The Crossroads of Faith and the 21st Century
The Quest for Objectivity about Religion
By: Billy Rojas
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Religion is the "third rail" of American politics. Say the wrong thing
about religion
and a politician has no future in public life. But what if religious faith
really
matters to you? In that case, silence about religion is a betrayal of your
character, a denial of your true self, and a crime against your conscience.
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This said, most people are essentially clueless about how to speak
about religion, or to write about religion. They are uneducated to the
subject,
they define it in subjective terms as if objectivity is impossible. They
make
any number of assumptions that other people do not think are true at all.
And they take the view that questions of faith necessarily are private in
nature
and based on nothing but opinions. However, these views are indefensible.
.
Not only this, such an outlook is self-defeating. This is true across the
board
but is especially true with respect to politics. Unless you are educated
to
religion you cannot have a future in politics, this is the new truth of the
21st century even if we may still be some years from understanding
this fact, before the message sinks in and becomes a taken-for-granted
truism which no-one would dream of denying for fear of looking
like a simpleton.
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Before taking these observations further, however, three questions need to
be answered: (1) What does any of this have to do with Radical Centrism?
A related question is: (2) In what way is the study of religion useful in
the
world of politics? And we must ask: (3) How can anyone be objective about
religion; isn't faith, by definition, a matter of personal experience? In
fact,
isn't experience -visions, emotions, inexplicable encounters with the
unseen- what it is all about, beyond rational analysis?
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However, while these questions may seem reasonable to most people,
each is based on blissful ignorance of what religion as a phenomenon
is really all about. Regardless, precisely because few people know
what they are talking about when discussing religion, it is necessary
to provide telling answers that break through the misconceptions that
get in the way of seeing religion objectively.
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Here, then, are the answers to the questions:
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(1) Basic to Radical Centrism is the fact that most of the time Left vs.
Right
views of issues are misleading or even totally wrong in conception.
Note that this is about Radical Centrism, not "centrism." As nearly
everyone
knows, centrism almost always starts with the assumption that the optimal
solutions to problems involve compromise, generally half steps that get us
to a moderate center that combines some views of Left and Right to arrive
at
a "blended" result. To be sure, sometimes, now and then, this kind of
process
is the best we can do. However, the basic principle of Radical Centrism is
very different. "RC," as the philosophy is often abbreviated, is about
combining the strongest principles or ideas offered by the Left and the
Right
in such a way that when looked at as a whole what we get is a rational mix
of uncompromised ideas that, together, balance out. In most cases this
mixture
will also include at least a few ideas that cannot be classified as either
Left or Right,
that are "independent" in character.
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Of course, when the issue is religion we may be talking about so-called
modernists vs. traditionalists, or the contrast might be between the views
of
Theravada Buddhists and Mahayana Buddhists, and so forth. Which, by the
way,
should be enough to tell you that -just in these two examples- we are
discussing
large numbers of people. Of all Christians in the United States
traditionalists
outnumber modernists approximately 2: 1 or even more like 3: 1. Of all
Buddhists
in Asia we are discussing the beliefs and values of believers in Japan,
Korea,
China, Taiwan, and Viet Nam, for the Mahayana, vs. the beliefs of virtually
all Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Laos, who
are Theravadins. That is, these kinds of distinctions -and there are many
more-
are basic to just about all religions and may have little or nothing to do
with
liberals vs conservatives. Or when there is a connection, as there is in
America
between modernists and the Left vs. traditionalists and the Right, entire
"other"
considerations may be involved besides issues that typically exercise
political
Leftists or political Rightists.
.
Other examples of important distinctions are those between Mormons who
trace
their heritage to Brigham Young vs. those who look to Emma Smith,
secularized
Catholics vs. pietistic Catholics, observant vs. non-observant Jews, Parsi
Zoroastrians vs. westernized diaspora Zoroastrians, or politicized Sufis
vs. mystical Sufis. But the point can be made more clearly by looking at
one case of this phenomenon as it has played out in America...
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The conceit of the first generation of ecumenists, basically in the 1950s
and 1960s,
was that the way forward to promote religions tolerance in the United
States
was to assume that believers of different faiths should talk together to
discuss their differences and meet in the middle. Everyone should be
prepared
to give up perceived purity of their beliefs and arrive at views based on a
new
synthesis of ideas, each new principle the product of compromises large and
small. It was widely assumed that the only reasonable outcomes would
reflect
the views of mainline Christian groups even if, in some instances, there
might
be concessions to Jews, or Baha'is, or Evangelicals, or 'progressive'
Hindus.
