Booth # 4: Religion and Spirituality

[Nepenthe]

Well Jac, I wish her the best. I worked in a nursing home and I feel for those folks. Even if they aren't developementally disabled it is still not a very nice life. Actually it might even be worse for someone that has most of their wits still. It is a lonely life, and some of the employees definately leave something to be desired. If only there were more employees like you it would be a much better life for them.

[Nepenthe]

Oh and Jac, no offense taken by the deleting of the post. It probably wasn't that appropriate for this thread really. I was just trying to make a point.

[JACkory]

nymphofantasia said:

Oh and Jac, no offense taken by the deleting of the post. It probably wasn't that appropriate for this thread really. I was just trying to make a point.

Actually I really didn't want to delete your post because I thought it was quite funny (and on target), but I felt it was the best thing to do since it referenced the non-topic related stuff in quotes...for what it's worth, I deleted a couple of my own posts in which I was foolish enough to respond to Pissin's initial post...just trying to clear the air.

If only there were more employees like you it would be a much better life for them.

Wow. Thanks, really!
You are right that there are a lot of people "in the field" who don't belong there...it's hard to attract quality care workers on the wages we get. If I were only in it for the money I'd have left a long time ago. There are some things that are more important than money, though.

[Mary]

I must apologize as this has nothing to do with the topic that JAC is discussing here now, but I don't know where else to post this. Feel free to ignore it completely if it's too much of a diversion!

I thought of this board earlier tonight as I was doing some dissertation research on the history of skepticism as a philosophical movement. JAC often contrasts (and this is just a paraphrase, correct me if I'm misrepresenting you!) religion with "postmodernism" - needless to say postmodernism on the unfavorable side of the contrast - because religion affords a kind of certainty whereas postmodernism just leaves you with a corrosive doubt about everything, and an inability to believe in any foundational truths at all. (this would be most relevant, i gather, in moral issues, though given the history of skepticism, it's also relevant in epistemologicl issues)

Well, so I was reading this book about the history of skepticism, which traces skepticism from its origins in ancient Greek Pyrronhism, through early modern skeptics like Montaigne and Bayle, to enlightenment skeptics like Hume and (arguably) Diderot, right up to the so-called postmodern skepticism of today. It makes a pretty convincing case that postmodernism, far from being some fashionable french trend that burst onto the scene a few decades ago and will fade away a few decades hence, actually belongs in this current that dates all the way back to ancient greek philosophy and has been recuperated time and time again throughout history. Well, given this, and given my familiarity with religious diatribes against postmodernism, I just assumed that the position of the Church regarding these periodic revivals of Pyrronhism would be one of total opposition - this kind of skepticism surely undermines, I figured, religious faith, especially of the rigidly dogmatic 17th and 18th century Catholic style!

But not at all - instead I discovered that, in the era of the Reformation in particular, the Catholic Church actually formed an uneasy alliance with Pyrrhonian skepticism, using it as a weapon in the counter-reformation, among other ends. There were several prominent Catholic intellectuals who wholeheartedly embraced skepticism as a proper basis for religious faith. The argument, very roughly, was that once you take skepticism to its logical extremes and accept that reason is actually incapable of deciding anything conclusively about the world, then, in order to lead any kind of remotely meaningful or coherent life, you will be forced to turn to faith instead. This is much like Christian fideism, which holds that belief in God cannot and should not be defended on the basis of reason, and all the endless philosophical efforts to prove God's existence are useless nonsense, because belief in God is purely a matter of faith, and faith and reason are radically distinct. But what Catholic skepticism adds to this view is the idea not only that reason can't get you to God, but that it can't get you anywhere at all - that human reason is incapable of determining a single absolute truth - thus compelling man through a confrontation with reason's radical inadequacy to find consolation and quietude through faith instead.

