As I've said over and over in that thread below, I don't really care if Barack Obama is a Christian. I mean, I care in the sense that I would like everyone to be a Christian, but it doesn't trouble me. I would vote for an unbeliever of wisdom and integrity before I'd vote for a Christian deficient in either. I used Joe Carter's reflection on whether or not Obama is a Christian, based on his doctrinal confession, to start a debate about the nature of religious belief in contemporary America.
I think a useful distinction between progressive and traditionalist religionists and their approach to religious truth is as follows. Progressives think that religious truth is indefinite and subjective, and can change according to the perceived needs of people in a given time and place. Traditionalists believe that religious truth is definite and objective, and can be known with some degree of certainty.
Put another way, progressives tend to think that religious truth claims are statements of an individual's thoughts and emotional state; trads tend to think that religious truth claims are statements about metaphysical reality.
Before the advent of the postmodern consciousness, progressives and traditionalists could argue about religious truth, but both had confidence that there was such a thing. But how do you argue with a postmodern progressive, who is scandalized by the very idea of religious truth claims expressed as defined doctrine? You can't. They disbelieve in the concept of orthodoxy. All that matters is that no one tells anyone else that what he believes is wrong. (That they are inconsistent, and have no problem telling traditionalists that they are wrong, wrong, wrong about religious claims having to do with gender and genitalia, is another issue).
Thus, the sadly confused Episcopal priest who decided that she was also a Muslim is, to the traditionalist, an impossibility. She shows she is neither a serious Christian nor a serious Muslim, but an addled dabbler and dilettante of religion. But to the progressive, she is merely creative. Any religion that adopts the progressive way of knowing and interpreting religious truth will cease to exist in time, because it is not fixed to anything. And that's why drawing doctrinal distinctions are important: because they not only serve as guides to moral truth and metaphysical reality, they ensure that these truths are preserved through time.
Again, though, if you think religion is about little more than Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is what I believe progressive religion generally is (and why many Americans who would count themselves as religious conservatives are fundamentally progressives), this is all hooey. The reason the "Is Obama a Christian?" discussion matters has nothing to do with Obama himself. What the discussion really centers on is this question: "Does religious orthodoxy matter?"
("What does he mean by 'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism'?" you ask. Read on:
MTD is what two sociologists of religion, Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton, described as the dominant de facto religion among American teenagers -- this, based on thousands of interviews with teens. Its tenets are:
1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
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Eric, No, it's not anywhere in our Tanakh. Only by what readers have correctly called a "skewed reading", wanting to see it there, can a Christian find it there. We can easily explain why that interpretation is so anethema to us, and David Wolpe has a column here on b-net that also offers a good explanation why we don't believe in Jesus. You need to understand that a blanket statement "it's in the Torah/Tanakh" is so offensive and off-base. Believe what you want about Jesus, but understand we have very good reason not to, and equally good reason to be bothered by such statements.
eastcoastlady:
Michael L. Brown has a four-volume series entitled Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus (Baker Books) in which he shows why seeing Jesus in the Old Testament is not so off-base. There is also Jesus the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible by Eugen J. Pentiuc, PhD in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard, ThD in Old Testament from Bucharest University, Paulist Press.
FWIW, I've in the past listened to Tovia Singer's anti-Messianic teachings and found them to be less than convincing or impartial.
John E., Larry clearly rejects the scientific method in toto. There is no rational rebuttal to that.
Oh, I do not, please quit telling me what I believe, and maybe, just maybe you might consider responding to what I have written rather than make stuff up. I don't have a problem with the scientific method, in its place, its place is not as a worldview, nor is it in uncovering "objective" truth, as there is no such thing, at least not as a product of human reason. I swear science-heads are as stubborn, as convinced of their own rightness, and as immune to reason as any fundamentalist.
Fair enough, Larry. My conclusion concerning your attitude was based on your posts on this thread, which obviously (now) do not reflect your true attitude towards the scientific method.
What is its place, then? Stipulating that it is a "worldview", what are the general mistakes being made by those who apply it in their pursuit of knowledge?
So far, what I've seen you state is that the SM is flawed by its inability to recognize that faith is a valid component in the pursuit of (insert qualifier of your choice, or none) truth. My view -- presumably, since it is that of the vast majority, the "science-head" view -- that faith by definition has no place in the SM is not sufficient rebuttal. Care to clarify? One request: If you continue to cite Polanyi, please at least summarize his views here instead of just naming him. I'm happy to follow up on the details myself, but I'm not familiar enough with his writings to understand you when you just name him.
The problems arise when people try to make science the sole arbiter of truth, which it cannot be or do. Even on its own terms, how do you scientifically validate the scientific method? You can't. Even saying what science uncovers is truth is a stretch, as well, there are only two kinds of scientific theories, those that have been disproved, and those that will be disproved. These problems exist even when you are operating within a more or less Enlightenment based "language game". When you move away from that into more alien (to science) games, the problems get worse. One of the things that made Polanyi finally realize that he was in the realm of faith was his considering the viewpoints of those outside the Enlightenment tradition. Enlightenment types like to pretend that these other world views can not have the evidence for them that their own does, but that is simply not the case. A stone age animist who believes in magic gets verification of his world view everyday of his life. Incidentally, at the time Polanyi was involved in a struggle with those in the Royal Society who were enamored of Stalin, and this is what triggered his thinking on the subject. You see, world views are all self-validating, because we interpret what we see according to our world-view, and this is no less true for the scientist as the animist magician.
Now, from a utilitarian standpoint, science has proven to be useful, but a mixed blessing in may ways. It gives us medicine and more and better food, but also frightfully efficient ways of killing each other. What science is not, and as a product of human reason can never be, is a source of objective or absolute truth, either on its own terms, as explained above, or, more broadly as a product of human reason. You see, because science is self-contained, self-referential, it lacks any foundation (in the foundationalist sense) in ultimate reality. Now there have been attempts to ground science in revelation, and there is some validity to them, and I also note, in passing, that science is absolutely dependent on Christianity for the desacralization of nature. You can hardly think that science is going to be effective if you think that every tree and rock has its own independent spirit living in it. Christianity eliminated those.
Larry, I'm just acknowledging your last post, and that I read it. Life has intruded, and I may not be back for a day or more to post a response. Thanks.
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