Interesting TV viewing last night - I caught the 2nd part of Richard Dawkins programme on religion being the root of all evil (see here for some thoughts on last weeks show)...
I think I had a lot more sympathy for him last night, especially when it came to some of the interviews he had with some folks! Richard posed an interesting Q that in fact parents indoctrinate (teach) their children who's minds are genetically pre-programmed to believe them and thus these things get passed on from generation to generation.. which is a valuable insight as I am sure it is true for some people on the other hand it doesn't explain why we are now living in a post-christian country. Nor does it explain people like me who have had a long hard look at lots of alternative ways of living my life before deciding (on a fairly regular basis) that one based on loving God and loving each other is the path to take...
An excellent challenging point made by Richard was that as an antheist he could enjoy life a lot more as this world is all we have, so he was up for getting on and living life to the full. Now ignoring the fact that believing there is no God is a form of faith the challenge comes to people of the Christian tradition as to whether they see life after death as the future, escaping earth - or as I believe that God is about restoring and renewing both heaven and earth - that we get to join with God in his mission of bring peace, love, justice into this world now. That in fact Richard is right that we celebrate life now, that we should revel in the beauty of the planet, not as some random chance but since we are given a charge for caring about creation...
On More 4 channel there was a programme on called Dark Enlightenment which looked at the flip side of the debate - "a powerful polemic by Samuel Johnson prize winning historian Michael Burleigh argues that the modern world's rejection of faith and embrace of reason has been a disaster." This asked the question that even those who believed in pure reason had to recreate religious imagery to fill the void and the gapping hole in our heritage by the white washing out of history of the church does not prevent spiritual hunger from breaking through... interesting really as it portrayed a life with out divine inspired right or wrong is merely replaced by that which is decided by man and is not always any better...
Hmm. Wonder why I'm signed in under an auto-generated hashkey rather than my username? Anyhow, I just wanted to add my commiserations and sympath over your inability to follow most of the rest of our species and find happiness, fulfillment and morality without allowing the tendrils of a centuries old society-conrol meme to inerweave your mentality. It's such a pity as you sound so pleasant and intelligent and you're missing out on intellectual development that's been imminent for most of a century now and has only been held up by the establishment's love of an easy control methodology, and its enablement by that establishment's control of the media.
Shame, my sympaties. Hope you make the final step soon.
Dave J.
Posted by: Apps 55753818692 100002347528217 F4b53163cd88bf09c46c2410f06238fc | 06 May 2011 at 04:05 PM