Posted on 09/08/2003 3:05:17 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
I SENSED A KINSHIP with Martin Luther when reading Professor Thomas L. Johnson's comment ["Truly free? Not as long as religion plays a role in government," Aug. 19]. When Luther read Erasmus' diatribes he responded: "Your workstruck me as so worthless and poor that my heart went out to you for having defiled your lovely and brilliant flow of language with such vile stuff.It is like using gold and silver dishes to carry garden rubbish or dung."
Johnson assumes we experience philosophical ideas only in the philosophers' writings. This is erroneous. We meet these ideas in movies, television, and the lyrics of music.
They are in books such as Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village." The raising of a child is too important to be left to the parents; it takes a village. This belief is from Plato's "Republic." Movies and television have often portrayed the "anti-hero hero"--the individual who makes his own way and his own laws, and refuses to submit to authority. This is the "superman" of Nietzsche.
Johnson's own polemic on Christian "virtues" betrays the influence of Nietzsche's "Will to Power." These ideas are found in marketing: Get it here and now because here and now is all you have.
One does not have to read the philosophers to encounter the ideas they have promulgated. Even the U.S. Army has kowtowed to philosophy with the slogan "An army of one."
The contemporary church, as well, has been shaped by the philosophers. Rudolf Bultmann turned to the atheistic existential philosophy of Heidegger as the way to interpret the Bible, pushing many into a subjective approach. But perhaps it was Immanuel Kant in his "Critique of Pure Reason" who had the greatest impact on culture and church when he built his wall between the transcendent (God, the self, and essences) and the world as we perceive it. The Christian community abandoned its traditional rational arguments for God and turned to leaps of faith. Thus the church, like the culture, found itself separated from God, the self, and essences, and the answers to the important questions: What is Good, Beautiful and True? We have all bowed the knee to Father Kant and his disciples, even if we have never heard their names.
The history Johnson asserts is more wretched than his views on philosophical effect. In ancient Rome, Christians were executed for not worshiping the emperor. Christians stopped the practice of infanticide. It was the church's opposition that ended the games where people were butchered for the amusement of the mob.
Throughout history Christians have resisted tyranny--at Runnymede and the signing of the Magna Carta, in central Europe when the German Princes opposed Charles V, and in the Dutch war of independence. All these events were carried out by Christians. Parliament's victory over the King in the English Civil War was the work of Christians, as was the American Revolution. The history Johnson offered, of Christians as docile, willing servants of despots, is at its best abject knavery, at its worst odious slander.
The dictatorships of this past century, of which Johnson took little notice, were nearly all anti-religious. These opposed Judeo-Christianity and adopted Karl Marx's creed "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need." Lenin and Stalin attempted to exterminate religion. Communist China's human disasters ("The Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution") were not the result of Christian complicity. These tragedies, along with those perpetrated by the Pol Pot regime and numerous others, lay with proponents of anti-religious, anti-Christian socialism.
Johnson protests that both political parties are making government bigger, and they are. We have only ourselves to blame, having become enthralled with the politics of envy, greed, and guilt, justified by Marx's creed. This is the result of the marriage of agnostic socialism and 19th-century liberal theology, which is not Christian, as J. Gresham Machen so ably pointed out in "Christianity and Liberalism."
Professor Johnson may assert the contrary, but with God banished from, statehouse, schoolhouse, and courtroom, Caesar is now on the throne. Where humans rule rather than the law, tyranny will follow. Big government is the heritage of this exile.
We all suffer from Pascal's dilemma of being able to think of a better existence than we have, but being unable to bring it about. We as a culture have turned to a human institution, government, for our needs and wants. Many are ready to lay covetous hands on the public treasury. This is the legacy of the 19th- and 20th-century socialist movements, which abandoned the orthodox teachings of Judaism and Christianity.
The threat to freedom is not from the community of faith. It is from the culture's desire to have the state meet our desires and free us from accountability. In a family environment this would be called codependency.
The late Vince Lombardi, observing the American scene in 1970, said, "People no longer understand the difference between liberty and license." I see in Professor Johnson's diatribe that lack of understanding.
Gal. 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Hos. 8:7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
In case you forgot the references. You have freepmail.
Hank
As a retort to the quotes about mysticism, it is *not* correct to call mysticism the sole ("soul"? :-) ) source of religious motivation and faith.
All religions are an amalgum of undeniable facts, (you will find things about eating, for example, in almost all religions, so they all at least admit that physical food has some value) with some aspects of credulity, {just believing something is true, without basis in either evidence or reason}. The general religious term for this credulity is faith. The generic term for credulity is superstition.
An ideology or system of beliefs that included no elements of credulity would not be a religion. It is those elements of belief (by which I mean only those things held to be true, and can inlude both the rational and irrational) that require "faith" that distinguish between religious and non-religious ideologies. The unnamed source for all notions or beliefs call faith based only on credulity is mysticism. Exclude mysticism, and whatever you have, it is not religion.
the emotional/moral/feeling side of human experience and expression. there is more to human expression than pure reason.
