What I have learned - on religion
Some time ago, I asked my GHS ’63 classmates and others to contribute what they have learned from living. Sadly, no one took me up on this challenge which leads me to believe that they just weren’t paying attention for the past 60 years or so! No matter. Undaunted and undismayed, I continue . . . in good faith.
On Religion
As history is written by the winners, it seems likely that religious doctrine carries the same bias. More wars, after all, have been fought – and continue to be fought - over religion than oil, so this bias of we against them seems important.
Still, the search for religion was the beginning of all knowledge. It was the beginning of all knowledge but surely not the end. We should revere religion and keep it close by if for no other reason than it is a marker from where we (all of human kind) started.
The impetus for religion, I’ve always felt, is centered on community more than on personal faith. In an age of globalization, communities (even seemingly large communities like Christians) have become less important, even insignificant. This, too, will have an impact on our religion natures.
Religions often do good work (President Bush’s 10,000 points of light for instance). They take care of their own and often they take care of total strangers – and this is a good thing. Yet, Dr. Johnson’s remark about Richard Savage is a caution of sorts. In his biography of Savage he writes: “The reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness.”
Farce can be a tool for criticizing religion, but it certainly does not provide a conduit to a deeper understanding of the human condition. Flannery O’Connor learned this, I think, with her first novel Wise Blood. Her second novel The Violent Bear It Away was free from broad farce and, I think, a better book.
On Religion
As history is written by the winners, it seems likely that religious doctrine carries the same bias. More wars, after all, have been fought – and continue to be fought - over religion than oil, so this bias of we against them seems important.
Still, the search for religion was the beginning of all knowledge. It was the beginning of all knowledge but surely not the end. We should revere religion and keep it close by if for no other reason than it is a marker from where we (all of human kind) started.
The impetus for religion, I’ve always felt, is centered on community more than on personal faith. In an age of globalization, communities (even seemingly large communities like Christians) have become less important, even insignificant. This, too, will have an impact on our religion natures.
Religions often do good work (President Bush’s 10,000 points of light for instance). They take care of their own and often they take care of total strangers – and this is a good thing. Yet, Dr. Johnson’s remark about Richard Savage is a caution of sorts. In his biography of Savage he writes: “The reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness.”
Farce can be a tool for criticizing religion, but it certainly does not provide a conduit to a deeper understanding of the human condition. Flannery O’Connor learned this, I think, with her first novel Wise Blood. Her second novel The Violent Bear It Away was free from broad farce and, I think, a better book.
posted by Forrest at
9:35 PM
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