Ambiguous statement from my part…

Oops. The other way of reading it never even occurred to me. So much for my reading comprehension.

You want it clear-cut and labeled – very modernistic.

True. I yam what I yam. (Popeye, if you’re unfamiliar with the reference.)

Show me, please, where a theologian is clearly saying that he is talking about a concept only because it is functional for people, not because he believes it to be a real feature of the objective world.

You want it clear-cut and labeled – very modernistic. I don’t mean it in a black and white sense, I mean it more in a primary emphasis kind of way. How far it goes beyond that, I don’t know, but for what it’s worth, my defence:

I base my opinions on conversations with or talks by various theologians, as well as my impressions of the books I’ve been reading. For this understanding, I could suggest reading Borg or Crossan – won’t have the clarity you’re asking for, but I believe you’ll see what I mean. Or read the “angry” Spong for more clarity. (Maybe I abuse quotation marks a lot, but often I don’t know how else to convey the idea I’m trying to convey.) Even that Boenhoffer letter is, for me, some evidence in favour of my understanding. I would also point at Peter Rollins’ work, it being the source of the “God of faith and the God of the philosophers” post. But he’s probably more of a philosopher than a theologian. Nevertheless, I still think the ideas that travel in (sophisticated?) theological circles are all cross-pollinated. And the influence of Peter Rollins’ work is still spreading? In particular in “emergent” circles, I guess.

Some of my conversations were with “my” pastor. I still have notes of a conversation from around June, which I threw together in the process of beginning to write a post — with his permission. Maybe I should finish that one as an example? Some extracts: I touched on the disagreements that exist about the factuality of the resurrection, he jumped directly to the importance of the meaning of the narrative for humanity, i.e. irrespective of its factuality. On the afterlife? “I don’t know, we don’t really have evidence either way.” “Now you sound like a scientist!” I responded, grinning. I think in these circles going with “I don’t know” on a number of things helps build and maintain bridges…

Also check the Crossan youtube clip that Cobus linked to: emphasis on Crossan’s example that metaphorical interpretations/understandings can have the exact same effect/conclusion as a literal interpretations. (He takes things metaphorically.)

I also attended some talks organised by the Stellenbosch faculty of theology. A comparative religion talk I attended late last year, organised in Stellenbosch, dealt with Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and… um… I can’t remember the fourth right now. These were compared to Christianity, in defence of the value of Christianity. The comparisons were not on the grounds of which were “factually correct”, the comparisons were on the grounds of the effect of the religion. Islam was considered strong in community, Buddhism in personal spiritual practises, for example. I can dig up the notes somewhere, but it isn’t so important right now. The point is these talks dealt with the effects of the faith, the “God of faith”, not with arguing who really created the universe. A style of apologetics that can influence choice between religions, promote one religion above another, but certainly cannot talk to atheists.

The Canadian story sounds interesting. That’s Canada for you. And they’re not a third world country where people are struggling with high levels of uncertainty and fear for the future, wanting some reassurance and reacting by grabbing onto fundamentalism. In South Africa at least, the theological faculties have their hands full just reassuring the general population that they still believe in Jesus. I have heard warnings about the theological faculty being spread via both famous pentecostal churches in Stellenbosch. I’ve heard Shofarians celebrate at the miracle of a theological student “getting saved” (born again, or in other words taking the [supernatural] Shofar-viewpoint/interpretation of the Bible…) — a miraculous event in “the godless institution” that is the theological faculty… They also insist on labeling a number of lecturers or faculty members “atheists”. For these reasons, I believe theologians do choose their words carefully. Misunderstandings spread so quickly, and knee-jerk defensive reactions shut down conversation and drive people over to revival/pentecostal/charismatic churches, aka “Bible believing” churches, as they label their particular interpretation or understanding of the text, as they search for “pure” religion not influenced by these scary theological ideas that they don’t like hearing about.

