“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him. That’s what I say when the question is put.” So wrote the renowned English novelist, Julian Barnes, in the The New Yorker last year, which sums the general post-modern sentiment. Then there are tricks of social engineering disguised as attacks on religion from the likes of Cristopher Hitchens (the American writer and columnist of Vanity Fair and Slate); and Richard Dawkins (biologist and author of book like, The God's Delusion). These are leading commentators of our era who are convinced that unless we abandon faith, religious hatred will lead us to the destruction of [Western] civilisation.
There's no denying that contemporary climate in generally is growing hostile to faith, fomenting legions of emergent ersatz of professional atheists. Frank Furedi, author of Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right, and the slayer of lazy received wisdom, says: “For many commentators atheism is the new radicalism. However, a closer examination suggests that, other than a hatred of religion, much contemporary atheism has little to say. Dawkins’ The God Delusion exemplifies the attempt to turn atheism into an ideology. Yet a careful reading of this book leads us only to the conclusion that the author detests religion. Unfortunately hatred of religion does not necessarily lead to an enlightened perspective on the world.” Ditto for Hitchens.
There are many people in our time who believe that organized religion rather than enhance God's grandeur, diminish it. Who believe religion is just an evolutionary reaction, organised into systems of beliefs, co-opted symbols, rituals and festivals from preceding human means for survival. That religious language is means of placing order on the course of collective human experience, and ways to prescribe behaviour that end up creating both exceptionalism and division. They say it, better to, that while religion claims to move towards a benign and compassionate inter-human rapport it sows at the same time opposite seeds of hate and distrust among people.
Dawkins and Hitchens are a typical example of secular fundamentalist who go beyond legitimate criticism of delusions in religion into illusion of secular grandeur, the kind that gives non-believers a bad name. Authentic atheists, agnostics, humanists are not necessary against religion but 'maximalsm', i.e. the tendencies by some believers to want to conform every aspect of society to religious belief, with intentions of creating things like theocratic states. Fundamentalism, whether religious or secular, is the 21st century problem of all men of goodwill.
What perhaps we need most to learn in our century is that the human condition is the same for all of us despite our beliefs or non beliefs. Oscar Wilde put it thus: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” The major star—some will say the sun—for Christians is Jesus of Nazareth; as Muhammad is for Muslims. Cheap, stale arguments against religion does not advance the cause of humanism. We all know of the damage done around the world in the name of religion. Instead of throwing the baby with dirty water the constructive thing to do would be to revaluate religious messages, and leave behind what does not jibe with our humanist cause.
For instance, millions throughout the ages have venerated the name of Jesus, the Christ, of Nazareth. But few have really understood, fewer still have tried to put it into practice, his message. His words have been twisted and turned to mean everything, anything and nothing. His name has been used and abused to justify crimes, to frighten heathens, to inspire men and women into heroic deeds and foolishness. The supreme irony is that things he opposed in his lifetime were resurrected, preached, and spread more widely throughout the world in his name.
Hence I say, the most constructive way of dealing with religion would be to go beyond reported ad nauseam institutional violence, injustices, oppressions and exploitation to real engagement with their original messages. If you say, for instance, religion misrepresents the “origins of man and the cosmos”, you say so based on what? Or are you saying evolution is incompatibly with biblical anecdotes of creation; if so join in the real argument, not just strut shallow garish intellectual aestheticism of high-minded vulgarity. Comic sniggers might impress the impressionable hordes of glossy magazine but they do not further the humanist argument.
I'll tell you what furthers the humanist cause, and that is looking at Jesus of Nazareth with non jaundiced eyes. Here was a man with complete unreserved acceptance and openness to others; constantly found in the company of publicans and prostitutes. People despised as outsiders by the pious lot profound empathy with in him; felt so accepted they soon learned that God’s love is not confined to the holy, the self-righteous or the wealthy. Jesus saw in everyone the spirit of God struggling for self-assertion. He didn’t feel sorry for people from a distance, not daring to tarnish his reputation, but met them in their condition. He always approached people with humility that refused to be bound by world’s myopic conventions.
He was at home with fishermen, tax-collectors, tarts, learned men, religious leaders, Jews, Goyim, Narelim, Gentiles, and Romans. He gave everyone the same dignity without regard for worldly position; didn't care about labels like homosexuality as seen when he allowed 'the disciple he loved' to rest on his breast in the last supper. Yet with all that love he could be sufficiently detached to leave home without compunction, and sometimes called friends he loved (Peter arguably the first pope) devils when they stood before his mission.
Jesus never put on an act, adopt false poses, or tried to live up to worldly expectations. He didn't play the messianic role, his more wordly disciples expected of him. He could be at home in diverse situations because he was ever immediately himself everywhere, having made truth his only way. Christ was neither solemn nor superficial. He cared nothing for class distinction. Worldly power didn’t impress him; hence he could be ironical and very outspoken, even contemptuous, to the powerful: “Tell that fox (Herod) . . .”
Tell me now if that is not the spirit of humanism taken to transcedental realms; you don't have to agree with his beleifs to see that. Geisteswissenschat (human studies) has to lead to what Heidegger saw as eternity within time, which is a moment in which your past, present, and future gather into the unity of a resolute self. Otherwise you risk the tranquillity of the absurd, as best represented in that wonderfully madman, Frederich Nietzsche. Perhaps even that is better than the haughty insularity of some present day atheists.
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