anomaly of the US,
So in short when the church stopped bribing the poor, they stopped coming?
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
It seems to me that Yoga and using electronic gadgets have replaced liturgy and contemplation. But that's a very recent trend, so merely the newest set of absorbing activities.
I'm having a hard time blaming a sea change that was visible in 1963 on yoga and electronic gadgets.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One thing that used to puzzle me is that Christianity starts with a negative premise, that God is not here. As a kid, and afterwards, it struck me that s/he was.
This puzzles the hell out of me. Paul says "in Him we live and move and have our being." Sounds awfully here to me.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
TV
This, at least, fits the time frame.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not saying that vicars get up in church and announce that God is not here! But isn't it a presupposition? Otherwise, if God is here now, then there is no need for Christ, no need to go to church, or pray, or believe in Jesus?
I don't see how this follows. God is in Hell, but that doesn't mean nobody there needs Christ.
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
... Interestingly no mention of Darwin.
Because faith and science and education are not incompatible.
As Gamaliel says "Indeed they aren't, but people think they are incompatible".
Yes, if we're talking about causes of the decline in church attendance, it doesn't matter a fig if there really is a conflict between science and religion, only if there is a perceived conflict.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The trouble is, I don't think God likes a broken heart.
Psalm 51 written by a rogue, ungodly psalmodist, then?
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The character presently is yoga and electronics. It wasn't in the 1960s. There were other influences then, TV is mentioned above, and I'd also blame the pop psychology movements like TA, gestalt, and group therapies. Perhaps this was the first big missing of the boat: the adherence to traditions and ancient wisdom and refusal to sufficiently meet people where they actually are in the present.
Though to correct the time frame, the 1960s were growth years here. We were building new churches and having trouble accommodating everyone who wanted to come. The big changes came in the early 1970s, and by the end of that decade, it was static and beginning its long decline. I remember both decades rather well, and the excitement of being at church where everything happened it seemed every day of the week.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
It seems to me that by the time TA and gestalt therapy hit the big time, the decline had been underway for some time. I would guess their rise didn't cause the decline but may have been caused by whatever it was that caused the decline, if that makes sense.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me that by the time TA and gestalt therapy hit the big time, the decline had been underway for some time. I would guess their rise didn't cause the decline but may have been caused by whatever it was that caused the decline, if that makes sense.
Yes of course. I write only from my meagre experiences and knowledge. I think those things and the modern electronicalism are surface manifestations of the root issue, but naming the root issue seems to be difficult. Is it the progress of knowledge and its accumulation? Something about the excessive rise of individualism since the Enlightment? Excess focus on data and denigration of experience? What is the root of it all? This is basic question.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me that by the time TA and gestalt therapy hit the big time, the decline had been underway for some time. I would guess their rise didn't cause the decline but may have been caused by whatever it was that caused the decline, if that makes sense.
Yes of course. I write only from my meagre experiences and knowledge. I think those things and the modern electronicalism are surface manifestations of the root issue, but naming the root issue seems to be difficult. Is it the progress of knowledge and its accumulation? Something about the excessive rise of individualism since the Enlightment? Excess focus on data and denigration of experience? What is the root of it all? This is basic question.
I don't think there is one root. There are probably multiple causes which came together, including, as you say, the Enlightenment, scientific knowledge, individualism, post-modernism, the development of psychology, shifts in symbolism, the rise of the welfare state - and plenty more.
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Descartes, who justified thinking over all else.
Voltaire, who trashed a bundle of really important spiritual principles and left his readers laughing and at the same time empty and lost.
Marx - should we blame Marx? Maybe it was Freud.
The insistence of the late medieval Church in remaining steadfast by its dogmas far beyond the point that it was obvious that they were incorrect - especially re the solar system. By sticking to the dogma, the church became questionable and so what it taught also became questionable. Which is ironic considering that the dogma that was being adhered to was Plato's model of a perfect planetary system with circular orbits rather than anything in the Bible itself.
The adoption just before the above of the Aristotlean logical system. Which - True/False and the excluded middle is great as long as there are no questions asked about dogma. But if questions are asked, there is no middle ground - the only answer other than True is ... False. The Islamic scholars had realised what a trojan horse Aristotle was and had locked his books up in a small number of centres where they were studies but with very limited access.
And Jonathan Black in "Secret History of the World" points out that in the late 1700's the Masons were compromised by a faction who were not interested in spiritual advancement, but rather whose creed was " the secret is that - there is no secret" and who used the organisation for their own ends as a power base. Really, it's about this time and earlier that the rot started. Some official heads of church and other senior figures were also Masons - still are, and I wonder what power struggles and intrigues are still going on behind those closed doors.
