Recipe for a new world

One cup of Islamic revelation.
One cup of Jesus' love.
One cup of Moses' staring down the Pharaoh.
One cup of the Buddha's compassion.
One cup of Chuang Tzu's wit.
One cup of Confucius' virtues.
One cup of Krishna-Vishnu's true form.

My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

Religious Violence

Christian girl burned during nationalist Hindu Orissa violence in 2008

Members of every religion have from time to time engaged in acts of violence. The religious literature of the world is remarkably candid about this. Yet when someone claims to be motivated by a religious view to act violently, we moderns tend to rush in with the 'the religion is not violent; this is a distortion of its meaning' defense. This defense, however well intended, misunderstands the power of religions to shape human life. The other modern voice, that religions should be banished or will wither in due course, misunderstands this power in equal, or greater, measure.

Religions are here to stay, for they articulate the deepest sensibilities of individuals and groups. Our task is not to seek the elimination of religion, nor to prepare for a world without it. Our task is to shape religions so as to minimize violence in the long run. This less lofty version of engaging religions may not satisfy our sense of sanctimony, but it more adequately grapples with our affinity with the brutes. We are more akin to the chimpanzee than angels dancing on the head of a pin.

God, usages

God is the word we use when we are unsure.

God is the word we use when we are certain.

God is the word we use when we have absolutely no idea.

Is the same God being called upon?

Love and Hate

Love and hate are the strongest emotions, and both are in relationship to fear.

The author of 1 John put it this way: "There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear...".

Hate is consumed by fear.

Join me at creedible.com for a discussion related to fear and hate....

I feel good

Join me at creedible.com for a reflection on politics, economy, and culture entitled "I feel good."

Summer Sun

St. Paul claimed in the Letter to the Romans that God's power is everywhere manifest; he also claimed that it goes unrecognized.

The summer sun, the flower, the sweet drizzling rain...

A traffic jam, a murder, a terror attack...

The winter solstice, the owl at night, snowflakes in Manhattan...

An act of vengeance, a harmful word, a deliberate malice...

God is everywhere and nowhere, everywhere we look and nowhere to be found.

Reinhold Niebuhr, we need you

Reinhold Niebuhr argued in The Nature and Destiny of Man that human beings are constantly tempted to prideful self-assertion or sensuous debasement. That is, either we demand too much for ourselves or claim too little. Niebuhr applied this insight (and his many others) to key issues in public life and politics.

Niebuhr's insights guided key public figures in the early and middle part of the twentieth century. Since that time no theologian of public life has filled his shoes. Reinhold Niebuhr, we miss you.

Norms, Self, and Unity

Every religion teaches norms of some kind, whether they are doctrinal, theological, philosophical, cultural, or ethical.

No human being can adhere completely to group-made norms, and very few can adhere to self-established norms (since we evolving bipeds tend to be a 'house of cards' held together with shaky but imperious norms). A saint might adhere to all of his or her true self energies, but only a fool adheres to all of a group's edicts.**

It remains a question whether divine agency can bridge these multiples and unify the self, and beyond that (in a bewildering multiple of multiples) bind groups that are tearing the world asunder. In the Christian religion, this question is answered in the affirmative under the designation Holy Spirit. Other religions also identify a ground of unity.

In philosophy, Hegel tried to articulate the unity of reason and worldly becoming. Having not lived to the end of history, I am unsure of the Christian hypothesis; having not read to end of Hegel, I am unsure of the success of his endeavor.

I dispositionally prefer Jamesean pluralism, but pluralism may be best guaranteed by a truly transcendent God. Mark Heim, a theologian at Andover Newton Theological School, argues that it is.

**A vague memory tells me that a variation on this idea was first said by someone else, but who it was, I know not.

What is human life?

Is human life a short story? a non-fiction essay? a boring book? a parable? a users guide? travel manual? encyclopedia? an aphorism? a remaindered promised-to-be bestseller that goes bust? (God forbid) a wikipedia entry? a diary? biography? an autobiography? a plagiarized term paper?

Some combination of these? A fictional autobiography? A plagiarized diary?

Memories

Psychologists have shown that memories change over time, are affected by bias and interest, and can be revised to serve our changing self conceptions.

Should we hope that is true of God, or hope that it isn't?

Human Nature? Full of bugs!

Tonight RITN considers a news report that opens up consideration of topics in theological anthropology. Human Nature? Full of bugs!

Join me over there.

Atheism and Experience

My argument with atheism is the argument I have with theism, where the latter is a term for proving God's existence. Immanuel Kant successfully demolished the classical proofs for God's existence, only to reinvent one of his own--the so-called moral proof.

I find William James' account of religious experience compelling on this point. In some ways, James is distantly Kantian, but his view of God is not a matter of argument but observation. His was a program of radical empiricism. By observing the actual experiences of people, James concluded that life is irreducibly plural. In religion, as in shoe size, one size does not fit all.

Join me at Creedible for a discussion of atheism. Also check out Chuck Redfern's comment in which he refers to religious experience.