Doc ,Thankyou for clarifying a bit. I realize there are some things we just do not see the same and you reject my views. I think it is perhaps interesting that I share a good deal in the views you express above. I had felt in past decades that enlightenment and liberal principals were making good progress. Science was understood to be make important contributions to human understanding. I though more people were thinking that these were not opposed to Christian faith but there have been traditional views that saw them as opposed.Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 2:05 amI must. To me it’s entrenchment, or better said, re-entrenchment into orthodox Christian beliefs humans were leaving behind thanks to the Enlightenment and Liberalism. I’m shocked people who ought to know better simply believe because it feels good, but it what it is - hence why I made a cheeky reference to 31st century Catholics waging space crusades. It seems us humans are in need of Zombie Jesus and the promise of yonder heaven.huckelberry wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 12:08 amDoc, I think you have a different idea of neo orthodox than I do.
eta: I had to come back to this post because I understand I’m being ‘law enforcement edgy atheist’, and that’s not fair for good-faith discussion on this forum.
My position, more or less depending on the religion or religion-philosophy, is that religious texts are a collection of stories which elucidate human nature and metaphysics. The “deepness” of the Bible is that it’s often layered in metaphor and history that takes time to figure out, thus it has a payoff factor when someone finally ‘gets it’. Likewise religious ritual is engaged in for a chiefly psychological purpose. The problem, of course, is that most humans are god-tier morons that require a priest class who subsequently take advantage of them and their existential dread. Fun times.
I believe touchy faithful types like to describe modern science as a religion, or cult, or belief system (we see DCP and mopologists do this all the time) that exists within a religious framework:
- scientists operate under religious assumptions such as ‘science discovers the Truth”
- Western science is born out of a religious movement - Christianity
- the scientific method is itself an act of faith based on hunches, hopes, theories, and other people believing in those hunches, hopes, and theories
- ‘science’ becomes the ‘god’ and scientists become the priesthood
- atheists usually don't understand religion, invariably straw-man it and steel-man their own ‘faith’ as supremely rational
- dogmatism ensues
So, circling back around to my first paragrpah above, I’m shocked we’ve fallen back into orthodoxy and fundamentalism, because it seemed like we were headed on a fairly rapid enlightenment trajectory. But that’s not the case at all. Apparently we humans need religion to contextualize our human experiences, we need religious ritual for psychological relief, and we need a priesthood, whatever form it takes, to keep our minds framed within that narrative. The real fiction from my referenced science fiction novel isn’t that there’s Catholics in the 31st century, but that’s there’s a space-faring civilization in the 31st century.
There have been counter currents. An example would be young earth creationism has been an expanding point of view. I can see how that phrase neoorthodox would bring that sort of movement to mind. I am sorry to have used the phrase.
The past ten or so years in particular have shown that my hopes have been on the fading end. You may well be pointing out real reasons why that is.