For those of you who may have declined further interest in Camus as a result of the last post, I would remind the reader ,as I so have to remember to remind myself, any sort of rush to judgment esp. when "phraseology" is concerned, may cut us off from rational discourse. My point in looking at the other side of Camus is not reductionist, but he, as both a very private person and as a famous public intellectual--and more--has much to teach us if we will be patient. I am currently reading The Plague, as I said. One of the more sympathetic characters is a Catholic priest who learns to suspend judgment, not only in plague time but at all times. But for the average human, the reflexive answers we give to the persistent urge to criticize rather than to understand the whole person, are not just annoying but often lead to mass murder under many names and flags.
I would also contend that we have more to learn from our foibles, and the foibles of those we admire, than we can by studying our strengths--if that's what they really are. Our public face is also our "game face" which is also often our dis-grace, wherein again there is this very incandescent desire to live in separate kingdoms even though there is really only One Kingdom, not a series as in secular history, or a theoried "layered look" of endless parallels coming back at themselves -- "a consummation devoutly to be wished," by large numbers of my scientific peers. "Fiction and Fantasy genres, ahoy!!!!
I suppose this is as good a time as any to air my thoughts on the words/phrases, "irreligious" and the box we are invited to check when we check into the hospital, such as "religion--none." Given the current state of neurogenetics, these phrases are hopelessly out of date. Even people in a coma, it seems, not only can play mental tennis--quite literally--and also "believe" --"ten impossible things before breakfast!!!" "Hardwired" is the commonplace term, borrowed from electronics.
Christopher Hitchens thinks that the world can exist without faith--in fact, he has so much faith in this idea (which is not his, obviously, but reactionary in the broad sense of the word, largely due to abuses of the word by several large "faith communities" -- as well as by their many critics) he had the energy and the sense of purpose to be able to write an entire book on the subject, presuming without reason that his beliefs are Pure Reason and beyond criticism or compromise. In striving to be "objective" he has stumbled early into the same errors that the average intellectual has done throughout history, but more prominently in the "secular city" called the 20th century, which ironically was to be the "Christian Century" (See Flannery's story, "The Enduring Chill")
There is a "Freedom from Religion" clan in Madison WI--I have had a chance to visit their website, which is free--but not very. What is immediately evident is the anger. Most of this is vented at Christians--it would be most interesting to see how they handle The Prophet--and against Christianized trivial pursuit which may be their most helpful "weeding out" function.
It is a small stretch to say that "irreligious" does not mean the impossible i.e. freedom from religion. Only the dead are free from religion, with all their beliefs/opinions swept away in the universal "Ruach."
What the self-designated "irreligious" person is really saying is, "I'm against your religion; and all belief systems but my own personal one." This is hardly objective thinking, it is only wishful thinking, kind of like John Lennon's, "Imagine", one of many examples of art being a biased flight from reality. Lennon's attacks on Christianity in particular are a matter of record and in retrospect are simply well-put prejudices. Dylan's willingness to wait and see and not be nailed down will probably be a more lasting legacy; even though I am not recommending a lack of commitment; by the end of our lives we will be 100% committed, by the way.
I would expect more humility than boasting and "attack religion", and a lot less anger; if objective reality were really the object of our pursuit. What we are really after is the confirmation of our own opinions, which, if you haven't noticed, is the weak point in this, and probably all Blogs. "Let he who boasts, boast in the Lord." "I will boast rather of my infirmities."
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Bill - somehow you have circled back to that post-modern view again - self-generated reality. I would add that I recently read that people who identify themselves as "spiritual, but not religious" are the fastest growing group in the country. Thankfully, they outnumber the angry anti-religion types you describe, who apparently spend as much energy on being against something as they would if they were for it. (Go figure!)
ReplyDelete"Oh yes" postmodernism keeps cropping up--but is older than Sophism, its ancestor. Socrates was a baneful influence on the youth in general, which I hope to be also, in worldly eyes. Refuse the himlock!
ReplyDeleteBeing brought up in existentialism -- as you well know, better than most everyone except my sibs--who still cleave unto it mos' tenaciously--it is very hard to completely be premodern or what I hope will be post-post modernism. As I mentioned earlier, I am a strange brew of Sadd and (UN)Phar and I hope to be emerging into the fabled but usually mal-defined "3rd way" --but only as it relates to the Christ as He really is--a point to which we can relate but all too dimly and darkly. How can I but but an amateur? What can I explain, really?
Like Peter too, we are mos' insistent on our own vision; always borrowed, usually blue; so that when Christ commands or does the counterintuitive, whether we be male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free; i.e. He demands our total trust and obedience to standards and circumstances we do not perceive; --then we feel that what He (and Isaiah) said, "makes no sense" and hence can be dismissed and dissed without a second thought.
I would say however that I still am rather insistent, for the past 30 years, on what Francis Schaefer called TRUE TRUTH, as opposed to the relative variety which is more common but counts far less in the long run. This will seem pharisaical to my family and to most modern and virtualy all postmodern campers. But Jesus was quite sympathetic to the Pharisees' loyalty to the Scriptures as they present an accurate view of God-given precepts, c.f. Psalm 119.
But Christ said to the Sadds that "You know neither the Scriptures nor the Power of God." The Pharisees at least knew what God had said--contrast that to the Biblical illiteracy of today--;but both parties lacked "Power from on High" and that, in spite of the very real Pentecost that folowed, is the case today; but it now this pair of vacuums affects billions of people/souls.Which makes for altoghther a more desperate world, en/in mass- and we don't know where "critical mass" is--but we/I certainly know how to be critical!!!
I realize that my recent posts do have lots of blatant and implied criticisms, which comes naturally from taking oneself too seriously. But I want to thank you, and all who do likewise, who care enough to send caveats my way.
Otherwise my "missing links," for which I am well known in my family esp., will ever go missing; Half a precept is not better than none and can have very pernicious effects esp. when they are cumulative.
I'm figuring! I'm figuring! "I sail!!I sail!! Dr. Marvin, I'm sailing!!!"
Ah yes, the Existential Years... many was the hour I spent at the kitchen table with my stepdad, Bob, discussing the like. I like to think of that as my "seeker" training. Never really stopped after that, looking for truth.
ReplyDeleteI, personally, have found the root of that truth in Christian community, in the Body of Christ through sharing the Eucharist, and the comfort of ritual, which were the ingredients I discovered were missing in my early years.
I find your continued search and analysis fascinatingly refreshing. Theology, I learned, back in my Masters in Pastoral Studies days, is a two-way street - it comes from both above and below - and ordinary people, discovering the ways faith intersects life, are theologians as truly as Vatican scholars. The Holy Spirit - and our interaction with the curve-balls the God of Surprises throws at us in life, make "theology from below" possible. Each one of us has to work this out. Thanks for sharing your spiritual work, Bill.
Joyce