Loading ...I should probably reply to all of those comments left on my last post. It probably won’t win me any friends, but, whatever, I know too many people as it is. If you try to take down your happiness immune systems, then I will try to do the same.
This is the second post on religion in a row, but I must confess, I’m not really interested in religion. I’m interested in human behavior. I’m interested in linguistics. I’m interested in history. But when you strip all of that away and start talking theology, I get bored.
I am perfectly willing to talk about religious beliefs. However, I find that people get extremely emotional when they catch me thinking about religion the same way that I think about everything else. In our culture it is impolite to challenge beliefs. Try it out some time. Facts reworded to sound like beliefs are rarely questioned.
Seriously, if you can succinctly and coherently reword a fact to make it sound like a belief, then it will not be challenged.
(Do you see what I did there?)
I am perfectly willing to talk about morality. However, I find that moral codes based on revelation or scripture are arbitrary, insufficient, and, all too often, rather crude. Say what you will about atheists, but they have never flown airplanes into skyscrapers.
Prove me wrong. I’ll throw in an extra incentive. If an emotional defense of faith-based morality doesn’t appear in the comments to this post within 72 hours then I will post embarrassing pictures of my roommate.
As far as y’all’s comments go. . .
I don’t think I made my objective in the last post clear. I am puzzled by the fact that there is a higher turnout for Ash Wednesday, a voluntary ceremony that sells a somewhat depressing message, than for other non-Sunday Church days that are marked as “holy days of obligation.” According to the Catechism, not going to Church when you are obligated to is a mortal sin punishable by hell-fire.
Without passing judgment, I want to understand why Catholics are so much more likely to take a (somewhat) depressing service without the threat of eternal punishment over a run-of-the-mill service with the threat of eternal punishment.
The answer that I arrived at (via humor (or something like it)) is that the sense of community the faithful experience with their ashen foreheads is worth more to them than dodging something that the Catechism assures will hurt like hell. It’s a decent enough theory that may or may not be comprehensive.
I liked what Ryan had to say. “I actually find Ash Wednesday to be quite uplifting — there’s freedom in recognizing that everyone just might be as big of a screw-up as you are.”
It didn’t occur to me that one of the benefits of going to Ash Wednesday is that you get to remember that everyone is a sinner. It seems somewhat morbid and satanic to delight in the iniquity of others, but what better remedy is there for the fatigue associated with a guilt-based morality than a symbolic reminder of the universal reality that is the human condition?
Without passing judgment, I’d like to comment that this somewhat prideful interest in the condition of others probably has as much to do with some people’s attendance as the whole community deal. Heck, it probably played a part with my Ash Wednesday enjoyment in years past.
To somewhat change the subject, I also enjoyed reading Ryan’s defense of unquestionable Papal authority.
As always, I reject the notion that I have to choose between two extremes of thought. I like to think that one can be confident and speak with authority without losing their intellectual humility or making grandiose claims about how all should accept their reasoning as a matter of faith.
Ryan’s love of the Church is uplifting and infectious. There’s no Catholic like a converted Catholic. I love the way that he sees the world, and I never want him to change. Ever.
But I must take issue with the line “Jesus was perhaps anti-Imperialist, but not anti-authoritarian per se. Doesn’t His submission to the tortures of the Empire teach us that?”
Jesus’ submission to the Roman Empire may be an image for how I should live, but you have to admit that there is something particularly distasteful about the idea that the Church that Jesus founded should become a Roman Empire whose dictums and proclamations rule over my intellectual life like whips and snares persecuted the body of the organizations purported founder.
Perhaps your choice of a metaphor got in the way of your point.
Hmm. . .
Brad, I can tell that you put some thought into your reply. Like I said, I’m not really interested in Theology.
Lauren was by far the most abrasive. She asked how anyone could possibly dislike Ash Wednesday, and then supposed that my pride was getting in the way of my relationship with God.
The first time that I read her comment, I really had to stop and think. Are my arrogance and vanity marring my vision? Why do I dislike Ash Wednesday? For a solid minute or two I panicked because I couldn’t think of any good reason to explain my hatred for that voluntary holy day.
