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The Role of the Church in Modern Society

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Regrettable Juvenilia

23:25 / 09.10.05

The problem is then that there is a form of belief which is so total and all-encompassing that it does not allow for "out of context of religious belief" - to even entertain the idea of there being any area of life or any field of thought that can be considered outside of the influence of their religion would seem wrong-headed to certain people I know. Compare and contrast the idea that "everything is political" (an idea I have more than a little time for).

*

23:33 / 09.10.05

Also, to astrojax:

the christian states separate [as a rule] church from state and have done since constantine, but the q'ran and muslim states do not see any separation in the word of their god and the organisation and instantiation of a community and state with their 'religious' beliefs.

This is not always the case, and has not been the case at all times in history. Afghanistan before the Soviet Union takeover and resultant US funding of religious extremists was already a forward-thinking, secular, primarily Islamic state. The Ottoman Empire made provisions for all religious groups to govern themselves, so long as they remained within the laws of the empire.

how will syncretism of christian and moslem beliefs ever take place without affecting, on a pardigmatic scale, the beliefs and moral prescripts of christians and moslems?

It can't; that's what syncretism means— two or more religions combining and affecting one another. If you're talking about these two religions coexisting equally in a single state, I think it can happen without affecting the beliefs and moral precepts of the respective adherents— but I don't necessarily think it should. Cross-pollination with other religions is healthy. One has only to read the writings of Jalaluddin Rumi— a poet and mystic profoundly affected by both Islam and Christianity— to realize that influences from both religions can coexist even in a single person without doing one another philosophical violence.

01:45 / 10.10.05

I have a vagueish memory that this is part of what the Templars got in trouble over with Pope Clement (IV or V) -- absorbing bits of Islamic theology while supposedly out conquering them. I'm not sure what the source of this idea is, or whether it's academically valid or just the wingnutty stuff I like reading.

13:51 / 10.10.05

You can question, probe, and analyze all you want, you can question its sense: that's what theology is all about, and that's what millennia of religious thinkers have done. - Jack Fear

Maybe. But one can't help get the feeling that the need to believe tends to dominate the nature of the enquiry. For example, when you read Russell's Why I am not a christian it is a little surprising to think that the purely logical arguments for the existence of god were (and doubtless still are) taken seriously by some pretty clever folks. Russell's counterarguments aren't even particularly clever, but they approach the question without assuming that the answer must somehow support a belief in a god - which makes all the difference.

I know that I'll probably get very little agreement here, but I think that any honest and rational approach to "god" really needs to concede that there isn't actually any good evidence for the existence of god (and, as such, theology doesn't look particularly rational, in a certain sense. Although, of course, there is nothing wrong with the study of mythology).

I've known plenty of religious people who do concede that, btw, which is fair enough, but a lot of mental contortionism goes on in order to deny this by way of various sorts of special pleading. Having said that, this can be fairly well isolated from everything else a person thinks so that it makes little difference. And religiously motivated people have done great things while supported by their faith. The world is complex of course, and I would never disagree with this

Lurid, of course religion and reason aren't mutually exclusive.

but it isn't really the point. Flat earthers and creationists can, and doubtless do, make very good electrical engineers on occasion. That doesn't mean those beliefs aren't barmy.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:36 / 10.10.05

Yes, religious people are always going to seem less rational when compared to the cold hard pure empiricism of a statement like "one can't help get the feeling that the need to believe tends to dominate the nature of the enquiry". How foolish spiritual convictions appear when compared to evidence-based reasoning such as a feeling that one cannot help getting!

14:49 / 10.10.05

Yes, indeed. My point was that certain arguments for the existence of god, say (the onotological, teleological, cosmological and moral, for instance, some of which are discussed in the Russell piece) are actually rather weak. Yet clever people have found them convincing, for reasons we can only speculate about.

Just on the off chance that you are actually asking for clarification, rather than being pointlessly spiky.

18:39 / 10.10.05

From a rationalist/materialist perspective, the arguments for the existence of God seem suspiciously like rationalising a belief already held, rather than reasoning through the issue and accepting the conclusion.

