Of Religion and Inteligibility
My opening article was more or less an attempt to outline the most basic problem that can be faced by any modern child in the event he wants to know what God wants from him. As we discussed, once any novice (well raised under the modern educational setup) develops interest in religion and consequently desire to get to grips with it, he incidentally found himself entangled in the dilemma that he must first evoke the superstitious, unintelligible and myth-filled outlook of the past world order whence religion originated.
The issue in short can be stated as that our religious education is characteristically at the full dispensation of those least intelligible members of the human race who--due to their intellectual incapacitation--are largely conservatives of the old ways.
What I also highlighted in my opener is that--while there is this sad trend whereby our religiosity is still under the control of the unintelligible conservatives of the old ways--there is still a further potent influence from the side of the modern intellectuals in the sense that they have opted to give God and religion their backs. What can be said about the modern intellectual religious outlook is that it is largely atheistic in nature. Well, we have been too quick to say out why we don't believe in God than we can believe in him as intelligent people. There are a handful of agnostics out there but you must know that agnostics, not unlike atheists, are not here to say to you, "these are the states of affairs about God." So, while the modern religious education is dominated by wrong people it must also be understood that there have been virtually no right people to dispense it. Well, the right people are largely those who identify themselves as unbelievers.
Now, today what I want to discuss is that while many intellectuals have opted to go the way of being outspoken unbelievers who have nothing to do with religion or God, that should not mean religion is not intellectually engaging. Well, as of now many people happened to falsely see religion and unintelligibility as synonyms. But that is a scandalous misappropriation that has been created by the unbelieving community down the decades. To quickly depict this fundamental lie in the modern intellectual consciousness about religion I will pick a slogan found at newatheism.org website which read thus:
"Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of RELIGION. Indoctrination of logic, reason and the advancement of a naturalistic worldview."
The problem with this slogan is simply that we very clearly see the author failing to treat religion independent of the superstitious and myth-filled ancient world whence religion originates. No, he wrongly and quite deliberately uses the items of ignorance, myth and superstition as identifiers of religion while they in effect are purely defining the ancient world order whence religion originates.
Notwithstanding, this author is a militant atheist up at arms to something. Actually, while we are all obliged to advance the reason-filled and naturalistic worldview, should that be at the expense of the destruction of religion? I don't think so! Well, that's why atheists may not honestly teach us religion because they have their own special agenda—whatever it can be!
But, do religion and modernity clash anyway? Is religion unintelligible? On my part, the answer is a very fat "NO." What must only be said is that we tend to approach religion as the ancients. Though, it must be understood that religion is very distinct from the ancient world of its origin just as any given area of human endeavor like, say science or philosophy. Here we have our modern age very much distinguished from the past one. If there is one item of human endeavor in the past world that is conflicting with the modern ideas we don't say that item is wrong? In this context, if the way religion was approached back then is incompatible with the modern ideas, we don't say religion is a problem. What is problematical is the old way of approaching religion. Thus, religion must be evaluated independent of the superstitious age of its origin. Yet, what most moderns would do is to attack how some ancients were religious as criticism of religion as a whole. This is quite simply intellectual dishonesty.
Oh, as a matter of fact, there are so many scientific practices and beliefs in the past world which wouldn't agree with the modern ideas. For instance, we all know how the ancient scientists thought of the world as geocentric. Back then alchemy and astrology were recognized as valid sciences—the predecessors of chemistry and astronomy respectively. Yet no one have ever said "Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of SCIENCE." No, instead we have had the Newtons, the Galileos and the Einsteins who have very successfully advanced our scientific outlook.
On my part, what we are still lacking is the Isaac Newtons and the Galileos of religion who will revolutionize our religiosity. We need an alternative religious outlook intended to satisfy all basic elements of modern way of thinking. There is nothing hard with envisaging the religion of our own age. What's hard is perhaps our hearts.
The issue in short can be stated as that our religious education is characteristically at the full dispensation of those least intelligible members of the human race who--due to their intellectual incapacitation--are largely conservatives of the old ways.
What I also highlighted in my opener is that--while there is this sad trend whereby our religiosity is still under the control of the unintelligible conservatives of the old ways--there is still a further potent influence from the side of the modern intellectuals in the sense that they have opted to give God and religion their backs. What can be said about the modern intellectual religious outlook is that it is largely atheistic in nature. Well, we have been too quick to say out why we don't believe in God than we can believe in him as intelligent people. There are a handful of agnostics out there but you must know that agnostics, not unlike atheists, are not here to say to you, "these are the states of affairs about God." So, while the modern religious education is dominated by wrong people it must also be understood that there have been virtually no right people to dispense it. Well, the right people are largely those who identify themselves as unbelievers.
Now, today what I want to discuss is that while many intellectuals have opted to go the way of being outspoken unbelievers who have nothing to do with religion or God, that should not mean religion is not intellectually engaging. Well, as of now many people happened to falsely see religion and unintelligibility as synonyms. But that is a scandalous misappropriation that has been created by the unbelieving community down the decades. To quickly depict this fundamental lie in the modern intellectual consciousness about religion I will pick a slogan found at newatheism.org website which read thus:
"Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of RELIGION. Indoctrination of logic, reason and the advancement of a naturalistic worldview."
The problem with this slogan is simply that we very clearly see the author failing to treat religion independent of the superstitious and myth-filled ancient world whence religion originates. No, he wrongly and quite deliberately uses the items of ignorance, myth and superstition as identifiers of religion while they in effect are purely defining the ancient world order whence religion originates.
Notwithstanding, this author is a militant atheist up at arms to something. Actually, while we are all obliged to advance the reason-filled and naturalistic worldview, should that be at the expense of the destruction of religion? I don't think so! Well, that's why atheists may not honestly teach us religion because they have their own special agenda—whatever it can be!
But, do religion and modernity clash anyway? Is religion unintelligible? On my part, the answer is a very fat "NO." What must only be said is that we tend to approach religion as the ancients. Though, it must be understood that religion is very distinct from the ancient world of its origin just as any given area of human endeavor like, say science or philosophy. Here we have our modern age very much distinguished from the past one. If there is one item of human endeavor in the past world that is conflicting with the modern ideas we don't say that item is wrong? In this context, if the way religion was approached back then is incompatible with the modern ideas, we don't say religion is a problem. What is problematical is the old way of approaching religion. Thus, religion must be evaluated independent of the superstitious age of its origin. Yet, what most moderns would do is to attack how some ancients were religious as criticism of religion as a whole. This is quite simply intellectual dishonesty.
Oh, as a matter of fact, there are so many scientific practices and beliefs in the past world which wouldn't agree with the modern ideas. For instance, we all know how the ancient scientists thought of the world as geocentric. Back then alchemy and astrology were recognized as valid sciences—the predecessors of chemistry and astronomy respectively. Yet no one have ever said "Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of SCIENCE." No, instead we have had the Newtons, the Galileos and the Einsteins who have very successfully advanced our scientific outlook.
On my part, what we are still lacking is the Isaac Newtons and the Galileos of religion who will revolutionize our religiosity. We need an alternative religious outlook intended to satisfy all basic elements of modern way of thinking. There is nothing hard with envisaging the religion of our own age. What's hard is perhaps our hearts.
Source...