I thought this was totally fascinating - it's so at odds with how I normally think of Catholicism - and it also makes the whole christianity vs. skepticism thing a lot more complicated than it seems at first, since a nuanced understanding of the philosophical school of skepticism demonstrates that, just because one rejects the possibility of rational certainty about anything, one does not necessarily therefore reject the possibility of some other kind of certainty.

Now, this is not to suggest this curious wedding of catholicism and skepticism wasn't controversial in its day - it was enormously controversial, and many catholics argued that it was incredibly dangerous to try and ground faith in radical skepticism, because radical skepticism could easily turn its weapons against that faith itself, and could lead instead to pure nihilism. The interesting thing about the book is that it shows how radical skepticism can lead either to doctrinaire religious traditionalism or nihilism.

If I wasn't stuck writing a bloody dissertation, I'd start reading all sorts of stuff about early modern catholic skepticism and the history of fideism and stuff. I just foujnd this completely fascinating, and I'd be really curious what believers make of this counterintuitive reconciliation of religious belief with skepticism. Don't have any final grand point to make or anything, just wanted to share that...

Cheers,
M

[Nepenthe]

Mary, this is very interesting indeed. My opinion on the subject is that Erasmus' initial view was to stay loyal to the church. His belief was that since there is no physical proof of the existance of God or validity of the authenticity of the Bible, you should rely on the Church for such matters concerning truths. The Catholic church's long standing view was that the church was basically the "all knowing" and was the exclusive counselor on religious matters.

Luther on the other hand believed an individual could achieve knowledge and truth through an inner experience by reading the bible and through a conscience reality of what the Bible meant to the inner person, and using this experience in one's everyday life. (this is my view). Luther was of course one of the first major critics of the Catholic Church because they were "selling salvation".

Catholics who were of the counter reformation used this idea of Pyrrhonian, becaues of course there was a newly escalated interest due to translations of older texts and thought. They were basically loosing control. I am guessing they basically were telling people "hey you don't know what is true and what is not true, since there is no physical proof you can only rely on faith, so in order to make it to heaven you better hang onto the church and let us pave your way". If the Church followed the newly revived interest in early philosophical texts "trend" they could keep the money rolling in.

Just my thoughts.

[Nepenthe]

When you really think about skepticism, Luther himself became the biggest skeptic of them all concerning the Catholic Church.

[Nepenthe]

jackory said:

Tuatha, actually I do agree with you to an extent. The thing is, though, that her heart began beating again after she'd already been pronounced dead. At that point, yeah, I believe it was the duty of the paramedic to do what was necessary to keep that heart beating once it strated back up. We can't judge the quality of her life by our own standards. I've worked with the developmentally disabled long enough to really understand this. Indeed, she would have gone to a much better place, but all in God's time and obviously He wanted her to continue her existance here even if only for a short period of time...and who knows WHY He did that? Could it have been to strengthen the faith of her friends who were at the church and had the premonition that their friend was "choking", who prayed for her and then learned later of the circumstances? That's the miracle of the story, as I see it. Not so much that Betty's heart began beating again after she had clinically died, but that her friends who were in church at the time were given some sort of prophetic vision of what was happening to her at that very moment and that their prayers undertaken as a response to that premonition were, for all intents and purposes, answered.

Jac, I have been thinking about this. And this is where my skepticism will come in. For one thing, I am a little skeptical of a story such as this. I am not saying the people at the church are lying, but still...I am not positive this isn't just a bit over the top. But still...lets say it is an absolute truthful story. How in the world would it improve someone's faith if they prayed for someone that is choking and they say their prayers were answered now that this woman is alive via only life support breathing machine? Honestly I don't really find this as proof of God wanting someone to live longer, because in reality she isn't living on her own. She is living via a breathing machine. Just a thought..

[Nepenthe]

jackory said:

nymphofantasia said:

Oh and Jac, no offense taken by the deleting of the post. It probably wasn't that appropriate for this thread really. I was just trying to make a point.

