Great article! I didn't finish her book on the History of God, but I
learned a lot from what I read. I was interested to hear how her
position on scripture changed after the TV frenzy died down. She is
thinking about religion in an original, thought-provoking, way.
I disagreed with a few points she made about secularists.
I thought her dismissal of Dawkins as being "consumed by hatred" of
religion was too superficial. His position doesn't have to be reduced
to an emotion any more than her rejection of fundamentalist religious
people can be reduced to her "hating" those people. Dawkins has his
own reasoned opinions, and I felt she didn't give him enough credit
for being as thoughtful as she is.
Sam Harris's rejection of religion is very thoughtful. In fact his
embracing of Buddhist meditation at the same time he rejects other
aspects of religion makes him just as careful as she is in what he
accepts and rejects from religious understanding. Her point about his
selecting Koran phrases out of the context of the conclusion is moot
because the fact is many people are reading it exactly as Sam states
it. This is causing a lot of trouble in the world. She may have a
higher, more correct point of view on these passages, but her opinion
is not shared by the people strapping on the bombs. She has missed
Sam's point that it is the moderates of religion who perpetuate and
protect the beliefs that extremists use to justify killing.
In my own life I understand the importance of not renouncing religious
people just because I do not believe in religious answers to my life's
questions. It is more similar than different to religious people of
one religion not being an A-hole to other religious people.
Respecting other people is an ideal for both secular and religious
people in my opinion. It is a hard line to walk when you are
expressing a disagreement over specific religious or secular beliefs.
Her point about seeking meaning also interests me.
"As for scientists, they can explain a tremendous amount. But they
can't talk about meaning so much. If your child dies, or you witness a
terrible natural catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina, you want to
have a scientific explanation of it. But that's not all human beings
need. We are beings who fall very easily into despair because we're
meaning-seeking creatures. And if things don't add up in some way, we
can become crippled by our despondency."
At least this one human does not need more than science to give me
understanding in disaster. A religious explanation does me no good.
For an example, a Hindu explanation might involve a discussion of
Karma. For me this explanation that the drowned child somehow had it
coming for past actions doesn't make me feel any better. My secular
understanding comfort comes from believing that it was a random event
and that the child was in the wrong place at the wrong time just as a
roll of the dice. It could have been me. No explanation of a creator
who could help, but does not for some philosophical reason, gives me
comfort. I don't see how a belief in God makes anything "add up" for
the meaning-seeking creature, man. If anything, it adds more
questions. Like: why did he let it happen? A religious person may
find comfort in saying "it is God's will". That doesn't give any
better answer to "why?", than a secular person saying "sometimes bad
things happen and it makes me sad." Either way we are both gunna cry
over the child. It is the emotional _expression_ of people you love that
gives people comfort, not some abstract belief that "things happen for
a reason". I'll take a hug over any understanding when the S hits the
fan in life. If the person hugging me believes in God that is fine
with me.
There may not be any meaning to these events. Linguistic philosophers
would claim that it is a misuse of language to apply the word
"meaning" to such events in life. Just because we can string the
words together does not give it a reality or value.
That said, I also recognize that for many people religious beliefs do
help them live. Like John Lennon said "Whatever gets you through the
night, its alright, its alright!" I am not in a position to criticize
how other people get through their night. I just know what works for me.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Excerpts from a fascinating interview with Karen Armstrong,
> author of "A History of God," on Salon.com (if you don't
> have a subscription to Salon, you'll have to watch a brief
> advertisement to read the interview):
>
>
> [Scientists] can explain a tremendous amount. But they can't talk
> about meaning so much. If your child dies, or you witness a terrible
> natural catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina, you want to have a
> scientific explanation of it. But that's not all human beings need.
> We are beings who fall very easily into despair because we're meaning-
> seeking creatures. And if things don't add up in some way, we can
> become crippled by our despondency.
>
> ...In the pre-modern world, there were two ways of arriving at truth.
> Plato, for example, called them mythos and logos. Myth and reason or
> science. We've always needed both of them. It was very important in
> the pre-modern world to realize these two things, myth and science,
> were complementary. One didn't cancel the other out....
>
> [Hating religion] is not what the Buddha would call skillful. If
> you're consumed by hatred -- Freud was rather the same -- then this
> is souring your personality and clouding your vision. What you need
> to do is to look appraisingly and calmly on other traditions. Because
> when you hate religion, it's also very easy to hate the people who
> practice it....
>
> ...This kind of chauvinism that says secularism is right, religion is
> all bunk -- this is one-sided and I think basically egotistic. People
> are saying my opinion is right and everybody else's is wrong. It gets
> you riled up. It gives you a sense of holy righteousness, where you
> feel frightfully pleased with yourself when you're sounding off, and
> you get a glorious buzz about it. But I don't see this as helpful to
> humanity. And when you suppress religion and try and get rid of it,
> then it's likely to take unhealthy forms....
>
> ...Fundamentalism has developed in every single one of the major
> traditions as a response to secularism that has been dismissive or
> even cruel, and has attempted to wipe out religion. And if you try to
> repress it -- as happened in the Soviet Union -- there's now a huge
> religious revival in the Soviet Union, and some of it's not very
> healthy. It's like the suppression of the sexual instinct. If you
> repress the sexual instinct and try to tamp it down, it's likely to
> develop all kinds of perverse and twisted forms. And religion's the
> same....
>
> Religion is hard work. It's an art form. It's a way of finding
> meaning, like art, like painting, like poetry, in a world that is
> violent and cruel and often seems meaningless. And art is hard work.
> You don't just dash off a painting. It takes years of study. I think
> we expect religious knowledge to be instant. But religious knowledge
> comes incrementally and slowly. And religion is like any other
> activity. It's like cooking or sex or science. You have good art, sex
> and science, and bad art, sex and science. It's not easy to do it
> well.
>
> ...Sacred texts have traditionally been a bridge to the divine.
> They're all difficult. They're not a simple manual -- a how-to book
> that will tell you how to gain enlightenment by next week, like how
> to lose weight on the Atkins Diet. This is a slow process. I think
> the best image for reading scripture occurs in the story of Jacob,
> who wrestles with a stranger all night long. And in the morning, the
> stranger seems to have been his God. That's when Jacob is given the
> name Israel -- "one who fights with God." And he goes away limping as
> he walks into the sunrise. Scriptures are a struggle.
>
> ...Faith is not a matter of believing things. That's again a modern
> Western notion. It's only been current since the 18th century.
> Believing things is neither here nor there, despite what some
> religious people say and what some secularists say. That is a very
> eccentric religious position, current really only in the Western
> Christian world....
>
> http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/05/30/armstrong/
>
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