Now on challenging the status quo in religion… who does that most effectively? Back in the day it was the prophets that stood up against the status quo, that called out for reform and pointed out the bad that was permeating the culture/theology/behaviour of their times. Talking to Theo, he points out there are things he cannot say as leader of Stellenbosch Gemeente. He has a congregation that he cares for and that he represents when he’s wearing his SG hat. However, as Prophet (an artistic duo, him and Koos, singing, talking, entertaining, commenting on things that can often only safely be commented on through use of humour) he can be more daring and outspoken. (In the past, two decades ago?, they even got themselves banned from the airwaves for some time, for saying things people didn’t want to hear.) The point being that the place for prophetic challenges to the status quo and the place for pastoral care for a congregation is often not the same place. Which is why I’d love to see Theo and Koos get going with something like a blog for Prophet.

And that idea also resonates with my idea of the role my blog could maybe eventually play, the area in which it could contribute. Theology isn’t my profession, a congregation is not my source of bacon, I’m not associated with any church or faculty or theological framework. I should probably distance myself more from the people and organisations that I’ve associated with already. That then gives me the space to be something of a “social outcast”, like many of the prophets of old were, a seemingly crazy guy living in the hills, challenging the status quo with some controversial ideas, or protest through action: I recall one married a prostitute in an act of protest. But I will certainly still pick my words and battles carefully, because it is a waste of time and effort to fight the whole world all at the same time, or to be just “yet another so-and-so”. I have my niche and my communication strategy, and some specific plans that are being held back by one little detail (but hopefully not for too much longer). I must just find or make the time. I have a whole queue of blog posts I want to write. A number of the posts I write, are written for the purpose of referring back to them when a certain kind of challenge comes up. Preparation. Because I won’t have time to address things thoroughly in the spur of the moment.

After all that, I do also realise I should probably prepend e.g. my statements about theologians’ attitudes and/or beliefs with something like “the way I see it, I think they believe and mean …” — because yes, otherwise it sounds too much like a just-so story itself. So how many “theologians” would take exception to my appraisal above? Quite a number, probably. You certainly do get the more “conservative” guys (whatever that means, conservative and liberal is rather ill defined when you get into more sophisticated theological circles).

*sigh*, are we ever going to stop arguing about this kind of thing?

something I propose is more important to theologians, and to religion in general, than… um… science?

Of course. It is of little or no importance to science. It is of great importance to people, scientists and non, and has a whole discipline all to itself – ethics.

But theologians care about the God of faith

Show me, please, where a theologian is clearly saying that he is talking about a concept only because it is functional for people, not because he believes it to be a real feature of the objective world.

If you’re saying theologians themselves don’t know that that’s what they’re talking about…I have great problems with someone telling me they know what I think better than I do. I assume they would too.

Theologians learn that humans have a “god-shaped hole”. They have a desire/need to connect to something.

Perhaps. Perhaps growing up and being taught to ‘connect to something’ from a young age creates such a hole where one need not exist.

Boenhoffer is one of those, and that letter is thinking about “how do we build community in a post-religious world”, still drawing on the narratives and tradition that is so incredibly valuable.

How about evaluating what traditions are worth keeping and what aren’t, and moving on. By creating narratives that include ‘we don’t know now, we might figure it out later, and we might be wrong about what we think we know now’ – acknowledging that we are creating the narrative as part of the narrative?

http://man.org/humanists-acquiring-canadian-churches/
“A disaffected branch of the United Church of Canada has voted to join a Humanist association in reaction to ongoing disputes within its national executive around social issues. At least three churches in Canada have ratified their merging with Humanism this year, and more may follow.

The process began when a downtown Vancouver church with less than a hundred members struggled with severe funding and vandalism problems, and offered its historic church for sale to clear its debts. A Vancouver Humanist group that had been leasing premises inquired, and instead of purchasing the church agreed to merge the two congregations and to assume the church’s overhead. Its name has been changed to The Humanist Church and the arrangement is attracting increasing interest across Canada…”

I can’t believe you wrote this. Now you’re taking my position

They’re not mutually exclusive. So… another attempt to explain what past posts were all about:

I don’t claim it is a place-holder word to be re-defined, but I do claim it is an idea (or better: understanding) that develops. In the west, it is an idea that developed from e.g. a polytheistic understanding, via a henotheistic one, to a monotheistic one, and on to ideas like the “ground of being” and such. The fact that the general population lags behind theologians’ understanding is an unfortunate situation, and something I touched on in Popular Religion and “Elite” Religion.