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This did not work, it could not work, and among Christians of the World
Council
of Churches, it wasn't long before the eastern Orthodox walked out en
bloc
because of moral issues about which they said many American Protestants
were
excessively latitudinarian. Meanwhile, all appeals to traditionalists to
join the
ecumenical movement were dismal failures; they weren't interested and were
highly critical of 'liberal' compromises with Hollywood values, critical
of
liberal interest in economic grievances, and critical of liberal
inattention to what
we might call the psychological needs of Christians -which they themselves
characterized as inexcusable short-shrifting of spiritual experience.
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There were also meetings between ecumenical Christians and believers of
other faiths but these also pretty much came to nothing even if, here and
there,
private individuals discovered new truths, arrived at new insights, and
found themselves with new friends from other cultures.
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What is commonly assumed is that this takes us to an impasse and a
necessary
admission that nothing can be done. People who take a purely centrist view
of these kinds of questions simply do not have any answers.
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People who have a Radical Centrist outlook have any number of answers.
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This is not to say that Radical Centrist solutions to problems may be
regarded
as acceptable to institutions. As things are in today's real world that may
be
very unlikely. However, the fault may have nothing to do with the quality
of RC ideas and everything to do with institutional dependence on large
sums of money, on legacy effects like seniority of an organization's
officers,
or its place in the power or prestige system. But a Radical Centrist
solution
may be very good for an individual or small group.
The 'secret' is very simple: Radical Centrism gives you permission to be
a contrarian, to think for yourself, to have original ideas. Not for the
sake
of novelty or trendiness. For the sake of truthfulness.
The problem is that -bizarre as it may sound- our culture sometimes
regards
truth as a liability, not a necessity. This is obvious in politics, of
course, which
often operates on the basis of lies, deception, evasions, and spin, but
this also
can be a factor in the realm of religion. For example, which physical
miracles
reported in the Bible have been verified scientifically? None.
This is not to speak of personal spiritual encounters that may change lives
dramatically, nor fortuitous coincidences, nor interpretations of real
world events
that are not necessarily miraculous but that can be understood that way.
But did Moses part the Red Sea, did Jesus walk on water, did the walls of
Jericho
tumble down at the sounding of trumpets, did the Sun stand still in the sky
to permit Joshua to win a battle, and so forth? There is zero proof of
any such
events; they all are fictions, as is the Great Flood, the rising from the
dead
of a large number of the deceased as reported in the Gospel of Matthew,
and a literal reading of the poetic and beautiful story of the star of
Bethlehem
shining light beams like lasers directly down to a specific location on
Earth.
Another word for fiction is "lie." Fictions may be white lies, falsehoods
told for
beneficial effect, it is no problem to take that view in many cases, but
the fact
is that none of these things happened. Which is a near universal problem
because, bad as this is for Bible literalists, it is worse in other
religions,
most notably Hinduism and some schools of Buddhism. It isn't much of
a problem in Islam which claims few miracles per se, but the Koran has
another
problem, namely falsification of history, like claiming that Alexander was
a Muslim, which is preposterous, or asserting that a substitute was nailed
to the cross at the crucifixion and that Jesus was spared from death.
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There are much greater problems of deception than these however. Scholars
now know, for example, that large parts of the Hebrew Bible were
deliberately
falsified, quite possibly by Ezra, to promote a monotheistic interpretation
of ancient religion by editing originally henotheistic scriptures to make
them
denounce belief in a divine couple, -Yahweh and his Asherah- to demonize
the Goddess, and claim that God is a hermit with no desire for the
opposite sex.
Whatever one thinks of any alternative theology, there is little dispute
that
the Torah and many other books of the Tanach were heavily edited in the
ancient era past and falsified in the process.
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Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, and it does not matter if this upsets
you
or not. The facts speak for themselves.
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There are similar problems in the New Testament with whole books, most
notably
the Pastorals, not written by the Apostle Paul despite claims to his
authorship,
and with the near impossibility of attributing James to Jesus' brother,
considering
that this text was written by a Greek speaker who knew literary Greek.
