Mostly agreed there - and rather well-stated, though the targets of that criticism would very much see the narrative as relevant; they just see the “pile of settled facts” as being a necessary prerequisite necessary to “bestow credance upon” any forthcoming narrative. They are wrong to do this in such universal terms, to be sure; but they do it nonetheless. There are points where historicity is necessary to validate the message, but to make that modern reactionism the gatekeeper of all biblical scholarship - all understanding of narrative - that has lead to much fundamentalist mischief and mishandling of the sacred word.
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Just the other day I read, surely from Holy Envy but I’m not sure, words to this effect:
Treat other people’s religion with the same respect you’d have them treat yours.
Many - though certainly not all- Christians fail at this application of the golden rule. That may well be true of much of the rest of the population as well, both the religious and nons. But not every religion worships a jealous God whose adherents take offense at every perceived slight of their deity. From my online experience fundamentalist atheists and Christians fail the most egregiously, with a slight edge to the atheists. Though they don’t have a deity in that fight, many are every bit as defensive of their religious status as Christians are for their God’s feelings, and probably more so.
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This could be interesting to consider for other issues too that aren’t religious. For example, what would it mean to treat a flat-earther’s views with the same respect with which I want my “round-earth” view to be treated? Can a view simply be declared wrong, incoherent, illogical, etc. without that being taken as “disrespect”?
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Great point–or with Covid. We can disagree with conspiracy theorists respectfully, without agreeing with them.
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I suppose someone who truly believes the earth is flat shouldn’t be ridiculed. The same goes for vaccine deniers. You would think a flat earthier could be shown evidence to correct his mistaken belief. To convince a vaccine denier it might require more education and that requires some willingness and even effort.
I guess the question becomes why do we want to ridicule anyone? For me it is when someone seems insincere in saying obtuse things that I’m more likely to “go low”.
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A person of good will won’t. I suppose that is easy enough for most to agree on.
It can be a brute fact that the loudest and most joyful singer in your church might also be the one who sings off key and can’t hold a tune to save their lives (and may indeed be amazingly oblivious to that fact.) Is there any way to point out this truth to them in a way that doesn’t leave them feeling disrespected?
I suppose part of the answer here is to … be the sort of person who others would share these things with because they know you can take it - and in fact would even want to know! We probably need to each ask ourselves in what ways we are that person with the habit that so irritates others, because we would (or at least should) want to stop it. People of good will are generally horrified to discover that they’re making life difficult for others or that they are even doing anything that makes it more work for others to love them. If a person generally has cultivated an attitude of wanting to know when they’re wrong, they probably aren’t the sort that will keep entertaining flat earth ideas for very long.
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Of course some of us have gifts best suited for just such ridicule. When you’ve been given the gift of sarcasm I’ve been blessed with, it is hard to pass up a cue to put it on display.
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I think i may just have gotten a clue to what the author Barbara Brown Taylor means by “finding God in self”, @Kendel . It shows up in the fourth of the book’s twelve chapters, which shares the same title as the book. For anyone considering reading it for themselves I’ll blur any further passages I quote. If you decide to risk the spoiler, just click your mouse in the blurred block of text to read it.
This is a busy chapter with many good points but I’ll risk cutting straight to the part which I think speaks to that puzzling phrase regarding where a certain kind of Hindu looks for God. The passage begins by enumerating some of the troubling questions which can arise when you visit places where people practice other faiths, especially if they are people of goodwill and skilled at speaking of their faith with people who don’t share it.
What is the true nature of God, and how do we know what God desires of us? How capable are we of responding to those desires, and what do we hope will happen to us if we do? If the religious world you are visiting is one where neither “God” nor “religion” is a meaningful term, even more unsettling questions may arise. Is there a larger consciousness at work in what happens to us or are we the makers of our own meaning? What moves people to lives of compassion in the absence of belief in God?
The part I bolded suggests that within some faith systems, God’s nature can be understood to lie in a larger consciousness. How large? It doesn’t say but one. But I find a clue on the wiki page on her under “Academic background”.
- Yale University
Academic work
Discipline Religious studies
School or tradition Panentheism
Institutions Piedmont College
I may be one of the few here with no clear idea what “panentheism” even means but it is listed as being her “school or tradition”. So the “larger consciousness” at work which may shed light on God’s nature could refer to something like cosmos-wide consciousness of which God is the embodiment. But that has never made any sense to me. If consciousness is widely dispersed as it seems to be then I see no reason to imagine it as having one unified will. The way I think of it, consciousness is indeed widely dispersed at least among creatures with neuronal structures (but maybe even among slime molds and rocks). I’d say our human conceptions of God arise from the apprehension of something divine within the field of consciousness associated with our own being. I don’t mean one field of consciousness for all of mankind, though I’m guessing that probably would make more sense to Christians. But what I think is that within the field of consciousness arising in each one of us, the part which represents our beliefs and the deliberate expression of our will is only one part. That individual part is supported by something much larger and wiser, and it is our fleeting glimpses of the insights and actions of that part which have given rise to and still supports God belief. Intuitively we suspect it is important to please this part of consciousness; and anything which has that effect is felt to bring us fulfillment and add meaning to our lives. I have not finished the book so I don’t know how closely this will fit the author’s own idea but I hope she will go on to say more about this.