Lurid- do you think there is a need for religion in most peoples life? Given that lots of people do subscribe, what do you think the role of churches should be in the future?

Petey- I agree that the differences between faiths are going to make this a difficult question, but religiosity is in decline generally, not just in the Christian church. We could restrict the conversation to C of E but I think the role of religion is changing, and I'd like to know the way you think it should go.

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:25 / 10.10.05

That depends what you mean by "it". Since there is no such thing as "religiosity" in terms of an isolated distinct phenomenon which can usefully be treated as one thing, I'd say it depends on what kind of religion you're asking about. There are versions of religion I'd like to see whither and die, and there are those that I think have something to teach the smug secularists amongst us.

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:38 / 10.10.05

religiosity is in decline generally, not just in the Christian church.

Would you like to be more specific about what religiosity, as Flybs points out, is? And where 'religiosity'it is in decline.

I'm not trying to snipe, these are interesting and important questions, I think, but your statements are generalising to the point of not being very useful.

Do you mean, 'in the UK'? or 'in the Western World'? The US? Or 'In Europe' which is what the Gallup millenium survey seemed to indicate. What exactly is 'contemporary western culture'?

And can I ask, at that point, whether it's useful to consider these questions in relation to wider world patterns of attendance/religious self-identifying and organised faith gathering, which would appear to be very different.

Is is, for example, important to look at religious opinion being something that creates vast gulfs in international discourses/understandings?

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:55 / 10.10.05

gah, hadn't finished with that. Am trying to find link to survey itself, but here's a paragraph from a UK Telegraph article on the subject, hightlighting why these questions are important ones.

According to the Gallup Millennium Survey of Religious Attitudes, barely 20 per cent of West Europeans attend church services at least once a week, compared with 47 per cent of North Americans and 82 per cent of West Africans.

Less than half of western Europeans say God is a "very important" part of their lives, as against 83 per cent of Americans and virtually all West Africans.

And fully 15 per cent of western Europeans deny that there is any kind of "spirit, God or life force" - seven times the American figure and 15 times the West African.

So, from that initial set of figures, we can see that
a)it's very important to distinguish between church, god, and 'spirit,god or life form', and, one would suspect, to further distinguish between faiths and
b)there are at least two very different 'contemporary Western cultures', if classified by, for example, church attendance.

21:23 / 10.10.05

If you're talking about these two religions coexisting equally in a single state, I think it can happen without affecting the beliefs and moral precepts of the respective adherents

id, you suggest this could happen but question if it should - the question of is/ought aside, i argue again that the dichotomy of church and state in christianity and the conflation of them in moslem - in the main - makes this scenario implausible. the moslem section of such a society will want the laws that govern that society based on the tenets of the q'ran, many which will directly conflict with those beliefs of the christians that base their ethic on the christian bible, more or less. while tolerance is preached by both, there will be fundamental and incommensurate differences.

firstly, that allah is the one true lord and unbelievers are infidels and should be slaughtered. nice neighbours, huh?

this is not to decry islam. or christianity. i am merely pointing out that that the best solution is to abolish all religious doctrine and find a new way of organising our community ethic that does not refer to higher powers. contentious, i know.

21:40 / 10.10.05

Not a lot of time, but:

I think that any honest and rational approach to "god" really needs to concede that there isn't actually any good evidence for the existence of god...

That is precisely the essence of religious experience: to believe despite the lack of evidence. Those who go seeking "evidence" of God's existence—be they scientific rationalists or Biblical literalists—seem to me to be spectacularly missing the point.

And Robert, I hate to say it—that's also why I'm kind of rolling my eyes at your repeated hypothetical "Well what if God appeared to you face-to-face, would you believe then?" That too seems to me wildly off-base: in such a case, what room is there for faith? And without the leap of faith, what ennobling value does religion have? If we have incontrevertible evidence, then "believing" in God is no more an exercise of the imagination and the spirit than, say, "believing" in South Dakota.

20:43 / 11.10.05

Jack, Jesus came, performed many miracles, fulfilled most if not all the prophecy and yet the Jews still await the coming of the Messiah.