Now some take as “base definition” of God the idea that God is the “creator of the universe”. This is a justification for worship, rather than a functional definition: whether “God” created the universe or not makes no difference to the role “God” plays in people’s lives — I’m sure you will agree. So what is “God” then, primarily, if the “creator of the universe” idea is secondary?

Back in polytheistic times, worshipping a particular god was clearly not about worshipping the creator of all that is. My posts aimed to dig into what functional role, and hence functional definition, God plays.

Theologians learn that humans have a “god-shaped hole”. They have a desire/need to connect to something. I can cite anecdotal evidence from friends that losing belief in God makes humans prone to believing or latching onto all sorts of other things, be it aliens or new age crystals or psychic powers. Some people argue for a “proof” of the existence of God based on this God-shaped hole. Where this “proof” is misguided, is in connecting this “hole” to “creator of the universe” or “supernatural intervention”: that is a leap to make, not a logical or rational connection. However, the way in which they are logically and factually correct, rationally, is that a “hole”, a need, certainly defines that there is “something” that is needed, that is “missing”, in order for it to be called a hole.

So what is this thing? And that is what my posts are about, primarily. That is where Dan Dennet’s advice to “find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it” connects to the idea of God — it talks about what theologians call the God-shaped hole and how to fill it.

The role of “God”, then, is filling the God-shaped hole and providing meaning to a person’s life. God as meaning assigner. Existentialists say we create meaning in our own lives. One way of creating meaning is to commit your life to an idea, an ideal, a God.

So when you’re talking functional, and about the God that theologians study, we’re talking more of the God of faith than the God of the philosophers. The fact that the two ideas are not separated in most people’s minds, does not make the “God concept” any less a case of the God of faith. But theologians care about the God of faith, and atheists talk about the God of the philosophers. And the fundamentalists also talk about the God of the philosophers and use that to bolster up their commitment to their “God”. Which ironically becomes more about knowledge (derived from a divine-revelation epistemology) than about way-of-life.

Now having just cited four of my recent posts and tried to put them into some kind of context, I hope they’re a bit clearer? Also how this connects with the more easily accepted “God as an idea”?

That was a lot shorter than I feared it would be. It made a little sense, but I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it.

Some promising anthropological theories on the origins of supernatural-beliefs in human religion relates to cooperation between humans. This brings the God idea back to a shared story, a shared narrative, used to build tribal unity.

In such a tribal context, some people feel called… they feel their calling in life is to serve as shepherds to the tribe, to help direct the tribe’s morality and focus and value system and foster cooperation and compassion beyond the level that mere genes can accomplish. These people are the theologians, the priests, the rabbi’s, and are the keepers and explainers of the tribe’s mythology (narratives). These people feel called to serve needs many tribe members have. (Even if you don’t, there are many people that do. Many people that feel a need to be part of something like a church, even though they can’t cope with church in its most common form. From there, things like UU, and the emerging church movement’s outreach to the post-churched or un-churched.) Ekklesia.

Boenhoffer is one of those, and that letter is thinking about “how do we build community in a post-religious world”, still drawing on the narratives and tradition that is so incredibly valuable. Boenhoffer is talking about how church, in the sense I’m on about, is about community, standing in the center of the village, as a way of life, rather than a deus-ex machina explanation for anything we can’t understand or do not yet know. The God of Faith rather than the God of the Philosophers.

And that is the direction of this blog, and I hope you appreciate that and understand the nuance and trickiness of such dialogue. We will yet hack out the best ways for various people, everyone, to contribute — both those that dislike the tradition and the language, and those that are committed wholeheartedly to this particular language to talk about the divine (which has nothing to do with “interventionalism”, but can be considered “super-natural” — how about extra-natural? — in the sense that it doesn’t deal with the natural, but with the meh, the subjective interpretation and dreams of human minds and their attempt to live divine lives with divine values).

I’m certainly thinking more about values and your subjective attitude

Deciding which values to hold is an entirely different ball of wax. I don’t know how you justify valuing health and happiness except by consensus.

There is an idea (to use understated words) that is called “God”, in those traditions, and much real and valuable knowledge is expressed in terms of, and in the context of, that particular idea.