I find the paragraph that follows this passage (also on page 75) to be very useful as well. It discusses the benefits to those who of risk making contact with other faith systems with their competing truth claims.
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I wouldn’t. I would say connect the evidentiary dots that draw the picture of reality and that point to the knowable loving and lovable personal God who is and maybe some correct God-belief will arise. Some of those dots are quite objectively factual and not just based on surmises.
As I understand it, Pantheism (just to contrast it with Panentheism) is the belief that material reality is God. (Maybe a bit like Einstein - who didn’t believe in any personal God that would listen to your prayers, but believed in the cosmos and the collection of rules governing it as being the “God” of everything.) Most mainline Christians write off pantheism as beyond the pale - as far as orthodox Christian belief would see it.
But Panentheism sees God both in everything (just as the pantheist also does), but also as transcendent (beyond and independently of this material cosmos) as well. So it’s a bigger God. Instead of material reality being God (pantheist), material reality is now a subset of God - a part of God, if you will. That’s the Panentheist.
The latter one seems to be accepted as a more respectable option by some Christians because it can resonate with the scriptural message of an omnipresent God. You can’t go anywhere where God is not. People can be left to quibble (and “quibble” they will) over the terminology of just what it means to say God is present vs. this or that thing being a part of God. Recognizing a “universal Christ” seems to be a trendy thing right now among some - and rejecting that universality just as hotly trendy among the opponents of it.
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Thanks for breaking it down. The idea that consciousness might somehow be co-basic with the material world is a pretty new possibility I’ve been considering. I’d have to get a whole lot more comfortable with that idea before I could take seriously the idea that every instantiation of consciousness was simultaneously plugged into one universal consciousness-central. Not saying that couldn’t be the case but it seems pretty far out there to me, and frankly way more than is needed to make sense of our own experience. I would never cite Occam’s razor as in an argument intended to be persuasive for others but this is an instance of when that seems to tip the balance for me at least.
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Why is connecting the dots such a problem.
I wouldn’t confuse either of the pan … “-isms” with attempted explanations of physical reality that scientific propositions are meant to be. In fact a lot of -isms and theologies are not in that game. Science does that well enough. If all our religion or philosophies are trying to do is to be yet another science - they would be a small and disappointing “-isms” indeed. But the “-isms” you asked about are attempting to give us a mental handle (whether accurately or effectively can always be disputed) for how to think of God.
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I agree with that but think everyone also needs a way to think about where God is in relationship to the world around us. For that, the sky, another dimension or the black box we call the supernatural just don’t work for me. I don’t start off with the notion that the cosmos is conscious as a single powerful entity who has been shaping things for our benefit or for some larger purpose. I would need some rationale for thinking that.
So I’ve just been trying to account for how God belief may have come about and I do think we have experience which makes us feel connected to something more which knows us and can give guidance and sometimes even intercede as part of an adrenaline response. I find all of that can be accounted for by imagining God as arising in the same field of consciousness where we discover our self. Of course it puts a limit on miracles unless there is still more to the story but I’m not as concerned to account for legends. It is an open question for me how living with a more active belief in a traditional mythos which keeps our imaginative capacity engaged can provide us with a better relationship to this greater part of consciousness. I do believe that fulfillment and meaning come in by way of maintaining a relationship with the totality of consciousness that includes our narrower sense of self. Just what may be the extent of the totality of consciousness with which we feel ourselves to be connected may not be a question that can ever be answered empirically. Nonetheless I lean toward a limit commensurate with what fits with the natural world. That is my bias. At the same time I recognize that this choice may not allow for a relationship that is as fulfilling or meaningful as a traditional system but it is so hard to compare such things.
I apologize if talking frankly about where I am with this is upsetting or feels heretically disrespectful toward that which you call God. I would never want to disrespect that.
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String theory posits other dimensions, and big bang cosmology and the very beginning of the dimensions of our spacetime almost demands them! On what basis do you disallow them? “They just don’t work for me” seems _______. Any number of adjectives would fit there.
Similarly, it seems you are deliberately ignoring well-defined and objective evidentiary dots, not to mention failing to connect them.
Most people think of ‘the natural’ as being what can be accounted for by measurability within the spacetime dimensions of our cosmos. Other dimensions as just noted above would almost have to be by definition ‘supernatural’. We are not talking about some kind of woo within our cosmos or within ourselves, especially since we have objective dots of evidence of God’s providential interventions into our reality.
@Dale I just don’t think this is the sort of topic where you and I can have a productive conversation so I won’t answer your particular challenges and questions. My impression is you want me to respond to “why not Christianity?” But I don’t think everyone who approaches the big questions differently than you do owes you an explanation for that. Maybe you believe everyone with no religion or a different one is just in error. If so we have nothing more to discuss. Besides I’ve never argued against Christianity.
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Why you reject other dimensions is something you should surely be able to address.