But then I remembered that I don’t hate Ash Wednesday, and that Lauren’s assumption that I do is patently false. I certainly enjoyed it in the past when I went to Church the morning after Mardi Gras. I may not have attended this year, but, to be fair, I haven’t been to Church at all this year.
Last year, I left Ash Wednesday and a subsequent confession feeling invigorated and ready to confront life. Your all-caps impression of a go-get-’em post-Ash Wednesday mindset was certainly one that I felt. “BRING IT ON!! I’M DOING LIFE RIGHT THIS TIME!”
It’s a good feeling. We’ve both felt it before. We can share that, Lauren. But there’s a lot that we can’t share.
Now, Lauren, part of me wants to go ad hominem and point out the pride inherent with thinking that you are “DOING LIFE RIGHT,” but I don’t want to fall to that level. Attacking another person’s character is a sorry excuse for a point. Go to confession.
Another part of me wants to mock you for claiming that walking around with an ashen forehead is not “making a show of your religion.” I could compare the ashes to the Pharisee’s tradition of walking around with words of scripture tied to their forehead, but that seems too easy somehow.
Another part of me wants to call you a closed-minded, backwards bitch, but I like to think that I’m above that, too.
Instead I’ll just go play tetris and try to remember to never write about religion again.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Brad Doyle // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hey man, don’t claim to be withholding insult and avoiding ad hominem while doing that very thing in the same sentence. Obviously you aren’t “above” that. I think we need to be respectful in all of this.
I’m sorry my post was purely theological last time, but I was trying to give the reason that we wear a cross of ashes on our foreheads or any cross for that matter. You might have to settle for a theological answer because it is a theological reason.
I was sensing a Nietzsche-like disdain for the what is perceived as weakness in the cross, or in Christian’s association with the cross and as it is here a cross of ashes. Let me throw off any theology that might have hindered are discussion thus far. When we get ashes, we recognize our sinfulness. Are there any objections so far? But we look forward in hope to Easter where we celebrate Christ’s victory over that sinfulness. Thats it; very simple.
And to speak about the perceived tameness of the atheist and the violence of the religious extremist. I am in complete solidarity with you in rebuking those that are using religion to rationalize murder. It is horrible. But i refuse to deny the more covert murderous ideology that leads to murder of the unborn. The pro- choice argument is really just a product of a 500 year process of “turn to the subject” starting with Descartes and really being refined by Kant, it has subjected philosophy to a skepticism that can only lead to a totally subjective view of the world in which the only thing that matters in regard to “right and wrong” is what the individual thinks. I see this ideology just a destructive as the violent extremist and maybe more dangerous because of it’s covertness. Even though both of these philosophers were not trying to hurt “religion”, in fact they were trying to help it, their philosophy’s has led to an atheistic world view that cares nothing about any kind of objective truth, but solely on the individual’s truth. (Notice I refer to an atheistic world view, not individual atheist).
The cross is an anomaly to the atheistic world view. Nietzsche thought Christ and Christians as weak and pitiful (pitiful is an adjective you have in common with Nietzche). He thought this, I suspect, because he did not understand the relationship between death and resurrection, because in his thought death means death. There is no hope in death, because it is the end of everything. Why would anyone just lay himself up for another, if all they have to live for is this life. Without a belief in the resurrection the Christian faith and subsequently the practice of that faith, including Ash Wednesday, doesn’t make sense and is actually offensive to the human intellect. But with this understanding the paradox is our salvation.
2 Shawn Wilkinson // Feb 11, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Whoa! Did I misread Bryan, or did he just imply that atheism was/is the driving force behind the pro-choice movement?
Need I remind him of the lack of passages in the holy text concerning the concept of the unborn? Must we enter into an argument concerning whether the soul (synonymous with wind in the Hebrew) enters upon first breathe (symbolism with God breathing on Adam to create Life) or is magically contrived upon contraception (in context of the OT, within the seed of the male)? Must we battle over whether the few texts which refer to the unborn being aware of God coming from a proclaimed prophet and not an ordinary man? Must we butt heads on the passage in the Old Laws which simply fines men who scuffle and cause a miscarriage, rendering the fetus to be seemingly property and not “humane”?
