tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post268479798522030029..comments2024-03-27T14:45:28.176-05:00Comments on Adventus: Pilate's QuestionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-55882189182933495642015-02-04T22:14:28.133-06:002015-02-04T22:14:28.133-06:00I wish Alberich still did his blog, I learned so m...I wish Alberich still did his blog, I learned so much from it, just as I do from this blog. Alberich led to me looking into the nearest Conservative Synagogue for a while. Any recommendations of other blogs of the Jewish and Protestant traditions for a unchurched Irish Catholic to learn from? The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-61784539444828962972015-02-04T12:28:42.520-06:002015-02-04T12:28:42.520-06:00You are quite right. I always marveled at the har...You are quite right. I always marveled at the hard-shell Baptists I grew up among, who would adopt the latest technology in their lives while insisting the world was only 6000 years old, who made their money drilling for oil while certain there was a literal heaven and a literal hell (even Dante knew he was dealing in metaphor and symbolism).<br /><br />And frankly, I can't slip a piece of paper between "New Atheists" and fundamentalists. They remind me of the characters from Star Trek, half-black and half-white, the distinction being which side is which color: and locked in mortal combat when they are the only two of their species left.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-79256956807330955972015-02-04T12:13:16.475-06:002015-02-04T12:13:16.475-06:00I was so busy nitpicking other things, I missed th...I was so busy nitpicking other things, I missed this:<br /><br /><i> Fundamentalism itself is a reaction to modernism. </i><br /><br />Fundamentalism is not just a reaction to modernism, but (religious) Fundamentalism is part of modernism and requires modernism to exist: for example, as many have pointed out, you cannot have Orthodox Judaism without the printing press making the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shulchan_Aruch" rel="nofollow">Shulchan Aruch</a> affordable so that way every Jewish home could have a copy and thus know exactly how to be Jewish; you cannot have the Great Awakening and its emphasis on signs of conversation without Enlightenment era empiricism; and the chronological emphases of the Scofield Reference Bible reflects a very modern view of how time and history work. Perhaps both religious Fundamentalists and Atheists might each be at pains to draw a distinction between Fundamentalism and (secular) Modernism, but Fundamentalism is as much a movement of modernity as the New Atheism.alberichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03852752646926946626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-19870369445544023402015-02-03T16:52:24.050-06:002015-02-03T16:52:24.050-06:00Sorry, my bad: I followed your Wiki link and foun...Sorry, my bad: I followed your Wiki link and found Ruskin commenting on the oikos, which triggered seminary memories, which prompted me.....<br /><br />But, serendipity! We have the Ruskin quote in full, now. Many thanks for that.<br /><br />The oikos is yet another matter. ;-)Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-85884662099375989592015-02-03T14:26:16.022-06:002015-02-03T14:26:16.022-06:00Ruskin and the oikos: hmmmm. That's another co...<i>Ruskin and the oikos: hmmmm. That's another common thread of discussion among seminarians and theologians (some of them, anyway): the oikos as the bedrock of the basileia tou theou. Thanks; I need to read up on this topic again.</i><br /><br />Perhaps I am as poorly read as I wonder if E.O. Wilson is. Could the quote from Wilson that I have always seen attributed to Ruskin actually be from someone else? FWIW, Hugh Thomson Kerr attributes it to Ruskin: http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Highway_of_Life_and_Other_Sermons_1000621039/33<br />alberichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03852752646926946626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-76122869843526511502015-02-03T12:44:14.428-06:002015-02-03T12:44:14.428-06:00I should probably go back and include Islam more c...I should probably go back and include Islam more clearly in that first statement about Plato and Aristotle. I should also include the importance of literacy which is a hallmark of Judaism, and far more influential in Western civilization than often acknowledged.<br /><br />And, yes, individuals matter because of Romanticism (Billy Budd is part of American Romanticism, so thus do I square the circle! We could also bring Bartleby in here, to widen the conversation, so to speak. ;-) ). And yes, Socrates was re-imagined as a Christ-figure (let's try not to get too much Northrop Frye in this, mkay?). <br /><br />It's a bit anachronistic, in my analysis, though. The point is really more sharply made in 'Antigone,' where her defiance of Creon's law about burial of the rebellious son (I always forget which one!) is upheld by the Chorus, if only because Creon is king. There are no Thoreaus or MLKs in ancient Athens, because that way lies anarchy. One needs a sense of government and morality as something apart from temporal human society to argue for a civil disobedience that doesn't destroy the foundations of the law.<br /><br />Ruskin and the oikos: hmmmm. That's another common thread of discussion among seminarians and theologians (some of them, anyway): the oikos as the bedrock of the basileia tou theou. Thanks; I need to read up on this topic again.<br />Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-17743051636055380772015-02-03T12:22:09.315-06:002015-02-03T12:22:09.315-06:00I have a few scattered comments:
The survival of ...I have a few scattered comments:<br /><br /><i>The survival of Plato and Aristotle, the two pillars of Western civilization to which all Western philosophy (including science) is still just a footnote, is due to the church.</i><br /><br />When I first read this, my immediate reaction was "what about Islam?" ... I notice you do mention that later in this post. It doesn't change your larger point about religion, though, does it?<br /><br /><i>If Socrates is an heroic figure in Plato's telling, it is because he accepts the death sentence of Athens, not because he nobly escapes what he knows is an unfair verdict (even the citizens of Athens say so). </i><br /><br />Not to be too snarky or bigoted here, but isn't that also true of (the admittedly fictional) Billy Budd? And my High School English teachers told us that Billy Budd was a Christ-like figure. Certainly the idea that accepting an unfair verdict, even if that verdict is death, is heroic and venerable is ingrained as much in certain Christian traditions (e.g. the veneration of the martyrs) as it was amongst certain elements of ancient Greek society. One could even turn your argument that Romantic individualism owes its existance to Christianity around and say that the interpretation of Jesus' message as one of "individuals matter" is itself a product of Romanticism.<br /><br />Of course, whichever way you stand on that argument, certainly the "scientific" vision of the New Atheists is grounded in Romanticism. Indeed<br /><br /><i>The central questions of religion and philosophy are three in number: Where do we come from, what are we, and where are we going? </i><br /><br />I do hope E.O. Wilson is smart enough and well read enough to realize he's quoting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin#Politics_and_economics" rel="nofollow">John Ruskin</a>, inspiration for and influence on <i>Christian</i> socialism as well as the settlement movement ... which, well, involved actually doing something to alleviate poverty.<br /><br />alberichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03852752646926946626noreply@blogger.com