Swedenborg could have reversed that if the Church(es) had taken the gift up of a science that was once more based on spirituality and a Bible with strongly symbolic as well as literal meaning - an alchemic marriage. But they didn't. Goethe was also rejected by both mainstream religion and science. Another gift ignored.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Descartes, who justified thinking over all else.
Voltaire, who trashed a bundle of really important spiritual principles and left his readers laughing and at the same time empty and lost.
Not meaning to pick on itsarumdo but why did the churches offer no good response to all these thinkers? David Hume for example (in letters and autobiography) bemoans the fact that no one of any stature challenges him from among the religious. Hume knew controversy would increase his sales but, William Warburton, his only consistent challenger wasn't really up to the standard needed.
By the time of Marx and Freud, I'd say it was too late. What percentage of the loss to Christianity was from people who actually knew what Freud (or Marx for that matter) said? Who was the last Christian apologist with a mass following who could have made a difference? Wesley?
I think the weakness of the responses to those who lit the fuse is as significant as the incendiarists' ideas.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Descartes, who justified thinking over all else.
Voltaire, who trashed a bundle of really important spiritual principles and left his readers laughing and at the same time empty and lost.
Not meaning to pick on itsarumdo but why did the churches offer no good response to all these thinkers? David Hume for example (in letters and autobiography) bemoans the fact that no one of any stature challenges him from among the religious. Hume knew controversy would increase his sales but, William Warburton, his only consistent challenger wasn't really up to the standard needed.
By the time of Marx and Freud, I'd say it was too late. What percentage of the loss to Christianity was from people who actually knew what Freud (or Marx for that matter) said? Who was the last Christian apologist with a mass following who could have made a difference? Wesley?
I think the weakness of the responses to those who lit the fuse is as significant as the incendiarists' ideas.
Not feeling picked on at all ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Isn't there a difference of some qualitative kind between intellectual debate and spiritual philosophy? It's all very well saying that there were no adequate challengers to Voltaire or Descartes or Hume, but they were speaking the modern language of intellect with no passion. Rationality and reason no longer had any emotion with it in the way that it had been understood for 2 millenia - it had become cold as a fish, purely based on thought, logic, mental process; and disembodied.
OTOH, rationality in the meaning used by the Greeks and everyone after them until the Age of Enlightenment (I guess there must have been a transition period, maybe form as early as 1300) included emotions and gut feelings, intuition, a sense of zeitgiest (and probably quite a few other geists as well).
It's true that to understand so-called modern trends in thought, it;s necessary to go back hundreds of years. A lot of the new age material came from Swedenborg, late 1700's. Many of the premises that our mainstream society runs on today arose before 1500.
[ 06. September 2014, 19:45: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Isn't there a difference of some qualitative kind between intellectual debate and spiritual philosophy?
I'm not saying they had to be defeated on their own terms, maybe in Germany the Pietist movement might have made a difference, maybe if the church of the C18 had been less supine. Why did no one of note arise to challenge Hume at any level. What were they all doing? Saying their prayers and waiting for a miracle?
When these discussions arise on SoF they usually take the form of "We're losing the game because the other side keep scoring goals". Why can't you score a few?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Isn't there a difference of some qualitative kind between intellectual debate and spiritual philosophy?
I'm not saying they had to be defeated on their own terms, maybe in Germany the Pietist movement might have made a difference, maybe if the church of the C18 had been less supine. Why did no one of note arise to challenge Hume at any level. What were they all doing? Saying their prayers and waiting for a miracle?
When these discussions arise on SoF they usually take the form of "We're losing the game because the other side keep scoring goals". Why can't you score a few?
A good point. I wonder if the churches underestimated the effect of people like Hume. I mean, ideas like his probably seemed quite separate from religious thought and practice, especially for ordinary people. But those ideas did percolate down, just as postmodernism has really become very prevalent, in a kind of popular form.
Actually, Freud's ideas were immediately adapted to religion - by Jung, which led to their rift. But Jung synthesized the idea of the unconscious, with the idea of the numinous and a higher power. However, his ideas have remained rather esoteric.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Isn't there a difference of some qualitative kind between intellectual debate and spiritual philosophy?
I'm not saying they had to be defeated on their own terms, maybe in Germany the Pietist movement might have made a difference, maybe if the church of the C18 had been less supine. Why did no one of note arise to challenge Hume at any level. What were they all doing? Saying their prayers and waiting for a miracle?
When these discussions arise on SoF they usually take the form of "We're losing the game because the other side keep scoring goals". Why can't you score a few?
My systematic theology lecturer taught me that philosophy and theology were peaches and cream (always together) as disciplines. They were the "Queen" of sciences. But something happened at the Reformation. They split and the churches were too busy licking their wounds to pull them back together and keep up with the Englightenment and Descarte that introduced mind/body dualism.
