Freddie at L’Hôte says he’s not religious in any way, but the New Atheism has no appeal to him:

The new atheism has made its challenge, then. And here is my answer. I don’t believe in God, in any meaningful way. I am not a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Jew, or whatever else you will. In questions of public policy I feel religion has no place, and rational discourse has to rule. I don’t want religious artifacts in the public square, I don’t want creationism taught in public schools, and I don’t want any religion privileged in any way by government. I am, in most every way that matters, a natural ally of atheism.

But atheism has expelled me. It has expelled me because it has in its heart contempt and loathing and fear of the other. So I reject it. I don’t reject all atheists; many atheist are uninterested in ridiculing the religious– they simply want to be left in peace, and not have religion forced on them or on the law. That, to me, is a principled atheism, and one I am happy to coexist with. But this new atheism, this anti-theism, has only contempt at its heart, and I reject it as thoroughly as it has rejected me.

Very well put. I would express the point this way: Principled atheism is, in itself, noble. It is merely a rejection of all that is religious that is worth rejecting, not merely to negate, but to affirm the positive role of science, rationality, skepticism, secularism, and tolerance. I think you can tell more principled atheists from their less mature cousins by their degree of willingness to “coexist” with religionists without ridicule, contempt, or hatred.

I’m a catholic Christian in the sense of accepting truth wherever it is found. I share Freddie’s respect for the separation of church and state, even as I see a softer, more permeable barrier between the two. It seems to me that the discussion of religious or philosophical motives and rationales is a necessary and vital part of political discourse, yet I still want legislators and judges to serve all their diverse constituents and not govern or judge by narrow, sectarian concerns. So I don’t think I would agree with everything Freddie has to say about religion, but I appreciate that we seem to have some points of agreement with regard to atheism.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.

Technorati Tags: atheism, religion

“I am not an agnostic. I’m an atheist. I don’t think there’s no God. I know there’s no God, the same way I know many other laws of our universe. I know there’s no God. And I know that most of the world knows that as well. They just won’t admit it. Because there’s another thing they know. They know they’re going to die, and it freaks them out.”–Adam Carolla

I have most recently discussed the relationship between religion and the denial of death here.

Thanks to Positive Liberty for the link.

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The experience of Ultimate Reality is ultimately indescribable, ineffable, and irreducibly mysterious. But the theory of spiritual experience is different entirely. Theory translates immediate experience into ideas that can help to orient our mind towards Ultimate Reality. And on the other hand, our theories can impoverish our ability to be receptive to spiritual truths.

Perhaps the most central concept underlying any spiritual worldview is that of the nature of Ultimate Reality itself, and how it is related to the manifest reality. As students of religious thought are well aware, there are three major theories: transcendent (theistic), holding that Ultimate Reality is wholly separate from the world; immanent (panthestic), holding that Ultimate Reality is completely identified with the world; and panentheistic, holding that the world is “in” the Ultimate Reality, and that Ultimate Reality is both immanent and transcendent.

The varieties of religious thought can be categorized according to this threefold distinction. Christianity is usually presented as a theistic (transcendent) religion. Hinduism is polytheistic (transcendent). Paganism is usually said to be pantheistic. Buddhism is usually identified as transcendent (the world is illusion, and Reality is wholly Other). Atheism is a sort of ireverent or indifferent pantheism.

However, these simple stereotypes betray the complexity and richness of spiritual views. A panentheistic thread of one variety or another runs through many of the world’s great religions and even some schools of secular philosophy.

In a series of posts on this Weblog, I’ll argue the merits of the panentheistic philosophy, and its superiority over theistic, polytheistic, atheistic, pantheistic theories of reality. Closely related to this argument, I will contend that a panentheistic worldview is the most Integral way of conceiving of Ultimate World. the essence of these arguments is my contention that panentheism is the most accurate way of describing the nature of religious experience and the most useful way of orienting our intellect towards direct religious experience.

As a Christian, I am interested not only in panentheism in general, but Christian panentheism in particular. There are many ways of conceiving the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, but the most intriguing are concepts of Trinity that are in keeping with panentheism. The traditional notion of “one God, three persons” can be very misleading if the religionist takes the notion of “person” too literally. The more sophisticated view is that the Trinity describes the relationship between the manifest world (Many) and the spiritual world (One).

A highly insightful and wide-ranging discussion of the doctrine of Trinity in relationship to the One and the Many can be found in a recently published dialogue between Brother David Steindl-Rast, a practicing Benedictine monk, and Ken Wilber, the psychological theorist. In “Integral Christianity: Theory and Practice. Part 1. The Relationship of the One and the Many. Brother David Steindl-Rast” , these two thinkers meditate on the Father of Ultimate Mystery, the Christ as the Kosmic Christ, and the Holy Spirit as the orientation of the immanent world towards God. Ken Wilber:

Discovering the One is, in a sense, the first step. But then the relation of the One to the entire manifest world, the whole world of relationships to the world and all manifest world … both One and Many are integral to a full understanding of the world.

I am most impressed by Brother Steindl-Rast’s point that the Trinitarian understanding of God is most clearly distinguished from non-Trinitarian orientations by the importance it places on gratitude. Purely immanentist philosophies have no role for gratitude, because there is no Other to which the believer is related. But transcendent philosophies also have no role for gratitude, because Creation itself is viewed as empty of God, and therefore of little importance (and ultimately seen as obstacles to be overcome). But the Trinitarian view says that the appropriate attitude of the Many towards the One — and the fruit of spiritual practice — is that of gratitude (in other words, praise or worship).

Technorati Tags: atheism, Christianity, gratitude, panentheism, pantheism, praise, theism, Trinity, worship

Hat tip to GetReligion.

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