Letters to the Editor
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Axial Age too late?
Didn't Buddha, Confucious, Lao Tzu and the writers of the Upanishads live long before 900 BC?
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Completely Unfair Slander
Steve Paulson stated, "Certainly, the major tragedies of the 20th century were committed by secularists -- Stalin, Hitler, Mao."
Let's start with Hitler. Hitler didn't kill 6 million Jews by himself. He had help from millions of bigoted people, who believed the lie, spread by the Christian churches, that the Jews were culpable for the death of Christ, and were lesser human beings. Thus, secularism didn't cause the Holocaust, Christianity did.
Stalin wasn't a secularist nearly so much as he was a Stalinist. Thus, secularism didn't cause the deaths of millions of Russians, Stalinism did. And the same goes for Mao, who wasn't a secularist at all. What kind of secularist tries to have himself deified?
It's a shame Ms. Armstrong failed to set Paulson straight on his claim. Either she's grossly misinformed, or she just doesn't care.
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Oops
Nevermind apparently they all lived around 500 BC.
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No, the dating is fine.
Actually, Bill, they're all dated in the 6th through 4th centuries B.C.E. Look it up.
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Shrill atheists
Shrill? Pot calling the kettle black, ikpo.
Philosophers have existed. No disagreement. I won't even argue their brilliance---I agree there have been brilliant philosophers. There have also been shamans and born again preachers who speak in tongues, and people who believe that dancing will bring rain. I just don't buy into the idea that any of these people had connections to the divine. I respect cultural traditions but am simply tired of seeing them considered as valid as hypothesis-driven science. It is possible to be an atheist, and still think human culture in all its variety is beautiful and to be admired, without feeling the need to base the major decisions in one's life on it.
My complaint is only that this discussion is always in only one direction. The direction of "I am bringing to the fore, yet another attempt at convincing smart people why it's acceptable (even intellectually rigorous) to be religious." Why is it we can't EVER have a discussion in the other direction? Why can't we ever have the discussion that says "Let's consider this from the other point of view---the point of view most atheists would be comfortable with." The point of view that says smart people can discuss the meaning of life, without requiring unseen forces and yes Ikpo, the big white guy in the sky.
Every year the NY times polls Americans and asks "Do you believe in God?". The percentage of Americans who respond affirmatively to that question never falls below 95%! The number in Europe is far far lower. As an American, it stuns me that so few people here consider an alternative answer to that question. But of course, it's because American society does not tolerate the discussion. And because we are so firmly told, over and over again, that spirituality and prayer and religion are good, and that atheists are shrill and unwholesome and, on some level, evil.
I get the feeling Ikpo, that you resent my not having applied myself more fully to this article. But I see these articles all of the time, at least once a day somewhere. And even frequently in Salon! But ask yourself. Have you EVER seen an article that explores the atheist points of view (about the meaning of life, and science, and mysticism and its functions in human culture) in Salon? Ever? And yet, Anne Lamott and countless others over the years, tell us unashamedly about their spirituality and readers, so caught up in the comforting haze of it all, are fine with it, never object, lap it up. I wonder if the bias were in the other direction, how long would Salon exist?
But maybe I'm wrong! I would be happy to concede having overlooked the kinds of articles I have described if I have actually missed seeing them. Perhaps there has been a flurry of reporting by open-minded religious types seeking to examine alternative ways of thinking and I've just missed it. I HAVE been busy, I'll admit. After all, Christians/Jews/Muslims/Wiccans etc, as you, ikpo have so succintly shown, are all about putting one's self into the other guy's shoes and maintaining civil discourse. They are all about listening to ALL points of view, right? It is, after all, the righteous way to be......
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There's a delay in the Posting System.
It looks like Bill figured it out, and posted a retraction before my post appeared. As such, I retract my second post.
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Armstrong's essentialism
A few comments on some of Armstrong's observations:
WESTERN PEOPLE THINK THE SUPERNATURAL IS THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION, BUT THAT'S RATHER LIKE THE IDEA OF AN EXTERNAL GOD. THAT'S A MINORITY VIEW WORLDWIDE.
I won't comment on the stark essentialism of this statement with respect to "Western people", but will criticise another aspect of Armstrong's insistent reductionism: her view of religion is what many would call elitist, even Orientalist, for the way it privileges texts and the rarefied realms of theology over lived religion among the masses. The vast majority of the world's people who claim religion are not well-read in either scripture or exegesis, though folk forms or folk understandings of both genres are universal phenomena. Instead, it is precisely the supernatural, both as explanation and 'real' power, that plays the biggest role in daily life. Armstrong's views romanticise and mysticise theology at the expense of the rest of the spectrum of religiosity – an irony, since her humanism leads her to read (the English translations of other textual traditions) in search of harmonies and compatibilities, rather than incommensurables and discordances. In other words, she prioritises written texts, but downplays most of what's written.
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.
Even Buddhistic monotheists, whether freelance or on contract, should recognise the Protestant tones and the tired American moralism, of a claim like "religion is hard work". I think a better way to think of it is: life is hard work, and religion exists to make it easier. To make it livable. To make it survivable. (All of which is to say, to make it meaningful.) Of course, religious discourses can function as art forms, and creating meaning is one of the primary functions of religion. But if one accepts that "meaning" is a discursive social process grounded in the biology of human cognition, the analytical value of this sort of statement approaches nil.
I BEGAN TO READ THEM LIKE POETRY, WHICH IS WHAT THEOLOGY IS. IT'S POETRY. IT'S AN ATTEMPT TO EXPRESS THE INEXPRESSIBLE.
Some theology is intended to be "like poetry", though not all of it, not by any means. And some people can read all of theology as if it were metaphor or exoteric formalism (as do "the mystics"). But that itself is a "theological" opinion, if you will, one of a million, and using a single theological (or epistemological) perspective as a lens through which all the rest are refracted and interpreted is bad theology, bad epistemology, and most of all, bad social science.