James,
from every indication, did not receive that kind of education; the
conclusion is
just about unavoidable that authorship of the Book of James, as
supposedly
by James, is a case of false attribution.
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The question is whether or not you value truth. Do you put truth above
other virtues?
We can allow for "white lies" and the kinds of fictions essential to drama
and
mythology, but what about everything else? The fact is that we cannot even
address this issue unless we recognize just how untruthful people often are
-and this sometimes includes ourselves.
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Part of the "project" of Radical Centrism is inspiring courage to face the
truth,
whatever that truth may be. This is a philosophical principle with major
implications.
Yes, arriving at a center is a virtue, but not at the expense of
compromising
away one's fundamental values. It is essential in Radical Centrism to
accept
the truths in any position you are evaluating for what they are.
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Left and Right ideologies are "packages" of positions that serve a
theory-derived
purpose -the emancipation of the working class, the defense of property
rights,
the necessity for free speech, among them. This does not say that their
purposes
are wrong just that as organizing principles they are insufficient. They
are
reductionist, they try to reduce all issues to one issue, and that isn't
how
the world works. Radical Centrism is a form of "systems thinking," taking
into account all relevant facts and ideas and truths.
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As difficult as it is for some people to understand how this functions in
the
realm of politics, it is harder in the sphere of religion.
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In effect, the idea being discussed here is much like a concept sometimes
called "cafeteria Catholicism." There are Protestant versions of the same
thing,
Jewish versions, Buddhist versions, and so forth. Hinduism can almost be
thought of as one vast cafeteria. The believer picks and chooses from
the alternatives, arriving at a collection of ideas that satisfy his or her
individual needs and desires. However, things are not so simple.
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The reason is that there is a truth test involved in Radical Centrist
thought
that may or may not be present in other outlooks. It isn't enough to choose
something, what is chosen needs to stand the test of rightness and
truthfulness.
Is it really in your best interests? Are you exchanging one fiction, one
mythology, for another, or are you choosing truth?
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This is anything but a screed in favor of Atheism. Metaphysics without God
can be every bit as wrong as a metaphysics of God, or of many Gods.
Besides, Atheism, in most forms, is two dimensional, flat, not cognizant
of the depths of religion and the many functions of faith in the real world
and throughout the real worlds of our evolutionary past.
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Atheism is not only "soulless" in a formal sense but also soulless in
a metaphorical sense, meaning unimaginative, cold rather than warm,
superficial rather than psychological, and blandly ideological rather than
painfully realistic. So it seems to me.
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Yet this leaves plenty of room for criticism of religion. The principle of
choice
in matters of faith presupposes criticisms of views that you do not accept
-otherwise why would you have rejected those alternatives? But it does
say that there are innumerable truths to find within religious experiences
of all kinds. However, the objective is truth, not comforting fictions:
The truth and nothing but the truth -unless we are talking about drama
or literature -or story-telling that features engaging myths.
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There is also a methodology. Masking good decisions about religious
questions requires more than prayerful contemplation. There may well be
value in prayer, of course. This has been recognized from time immemorial.
Mesopotamian sacred texts include many prayers and supplications, prayers
and thanksgivings, prayers and reflections on the meaning of life and fate.
There is something similar in many Pagan prayers of ancient Greece,
it wasn't only Christians or Jews who prayed. Its just that prayers offer
no guarantee of response to questions; besides, as the Apostle Paul said
in various contexts, believers can and should avail themselves of the
light of reason. Praying does not excuse anyone from the responsibility
of problem-solving thinking. .
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In case anyone has the interest I can tell you my own methodology -which
seems to work reasonably well, with the disclaimer, anyway, that I am
responsible for my own mistakes.
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It starts with dedication to discovering unadorned truth as my highest
intellectual
value. If I have a mission in life it necessarily comes with the
imperative to
speak the truth, to expose falsehood and error, which, of course, is
something
that presupposes knowing truth. This is derivative of the example of
Socrates
and Diotima, the priestess who was his mentor, who showed him how to
proceed to find the truth.
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Not sure if this can be explained further, but at about age 17, not long
before
I headed off to college, I had read about Socrates and was forever
impressed
by his example; he had made the value of seeking the truth absolutely
clear.