I believe only now is Aristotelian philosophy enjoying something of a resurgence and a Humean world view debunked. Edward Feser's The Last Superstition is a good example.
There is plenty of goal scoring on "our" side, but perhaps it's going to take a while to percolate down as quetz has mentioned above. It takes an entire shift in world view after all - and that doesn't happen overnight. Perhaps it's too late - I don't know.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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que sais-je: When these discussions arise on SoF they usually take the form of "We're losing the game because the other side keep scoring goals". Why can't you score a few?
I have the feeling that wanting to score goals against the other side has often been the problem. Copernicus was right. Darwin was right. If the church had agreed with them, history might have been different.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me that by the time TA and gestalt therapy hit the big time, the decline had been underway for some time. I would guess their rise didn't cause the decline but may have been caused by whatever it was that caused the decline, if that makes sense.
Yes of course. I write only from my meagre experiences and knowledge. I think those things and the modern electronicalism are surface manifestations of the root issue, but naming the root issue seems to be difficult. Is it the progress of knowledge and its accumulation? Something about the excessive rise of individualism since the Enlightment? Excess focus on data and denigration of experience? What is the root of it all? This is basic question.
Perhaps the root of it all is the myth of progress that western civilisation has bought into.
quote:
Atheism has its own creation myth, writes Spencer, and it goes like this: non-belief is the love child of reason and science - a human advance arising from scientific and philosophical progress in Europe, particularly movements like the Copernican Revolution in the 16th Century, the scientific revolution in the 17th and the Darwinian in the 19th.
In an article for Politico Magazine Spencer describes this myth: "Gradually, wonderfully, the human race matured, with every confident scientific step forward pushing our infantile, crumbling ideas of the divine closer to oblivion," he writes. This myth is "true enough to be believable, (but) it is not true enough to be true."
Why does any of this matter? Because these days the foundation myth of atheism is widely accepted in the West, and has implications. Atheism, so the story goes, is rational, while religion is embarrassingly irrational; atheism represents clear thinking human progress, while religion is regressive, primitive superstition.
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
This myth is "true enough to be believable, (but) it is not true enough to be true."
Which of course is exactly what I might say of the foundational myths of theism, socialism, capitalism, or what have you. And I'd say it of atheism as well. Most scientists would accept it as true of science - it may approximate to truth, be truth-ish but it isn't 'Truth' (I confess I've never trusted words with capital letters).
Isn't each denomination of Christianity true-ish in that sense: you seem to disagree about a lot so at best all but one of you know only some approximation to Truth rather than the thing itself. Hermeneutics, irony and all that jazz.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
Evensong:
Reading the responses to the review your post linked makes my heart sink (for both sides of the debate). SoF is an oasis. (Is a ship an oasis in an ocean?)
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
But as well as the myth of progress, which may exist in some atheists, there has been real progress. When I was a kid, we had coal fires, no bathroom, no garden, no fridge and so on. My parents ended up with their own home, with central heating, a garden, they had foreign holidays, and so on. I don't think they ascribed any of this to God!
I suppose some religious people might criticize this as rank materialism - well, when you're really poor, as we were, you quite fancy some of that.
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose some religious people might criticize this as rank materialism - well, when you're really poor, as we were, you quite fancy some of that.
If money is the root of all evil, poverty is one of its branches.
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But as well as the myth of progress, which may exist in some atheists, there has been real progress. When I was a kid, we had coal fires, no bathroom, no garden, no fridge and so on. My parents ended up with their own home, with central heating, a garden, they had foreign holidays, and so on. I don't think they ascribed any of this to God!
I suppose some religious people might criticize this as rank materialism - well, when you're really poor, as we were, you quite fancy some of that.
Now that the middle class is regressing in many places, and kids start to recognize they can't possibly have the (relatively) cushy and secure lives their parents had, will we see a resurgence in religion?
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Justinian
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# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Perhaps the root of it all is the myth of progress that western civilisation has bought into.
A question. Are you claiming that there has been no progress in the past 300 years or are you claiming that correlation is not the same as causation?
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But as well as the myth of progress, which may exist in some atheists, there has been real progress. When I was a kid, we had coal fires, no bathroom, no garden, no fridge and so on. My parents ended up with their own home, with central heating, a garden, they had foreign holidays, and so on. I don't think they ascribed any of this to God!
I suppose some religious people might criticize this as rank materialism - well, when you're really poor, as we were, you quite fancy some of that.
Now that the middle class is regressing in many places, and kids start to recognize they can't possibly have the (relatively) cushy and secure lives their parents had, will we see a resurgence in religion?
I've no idea. There seem to be so many variables in the decline of religion, and probably also its growth, that it seems difficult to make predictions.
For example, after 1800, it was the working class in England which began to stop church-going, and the middle class seem to have carried on.