(John 20:27-29 NIV) Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

I'm not sure the movement would have been so successful if God didn't reveal himself to Moses and again through Jesus.

21:31 / 11.10.05

That's assuming that you already believe in the literal truth of those two revelations, Robert.

And as there's no physical evidence for either of them, only the word of, in one case, one man, and in the other case twelve—the actual existence of any or all of whom is historically unverified and unverifiable—I think my contention that the covenant is primarily based on faith-without-proof stands.

Indeed, the story of Thomas that you quote makes my point for me.

00:53 / 12.10.05

Jack, it makes your point because you can't feel it and see it from my perspective. This is my problem. I wish I were more convincing, better at communicating. You see Jack, I know He exists. He has touched me!!!!I know I can't just say BELIEVE ME, please Jack!!! I wish it were that easy. I hope and pray that one day He touches you Jack. When and if that day comes, with no proof at all, you will know that He is. Sounds like more bullshit, I know. I am not trying to waste your time or the time of all these others. Time is precious. I would not do that intentionally.

03:12 / 12.10.05

That sounds swell, Robert: faith... without all the hard work of actually having to, y'know, believe anything.

Man, I don't even want to know. Because if I knew—really knew—then I've got this awful fear that I'd get stupid. Fat and happy and complacent: Hey, my buddy Jesus loves me, and everything's just grand!

Might as well die right now, if I'm so all-right and tight with my good buddy Jesus, right?

Problem is, I don't plan to die for a good long while now—and so I need something to keep me occupied for forty-fifty years.

See, I don't want it to be easy. The mind is a muscle, and if you don't exercise it—straining always towards something that may or may not be there—it gets slack. The soul is a muscle, and the doubt and uncertainty that are the flipside of faith (as opposed to gnosis, i.e. "knowing") keep my soul taut.

I'm in this for the long haul, brother, and my best bet for staying on-task and on-mission is to not know. If I don't know if what I'm doing is worthwhile, I'm going to do something better; if I'm not sure there's a God, I'm going to seek Him even harder.

The process is what matters here.

(This is largely explained by the fact that I'm a salvation-by-deeds man: the idea of being graced and then waiting around for your ticket to get punched never really appealed to me.)

Ever hear of Pascal's Wager? It's a famous argument for the existence of God—or at least for behaving as if God exists. Your life is a gamble, the argument goes; a gamble on the existence of God and an afterlife. And you might as well believe in God, because if you're right, and He exists, then you win an eternity of bliss in Heaven—but if you're wrong, and He doesn't, well, then you haven't really lost anything; you'll be dead just the same, so you won't care (there's also the side benefit that living a moral and godly life can make your stay in this world far more pleasant, whether there's an afterlife or not).

Now me, I'm a betting man. I've got everything riding on God. But I have no interest in sneaking a peek at the hole card. I'm just going to play the hand that'd dealt me and let the chips fall where they may.

So, thanks but no thanks. God, save me from certainty!

Jack The Bodiless

10:55 / 12.10.05

Just wanted to point out that I read the above post in the voice of Hulk Hogan and giggled like a loon.

Lurid, there may be no rational proof for the existence of God, but there's no proof that ze doesn't exist either. You may find it sad that people still need this kind of construct - others have been less kind (the "imaginary friend" comments, the repeated use of the condescending word "crutch").

However, I think the truth of the matter is that everyone constructs their own experience of life, and I don't believe anyone relates to their experience on a purely rational level. I submit that this is because there is no such thing. I could qualify that by saying that, at the very least, I believe that there is no such thing as the possibility of being able to narrate and construct an approach to experience that exists purely within a rational framework. Of course, what I actually believe is that the 'rational' is a myth put about by theoreticians to big themselves up, but let's stick with the former for now...

Essentially, I also believe that organised religion is an essential aspect of the psyche of humankind. It's a singular conceit at the heart of practically all of human history and psychology - experience teaches us something that frightens or dismays us, and we find a way of dealing with how this new exciting unknown makes us feel. We describe it, painting around and around the outline of this dreaded thing, until we have it securely locked in a box. Then we padlock the box by calling it dogma/scripture/whatever, build a temple over the top and invite people in to pay homage. Then we start arguing with the owners of the temple next door...