I can’t believe you wrote this. Now you’re taking my position; that religious traditions DO have an idea called “God.” Not that it’s a place-holder word to be re-defined for different people and different times.

But maybe exposure to my ramblings here might soften you up to appreciate Bonhoeffer’s theological language more fully?

I think, with my brain wired the way it is, that this is unlikely.

Hmm, check this out:

Following link…Ugh. “The thing that keeps coming back to me, is what is Christianity, and indeed what is Christ for us today?” Alright, alright, I’ll bite the bullet and read it…

That was a lot shorter than I feared it would be. It made a little sense, but I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it.

Background on my exposures and such to religion ( mainly for Cobus, I think Hugo knows much of this ):

I was raised Catholic. From a very early age, I thought the priests and religion class instructors were wrong. I didn’t speak up about it because as far as I could tell, those around me didn’t believe it either. They didn’t act as if Catholicism were true. I tended to ignore religion and religious people as much as possible until after 9/11 and Bush’s election.

So I started talking to religious people, in real life and on the internet. I read books they recommended. (not in any particular order: Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler, The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren, God and the New Atheism by John Haught, The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, re-read all 4 gospels and Acts…maybe some others that have escaped my memory.) I’ve participated in multiple online Christian forums.

Of the atheist best sellers, I liked Hitchens’ just because it was well written. I couldn’t finish either Dawkins’ nor Harris’ books. The one I liked best is Richard Carrier’s Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism.

Ben talks mostly about the supernatural. As does most atheists. It’s the supernatural where the battle is at, the believing in deus ex machina.

Theologians talk about values and way of life, expressed in terms of the language of scripture and narratives people grew up with, and convert to, because they are powerful narratives. The concern about the supernatural isn’t really the primary concern. Given their sphere of influence, it is typically a good idea to not even think about how literal/factual these narratives really are, and rather leave it somewhat unresolved. The functional approach.

And from there many discussions all around the point, and my ponderings and attempts at finding a good framing in which I can best contribute constructively, rather than engage directly in a destructive debate all-around-the-point with “supernaturalism-focused thought” in the one camp and “narrative-based ethical teachings on how to best live life” on the other.

“Religion-yes versus Religion-no” is too black-and-white for me, I’m a wannabe memetic engineer after all. I want to work on extracting and keeping the good, while overwriting the bad. (Not erasing the bad, many humans don’t seem to respond to that very well. The best thing, in terms of memes, is to find the good ones and more refined memes to present, which end up displacing the bad ones or making the bad ones unnecessary. Makes for a more peaceful progression.)

Meh, I’m side-tracking again, aren’t I, and being overly verbose. I’m basically sketching out my beliefs and dreams about the matter, and rather frankly at that, knowing full-well that this isn’t the only approach. I just hope rehashing in new words might serve to give new insight in why and how I’m trying to frame conversations, and why I’m loathe to bite on certain lines of debate.

Of course. Does this mean that you can doubt you are experiencing your experiences while you are having them? Does this mean you should add something else to experiences as the undoubtable basic part of an epistemology? I don’t understand your point.

I’m certainly thinking more about values and your subjective attitude and approach to how to live a “good life” (and for the average person, who doesn’t over-think things like I do / we do / rationalists do, with suitably decreasing emphasis on the “over” part).

Here’s my functional-focused apologetic/explanation/translation for Cobus’ idea:

@Ben: Religious thoughts would be those coming out of a worldview which is “open” rather than “closed”. A worldview which work with the concept of a “more”. From my own theological background I would call this more God.

Religious thought is thought that explicitly draws on the wisdom and experience of a religious tradition. There is an idea (to use understated words) that is called “God”, in those traditions, and much real and valuable knowledge is expressed in terms of, and in the context of, that particular idea.

Furthermore, I’ve heard much about the myth of a demythologised humanity… and see the likes of Philip Pullman talk about developing a mythology (that is as true to empirical/secular reality as possible), hear things about Joseph Campbell’s input, and then there’s Brian Cox wishing the scientific narrative of the universe’s beginnings can be elevated to myth level (need the link where I mentioned this earlier, for context?), etc… Humanity works with its narratives, it’s “myths” in the academic sense (not the urban-legends sense).

