From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Thu Dec 11 2003 - 19:33:09 GMT
Mark, Scott and others,
Mark asks others in regards to Scott’s insights on religion.
“This has all come as a bit of a shock to me, because when i engage with the
real world, i am left with an altogether different impression of Christian and
Buddhists values. I was hoping someone could help me out, other than
recommending i take a degree in Theology before engaging further with a quickly
changing world?”
I’d like to help, provided I am indeed talking to Mark and not Squonk or Squank. I agree with all that Scott has written with a slight Rortyian twist. I was listening to an interview from a website that someone at MD (I don’t remember who ??) recommended a while back. It was between Robert Wright and Freeman Dyson. Wright is a writer and the author of “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” and Dyson is a Princeton Physicist and author of “Infinity in all Directions,” “Origins of Life,” “Disturbing the Universe,” among other works. If you want to know about religion ask a physicist, Right?
The complete interview can be found at: http://www.meaningoflife.tv/dyson-complete.shtml
Dyson calls himself a Christian without the theology. Here is an excerpt from the interview about religion.
Robert Wright: What is left of Christianity after you take the theology away?
Freeman Dyson: Almost the whole thing. It’s a community of people in the church as I experience it-–taking care of each other. Also, there’s a great deal of beautiful language and music. It’s an ART [my emphasis] form much more than a philosophy.
RW: You made no reference to explicit beliefs about divinity, whether Jesus was the son of God and all of that. So, you’re kind of agnostic on all of these points?
FD: Yes, to a first approximation. To me, God does mean something. But it is such a mystery that I don’t feel inclined to invent specific models. The fact that we have some instinct of a mind at work in the universe is about as far as I am willing to go. God is simply a mind that has gone beyond the scale of our understanding. That’s as far as my theology goes.
RW: So if you were living in another culture, you could equally well be a Buddhist?
FD: Yes
RW: Because fundamentally what religion is about to you are the things people do?
FD: Right, Judaism, as I understand it, comes closer to my way of being religious. It is much more about observance and less about belief.
RW: Well, then what is the difference between that and mere ethics? What is the difference between that and a group that gets together and says, “Let’s be nice”—the Good Government League or something?
FD: There is a lot of difference, of course. One of the great things about religions is they last from century to century. There’s a very long tradition. In most religions it goes back a couple of thousand years. That is very important because you take a much longer view of things. And, of course, there is a great emotional aspect to it. It’s not just like going to a committee meeting.
RW: Right, but an essential part of religion is a belief that there is more than meets the eye in some sense. There is some ultimate source of meaning-- some transcendental source of meaning.
FD: Yes, I would certainly agree with that very strongly. And certainly that has nothing to do with science.
RW: How would you characterize the transcendental source of meaning?
FD: Again, it is a very personal thing. Some have it and some don’t.
RW: It’s an intuition?
FD: Yes
RW: About the nature of the universe?
FD: Yes. That life does not make sense without some sort of purpose. That applies to the community as well as the individual-—on every level.
End of Excerpt
They then go on to discuss the relationship between science and religion which is interesting in its own right. I think the abive excerpt gives some support to Scott’s argument that Christianity does not have to be about the basic tenants and principles we usually hear repeated by many Christians--that a Christian view can be compatible with the MOQ as well as Quantum Mechanics. I think Mark is hung up on the literal interpretations of the scriptures, instead of hearing them as poetry and an art form, which he should be agruing the MOQ requires us to do. Mark's confusion is understandable, with the often repeated mantras by Christian fundamentalists these days, but Christianity shouldn’t be high jacked by these religious zealots.
My Rortyian twist would add that the belief in a purpose or “transcendental source of meaning” is only important in how it affects the “community of people in the church... taking care of each other.” In other words, as far as practical or useful results in the real world, there is no difference between religion and “The Good Government League” or “mere ethics.” It is all about how we all get along. And in today’s global community, it more important than ever that we leave behind literal interpretations of any religious doctrines and move away from fundamentalism and reach for the metaphorical wisdoms of these words in making these art forms inclusive of all of humanity, no matter what religious doctrine one chooses.
Best regards,
Andy
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