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This came with a methodology of his own, albeit filtered through Plato,
which
I was dubious about, but the worth of truth was undeniable. And it
reinforced
the message in sermons I had heard in Baptist church in previous years,
the pastor citing the Apostle Paul saying, for instance: "Throw off
falsehood,
speak the truth to one another," and "let no-one deceive you with shallow
arguments," and "look facts in the face," and "stop lying to one another."
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But how are you supposed to do that? It took a good deal of trial and e
rror
but essentially what made the best sense to me was to combine the insights
of several philosophers and religious thinkers: Martin Luther, whom I bad
discovered in high school, St. Thomas Aquinas, Des Cartes, Henri
Saint-Simon,
Kant, and Hegel. And the American pragmatists.
To the list must be added Sigmund Freud, the first modern-era
thinker that I know of who made use of myths as paradigms for solving
psychological problems. The one contribution from the Orient was
not one particular thinker but a school of thought, Zen Buddhism.
What Zen teaches that is invaluable to know, is that obvious solutions
to problems are often wrong and ultimately waste your time. To find
compelling answers that can stand any test it is vital to look for the
unexpected, to be prepared to find surprises, to examine every serious
problem from every conceivable angle, and not to be satisfied until you
find the simplest, most elegant solution possible. This kind of idea
is also known in a less complicated form in the philosophy
of William of Ockham.
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>From Luther comes the idea that unless a problem really matters to you,
viscerally, it probably isn't worth the effort. When it does matter to you
give it all you've got. Do your very best. When you do approach a problem
what is necessary is -to use modern idiom- to turn on your "crap
detector"
and look for any and all nonsense embedded in a point of view you are
examining. It is crucial to dispose of any and all superfluous or wrong
ideas.
In most cases such nonsense is there to be found. Look for it, its probably
under your nose, and such "crap" must be eliminated. Which, not at all
incidentally,
was a view taught by Edward F. Carpenter, the founding headmaster of
"Harlem Prep," aka, Harlem Preparatory School -who invented the
phrase "crap detector."
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Aquinas was a towering intellect who devised a system of systematic
correction
of errors as essential to learning and defending truth. It isn't always
necessary
but it sometimes is, and in all such cases Aquinas set the example of what
to do.
Start by informing yourself of what your opposition is saying
-conscientiously.
Study the views of the "other side," know them as well as you know your
own views. Then refute them decisively so that you have cleared the decks
and the truth is there to be seen in contrast to every mistaken view. In
other
words, you need to have a fighting spirit, you need to utterly annihilate
your
opposition so that their views can clearly be seen as based on error.
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Des Cartes taught the value of systematic doubt. Question everything, do
not
make assumptions about anything at all. Never start by defending views
insisted upon by a religion or ideology or school of thought. Doubt it
all and
see where it takes you. No sacred cows allowed, no dogmas, and
no words attributed to God. Use your intellect, be ruthless on your quest
for truth, be thorough. Then, when you simply cannot doubt anything else,
see what you have and build upon whatever solid truths are available to
you.
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Henri Saint-Simon was a philosophe -moreso a popularizer of ideas than
a philosopher as such- whose one contribution to the subject of
truth seeking was extremely important: He recognized the fact that
a combination of the methods of science with the task of discovering
the truths of human existence should be entirely possible and, at the
same time, reveal vital facts about our nature to us. Hence, and
his reputation for this is well deserved, he is regarded as the father
of sociology and the social sciences more generally. That is, it is not
enough
to deduce conclusions from established bodies of knowledge nor is it enough
to use scientific method to delve into the secrets of the natural world.
The methods of science should be applied to seeking truth about human
beings
as uncovered trough careful observation, controlled experiment, and
study of empirical facts. That is, it is essential to approach almost every
problem you want to solve the way a physicist approaches the study
of atoms or energy: Accumulate facts, maybe find out new facts through
your own investigations, formulate an hypothesis that explains a
phenomenon,
test your theory trying to find its weaknesses, and don't imagine you
have discovered an actual truth unless you have done everything
necessary to be as certain as it is possible to get. This sets the bar
quite high and most of the time this is more than anyone can accomplish,
but at a minimum this model of finding truth should guide your work.