But why? I think there are various theories to do with class structure, but it clashes with the view that poverty or lack of education leads to an increase in religion.
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Sir Pellinore
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# 12163
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Posted
We did it all by ourselves I fear. Dawkins, Islam etc. are innocent. Until we get our individual and collective acts together the ship will keep sinking.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
That was about the time that populations were increasingly removed from nature and cooped up in cities. There was also a huge break - advances in technology were starting to radically change a way of living that - apart from periods of war & peace - had not changed very much or very quickly for hundreds of years.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
That was about the time that populations were increasingly removed from nature and cooped up in cities. There was also a huge break - advances in technology were starting to radically change a way of living that - apart from periods of war & peace - had not changed very much or very quickly for hundreds of years.
I think that's a good point. It's a kind of social dislocation. If a people who had been mainly rural, find themselves working in factories, and living in slums, would they see this as brought about by God? Well, they might, but they might also just see it as a human creation. They might also look for secular solutions, such as trade unions, socialism, and so on.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
Evensong:
Reading the responses to the review your post linked makes my heart sink (for both sides of the debate). SoF is an oasis. (Is a ship an oasis in an ocean?)
It is indeed an oasis. Mostly a well read and thoughtful oasis.
p.s. The article is wrong (IMV) in stating the myth of progress is an atheist myth. It is a myth that spans all of western society to an extent - believers and unbelievers alike.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Perhaps the root of it all is the myth of progress that western civilisation has bought into.
A question. Are you claiming that there has been no progress in the past 300 years or are you claiming that correlation is not the same as causation?
Neither. Mainly that the myth is not a true one. And it is not an essentially Christian one even tho most of us have bought into it to an extent.
And that's okay. Progress is good. But the Utopia dreamed for is unrealisable IMO. The Christian myth says it is God that will create a new heaven and a new earth, not us. We do not bring about the Kingdom of God but we certainly work for it. And that work matters. But there is a distinction.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
This myth is "true enough to be believable, (but) it is not true enough to be true."
Which of course is exactly what I might say of the foundational myths of theism, socialism, capitalism, or what have you. And I'd say it of atheism as well. Most scientists would accept it as true of science - it may approximate to truth, be truth-ish but it isn't 'Truth' (I confess I've never trusted words with capital letters).
Isn't each denomination of Christianity true-ish in that sense: you seem to disagree about a lot so at best all but one of you know only some approximation to Truth rather than the thing itself. Hermeneutics, irony and all that jazz.
Yes. We all live by myths. It's how we make sense of our lives.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
We do not bring about the Kingdom of God but we certainly work for it. And that work matters. But there is a distinction.
Though at certain points in history, some Christian groups have felt that they are working to bring about the Kingdom of God - and certainly some forms of post-millenialism can be fitted within orthodoxy.
Historically, this group have probably been much more influential than their numbers may suggest - scratch a lot of the reform/utopian movements and you'll uncover founders (not many, but some) who had such beliefs.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I think arguing about the 'myth of progress' obscures the real progress that has been made in people's lives, in Europe at any rate. Poverty has been reduced, health improved, many technological improvements made - of course, one might criticize that as purely material, and not satisfying the spirit.
And I don't think you can make a simple equation, material improvements leads to religious decline. It's not as simple as that, but it might be a factor.
And of course, there are many other factors, as already discussed, e.g. the rise in scientific knowledge, the shifts in philosophical approaches, and so on.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Yes. We all live by myths. It's how we make sense of our lives.
Does that imply that our choice of myth has the nature of a value choice? Or is there some standpoint from which a choice of myth can be evaluated?
quetzalcoatl (and others). Could we have a better definition of the myth of progress. I'm aware of:
a) A (mostly) C19 belief the white male was the 'top' of the evolutionary tree. Progress would be white males getting better and better. Eugenics could be used to stop the less evolved out-breeding the best. (see the first part of John Gray's "The Immortalization Commission" for a bizarre next step in evolution)
b) An economic belief that material plenty would spread and lead to greater happiness.
c) A political belief that rationality would lead to democracy throughout the world.
d) An ethical belief that humans would become more loving and tolerant (typically as they learnt the 'truth' about themselves, e.g depth psychology). No more pogroms, wars, ...
e) A scientific faith that all important, physical problems could be solved by science.
.... etc
Within all of these a was a conviction that, though temporary setbacks might occur, success was ultimately inevitable and would be benign and global in scope. Heaven built from the crooked timbers of humanity.
Or what?
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I was referring to Evensong's link to Simon Smart's article, which is basically outlining the myth that the delusions of religion have been dispelled by scientific knowledge and skeptical reasoning, and humans will now move forward to a bright future, untrammeled by 'fairy tales'.
I'm not sure how many atheists actually hold this view, if any!
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