Just one comment. Emotion and feelings are generally terms for the same class of human experience, though feeling is broader and includes some things that could not rightly be called emotions (like the physical sensations). It is a bad mistake to mix feeling and morals. Moral or ethical values are rational, based on the nature reality, and determine what is correct or incorrect behavior for moral (rational/volitions) beings who must live by conscious choice.
More often than not, for those people who confuse moral values and feelings, their emotional experience and their moral values are in conflict. Those who clearly understand, truth is truth, right is right, and regardless of how one feels, the truth cannot be violated and one cannot do wrong and get away with it, do not suffer emotional conflicts. The feelings reflect values. First you must have the values, then the emotions can evaluate them and provide the visceral experience of them. Those who look to their feelings for values have it backwards and their experience (and behavior) will relfect it.
Locke is good.
Yes, and then came Hume, and that was the end of philosophy. Every philospher since Hume, whether following his lead or refuting him has implicitly or explicitly accepted his false premsises, and thus perpetuated the errors. Because all philosophers since Locke embrace Hume and Plato (whether they know it or not) and reject Aristotle, there is no sound philosophy today. The Objectivists, for all their faults, at least reject Plato and Hume explicitly, and for the right reasons, and do embrace Aristotle, which at least is a beginning.
Hank
Faith is trust in the truth of another. Such trust is required with or without a state. I can't imagine a classroom without such faith, or a family. There's faith outside of your fear of collectivism as well as outside your fear of superstition. Faith, at bottom, is the assent to the agency of another as sufficient for good.
Many English words have more than one meaning or connotation, which a careful thinker will take care to distinguish. In most cases, the meaning or connotation of a word can be established by the context in which it was used.
For example, the word "faith" has several connotations, including trustworthiness (he is a man of good faith) confidence in something (when we sit on a chair we have faith it will no collapse beneath us) or confidence in someone (most of us have faith in our doctors) or religious faith (no one can prove there is a God, you must accept it by faith).
Since this thread is about philosophy and religion, it is obviously "faith" in the last sense that is meant by, "faith is what individuals who hate the truth settle for."
When someone intentionally uses a word with one connotation, such as faith meaning "confidence in another," to justify or put over the another meaning of the word, such as faith meaning, "blind credulity," as in religion, it is essentially dishonest. I know that is not your intention, of course, and that you were only mistaken about the different connotations of the word. This is why we have to be so careful about the exact meaning of words.
Hank
Aristotle made it clear that there are undemonstrable first principles, a feature common to both philosophy and religion.
I liked it. He raises important points, not the least of which is that we are all influenced by philosophers, whether we know their names or not.
Another thing worth considering is that philosophical revolutions generally spring from a philosopher, develop in the universities and become conventional wisdom within a span of 3 or 4 decades. This gives me pause considering that the prevailing philosophy in academia is "deconstructionism."
You might like this.
My view is that the prevailing philosophy is American pragmatism.
I observed as Moslems Arabs speak, in general, they would say: if god willing, god will help me, god wants that, god knows, god so and so. Every other word in their vocabulary is god or Allah. By being so obsessed with this god/Allah thing, are they being better human beings? No, and hell no! This god thing is nothing but superficial language, in their treacherous hearts there is nothing but hate and vengeance.
The Christ I know is a meek, forgiving humble Christ. He has nothing to do with the superficial fanatical born again evangelists of today. Their entire cry about god/prayers in school is nothing but hypocrisy. If they teach their children to pray, that should be enough. If some parents do not want their children to pray, they cannot be compelled to pray. Moslems claim that Mohammed said THERE IS NO COMPULSION IN RELIGION! The Moslem religion fanatics practice otherwise. The religion police beat women if they don’t cover their heads, or if someone is found eating in Ramadan! Our fanatic born again Christians gang would beat our children if they did not pray before meals!
Meanwhile, Aristotle made it clear that there are undemonstrable first principles, a feature common to both philosophy and religion.
My point is: All systems of belief require faith of some sort - even Science! The hard-core positivists conclude that nothing is really knowable on a certain level, since all constructive 'truths' (ie mathematics) are tautologies, while any empirical truth is subject to error.
Even empiricists have a 'leap of faith', that leap is trust in the sensory perceptions and the reality of experience, none of which can be "proven".
It is why I say skepticism is a process, not a conclusion. It's not that I am mystic in saying this, but there is an element of arrogance in assuming one's own belief system is free from the same grouding: "An ideology or system of beliefs that included no elements of credulity would not be a religion." on the contrary, all systems of belief have *some* element of credulity.
Just one comment. Emotion and feelings are generally terms for the same class of human experience, though feeling is broader and includes some things that could not rightly be called emotions (like the physical sensations). It is a bad mistake to mix feeling and morals. Moral or ethical values are rational, based on the nature reality, and determine what is correct or incorrect behavior for moral (rational/volitions) beings who must live by conscious choice.