Must he also be reminded that a secular approach to the choice debate centers around the extent of which the state’s interests in the unborn compares to the mother’s interest in carrying to term or the “true” extensive power possessed by the concept of a right to privacy from state meddling in ones affairs?
On an aside, I personally have no qualms with one adopting a personal creed, even if it adopts what i perceive to be a superficial attempt to justify actions within a superstitious context of eternal judgement. Whatever makes one able to sleep at night and function in the continuous chain of social and ecological interactions called life doesn’t phase me a bit. it is only when one attempts to extend this creed without justification beyond the level of self-autonomy that you’ll see me fidget.
/soapbox
3 Daniel M // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Don’t worry, Brad, the tongue-in-cheek irony of being above something that I am currently doing didn’t escape me. Should I have responded to her disrespect with more of the same? Probably not.
You are right about the whole weakness thing. To a Christian, the depressing nature of Ash Wednesday is not an inherently bad thing. You, me, and Nietzsche can all agree that Christianity requires a disdain for that which does not come from God. A sizable portion of the people who go to Church on a regular basis appreciate that, so that part of the puzzling formula doesn’t completely apply for them. Good point.
4 Daniel M // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I’d be hesitant to reduce the world into a “Christian Worldview” and an “Atheistic Worldview.” Like I said in the post, I reject the notion of polarity both in theory and in practice.
In practice, I think we can both agree that such a simple reduction doesn’t hold water. There are atheists and Kantians on both sides of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. They can support this position with appeals to virtue theory, Kant’s categorical imperative, or rule utilitarianism. These methods all make confident assertions about morality without appealing to either revelation or scripture.
Also, one can find many thinkers from a Catholic worldview that are pro-choice (and I’m not just talking about Rudy Guiliani). According to wikipedia:
There is no mention in the Christian Bible about abortion, and at different times Christians have held different beliefs about abortion. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Innocent III, and Pope Gregory XIV believed that a fetus does not have a soul until “quickening,” or when a woman begins to feel her fetus kick and move. Abortion before quickening was, therefore, acceptable.
As comforting as it would be to find a world composed entirely of a black and white “Atheists” and “Christians,” no such distinction appears when you study the world’s dazzling complexity more closely.
5 Daniel M // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm
My compliments, though. That was a very rational defense of a morality rooted in religion.
Good job, commentors. You haven’t failed my challenge yet!
6 Numeraphile // Feb 11, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I’m about to get emotional…those 72 hours are ticking by…
7 Brad Doyle // Feb 11, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Shawn -
Let me clarify. What I was trying to infer is that the pro- choice is backed by a pluralistic view of truth and morality; the belief that one person’s truth is truth for them because truth is ultimately subjective. The majority of the philosophies of the modern and post modern eras have moved away from a “first principle” outside of themselves to an implosive “turn to the subject’. This “turn to the subject’ most concreatly manifests itself in atheism. I understand that there are atheists that are pro life, and to answer Daniel, I know there are people who call themselves Catholic that are pro choice. It is something i have to pray about constantly; 1) on how to lead Catholics back to the truth 2) for the grace to not judge those who don’t come back to the truth.
Daniel -
There is a difference between modern dissenters and the more ancient Catholics you mentioned. The latter did not have the luxury of an official church teaching on the matter. I’m sure they spent more time trying to find ways to birth children successfully and keep them alive during infancy than trying to work out the point at which a human became a human. Technilogical advances have help in the former. Is it not interesting that when our medical knowledge finally catches up to be able to save babies from death people find reasons to kill them. Thomas Aquinas didn’t have a Church teaching to dissent against. He was trying to the best of his abilities to find an answer. He wasn’t perfect.
8 Shawn Wilkinson // Feb 11, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I don’t think it’s very fair to reduce an entire position to one meta-ethical approach or variant. But I see what you mean, and I’ll leave it at this for the evening.
9 Ben Dubroc // Feb 25, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Christians have a great fear of atheists in that they believe that we have as our goal the erradication of everything they value and love.
We do.
We also have forked tongues.
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