The other is Charles Murray, who has written a book called "The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead", from which he plums a Wall Street Journal piece, giving me an opportunity to partake ;)
I particularly liked #4 in a list of "Advice for a Happy Life".
4. Take Religion Seriously
Don't bother to read this one if you're already satisfyingly engaged with a religious tradition.
Now that we're alone, here's where a lot of you stand when it comes to religion: It isn't for you. You don't mind if other people are devout, but you don't get it. Smart people don't believe that stuff anymore.
I can be sure that is what many of you think because your generation of high-IQ, college-educated young people, like mine 50 years ago, has been as thoroughly socialized to be secular as your counterparts in preceding generations were socialized to be devout. Some of you grew up with parents who weren't religious, and you've never given religion a thought. Others of you followed the religion of your parents as children but left religion behind as you were socialized by college.
By socialized, I don't mean that you studied theology under professors who persuaded you that Thomas Aquinas was wrong. You didn't study theology at all. None of the professors you admired were religious. When the topic of religion came up, they treated it dismissively or as a subject of humor. You went along with the zeitgeist.
I am describing my own religious life from the time I went to Harvard until my late 40s. At that point, my wife, prompted by the birth of our first child, had found a religious tradition in which she was comfortable, Quakerism, and had been attending Quaker meetings for several years. I began keeping her company and started reading on religion. I still describe myself as an agnostic, but my unbelief is getting shaky.
Taking religion seriously means work. If you're waiting for a road-to-Damascus experience, you're kidding yourself. Getting inside the wisdom of the great religions doesn't happen by sitting on beaches, watching sunsets and waiting for enlightenment. It can easily require as much intellectual effort as a law degree.
Even dabbling at the edges has demonstrated to me the depths of Judaism, Buddhism and Taoism. I assume that I would find similar depths in Islam and Hinduism as well. I certainly have developed a far greater appreciation for Christianity, the tradition with which I'm most familiar. The Sunday school stories I learned as a child bear no resemblance to Christianity taken seriously. You've got to grapple with the real thing.
Start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism. A good way to do that is to read about contemporary cosmology. The universe isn't only stranger than we knew; it is stranger and vastly more unlikely than we could have imagined, and we aren't even close to discovering its last mysteries. That reading won't lead you to religion, but it may stop you from being unreflective.
Find ways to put yourself around people who are profoundly religious. You will encounter individuals whose intelligence, judgment and critical faculties are as impressive as those of your smartest atheist friends—and who also possess a disquieting confidence in an underlying reality behind the many religious dogmas.
They have learned to reconcile faith and reason, yes, but beyond that, they persuasively convey ways of knowing that transcend intellectual understanding. They exhibit in their own personae a kind of wisdom that goes beyond just having intelligence and good judgment.
Start reading religious literature. You don't have to go back to Aquinas (though that wouldn't be a bad idea). The past hundred years have produced excellent and accessible work, much of it written by people who came to adulthood as uninvolved in religion as you are. (read the whole list)
43 comments:
Not sure about the last, but the rest do make sense.
Like the post about choosing gender, we are what we are and books like the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, and history are still very relevant, regardless of what the post-modernists say.
Yes, several generations have been presented with a comic book caricature of Catholicism and Christianity. When I talk to young people about the Church, we might as well be talking different languages.
First, they always denounce the Church for pederasty, as if that were the very purpose of the Church, and as if no other societal institution suffered from the same sins. A higher percentage of school teachers commit the same sin, I respond. Does that indict everything about the institution of public schools?
Underlying this obsession is their belief that the people who work within the Church must be perfect and free from all sin. That the Church exists to serve sinners, and that we only have sinners to choose from to serve in the vocations seems inexplicable to them.
The, it's on to their belief that all the Church is about is some crazy guy with a beard sitting on a cloud up in the sky. And, who would be stupid enough to fall for that?
And, why do they have to go to Church to be a good person?
The ignorance about the purposes and tradition of Christian belief is so thick... well... I don't know what to do.
When the kids calm down enough to ask me why I am Christian and Catholic, I try as follows:
1. It was what my father wanted for me. Embracing the tradition and values of my father is a matter of respect and gratitude for what he gave me.
2. The stories of the Bible present a history of human culture spanning millennia. The value here is in recognizing that human history is cyclical. The same moral, psychological and spiritual dilemmas keep coming back around.
3. Religious tradition and ritual will give you peace of mind. Humans are irrational critters, not machines. The very existence of religious tradition and ritual should tell you that these things work, even if they cannot be explained.
4. Being a member of a Christian church will involve you in a community of productive, positive people who will help you to maintain your family and marriage in a world that seems committed to destroying both.
I don't go much into theology or the Commandments or the obligations of the Catholic Church, because I think that's overkill. That stuff has to come later for people who are receptive.
Lem, you may partake of a plum, but you plumb the article. Do not be phobic of homonyms.
Shouting Thomas said...
First, they always denounce the Church for pederasty, as if that were the very purpose of the Church, and as if no other societal institution suffered from the same sins. A higher percentage of school teachers commit the same sin, I respond. Does that indict everything about the institution of public schools?