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Kant, in effect, is the father of Radical Centrism. What is absolutely
crucial
to his system of thought is the problem of the "antinomies of reason." This
will
take a few paragraphs to explain but it is worth the time to think through
his thesis about the functions of reason. What follows is not, however,
an analysis of metaphysics, Kant's original subject, but how his logic
can produce valuable conclusions when applied to problems encountered
in politics and religion. This is an interpretation of Kant but, you may
agree,
a useful interpretation.
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What Kant noticed is the fact that we are regularly confronted with
contrary
claims about reality. This presents us with the problem of reason itself,
our need to resolve contrary (or seemingly contradictory) assertions:
We have free will vs. there is no such thing as free will. The Holy Spirit
is female
as characterized in the Hebrew Bible vs. the Holy Spirit is male, as
described
in the New Testament. Jesus was human but divine vs. Jesus was entirely
human.
Or, to go outside the realm of Biblical faith, into Taoism, truth manifests
in
the world of nature which we need to live in harmony with vs. truth is
found by locating voids in nature, spaces that open our understanding
to the realm of the sacred, something not possible through our usual
perceptions the world around us.
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How can we resolve these kinds of important questions? Each contrary view
is powerful and persuasive.
.
The answer is that there would not be such contraries if our reason was not
subject to limitations and prone to accepting illusions as objective facts
when,
of course, illusions are fictions. "True contraries," in other words,
are due to inescapable distortions of reason. We are human beings,
by definition we are flawed, imperfect, and subject to errors
of judgement. It is in this realization that a solution to the problem
of contraries can be found.
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Maybe it isn't always the case, but one reason for the existence of
contraries
is the fact that each "talks past" the other. They aren't really in the
same
ballpark; each operates on the basis of a different set of assumptions.
The task, therefore, is to unmask these assumptions and examine what each
is really all about. Each is as strong as it is because each is founded
on actual truths. To discover what is essential in antinomies it is
necessary
to change one's perspective, to rethink one's premises; only then
can the solution emerge.
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Here is an antinomy that matters greatly to millions of people:
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The Bible is wholly consistent, there are no errors in its pages, it is
authoritative for all things of concern to a spiritual life.
vs.
The Bible is inconsistent, there are errors of many kinds in its pages,
it is not authoritative for much of anything.
.
.
But what if the Bible is authoritative despite being imperfect? What if
there are both consistencies and inconsistencies? What if there are
both profound truths and a good number of errors? In this case
each antinomy is untenable. Paradoxically, both are true and false.
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There is also a consideration that neither Jews nor Christians wish to
think about.
You can argue a case that, speaking of the Tanakh, the Old Testament,
there really are two Bibles in one. This refers to a set of "books" of the
Bible
that are consistent with a henotheistic interpretation -a God and Goddess
interpretation. This refers to the following texts: Judges, Ruth, parts of
Proverbs, notably chapters 8 and 9, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther,
and Jonah. There also are passages in Genesis and other books that show
evidence of an original composition far older than the monotheistic version
we now have, which also are compatible with henotheistic views, Numbers 31
and Malachi 1: 11, for instance. This takes any debate to an entirely new
level and raises many questions that radically challenge monotheistic
views.
About consistency and inconsistency, the observation can be made that
there are examples of each in the Bible, in both testaments. Where there
is undoubted consistency why shouldn't we make it clear that the book
is authoritative to us? There are historical inconsistencies between Judges
and Joshua, for instance. In that case the court of appeal should be the
historical and archaeological record. Sometimes we can eliminate
inconsistencies
by affirming the truth of some passages and discrediting other verses that
simply cannot pass empirical tests of fact.
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Where there is complete consistency, for example, is with respect to the
Bible's
views of sodomy, both male and female. There are at least 30 passages on
the issue in the Holy Book and they all condemn same sex sexuality in all
of its forms; attempts by ersatz 'liberal' Christians to explain away
these
condemnations have proven to be based on fallacies or on outright
falsifications
of obvious meanings. This leaves us with, for good reason, complete
rejection
of homosexuality; this repudiation is necessary to both Jewish and
Christian
believers. You are free to disagree -but not as a Christian or a Jew.
No 'debate' is thinkable. Nothing could be clearer.
.
