On Jul 30, 7:32 am, "baby_ifritah"
wrote:
> "*Anarcissie*"
gmail.com> :>> On Jul 29, 2:06 am, Sound of Trumpet
mailcan.com>>>>
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9708
>>> The sacred and the human
>>> Today's atheist polemics ignore the main insight of the anthropology
>>> of religion-that religion is not primarily about God, but about the
>>> human need for the sacred. As René Girard argues, religion is not the
>>> cause of violence, but the solution to it
>
>>> Roger Scruton
>
>>> Roger Scruton is a philosopher and a research professor at the
>>> Institute for the Psychological Sciences, Virginia
>
>>> It is not surprising that decent, sceptical people, observing the
>>> revival in our time of superstitious cults, the conflict between
>>> secular freedoms and religious edicts, and the murderousness of
>>> radical Islamism, should be receptive to the anti-religious polemics
>>> of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. The "sleep of
>>> reason" has brought forth monsters, just as Goya foretold in his
>>> engraving. How are we to rectify this, except through a wake-up call
>>> to reason, of the kind that the evangelical atheists are now shouting
>>> from their pulpits? ....
> On Jul 29, 1:10 pm, Ed
earthlink.net> wrote:>>> If seeking the sacred is a universal human drive and if the sacred can
>>> solve some of our problems with violence surely it matters exactly
>>> what we hold sacred. If some religions have a history of fomenting
>>> violence and other religions or sects seem to evoke less violence,
>>> then it behooves us to examine them to decide for ourselves what we
>>> will hold sacred.
>
>>> Are Christians more or less violent than Buddhists? What of B'hai's?
>>> And so forth. From this kind of analysis we might come up with stuff
>>> to have faith in that will do what you hope for. It seems a better
>>> approach than just swallowing the faith that is popular where you
>>> happened to grow up
.
>> But such an analysis will not favor Christianity or Islam,
>> in spite of their pretensions. So it is not going to be made
>> by such as Sound of Trumpet, René Girard, Roger Scruton,
>> or that noted religious leader Osama bin Laden.
> the problem with such an analysis is that both violence and pacifism can be
> an expression of the same religion. the answer can not be found by asking,
> as in ed's example, whether christians are more or less violent than
> buddhists. the answer is more likely to be found by examining a single
> religion and trying to find out what the differences are which lead one
> society to express its religion in a very peaceful, tolerant, compassionate
> way and another to express that same religion in a violent way.
Well, though, the answer to what? Scruton, Girard and
SoT want a fixed answer that always comes out in favor of
Christianity, so they conflate it with all sorts of things like
the supposed "human need for the sacred". However, the
human need for the sacred may not necessarily require
that anyone devote themselves to the Tortured God or
submit to the Pope, vote for George W. Bush, attack
homosexuals, and so forth. If we compare religions
according to what they preach and produce ("by their
fruits you shall know them", as somebody said) we
immediately notice a connection between the mainstream
versions of certain religions and violence. I don't think I
need to name any names.