Your kid has a lot greater chance ( like 100 times) of being molested by a union teacher than a Catholic priest.
Hit 'em with that one and watch 'em scramble.
Religion posits certain absolutes, without which the world falls apart.
Needless to say "sophisticates" scoff at the very idea of an absolute. All is relative. So much more subtle and complex, donchyaknow.
Unfortunately, sophisticates rule our world. And so the world falls apart. Just look around.
Religion posits certain absolutes, without which the world falls apart.
The world was meant to fall apart... then get back together again.
It is an eternal cycle.
For which we have Lucifer to thank!
Thanks, Lucifer.....for neant!
A good list, including the parts about choosing a mate. These are among the many topics that are not to be mentioned anymore. It's a tip of the hat to the Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Your kid has a lot greater chance ( like 100 times) of being molested by a union teacher than a Catholic priest.
Probably not quite true if your kid goes to a Catholic school. Just sayin.
The whole article was very good.
A priest I worked with, now gone to his reward, made the point to me that in his experience, marriages would be much stronger when a couple had gone through adversity together. On the other hand, he'd seen couples who had largely avoided adversity, until much later, who didn't navigate that storm very well. He compared it to what happens with soldiers, teammates and other situations where people form close bonds precisely as they face some trial together.
Phx:
FWIW, Catholic schools rarely have unions.
Lem, you may partake of a plum, but you plumb the article.
Thanks sixty. This is what I'm looking for. keep those corrections coming.
I occasionally do reflect upon my sinful nature in my music.
Here's the Sinner Blues, an original tune.
I would love to hear the recording by you and Myrna.
@deborah
I'm looking for the recording with Myrna.
I'd love to hear it.
Until recently, I couldn't listen to Myrna without falling to pieces and fleeing into the bathroom to cry. Just too painful.
I'm trying now. It's still not easy.
FWIW, Catholic schools rarely have unions.
This is so and accounts for part of my reasoning.
I can only imagine, Shout. She must have been one hell of a woman.
"4. Take Religion Seriously"
Rather than "Take religion seriously" I'd propose the advice "Take the search for the meaning of your life seriously." Somebody who is not engaged with the question "Why was I born?" is probably in pretty desperate straights.
Anybody who is fully engaged with the process of trying to discover why they were born has probably looked into religion seriously, regardless of what they may ultimately decide about its applicability in their lives.
Murray recommends his reader "start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism," which sounds like he doesn't believe there's such a thing as reflective atheism or agnosticism. I'd like to assure him that reflective agnosticism/atheism does exist, as does unreflective religious belief.
Why were you born, phx? To be shallow.
And as far as "Take religion seriously" as a means to a happy life, I think many people who have taken religion seriously understand well that a "happy life" is contingent on many things that may have nothing to do with your level of religious engagement.
I'm not intending to be argumentative but that's how I see it.
Why were you born, phx? To be shallow.
Actually your streaming insults towards me always seem to reflect the level you're thinking at, ricpic.
I like this article, but then I like every thing Murray has written. Too bad we don't have 10 more like him writing today.
@phx
I went through a long period of alienation from the Church, during which I was convinced that religion had something to do with intellectual choice.
I now reject that notion completely.
And, I now think that it was vanity about intellect that led me away from where I was supposed to be.
Tradition and ritual possess meaning that transcends intellect. It's not my place to reject the tradition and ritual passed to me by my father. That rejection, in itself, was a sin... the sin of hubris.
TOP, in my opinion, suffers about as bad a case of this hubris as can be imagined in her intellectual gyrations on gaydom. She's convinced she knows better than 2000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition and theology.
@ST
I thought your post at 9:53 am was great - Best of ST.
I specifically agree that tradition, ritual, and the irrational are necessary ingredients if not for our happiness, for our development into fully aware beings.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying bad things about religion. I'm saying that there are also other roads to Rome.
And I don't think you'll get to Rome, or higher awareness, exclusively through the intellect. That's the mistake of modernism.
"TOP, in my opinion, suffers about as bad a case of this hubris as can be imagined"
I disagree abut this. Well, in part. Yeah, there's hubris and on the topics you note. However, Althouse the blogger is not Althouse the person. She keeps a lot of her self hidden. Over the years, and I've been reading her work since late in the 2004 election, she has shown a respectful curiosity about religion as well as occasionally brings out her underlying critiques about church and theology.
When she writes about religion more specifically I've found her to be more respectful and interested than many online. And she very often listens to what people say on the topics. Some issues hit close to home and she has a strong reactionary streak to perceived injustice. But for the most part, I don't think the hubris runs deep. She does, after all, attract a number of religious readers. There's a tension there, it's not ambivalence, it's engaged interest.
TOP makes a point of putting down her father. Nasty piece of work, that beeotch.
I insult you, phx? You need a ton more, you Alinskyite mock machine.
It's not that you insult me ricpic, but look at our posts here.
One person is offering his thoughts about complex ideas, for good or bad. The other is throwing out insults that a trained parrot or an ape with signing skills could spew.
When you got something that shows you are capable of making a real argument with real thought - you know, premises, conclusions - I'll start paying attention to you again. Until then, well I'm not into your kind of clowning.