These kinds of explanations will not satisfy either so-called
"fundamentalists"
or modernists but they do not need to do so. All that is necessary is that
alternative explanations speak to the intellectual and "whole person" needs
of some number men and women. In the future there may be many more
than there are today. What is essential is establishing a truth -so that
it
may grow in the awareness of people. In effect, Radical Centrism
is about winning the war to establish truth -against lies and deceptions
and illusions. To borrow an adage attributed to Margaret Thatcher,
"first win the argument, then win the election." This becomes:
.
First win the argument about the truth and then win converts to
a new Cause. What is demonstrably true will prevail even if it takes
more time than it should. Never underestimate the power of entrenched
interests. But always put truth first because it is the right thing to do.
.
Hegel is also important to Radical Centrists because he made it clear that
truth may arise from competition -or conflict- between opposite
positions.
In fact, there are many examples of this phenomenon. A position is advanced
that affirms a positive principle; this is called the Thesis. In due course
as the Thesis plays out in the real world, problems with it arise since
nothing is perfect in this life and a negative view arises in opposition;
this is called the Antithesis. Finally, there is a clash between Thesis
and Antithesis; the result is a new position that combines the truths
in both the Thesis and Antithesis, discarding everything extraneous
or incorrect. This is known as the Synthesis. Eventually the Synthesis
serves as a new Thesis and the process repeats itself. Whether or not
this is exactly how all tensions between ideas work out in life isn't
critical,
what is important is that something similar to this process takes place
and is a guide to how Radical Centrists think about problems.
An example of this Hegelian dialectic in operation might be the process
whereby the excesses of the Catholic Church in the early 1500s led
to Luther's criticisms and creation of a new and simpler form of Christian
faith. When Henry VIII decided to break from Rome, however, he did not
adopt the Lutheran model, he believed that a superior solution would be
to retain many of the liturgical and organizational features of Catholicism
but borrow Lutheran theology and basic values. You might also think
of Lutheranism as a Thesis among Protestants that generated Calvinism
as its Antithesis, only to be followed later by a Synthesis that we know
today as the Baptist Church.
.
The American pragmatists are also important to Radical Centrists. Here the
test of truth is practicality: Does it work? Is an idea you think is true
also useful?
Something that is true may not have much value if there is no practical
result.
Practicality thus sets the agenda for philosophy : The search is not just
for
true conclusions but for meaningful truths that can have an impact in the
real world -as opposed to, for example, most questions of metaphysics
or most formulations in logical positivism. Truths should "pay off" -in
education,
in politics, in the realm of culture, and in making decisions about right
and
wrong in matters of religious faith on which you base your life.
Additionally, allow me to mention a factor that adds further depth to
everything else,
an important lesson from my years as a Baha'i. This concerns the Baha'i
view
that spiritual truth is not limited to any single faith. I eventually
rejected Baha'i
theology which said that all religions are 'equal' in value, an outlook
that fails
empirical tests since by objective measures they simply are not equal, but
the
concept that many religions have value passes those tests with flying
colors.
Hence my practice to always, in questions of religion, make sure to take
into account any relevant information about other religions besides
my own when thinking about spiritual questions.
Christianity is unique in aggregate but not in many or most of its
particulars.
There are parallels to Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and ancient faiths of the
Mid East concerning most issues of importance. And, if you are studying
Buddhism you should never overlook its connections to Hinduism, Taoism,
and Confucianism -and Shinto only exists in Japan in association with
the Dharma. Judaism has numerous connections with other religions
depending on which period of history you are concerned with,
since it had relationships with Zoroastrianism in the Exilic era,
with Greco-Roman Paganism in the Hellenistic era, with Byzantine
Christianity after that, and so forth. Whatever the issue -the concept
of salvation, baptism, morality, et. al.- it is a really good idea to
compare what you are investigating with examples from other faiths.
You can be sure that you will find fresh insights
Finally there is the subject of sociobiology. This obviously is not a type
of
philosophy, it is a science, the newest science in fact. The animating
principle of sociobiology is that human beings are products of evolution
and carry with us vestiges of our primate past -or even mammalian past
more generally.
We are creatures who for whom adaptation is central to everything else.
As individuals we adapt to the changing circumstances of our lives,
as groups we adapt to new social realities, and as a species we are
the product of numerous adaptations of the past.
No matter how you look at ourselves we are biological beings
whatever else we may also be. We do not exist outside of biology.