So, amongst those that embrace the myth/narrative-based aspect of human nature, some believe in developing new myths and narratives, others focus on developing and mining the great value found in the old narratives. The latter are the “religious”, though I think largely in “emergent” ways, and also dream of a “religionless Christianity” – Bonhoeffer.

The difference in approach between the camps is one of continuity versus redesign. Both are about languages for speaking about what I call “the divine”.

Hmm, check this out:

http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/1764/religionless.html

Might be tough to appreciate that fully? But maybe exposure to my ramblings here might soften you up to appreciate Bonhoeffer’s theological language more fully?

With that, I’m off to bed. I might only reply again this weekend.

Is anyone saying that truth (understood as the correct thinking, not in any personalized way such as would be found in the Christian religion) necessarily lead to the “good” and not having truth to “evil”? Cause I am not.

I also am not. One could have a perfect view of the reality and still value things that I would call evil.

Religious thoughts would be those coming out of a worldview which is “open” rather than “closed”. A worldview which work with the concept of a “more”. From my own theological background I would call this more God.

Hmmm…unless I substitute ‘includes the natural and supernatural’ for ‘is open’ and ‘including only the natural’ for ‘closed’, I have no idea what the first sentence is saying.

And I think that is what the conversation was about at first, not true?

I didn’t think it was. I thought it was more like: A person wants to defuse a bomb. His intention is to defuse the bomb; he very much does not want the bomb to explode. The better he understands the bomb, the better he can decide what he ought to do to defuse the bomb. If he ends up with basic things wrong, like thinking that electricity flowing to the trigger defuses the bomb, his ideas about what he ought to do will lead to worse results. You can have a set of values, including ‘I don’t want this bomb to explode’, but in order to turn this into some sort of ethics (A set of principles of right conduct), you have to have some understanding of how the bomb works. Same with reality.

I’ll hopefully have the draft of the M, just a mini-dissertation really, ready by Friday, if anyone of you fine people is interested in providing some critique over the weekend it would be appreciated, since I’ll be doing the final editing on Monday, and printing on Tuesday. I’ll upload it to my blog somewhere Friday (if all goes well).

@Ben in 7: I disagree with your cute summary.

We’ve been agreeing entirely too much lately.

@Ben in 9, your experiences are shaped by your beliefs?

Of course. Does this mean that you can doubt you are experiencing your experiences while you are having them? Does this mean you should add something else to experiences as the undoubtable basic part of an epistemology? I don’t understand your point.

By implication, he suggests there is a thing that is “truth”, that is not fact.

Sigh. I’ll bite my tongue.

I guess I can’t make a case for “the golden rule” as a religion? Believing in the value of life and existence as a “religion”, the first fundamental leap of faith?

I don’t see why you couldn’t. The bar for creating a religion is pretty low.

Encouraging overpopulation might be evil, then… maybe we actually need disease and famine.

From what I understand, humans under stress of disease, famine, and war tend to have many more children. None of them actually reduce population (barring extremes like genocide.) Only education and prosperity seem to lower birth rates enough to lower population.

Do urge the guy to not write too many comments too regularly here…

Cobus, take care of your real world stuff. Hugo, don the sparring gear!

@Ben: Religious thoughts would be those coming out of a worldview which is “open” rather than “closed”. A worldview which work with the concept of a “more”. From my own theological background I would call this more God.

@Kenneth: If being aware of my bias can make it possible to totally compensate for my bias, how does this differ from the optimism that I can be totally unbiased? I think the only way in which we can compensate for biases, all of us, is within community. Only others can help me compensate for my biases. Oh, and then there is the biases of our times… only other generations would be able to help us with that. One reason for listening much more seriously to generations gone by, since we won’t be able to hear the critique of generations to come.

Let me just get something straight: Is anyone saying that truth (understood as the correct thinking, not in any personalized way such as would be found in the Christian religion) necessarily lead to the “good” and not having truth to “evil”? Cause I am not. And I think that is what the conversation was about at first, not true?

Cobus, onthou, hierdie gesprek sal nog steeds hier wees oor 5 dae… Sterkte!

