Your Humble Blogger will get back to the rambling, links, and general Tohu Bohu soon; now it's time for the Conservative Tenets
12. The essential role of religious feeling in man and organized religion in society.
As usual, we start with definition time: essential, in this case I take to mean (a) positive, and (2) inevitable. That is, our Conservative believes that all men are religious, or, as the Buffy guy said, there are no atheists in Fox shows.
I don't necessarily believe that religious feeling is essential to humans. I know a few atheists, and I have no reason to believe that they are shamming. I've read plenty of stuff by atheists, and some of it seems reasonable, and sincere, and human.
Digression: Have you ever wondered who the liberal atheists were that the Religious Right used to rail against in the Eighties and Nineties? Wendy Kaminer, herself an atheist, noticed that all her lefty Cambridge (Mass) friends were churchgoers, and that the leaders of the left (such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Tikkun's Michael Lerner, or Mario Cuomo) were all conspicuously religious. Eventually, in a very entertaining essay, she decides that the Right were fighting a hundred years behind, against H.L. Mencken, G.B. Shaw, and Mark Twain. End Digression.
Anyway, the question about whether religious feeling is good for people is, as far as I'm concerned, open. I am a believer myself, and it works for me, and there are many others for whom it works as well. There are lots of others, for whom religious is a spur to violence and intolerance, and yet others for whom religious feeling is not strong, and spurs them to nothing much. I can't say I'm a better person for my religious feeling; although I do try to use my religion to improve myself, in an alternate universe where I remained resolutely atheistic, my Science Fiction Twin might well have been more successful at it.
The role of organized religion in society is equally open to question; certainly, organized religions have spurred masses to both magnificent achievements and abominable atrocities; balancing one against the other, to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is like trying to figure out whether ice cream cures the clap (OK, it isn't, but I came across the line today, and adore it).
Is it wimping out to say that religious feeling in man, and organized religion in society are unlikely to be essential in the sense that one can't imagine a functional human without religious feeling or a functional society without organized religion, and that they are likely to be helpful in some cases, harmful in others, and is generally unpredictable and ineffable?
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.
AUTHOR: Chris Cobb
COMMENT ID: 403
DATE: 05/16/2003 16:35:15
Darn, hit the return key instead of the tab again . . . sorry about the empty message. It’ll give the illusion of conversation and attract people to the thread, I suppose.
As V. points out, there are lots of believers on the Left, but if you want to find some folks firmly on the left who are atheists and often pretty strongly anti-religion in their views, check out the regular writers for the _Nation_. Katha Pollitt in particular stands out in this vein. There is a significant portion of the intellectual left that is anti-religious, so I don’t think that the Religious Right are in fact attacking a straw man (or dead men) here.
However, I don’t think that the Athiest Left is significantly less likely to persuade everyone to give up religion than the Religious Right is to succeed in imposing a theocratic state upon Americans.
Myself, I agree with V. that the religious impulse in people is neither good nor bad for society in itself.
i think theocracy falls into a category with other self-indulgent reasons for running a multicultural state, so i think i agree that religion is something to be expected among people and not necessarily harmful.
where it becomes dominant it’s just as dangerous as anything else, except for one aspect. religion carries more moral weight than other social components. so if religion becomes very dominant, certain moral rules can be abused or removed altogether.
but the phrasing of the tenet is odd isn’t it. i’m not sure i agree with interpreting “essential” as “inevitable.” (but like i said i have a hard time with non-divine beings talking about essences.)
i mean, turn the phrase around, “the non-essential role of heretical feeling in man and atheism in society.” hee hee…
huh. actually if one thing is essential that doesn’t mean its reflection is non-essential, now does it. how interesting!
i guess that’s what makes this tenet restrictive. at its heart, or, in your heart, do you think it’s saying “atheism is bad,” or, what? the creation of people is one thing, but to call people inherently faithful!
the state of belief or disbelief, as far as i understand the eden story, is up for grabs. wasn’t that what the apple was about?
i think theocracy falls into a category with other self-indulgent reasons for running a multicultural state
that should read, “self-indulgent reasons for one cultural group running a multicultural state.”
I think Our Humble Blogger is being too generous in attempting to assign meaning to a meaningless phrase. As far as I can tell, the phrase “the essential role of X in Y” does nothing but indicate that the speaker wants more X, dagnabbit, and furthermore wants you to accept this desire for X as axiomatic rather than subject to investigation.
Well, Your Humble Blogger does try to be generous to Mr. Rossiter’s Conservative, perhaps too much so. Still, it doesn’t strike me as uncommon to believe that people are intrinsically or inherently or naturally religious, and that society couldn’t properly function without organized religions. I don’t believe it myself, but as far as I know what other people think, I think some of them think that.
Thanks,
-V.
Oh, and I don’t think that was the point of the apple story at all. After all, there wasn’t any question of Adam and Eve believing in the Lord, who they had regular communication with; they didn’t obey, but they did believe. Religous feeling doesn’t necessarily lead to goodness (depending on how one defines all those terms).
Perhaps another way to phrase this tenet is to say that if God didn’t exist, man would have to invent him.
Thanks,
-V.
okay yes. i think that is a better understanding of the story. i was under deadline, see, and if i committed any misrepresentations, it was because i was under so much pressure to succeed…
where did i read this. some word in arabic, to describe people who are not following “the way.” it might be “infidel.” it means, basically, “forgetful.”
i hate to say this but i don’t see how having direction communication with god is the same as having “religious feeling” (because that speaks to me and i’m sure lots of people of feeling a connection with religious practice) or participating in “organized religion.”
“i don’t see how having direct communication”
Re: #6, Sure, it’s not uncommon to believe it, but the phrase “essential role” attempts to attach “organized religion” and “religious feeling to “society” and “man” in such a way that the latters become arguments for the formers with no means to test the association.
Compare this with the previous tenet: “The indispensability and sanctity of inherited [IVSRs].” The word “indispensability” allows examination: is it possible to dispense with IVSRs? What happens when people try? Of course, sanctity is another inarguable word, but at least one could give tenet #11 half points for communicable meaning.