[MD] False Messiah

[david buchanan]

Scott and y'all:

Scott said:
..Another source for improvement is that all theologians, other than 
fundamentalists, recognize that God-talk is necessarily metaphorical. Only 
fundamentalists and anti-theists take it literally, and their problem is to 
privilege the literal over the metaphorical. In this regard, religious 
thinking is ahead of, say, the scientific materialists, in questioning the 
value of "being literal".

dmb says:
Only fundamentalists and anti-theists take it literally? First of all I have 
to say that this is a re-phrasing of a Joseph Cambellism I've posted here 
several times over the years. The problem is that you've re-phrased badly. 
Campbell's idea is that theists and atheists both take it literally, and 
they're both wrong. Your change gets theists off the hook, so long as 
they're not fundamentalists. I think the difference is just a matter of 
degree. And the switch from atheism to anti-theism is equally uncool. These 
two terms are not entirely interchangable. Roughly, the atheist doesn't 
believe in God, while the anti-theist doesn't believe in religion. The 
anti-theist is not making a metaphysical claim. She's only critical of 
theology and the churches. Sure, one could be both at the same time, but the 
distinction remains.

Scott said:
There is, of course, a huge difference between theory and practice in this 
regard. But things are changing. Even among evangelical Christians, there is 
movement, as a search on "emergent Christianity" will tell you. Also see the 
Sea of Faith stuff (www.sofn.org.uk). Among intellectuals, there are various 
post-modern or post-secular thinkers of interest, such as Gianni Vattimo and 
John Caputo ("The Prayers and Tears of Jacque Derrida: Religion without 
Religion"). There is a book called Religion After Metaphysics, which 
contains essays by these two and others, which might be of interest. Whether 
such ideas ever get into the mainstream is, to be sure, not foreseeable --
not soon, at any rate. ...In short, there is much of the Dynamic going on in 
religion, or at least in
Christianity in developed countries.

dmb says:
I took a quick look to see what you were getting at here. As you admit, 
these people and organizations aren't exactly mainstream. These figures 
describe themselves variously as postmodern humanists, Radical theologians, 
non-theologians, continental philsophers and Vattimo is a gay, Catholic 
politician, among other things. My point? I think its rather disengenuous to 
suggest that these people represent theism or to use them in defense of it. 
Don't you think it would be more accurate to characterize them as people who 
are thinking about the death of god, the collaspe of a belief system? I do. 
In any case, I'd much rather you bring some specific thoughts to the table 
because the actual content strikes me as pretty damn interesting. Instead, 
you seem to be side-stepping the problem with theism (even when it isn't 
crude fundamentalism) and faith-based beliefs in general. I mean, don't you 
keep up with current events? Surely you can see that there is a huge 
conflict between the secular world and the religious one? You do realize 
that we're fighting fundamentalism at home and abroad. With your defense of 
theism, faith and your attack on Darwinism, well... I think Pat Robertson 
would approve.

dmb

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