Religion in its Death Throes?
The well spoken and superbly cordial AC Grayling tells it like it is.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 1
Part 2
Discussing the Historicity of Jesus with a Christian Agnostic
Steven Jake, the author of the up and coming blog TheChristian Agnostic , [1] wrote a rather thorough response to my lengthy comment asking him about the state of the evidence regarding the historical Jesus. I am pleased he took the time to write a thorough response. I only feel that such a thorough response deserves my own more detailed response as my initial comment was merely that—a comment. So without further ado I will address some of Steven Jake’s comments and concerns. Initially Steven Jake (henceforth SJ) posted a quote from New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman claiming that there is an abundance of evidence for a historical Jesus. I merely contested this claim asking for what evidence we have that would be considered historically reliable. As I see it there is none. That doesn’t mean, however, I don’t think there wasn’t a historical Jesus, just that we cannot prove if there was or wasn’t and so I remain agnostic as to the historicity of Jesus—not a mythicist
Considering the fact that monotheism did not successfully erase all other faiths, I find it unlikely that atheism will have any particuarly unique impact. Considering what the monotheists had to do to attain their supremacy, I don't know if I even want atheism to succeed where monotheism failed. At best, I think atheism can hope for a more secular society, one which will always have religions to contend with.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how one imagines religion waning when more overtly ignorant concepts such as racism and sexism are still rampant.
I think Grayling's treatment of religion as a cultural invention is on the money. As he says, faith isn't going away, people will always have faith in things. But religious cultures, ideologies, and practices come and go. They change and often disappear forever, sometimes they reconstitute themselves, and gain longevity by their adaptability.
ReplyDeleteBut still, secularization continues even in the most religious cultures.
Religious people would be wise to ask, what are these atheists seeing that I'm not? It's an important question, but it won't impact their faith. As Grayling mentions a few times, secularization only guarantees less fundamentalism and a more humble practices of personal faith-based beliefs. And I don't see how that's a bad thing.
So religion as a dominant entity of supreme status has seen its day, and I agree that masse-culture religion is fading, and that the vigor at which apologists aggressively lash out at atheism and other discordant beliefs to their own, as Grayling observes, a sort of death throe in which religion is having a knee jerk reaction to the impact of secularization while not wanting to admit its 'supreme' status has been revoked.