By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 20 Jul 2003 16:48:36 +0000

Couple of comments:

First, in response to secular paranoia concerning the “dangers of religion”, I recommend an essay by Levinas (I’m too predictable, I know) called “Peace and Proximity” (see Basic Philosophical Writings). Levinas warns against the temptation to conflate Peace with Truth. Truth here doesn’t, I don’t think, have to be any kind of pie in the sky metaphysical absolute — consensus would be just fine. This is a temptation that most of us (secular and religious) fall into in the midst of utopian/messianic daydreaming — and of course, some of us never really leave this daydream.

Point being, we’re dangerous too, us post-Christians, us atheists, us humanists — and, an aside, I hate that the word ‘us’ so wants to signify ‘united states’, even though I’ve not allowed it to be capitalized. We’re dangerous because, at heart, we’re evangelists too. While we may not insist on having and truth, we foresee and work for a world of homogeneity. (Multiculturalists only think they’re doing something else.)

Not that we have much of a choice, this is, I think, the nature of discourse. We look for agreement. I try to bring my world into alignment with the world presented by a Thou. So this temptation is no joke. It’s part of language, perhaps? But the temptation is to make this part of language it’s pinnacle…

Second point: The church I grew up in, full of people not one of whom I could agree on anything fundamental, is a real functional community. When an elderly person, or someone without close family, gets sick, a chain of phonecalls somehow happens and that person is fed and visited everyday until they recover. There’s always someone to help you with your car, your plumbing, your drug problem, your teenager who has just recently been diagonosed as bi-polar.

Now, I don’t believe in the “power of prayer” — and certainly not in Pat Robertson style guerilla prayer tactics :) — but the thought of the couple hundred working class people that make up my old church back home doing their best to remember each others struggles and infirmities… it isn’t just that it’s touching.

I suppose my point is that if religion is a problem, we’ve not managed any kind of secular solution.

Comments on: Religion & social hope

By: Daniel