This is not just a description of a church, any church. This is capitalism vs socialism, Freud vs. Jung, arguing over what constitutes art or punk... it's how we relate to life. Why do you think the first thing Adam did in the garden was name all the animals? Because otherwise they'd be unknown. A name is just a convenient way of describing an outline around the invisible, like throwing paint over it. All you can see is the paint drying, but we kid ourselves into believing it's suddenly become visible...

13:42 / 12.10.05

Lurid, there may be no rational proof for the existence of God, but there's no proof that ze doesn't exist either.

True, and in any other sphere it is often uncontroversial to claim that this setup is enough to disbelieve in the thing. For instance, I have no evidence that Bush is not a shape changing lizard.

I don't believe anyone relates to their experience on a purely rational level.

Absolutely. I don't think that "rational" is the final word here, nor the only consideration. In some ways I am arguing for an aesthetic choice for the way to approach certain questions. In reality, it isn't very different from Jack Fear's aversion to conspiracy theories (which is why I'm slightly confused by Jack's "completely missing the point" comment. The refusal to engage with the thing on its own terms is the point. Like arguing that laissez faire capitalism is amoral.)

So yeah, JtB, I don't intend to be condescending or dismissive. Saying religion is irrational isn't meant to be an argument stopper, more a description of where I see the argument to be from my point of view.

But I don't really get where you are going with the second part. The fact that religion expresses a feature of humanity that is very common doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to embrace it. OK, you say essential, but mutatis mutandis you could make a similar argument for violent conflict. Are you trying to make a sneaky appeal to the "natural"?

14:02 / 12.10.05

The Role of the Church will become an increasingly ornamental one. Current trends, in the UK and in much of Western Europe, indicate that people want pretty churches to visit as tourists, officials to lend some degree of authenticity to wedding ceremonies and places to marry in, and somewhere appropriate and comforting for funerary rites to be observed.

I agree with JtB that people throughout their history have constructed some form of organised religion for social reasons and because we need to have a place and a language to describe that which is beyond reason and material expression. Man has always created God in his own image, and will no doubt continue to do so, but seems less likely nowadays to bend the knee to this God.

That we seem to have a dizzying choice of places and ways to express this nowadays seems a good thing to me, as does the decline of a single, societally dominant, more dictatorial Church.

As a channel for disseminating rules for life, the Churches' role is much diminished. Some Churches retain congregations by having increasingly liberal expectations of the faithful but even the Roman Catholic Church seems to struggle with congregations that defy the rules in ways that would have got you burned in the Middle Ages.

Good people behave well and bad people behave badly, irrespective of religious labels and pronouncements. They always have. I'm not an atheist because I think religion is bad but because I think it is of little use.

But then I turn my eyes outwards from these western European shores and marvel that the rest of the world takes a very different point of view. I wonder how different it is really though, fundamentally. Without the fancy dress of religion, other people in other places would still behave differently and have different priorities. I think the religion is an expression of that difference and not the reason for it.

09:39 / 13.10.05

Relevant article in today's Grauniad by Robert Winston.

Jack The Bodiless

11:33 / 13.10.05

Lurid: But I don't really get where you are going with the second part. The fact that religion expresses a feature of humanity that is very common doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to embrace it. OK, you say essential, but mutatis mutandis you could make a similar argument for violent conflict. Are you trying to make a sneaky appeal to the "natural"?