Somebody who is not engaged with the question "Why was I born?" is probably in pretty desperate straights.
Why was I Born?
Start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism. A good way to do that is to read about contemporary cosmology.
UNreflective. Just saying. I'm agnostic without wondering why you haven't made up your mind or reflecting on what has caused you to be agnostic is what the author is trying to convey.
Saying. I am atheist and there is no God or higher power without having real and concrete reasons is UNreflective. The reason being "because" is not a reason.
UNreflective people never admit that perhaps there might be another side to the issue. Never give any credence or thought about....what IF they were wrong.
phx said...
Your kid has a lot greater chance ( like 100 times) of being molested by a union teacher than a Catholic priest.
Probably not quite true if your kid goes to a Catholic school. Just sayin.
Since most Catholic school teachers are either nuns or lay teachers - even back when I was a kid - it just shows how little phx knows.
ricpic said...
TOP makes a point of putting down her father. Nasty piece of work, that beeotch.
FWIW, she always came across as Daddy's Little Girl, whence a great many feminists come BTW. I can't recall her saying anything nasty about him.
YMMV.
Unless you mean her Father.
I agree with the point about reading contemporary theology, not starting with Aquinas.
The classics are classics for a reason, but the trouble with a lot of the older approaches is that they depend on prior faith or knowledge, and they are specifically writing for certain eras and patterns of knowledge.
That means in reading them, one might not really hit on what is currently a question of faith and life, or read patterns of thought that are outmoded.
For instance, what are the theological reactions to contemporary science, or global challenges of God's power or goodness like the holocaust.
And for me, theology is also so varied that one writer might leave me feeling dry or disconnected while another would be the very balm of a parched soul. And this is true throughout historical theology as well.
I can be sure that is what many of you think because your generation of high-IQ, college-educated young people, like mine 50 years ago, has been as thoroughly socialized to be secular as your counterparts in preceding generations were socialized to be devout.
That statement doesn't appear to be reflected in the actual distribution of religious belief across America. Colleges are secular; college graduates usually are not.
I don't generally go to places likely to end up in religious arguments but lately there have been a couple of times where someone said something ignorant on the internet (yeah, surprised me too)and I felt like I needed to push back just a little bit.
I think that a lot of people would be happier if they studied religion seriously, not with some notion that they'd end up converted, but with the faint hope that they'd be less of a jerk and display their ignorance in public less often.
And what is so very annoying isn't the ignorance so much as that it is presented as some sort of amazing insight that proves that the person is so very much smarter and enlightened than others and in possession of the truth no one else has ever seen. As IF brilliant minds haven't been studying scripture and agonizing over the meaning of passages for centuries... but suddenly this little snot feels like she's smarter than Thomas Aquinas or Luther and *you* too because the Bible obviously is all about raping women. And you read this trite announcement and you think (quite irreverently) WTF?
Does crowing hubris not affect people's baseline happiness? It must.
As IF brilliant minds haven't been studying scripture and agonizing over the meaning of passages for centuries...
See, the problem here is that brilliance + invalid assumptions = nonsense.
Agonizing over the meaning of the Bible is like agonizing over whether the werewolf or the vampire is a better match for Bella. It doesn't matter how smart the person is who is making the argument -- the argument itself is a pointless waste of time for anyone who isn't a fan of the book.
As a sinner I find great solace in religion. It has helped me through some tough times and added to my joy in good times.
Your words are wisdom itself Shouting Thomas. Thank you for your thoughtful post.
Rev, it does make a difference when it's some self-important little jerk who thinks she knows better than you do what is in there.
If it was just a case of rejecting the book, well lots of people reject the book and the idea of God.
Sometimes it's just annoying silly stuff, like the person who tells you in all sincerity that "Jesus just wants us to be happy." Sometimes it's just annoying because it's weird like the person who tells you that Christianity is compatible with New Age mysticism because," If Jesus wasn't manipulating energies, what would you call it?"
But other times it's being told that Christianity (like the patriarchy, but I repeat myself) is the source of the oppression of women, blah blah blah, and the person really honestly thinks they've brilliant for having figured this out without recourse to study within the context of History or anything else except, perhaps, a women's study class.
And they act like you've got no idea what is really in there.
Its not a rejection of God, it's a rejection of thought.
Agonizing over the meaning of the Bible is like agonizing over whether the werewolf or the vampire is a better match for Bella. It doesn't matter how smart the person is who is making the argument -- the argument itself is a pointless waste of time for anyone who isn't a fan of the book.
That's too dismissive for me. Even a hardcore atheist ought to find an enriching world in the Bible. He doesn't need to "believe in it" to see it as an essential part to the drama and development of the western world.
Skepticism and disbelief is fine, even scorn or condemnation sometimes, but humans ought to approach their religions with humility as well. The irrational as already said by myself and Shouting Thomas, has its respectable place at the table and you'll be sorry if you deny that.
IMO that was a major problem if not the major problem with communism.
phx are you a female? If so, I did not know that.
I'm male.
I think people are making that error because they're confusing you with the poster pm317. She was a Hillary supporter.
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