KWC - YIN:
David Brooks, ex-secularist, says, "It's now clear that the secularization theory is untrue. The human race does not necessarily get less religious as it grows richer and better educated. We are living through one of the great periods of scientific progress and the creation of wealth. At the same time, we are in the midst of a religious boom." I remember trying to read the whole article when it first came out ... and the reason I couldn't finish was it just seemed to me that his argument didn't fly, that the evidence he was offering was certainly evidence for *something* - or many somethings - but it isn't evidence that the world is getting more and more religious. And this is because, it seems clearly to me, the notion of "being religious" is hopelessly general, as if there is something non-trivial that these people - from American Pentacostals to newly confirmed African Christians - have *in common* ... and I can't for the life of me think what it *is* apart from being human with all the frailty and fear the flesh and spirit are prone to. Professor Jenkins observes that "perhaps the most successful social movement of our age is Pentecostalism" - social movement? "Having gotten its start in Los Angeles about a century ago, it now embraces 400 million people ..." - Los Angeles? 400 million? who *are* these people? *where* are they that share such Angelino origins? Surely not in LA. It's lacunae like these that make me think, "I wonder if he really means 'people who would *love* to have a Walmart within easy-driving distance'?" In any case, I have a hard time seeing the significance beneath these superficial data. My sense of it is, we don't get anywhere near to what's really going on until we get (what the anthropologist/historian) Geertz called "thick descriptions" - all the historical and local *details* that give a context to each one these "religious" people. Otherwise we're left with really general stuff about anomie and alienation and "search for meaning" - which hardly means anything since it can apply to almost anyone anywhere. YANG: Peter (on this rock) Berkowitz says, "at minimum it is reasonable to pursue the fecund thought that Rawls's freestanding liberalism actually stands on an act of faith. Perhaps Rawls's conflicting accounts can be reconciled, as in the Declaration of Independence, through the idea that a certain faith impels us to hold as self-evident the truth that all people are by nature free and equal." Is it just too boring to note that just because there's some kind of "faith" at work doesn't mean that *religious* faith is involved. Surely it's not "religious" to get up in the morning and carry on in the faith that today is NOT the day a giant comet slams into the earth. As to the nature of the "faith" we exhibit when we take it as self-evident that we are free & equal by nature - or, on a slightly different tack, adopt the categorical imperative that each of us is a being with ends of its own, never to be treated as means to another's ends - it's not clear this is a "religious" faith or even faith at all. (Eg., Aristotle's version of justice, that we should treat each other as beings capable of living according to right and wrong depends entirely on our *biological* nature (as revealed by science) - essentially, that we are the kind of creature which can realize its capacity to be what it *is* - to be a grown-up version of itself ... can accomplish this only by *knowing* what it ought to be in order to *choose* to act accordingly. In order to be able to do with, we are equipped by nature with language and with minds. No "faith" as such involved in this argument at all. Berkowitz seems to agree ... "No one is saying that liberalism requires you to be religious or that religious people are more amply endowed with the liberal spirit. But for those who care about understanding liberalism, a more precise knowledge of its foundations should be welcome. And as a practical matter, for those who care about freedom and equality, knowledge of the foundations of the truths we have long held to be self-evident can contribute to our ability to cultivate the conditions under which we can keep our grip on them firm." I say, good plan ... adding that I don't see what religion or religiousness has at all to do with this project, even in its Rawlsian embodiment. I guess what I'm saying overall is that I see religion (or religious movements anyway) as epi-phenomenal, like smoke coming off a smoldering pile. It bespeaks something deeper and more real. Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Vancouver, B.C. [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus] Oooops. PS - I'd be happy to get the whole Berkowitz piece by attached *.doc Thanks! _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