Not at all - I wasn't actually attempting to provide an argument as to the merits of religion or religiosity, simply saying that religion is just one example of humankind's tendency to reconstruct the unknown until it fits a safe, 'known' shape. I'd argue this is how humanity's approached its various attempts to engage with the human mind (many and varied attempts to explore via psychology, esoteric mysticism, etc), our origins as a race (creationism, God(s), the theory of evolution), the fabric of the universe (physical science of all shapes and sizes), and many other baffling conundra. I don't see religion as substantially any different from studies of the mind, the origin of species or the interior of a black hole (except of course that you don't often get asshole behavioural psychologists declaring holy wars. They'd never get the funding, for a start). It's an attempt to describe the unknown and make peace with it. To my mind, that means it's always going to be around in some form or another. Non-believers say that religion has become irrelevant, but entirely miss the point. Religion stops being relevant when ideas become dogma, when a movement actually becomes a religion. At this point, it becomes more or less static (and more so over time), and its adherents are encouraged to make themselves relevant to it. Culture changes, mutates, these days at a rate of knots. Religion does not. Part of the attraction is that it remains, immutable and - by implication - representing a concrete truth. The illusion of change only ever seems to come when a faction splinters off the concrete edifice, a new heretical sexy movement that in time becomes a new edifice, itself incapable of real movement. But the original edifice remains - it just has more company/competition for the hearts and minds of the people.

14:00 / 13.10.05

And without the leap of faith, what ennobling value does religion have?

But what ennobling value does such a leap of faith contribute to religion? Why is faith a good thing?

Of course, what I actually believe is that the 'rational' is a myth put about by theoreticians to big themselves up...

I'm taking an AI class through continuing education right now, and at least in terms of AI, rationality has a fairly simple and concrete definition: doing the most correct think based upon the available knowledge. This means that often the rational choice leads to a completely incorrect outcome, but that doesn't stop the choice itself from being rational. Likewise, making rational conclusions is not the same as proving the objective truth of the relevant assertions.

Oh, and great post, Xoc.

16:08 / 15.10.05

Question: But what ennobling value does such a leap of faith contribute to religion? Why is faith a good thing?

Possible partial answer: This means that often the rational choice leads to a completely incorrect outcome, but that doesn't stop the choice itself from being rational. Likewise, making rational conclusions is not the same as proving the objective truth of the relevant assertions.

Could it be that a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence
may produce outcomes that a rational approach might not? Or have an equal chance of hitting an *objective truth* - a phrase that I have no fear of because I have *faith* that objective truth exists, balanced with the understanding that I can never sense it or know it.

How much do we ever know? Can an argument for faith ever be supported rationally?

Maybe a better question is whether people who understand faith should put their time to better uses than trying to explain it to rational people in a rational framework that may never be able to account for it, simply because there is a bias towards rationality in some quarters and they feel obliged to try and solve the insoluble because of the expectations of others.

Now I'm not knocking rationality, even though I've just typed it so much that it's lost all meaning. I just know that the people with the most options can do faith and make informed, logical choices, as well as knowing when to switch between the two ways of working.

*

19:48 / 15.10.05

i argue again that the dichotomy of church and state in christianity and the conflation of them in moslem - in the main - makes this scenario implausible. the moslem section of such a society will want the laws that govern that society based on the tenets of the q'ran, many which will directly conflict with those beliefs of the christians that base their ethic on the christian bible, more or less.

astrojax: Sorry that I missed your reply. Essentially, I feel you're taking Islam to be a monolithic whole, which it certainly is not, and Christianity to be a monolithic whole, which it certainly is not. Even within Islam there are sects which favor one interpretation or another of the tenets Qu'ran, and yet there manage to be Islamic states wherein these different sects coexist. Granted, the media portrays these relationships as uneasy, and no doubt they are to some extent, but many of them have lasted several hundreds of years. There have also been secular states wherein the majority of the population was Muslim, and was comfortable and happy with the secular government— Afghanistan prior to its Soviet control is one example.

In fact, a religious society wherein Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other religious groups— the Druze, for example, or Zoroastrianism— have existed side by side, is not unheard of in history. You might study the Ottoman Empire's millet system for an example, or check out this paper by Avigdor Levy (a pdf).

I do not think it is tenable to assert that Muslims all want the state and the religious establishment to be unified, and Christians all want them to be separate. I think that's too oversimplified to be a useful part of the discussion.

16:21 / 17.10.05

Could it be that a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence
may produce outcomes that a rational approach might not? Or have an equal chance of hitting an *objective truth* - a phrase that I have no fear of because I have *faith* that objective truth exists, balanced with the understanding that I can never sense it or know it.