Actually I really didn't want to delete your post because I thought it was quite funny (and on target), but I felt it was the best thing to do since it referenced the non-topic related stuff in quotes...for what it's worth, I deleted a couple of my own posts in which I was foolish enough to respond to Pissin's initial post...just trying to clear the air.

If only there were more employees like you it would be a much better life for them.

Wow. Thanks, really!
You are right that there are a lot of people "in the field" who don't belong there...it's hard to attract quality care workers on the wages we get. If I were only in it for the money I'd have left a long time ago. There are some things that are more important than money, though.

I agree. There are way too many undesirables in the field of nursing today. I would say that there were only about 1/4 of the staff that really cared about what they were doing. The rest..pfffttt it was just a job....

[JACkory]

nymphofantasia said:

When you really think about skepticism, Luther himself became the biggest skeptic of them all concerning the Catholic Church.

This is true, and what a bold, courageous and daring move it was for him to respond as he did against the Catholic Church.
That he was a Catholic monk makes it even more incredible, the courage it took to stand up to an institution that had, by it's acceptance of it's own tradition as equal to truth revealed in Scripture, become corrupt.
But with the Bible's translation into "the common tongue" and then the advent of the printing press it was inevitable that someone would, after diligently studying it, call the Catholic's abuses of power into question.

I am intrigued by the notion that postmodern relativism ultimately leads to faith...indeed, that was the case for me. But I think it's a bit of a gamble to offer it up to the laity as an acceptable philosophical position in hopes that it will lead to faith in all cases. I don't think it will.
There are numerous "postmodern Christian" congregations in existance today, which have attempted to combine Christianity and postmodenism. This is what I stand against, for if postmodernism is to be used as a tool to lead people to faith then it must be discarded when faith comes...this is not what is happening in these postmodern churches. With faith (grounded in Biblical truth) will come the realization that postmodernism is in stark contrast to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which demands that truth be absolute.
Yeah, I know...there I go again railing against postmodernism...I'm sorry if my predictability in doing so is annoying, but from where I stand I see more danger in it than hope that it might lead to faith. No doubt it often does, and I certainly hope that will be the case for anyone who embraces it, but by the same token I think there are a lot (the majority?) of people out there who would take the free "ticket to ride" that postmodernism offers and run with it until the very end, with varying degrees of negative consequences along the way.

Mary, I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but when you get a chance I would like to reccomend Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship and to hear your opinion of it. Bonhoeffer, if you aren't familiar with him, was a German theologian, a Lutheran minister, who was imprisoned by the Nazis and was eventually executed by them for his beliefs and his stand against the National Socialist party, a true martyr indeed.

[Nepenthe]

Talking about all of this reminded me of this

1 Timothy 6:20 21 - O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

[Nepenthe]

I guess it happens on both sides, corruption....that is......afterall Socrates was indeed put to death.

[Mary]

JAC and Tuatha,

I take your point about the Catholic Church using skepticism in a kind of cynical, self-serving manner to combat the Reformation and keep people subservient to power-hungry priests and such. I'm sure there was an element of that, but I think I may also have overstated the connection between catholicism and skepticism - that was only the most prominent historical example - but in fact christians of all denominations have from time to time been attracted to some variety of philosophical skepticism - and used it precisely as a weapon in defense of their faith. Pierre Bayle, for example, was a Calvinist.

And JAC - regarding "offering up postmodern relativism to the laity as an acceptable philosophical position in the hopes that it will bring them to faith" - I'm not really sure if this is quite the argument. I guess this is where the distinction between postmodernism and skepticism does come into play, though. Skepticism is technically the position that human reason is completely incapable of determining anything conclusively - about anything. It's an epistemological position about the possibility of knowledge through reason, rather than an ontological position about what does or does not exist. I think some, but not all, postmodernism goes beyond this into an ontological claim that there really is no such as "reality" or "truth" - skepticism makes no such claim, but merely says that human beings are powerless to access that truth through their reason, even if it does exist. So Christian skeptics weren't just "using" skepticism to try to convert the masses - rather, they were completely sincere in their skepticism - they believed that human reason was indeed hopelessly frail and incapable of discerning anything about the world. And it was precisely because human reason was so hopelessly frail that they proposed faith as the only possible alternative - it was only through God that men could learn anything about life. Reason would get them absolutely nowhere.

