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Interesting to juxtapose this with Chris Hitchen's latest book "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".
I just had someone this morning express concern that "Religion" was getting a bad rap because the "Secular" 20th century, which abhorred (in their view) religion was one of the bloodiest of all time. My response was that religion is not about God, or Allah or the other 9 million names of God - it is ultimately about belief.
While previous centuries saw wars between Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Hindus, Christians and Pagans, Arians and Augustinians the wars of the 20th Century were between German Nationalists and French Nationalists (amongst others) and then between Communists and Fascists and then between Communists and Capitalists. Currently we are engaged in a war between Islamic Crypto-Fascist Socialists (or some other suitably trendy label) and Running Dog Hindu Christian Social Democratic Capitalists - fairly amorphic but no doubt some historian of the future will define suitable isms for class room study. And coming soon to a newspaper near you - the Environment wars between the followers of Gaia and the Deniers.
The problem is not with God. The problem is not even with the belief. The problem is with the proselytisers: those people that prey on the fears of many that they will be victims of communal punishment unless they get their neighbours to hew to the one, true belief that will save the world and them individually......and if they have to sacrifice the neighbours to save the greater part of humanity, including themselves, then so be it. Their reward is a better life in this world, or a better life for their children or a better life in the next world.
All of these people: the Marxist-Leninists, the Suzuki-Goreites, the Islamo-fascists, the Russo-Communists and, I regret to say, many Christian evangelicals and charismatics are driven by many of the same urges - the need to save everybody else in order to save themselves. It is little wonder that they find kindred spirits in otherwise disparate movements.
I saw an article in today's National Post by an American name of David Brooks - the article seems to be protected on the internet yet (probably available tomorrow) - "Where History Reigns Supreme".
He, like me, is an unabashed Britophile. Unlike me he is an American, an outsider, and writes much better. Two or three paragraphs in the centre of his piece caught my eye.
I think that Brooks is onto the fundamental difference between those that have a need for a firm belief (and more importantly the need to make others believe) and the underlying pragmatism that permeates the Westminster tradition. There is no single underlying belief system behind the Westminster system. All of its separate components have been the results of compromises between people with strongly held beliefs, made over the course of more than a thousand years. It is full of internal contradictions. But that doesn't matter. Pragmatic accomodation and incrementalism are the order of the day. That makes is hard to explain to those that demand clarity what the rules are because the rules are whatever we say they are. And that is anathema to all the Marxists, Fascists, Environmentalists and Socialists as well as most "Religionists".
If you want a succinct expression of English philosophy I think you could do worse than this: "What's the use. We're all going to die. Whose buying?"
Too many of the aforementioned twits don't get that and leave themselves open to the proselytizers - like Gore, Suzuki and Bin Laden
.
I just had someone this morning express concern that "Religion" was getting a bad rap because the "Secular" 20th century, which abhorred (in their view) religion was one of the bloodiest of all time. My response was that religion is not about God, or Allah or the other 9 million names of God - it is ultimately about belief.
While previous centuries saw wars between Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Hindus, Christians and Pagans, Arians and Augustinians the wars of the 20th Century were between German Nationalists and French Nationalists (amongst others) and then between Communists and Fascists and then between Communists and Capitalists. Currently we are engaged in a war between Islamic Crypto-Fascist Socialists (or some other suitably trendy label) and Running Dog Hindu Christian Social Democratic Capitalists - fairly amorphic but no doubt some historian of the future will define suitable isms for class room study. And coming soon to a newspaper near you - the Environment wars between the followers of Gaia and the Deniers.
The problem is not with God. The problem is not even with the belief. The problem is with the proselytisers: those people that prey on the fears of many that they will be victims of communal punishment unless they get their neighbours to hew to the one, true belief that will save the world and them individually......and if they have to sacrifice the neighbours to save the greater part of humanity, including themselves, then so be it. Their reward is a better life in this world, or a better life for their children or a better life in the next world.
All of these people: the Marxist-Leninists, the Suzuki-Goreites, the Islamo-fascists, the Russo-Communists and, I regret to say, many Christian evangelicals and charismatics are driven by many of the same urges - the need to save everybody else in order to save themselves. It is little wonder that they find kindred spirits in otherwise disparate movements.
I saw an article in today's National Post by an American name of David Brooks - the article seems to be protected on the internet yet (probably available tomorrow) - "Where History Reigns Supreme".
He, like me, is an unabashed Britophile. Unlike me he is an American, an outsider, and writes much better. Two or three paragraphs in the centre of his piece caught my eye.
"History, in the British public culture, takes precedence over philosophy, psychology, sociology and economics. And with a few obvious exceptions, British historians have not seen the human story as the march towards some culminating Idea.
Instead they've seen history as a hodge-podge of activity - as one damn thing after another. (Edit
Even philosophers in Britain tend to be skeptics.....Burke distrusted each individual's stock of reason and put his faith in the accumulated weight of tradition. ....Smith put his faith in the collective judgement of the market. Michael Oakeshott ridiculed rationalism. Berlin celebrated pluralism, arguing there is no single body of truth.
......while the British can be socially deferential (Edit: less true these days), they are rarely intellectually deferential. The French and the Germans might defer to their intellectuals, and the Arabs might defer to their clerics, but the British are incapable......".
I think that Brooks is onto the fundamental difference between those that have a need for a firm belief (and more importantly the need to make others believe) and the underlying pragmatism that permeates the Westminster tradition. There is no single underlying belief system behind the Westminster system. All of its separate components have been the results of compromises between people with strongly held beliefs, made over the course of more than a thousand years. It is full of internal contradictions. But that doesn't matter. Pragmatic accomodation and incrementalism are the order of the day. That makes is hard to explain to those that demand clarity what the rules are because the rules are whatever we say they are. And that is anathema to all the Marxists, Fascists, Environmentalists and Socialists as well as most "Religionists".
If you want a succinct expression of English philosophy I think you could do worse than this: "What's the use. We're all going to die. Whose buying?"
Too many of the aforementioned twits don't get that and leave themselves open to the proselytizers - like Gore, Suzuki and Bin Laden.