This does not exclude other possibilities -think of Arthur Clarke's
science fiction scenarios whereby we can continue to live after death
as organized electrons, not only religious scenarios where we live
after death in a spiritual realm- but what is undisputed is that we
must focus attention on flesh-and-blood realities.
As things are, our biological natures are congruent with the natures
of other species, especially other primates, which is to say that we should
not for a moment think that we have left our animal natures in the dust.
We remain animals. Or as Christians put it, we are born in "original sin."
This translates into the fact that we sometimes are selfish creatures,
again and again we do stupid things, our passions often get the better
of us, it is a struggle to lead moral lives, and on and on. None of us
are remotely perfect; we are collections of imperfections.
.
All of which simply says that any conclusions we reach must be consistent
with the fact of our animal natures, with our innate sinfulness.
Idealization
of human-ness does nobody the least good because that point-of-view
is unrealistic. Not because we are born "evil" but because we are born
with limitations and imperfections that sometimes cause harm to
our self interests as well as the interests of others.
.
Radical Centrism, then, is far more than the view that the best policy in
politics or in other areas of life is likely to be found in the center, or
in
some form of moderation. Radical Centrists generally agree with "centrists"
about objectives but we approach problems in a very different manner.
This is because Radical Centrism is a philosophy with its own way
of thinking that ventures far beyond making things up as you go, beyond
applied common sense, and beyond spontaneous responses to issues.
Radical Centrism is a system of thought that makes demands on people.
It asks people to never stop learning, to educate themselves to new ways
of problem solving, and it tells them that we can do far better than
conventional ways of doing things.
.
Radical Centrism, to put it in such terms, is a graduate school for the
mind.
.
Not that all of the methods I may use are possible to use in all cases;
and sometimes some methods are inappropriate to particular problems.
.
The best way to think about Radical Centrist methodology is to conceive
it as tools in a toolkit. Not every task requires a screwdriver or a
micrometer
or an adjustable wrench. But you are far better off if you have a variety
of tools
to choose from when confronted with most problems in life, including issues
of religion. Moreover you have the freedom to add tools to your toolbox
that are not mentioned here or anywhere else. You can invent new tools
or think of new uses for existing tools. All that is asked is that your
ideas
are consistent with ideas expressed here, not in every detail since we are
individuals and have individual needs, but in spirit.
.
Is the system just outlined the only possible Radical Centrist
point-of-view
about religion? Of course not. However, this is a challenge to anyone
who disagrees with that system or with particular parts of it. Someone can
say, "well, I don't accept those views" or "I have better ideas," but if
you do
have objections or better ideas, what are they?
.
Radical Centrism is still a new philosophy, people who are part of RC are
still exploring the possibilities, still working toward some kind of
comprehensive
outlook that can become generally popular. Here is my interpretation of
what this outlook can be and should be. It is the product of years of
careful
thought on the questions discussed. If you believe your approach is
superior
it is up to you to tell everyone else your interpretation. Otherwise, my
view
could become associated with Radical Centrism in the public mind,
unopposed.
.
I would prefer at least some discussion and debate and would welcome
give-and-take. Have I thought of everything important? What have
I overlooked? What opportunities are not identified? Are there errors
of fact or logic? In short, I regard informed dissent as a blessing, not
as a liability. All that I ask is that people who don't really know what
they are talking about not waste everyone's time with half baked objections
or irrelevant opinions. The "price of admission" to a serious debate
is study, making yourself informed, taking the time to think through
the important questions about religion in human life.
.
.
In the realm of religion we really need other terminology besides "Radical
Centrism."
The problem with this phrase is that it is closely associated with politics
and
secular concerns more generally. We do not have agreed-upon nomenclature
for the purposes of religion but as a suggestion 'spiritual Radical
Centrism'
might be called "crossroads theology." This is taken from the Old Testament
/
Hebrew Bible, from the Book of Proverbs, especially chapter 8,
which begins:
"Hear how Wisdom lifts her voice and Understanding cries out.
She stands at the crossroads, by the wayside at the top of the hill;
beside the gate, at the entrance to the city, at the entry, by the open
gate
she calls aloud: Men [people] it is to you I call, I appeal to every man:
Understand you simple fools, what it is to be shrewd.
You stupid people, understand what sense means.
Listen! For I will speak clearly, you will have plain speech from me,
for I speak nothing but truth..."
.
.
.
--
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
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