This is a wide subject, but it is not only common, it is practically necessary to combine emotions and morals. Emotions are about motivations and both have in them the term that indicates its connection to action - *purpose*. Morals is about what purposes, intentions, motivations and results actions are correct. The emotions are what is the reference point for morals - "Love your neighbor". If you look at Spinoza for example, he talks of 'good' emotions and 'evil' or 'useless' emotions. When you say 'conscious choice' you dont realize that it is *emotions* that are the centerpiece of that consciousness - this is a psychological observation no philosopher has touched on explicitly, but it is implicit in almost all moral philosophy from Aristotle on down. Aristotle spoke of happiness as the ultimate end and tied virtue to the 'good' of human intention. Aristotle said that happiness was the activity of the soul in expressing virtue - In a sense, the utilitarians go the same way, for them it is maximizing that happiness/pleasure that is the culculus of good. But where does desire come from psychologically? Emotional desire. reason has no Will, no intention. Think of a computer, it seeks nothing but creates knowledge and understanding from what it is given
The psychological truth is like this: You have sensations, thoughts (reason) to analyze them, emotions to guide your sense of directions/desires away/towards some action, and actions based on all input sand inner cognition. Reason and emotion dance together to create intentions and actions.
Speaking of reason-based morals sounds good, but that is another way of saying a normative ethics is grounded on rational analysis. That's what the moral philosophers do one the whole. The problem the moderns have got themselves in is this: Just as they cant see any *certain* truths, they cant find any *certain* morals. This is unsurprising fo a group that cant call teh sun rising each day a certainty. (And funny thing is - I agree! - but I think there is a confusion between "knowledge" and "certainty", oyu can have knowledge without it being prob=1 certainty, and that knowledge of things in nature is very much real not an illusion!)
In my view, wisdom and virtue are pairs, the highest ends that relate to the human activities related to them - reason and emotion. A complete reasoning and emotionally healthy individual will exhibit both wisdom and virtue in their inner thoughts and outer behavior. And certainly both can fix eachother - it is base hedonism and ignorance to let emotions and desires act outside of reason as a 'moral guide'; such thinking also reject moral reasoning. reason can indeed correct what is flawed in emotional desires - a drunk may think another drink is what is needed for happiness, but reason might guide instead to drying out and fixing a brain's desire for alcohol with a higher and better set of desire more attuned to lasting happiness, aka virtue.
I agree with you, and with Aristotle, Kant, and objectivists, that such moral study/science is possible. I disagree with the moderns who find such study impossible or insensible. A last thought experiment when face with those who say there are no absolutes in morals. Ask them if completely wiping out all humanity and all life forms entirely off the face of the earth is an evil or bad thing. ask them to *prove* it.
If you mean axioms, "existence exists," "we are conscious and existence is what we are conscious of," and "a thing is what it is, or A is A," they are demonstrable. Since they are axioms, not derived concepts, because there are no more basic concepts from which these could be logically deduced, they cannot be logically proved, in the usual sense, because logical proof pertains only to derived concepts. The axioms, however, cannot be denied without producing a logical contradiction, because all logical proof depends on them, and they are implicitly assumed in all other knowledge or logical statements.
As for demonstrating them. if you are reading this, then you exist and what you are reading exists and you are consious both of yourself and what you are reading, and what you are reading is what you are reading and you are you. To deny any of these you must assume them in the denial, contra-hypothesis.
Now I copied WOSG to this response because he suggested the same commonly held mistake in Post #42:
My point is: All systems of belief require faith of some sort - even Science!
But sceince does not require any faith of the (just believe without reason) kind at all. The axioms are not assumptions, they are discovered rationally, and verified logically, by the very fact they cannot be denied without contradiction. They are the foundation of all other knowledge, including science.
Hank
Dewey-style pragmatism? In the academy or in the population?
My concern is with academia, particularly philosophy departments. "Deconstructionism" seems to be the current fashion. My fear is that this will become the popular conventional wisdom in the years to come.
He-he . . .in all cases they will be if you're a meanie. I was on a thread the other day where religion was the same thing as mental illness. Such equations make the title of this thread quite apropos.
I see that you have neglected to comment on the resemblance of fanatical Islam to our fanatical born again gang.
If an Islamic woman thinks that god would love her more if she covers her hair, then all power to her. The fact that her father would beat her or the religious police would beat her to please that so called GOD, is simply subjugation, imposition, and down right stupid. Now let us jump from that extreme stupidity of Islamic fanatics, to your so called moral evangelical activists. Here we have school children, they can pray if they choose to, the school itself SHOULD NOT COMPELL them to pray. The ACLU, should be exposed for what they are-anti-Christians!
I never said anything about that our society should not have religion in public places. I am simply saying that humble meek Christians who behave in Christian way will be the beacon of light; that is how they know that you are my decuples, if you loved one another.
If the Alabama judge behaved like a Christian in his household, and most of his neighbors, and fellow citizens, we would not need to assert ourselves by imposing a stone on the courthouse. The Ten Commandments are known in everyone's heart. This superficial agitation is very similar to beating a Moslem girl for not covering her hair. The government and its power should NEVER be used to impose religion or the love of God. This must come from the individual heart, and from the family/church teaching.
I know that you don't understand a single word, and you are offended, but if you spend a few minutes reflecting on what I am trying to say, you MAY get it.
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