Over the last year I have had the occasional exchange on the subject of religion, wars and suffering, the most recent one with Euan and Katheryn. I have taken the general line that religion reflects the human condition, and thus mirrors the culture and values of its time.
I have also argued that it is too easy to ascribe blame to religious differences when conflict occurs. I also think that religion is pretty important to humans and our evolution. It was probably linked to the way in which we developed language (from our abstractions of the world) and to social evolution: think of the way in which monasteries provided hospitality and hospitals, the two words being clearly linked. The Irish also with some legitimacy claim to have saved civilisation through their monasteries, although probably not through their Rugby Team .
Of course the philosophy of religion is a part of my background, and the Theology of Liberation provided a defining moment or two. In this connection one person todate has spotted the influence of Karl Rahner on my work and his Hearers of the Word remains to my mind one of the seminal works of Philosophy in the last century and one of the main thinkers behind Vatican II. Religion for good or for ill is a part of what we are.
Either way this cartoon struck me as apt and if you follow the first referenced thread you will find some interesting statistics on suicide bombers. Enjoy …..
Comments (3)
I'm always a bit puzzled by the pervasive tendency to divide belief systems into two groups....those that have a supernatural component and those that do not. It seems that there's often an (intended?) blurring of science with secularism, where science (in its various forms/definitions) is a knowledge-generating tool, and secularism (or, more narrowly, scientism) is a belief framework grounded in certain non-scientific assumptions.
Posted by Walter Smith | August 8, 2006 9:41 PM
Posted on August 8, 2006 21:41
I'm interested to hear your views on religion and 'the Divine'. I ask this because I'm intrigued by the comment 'that religion reflects the human condition, and thus mirrors the culture and values of its time'. I agree, and this would certainly be an argument for some religions to 'update' themselves to the current times. However this would also be uncomfortable for some religions, given organized religions' prescriptive tendencies and usual approach of saying how things should be, instead of accepting how things are/have changed.
Nevertheless, I'm still left wondering, 'What about God?'
Posted by Lex McCafferty | September 18, 2006 4:31 AM
Posted on September 18, 2006 04:31
Its a very big question Lex. If its OK I'm going to come back to that in a later post. I don;t want to rush it. However one comment now - I think religions that fix revalation are dangerous. I always bought the works side of the faith V works debate.
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September 19, 2006 4:33 AM
Posted on September 19, 2006 04:33