@Ben in 7: I disagree with your cute summary. But don’t let me side-track the conversation. I’ll maybe make a new post on “liberals” and “epistemologies” later.

@Ben in 9, your experiences are shaped by your beliefs? (Stupid example: if I believe life is not worth living, by confirmation bias I’m likely to experience it as such.) My point is that worldview has an impact on experience.

Values, facts, truth… Borg pointed out in a book I read recently, that in modernity we have become “fact fundamentalists” – we equate truth and fact. By implication, he suggests there is a thing that is “truth”, that is not fact. Some tribes started some of their stories with “I don’t know if it really happened, but I know it to be true.”

I suggest that rationalist-atheists and theologians are talking about slightly different ideas of “truth”, the latter being more focused on values and how we should behave. We should not kill, is then considered a “truth”, but it is certainly not a fact. Unless you take the mathematical game-theory approach and have some value/goal/purpose for humanity as your leap-of-faith. (Or Darwinian survival?) But the average person in the street does not care about that kind of thing… they’re not rational, they’re human? I’ve begun pondering the meaning of the word “truth” in similar fashion as I’ve been pondering the meaning of the word “fundamentalist”.

For an extreme: take the broad, highly inclusive set of all things that could be considered “true”. Think more broadly than you’re already thinking. Now subtract the set of things that are considered “factually correct”. What is left? That’s what I want to think about: those things that are left.

Stupid example, again, of “truth” in colloquial use: “out of sight, out of mind”… “ah, yes, that’s true!” and then… “absence makes the heart grow fonder”… “yup, definitely true”. Stupid example, because in each case you could say there is an obvious context that is being referred to, and this context is included in the message. This context? Experience, worldview… Looking at things, listening to statements, coloured by a particular context. Now consider the golden rule, or some mythological narratives underlying a culture to be such a context, what impact does this have on the way “truth” is communicated, with reference to that context?

As you see, I digress and veer away from the actual conversation being had. Maybe my interjections might spark some interesting thoughts or discussions within the context of the conversation, but I’ve realised the futility of wanting conversations framed in my favourite way, and don’t want to derail the conversation… so I will restrict my comments to few and far between (thank time pressure for helping me with that).

Re: Hitler and needing a religious foundation… I guess I can’t make a case for “the golden rule” as a religion? Believing in the value of life and existence as a “religion”, the first fundamental leap of faith?

Yay for Kenneth’s “we all have faith in something”! No worries, Kenneth, I’ll fight the quote mining of that clause with you.

Oh, and for a parting thought: what about the evils of overpopulation? Encouraging overpopulation might be evil, then… maybe we actually need disease and famine. *ducks and runs*.

Is the only form of rational thought atheist thinking?

There is no rational case for theism. It’s not close. I’ve looked.

Is religious thought necessarily non-rational?

Give me a definition of how to classify thoughts as religious or non-religious and I’ll answer. Otherwise we’ll be talking past each other.

You work from the assumption that only working from what you can’t doubt will bring truth, but that is an assumption!

? OK. If I additionally assume something else to be immune from doubt, without any reason to believe it is true, how does that make for a better epistemology?

But 20th century secularism has created an environment where wars rage on, where for the first time in history it is considered acceptable if civilians is killed in wars.

What? This is completely false. On a per capita basis, the 20th century has been much less violent than most of human history. It has always been considered (not by all, of course) acceptable in war if civilians were killed pre-20th century.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_1.html

“Systemic Flaws In the Reported World View

Paradoxically, one of the biggest reasons for being optimistic is that there are systemic flaws in the reported world view. Certain types of news — for example dramatic disasters and terrorist actions — are massively over-reported, others — such as scientific progress and meaningful statistical surveys of the state of the world — massively under-reported.

…So for example, the publication last year of a carefully researched Human Security Report received little attention. Despite the fact that it had concluded that the numbers of armed conflicts in the world had fallen 40% in little over a decade. And that the number of fatalities per conflict had also fallen. Think about that. The entire news agenda for a decade, received as endless tales of wars, massacres and bombings, actually missed the key point. Things are getting better. If you believe Robert Wright and his NonZero hypothesis, this is part of a very long-term and admittedly volatile trend in which cooperation eventually trumps conflict. Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.”