The other interesting thing I learned in reading this book is that the most famous skeptics throughout history have almost all been conservatives (of course, what "conservative" means in Ancient Greece is different from what it means today - but the general thrust is that they were all traditionalists who suggested following the customs and mores of their day, conforming to the reigning social norms, and not trying to change anything radically) The argument from radical skepticism to conservatism basically runs like this:

We cannot conclusively prove that any particular way of doing things is any better than any other way. There's no reason to think our mores are better or worse than any other set of mores. But if that's the case, there's also no reason to change them - because there would be no way to discern if the change had improved anything. That being the case, it would be much easier for everyone simply to conform to the current ways, which were at least functional and carried with them the consolation of familiarity. So the skeptics counseled that the only way to achieve peace of mind, once you recognized the impossibility of proving the superiority of any particular worldview, was simply to conform to the current worldview and not worry yourself at all with deep philosophical questions. Radical projects to change or transform society would only unsettle people and cause a lot of agitation, but they could never establish a society that was obviously better.

Nearly all the great skeptics of history were conservative in this way (with bayle as a partial exception).... until nietzsche. Something happened with nietzsche where the nihilistic implications of skepticism suddenly trumped the conservative ones, and his contempt for philosophical rationalism manifested itself in an absolute revolt against society instead of a conformist acceptance of the reigning social mores. But it would be interesting to try to figure out what changed in the nineteenth century such that suddenly the nihilistic implications of skepticism triumphed where before they had almost always been trumped by the conformist implications. Because in the wake of nietzsche, you certainly do get a lot of posmodernism that takes its cue more from nihilism than from conformism - although it's important to note that this is a very partial view of postmodernim and that there's a lot of conservative postmodernism which continues in the conformist vein (habermas wrote an entire book about this in the 80s, called "the new conservatism" which was a condemnation of the conservative tendencies of postmodernism!)

OK, sorry, I've gotten way off track.... jac, thanks for the book recommendation and it sounds really intriguing but i can't read anything for pleasure until my dissertation is DONE!!!!

Cheers,
M

[Nepenthe]

Mary, I take the Luther stance on the Skepticism you are talking about. I am not big on organized religion at all. I am more of an individualist and a realist when it comes to Christianity. As a matter of fact I loath much of the teaching, or lack thereof, that is taught today in the Churches.

I was trying to find some information about the book you are talking about and I found some very interesting lecture notes from Oregon State. Are you familar with M. A. Screech's views on Montaigne? According to this lecture: "He argues that Montaigne was not a fiedeist. He feels that Montaigne is a sort of Platonist who recognizes a vast difference between the world of becoming and the world of Being, and thinks that the world of Being is accessible to man, though he must be drawn up into it by grace or other divine means and so transformed."

Here is a link to where I found this information. I thought that maybe it might be helpful to you in your writings if you weren't familar with it.

oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/montaigne/montaigne-background.html

[JACkory]

Hi, Rit.

[Rit]

interesting comments on skepticism. a kind of knife-edge that reasserts itself in the stream of cultural thinking every so often. you know, the more i see, the more i;m inclined to think that society as whole has a flavour to it, and it's distinctly self-preserving. the metaphor of a 'healthy body' applies best. viral deviations are rejected. its not so much that nihilism in post-modernism is bad, per se, but that it serves its purpose for an entire cycle, re-energising thinking and the arts and methods of critical thinking, only to eventually become parody, and so must be outed (as like Habermas's screed)