What a beautiful analogy! I love the idea of faith being the randomizing element in the search for the solution to any arbitrary problem, used when you've exhausted the steps that can be taken based upon knowledge of your environment. God is the randomizer in a search algorithm! Ha!

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

20:26 / 17.10.05

Quick question: do you (anyone, really) suppose that, if "religiosity" is indeed disappearing, it could be revived if religion in general could be made more economical in the here and now spiritual sense, as opposed to a reward one recieves after death?

I understand that some religions won't, maybe cannot, take this idea and run with it. Even so: do you suppose that religion, even organized religion, if it were made spirtually economical (or even physically economical, depending on how far one wants to go) could be much more popular?

21:36 / 17.10.05

if religion in general could be made more economical in the here and now spiritual sense, as opposed to a reward one recieves after death?

I suggest you read up on Jewish beliefs in the afterlife and get back to us on that one....

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

21:52 / 17.10.05

Well, naturally not Judiasm. My bad. Should've made a point of that.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

22:12 / 17.10.05

Actually, let me make this a bit more clear. I figure if the benefits are made to seem more economical, like if one emphasized the "gotta give something to get something" attitude, it could be more popular. I dunno. I think a lot of my early animosity towards religion could have been fixed if I had that aspect explained to me properly. It certainly would have saved me some time, anyway. Also, I think it might encourage people to explore a bit.

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:28 / 17.10.05

Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other religious groups— the Druze, for example, or Zoroastrianism— have existed side by side, is not unheard of in history.

Or even in current times. Not neccessarily particularly easily, but it exists *now* In India, Hindus of various sects make up approximately 80% of the population*, but that leaves a significant proportion, and extremely significant population (in terms of no's of practioners) that follow other faiths. They are also traditions of long standing, the first Christian communities, for example, date not from colonialism but from the first century AD.

India's an interesting example to compare with the western contexts being talked about in that the vast majority of people identify as followers of a faith.

link to interesting Hindu Times article opposing India's historical multi-faith ethos to Hindutva Hindu Nationalism. The article also makes the useful point the religions, their practice and co-existence, don't exist in isolation from culture, and that where a communalistic culture exists, for example, the way the individual and co-existing religions play out may be very differnt from the way they work in individualistic societies.

* A majority (83%) of Indians are Hindus, about 14 percent are Muslims, 2.4 percent are Christians, 2 percent are Sikhs, .7 percent are Buddhists, .5 percent are Jains, and there are smaller numbers of Bahai, Jews, and Zoarastrians (Observer Research Foundation 2001; India at a Glance 2001).
(bear in mind, with those percentages, that we're talking about a population of over a billion and one of the fastest-growing populations, so the 14 percent Muslim population represents around 120million people, one of the largest Muslim populations in the world)

11:10 / 18.10.05

I'm quite interested in the comparison between US and UK attitudes toward religion. In the UK the decline in christianity is matched by the rise in holistic practice- in fact if the current trend continues there will be equal numbers of christians and holistic practitioners by 2025, according to a Lancaster university study last year. (Xian dropping from 10% in 1990 to 8% now to 5%, other rising from 2% now to 5%)

That same study (Heelas & Woodhead 'The Spiritual Revolution') shows in the UK twice as many people believe in a 'Spirit Force' within than they do an almighty God without, and two-thirds of 18-24 year olds have more belief in their horoscopes than in the Bible.

How does that compare to the US?

14:50 / 18.10.05

Uh, to me, "holistic practitioner" means a naturopath or non-allopathic healer. An acupuncturist or similar.

I don't think that's what you mean, so I'd like to know what you *do* mean.

16:03 / 18.10.05

That's the expression they used in the article I read (in the Times T2 supplement 4th Nov 2004), 'the holistic milieu' meaning the people who believe in direct spiritual experience without a priest, new agers if you like.

How about 'alternative spirituality' or 'heresy' instead? :]

16:42 / 18.10.05

How about mysticism," since that's what, in fact, it is?

23:17 / 18.10.05

We can all live together. In fact we do all live together. The world is getting smaller. A force more powerful than religion is survival and part of survival requires procreation. Part of procreation is desire and lust. Add time to the equation and eventually the melting pot will influence the result.

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