Oh my. "Bob Herbert is off today." Ahem. In his place, David Brooks discovers a commenter at Marginal Revolution speculating on what is more or less the premise of a P.D. James novel. No one seems to realize that they are speculating on the premise of a P.D. James novel, even though it very recently became an acclaimed Alfonso Cuaron movie. Everyone discovers that The Children Are Our Future. Exeunt. Fin.
As if this were not foolish and useless enough, Bobo crowbars a goofy and incorrect description of both Judaism and Christianity into the middle of his peroration:
Both Judaism and Christianity are promise-centered faiths. They are based on narratives that lead from Genesis through progressive revelation to a glorious culmination.A semantic quibble: Judaism is not about a promise, but a covenant--a distinction with a difference. Judaism is also not a religion of "progressive revelation," although one can certainly understand Brooks desire to cram explicitly Christian theology backward in time and history in order to make the classic Western cryptozionist case that there is something--a culture, a civilization?--that can be described as "Judeo-Christian," when in fact on matters of cosmogony, epistemology, moral philosophy, metaphysics, etc., Christianity's far more ancient forebear ranges from markedly different to wholly alien. Even Jewish messianism, which Christians of the Brooks vintage view as a precursor to their own, is very different. The incorporation of the so-called Old Testament into Christian scripture does not actually make Christianity a new version of Judaism; Judaism is the remnant tribal religion of a gang of near-Eastern clans from the pre-Hellenic age, whereas Christianity is a sort of synecretic neo-paganism. Look it up! There's a reason all those holidays fall on old Roman and Celtic festivals.
Believers’ lives have significance because they and their kind are part of this glorious unfolding. Their faith is suffused with expectation and hope. If they were to learn that they were simply a dead end, they would feel that God had forsaken them, that life was without meaning and purpose.
Aside from that, the phrase "progressive revelation" reeks of Dispensationalism, a charismatic notion thoroughly rejected by mainline protestant sects, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity. Dispensationalism is a sort of scifi millenarian religious casuistry in which infidelity to various biblical injunctions is rationalized against sola scripta claims by positing a kind of forward-rolling cosmic pseudo-cycle in which only certain parts of the divine writ obtain at any given time. You may consider this description bowdlerizing, but in reality I am giving undue deference to the most crackpot "spiritual" system this side of the Hale-Bopp comet.
16 comments:
What I am struck by is how similar MR's speculations are to actual, you know, history. Including the collapse of financial institutions, import and abuse of immigrant populations, mass starvation, etc etc...
“What would happen if a freak solar event sterilized the people on the half of the earth that happened to be facing the sun?” Well, I’m 51 now, and have a job and all so it’ll be tough for me to answer just now. Tell you what I’ll do. The son of a good friend is in college just up the road so this Friday night I’ll go to his dorm room with an ounce of good pot and we’ll all get stoned, listen to some music and discuss. I’ll be back with the answer sometime Saturday afternoon.
The Christians would simply view the mass sterilization of humanity as God's righteous judgement on us for letting the queers run rampant. Remember the Falwell and Robertson response to AIDs, 9/11, Katrina etc.
FT,
If "The Christians" is supposed to mean "Falwell and Robertson", you got yourself a tautology.
Sincerely,
The Christians
If they were to learn that they were simply a dead end, they would feel that God had forsaken them, that life was without meaning and purpose.
I thought the whole point of Christianity was that the imminent return of the Messiah will result in a "dead end" for everyone. Isn't there a whole book in the Bible about exactly what that "dead end" is going to look like?
Sign of the devil, dude.
Isn't there a whole book in the Bible about exactly what that "dead end" is going to look like?
Actually, that book is a call to revolution against Rome and has nothing to do with 'the end of the world'... Alas, most followers of religion are too stupid to understand their own texts.
Lucid dixit:
"Alas, most followers of religion are too stupid to understand their own texts."
Does that include the followers of atheism? Or "too stupid to conduct your business" applies only to others.
The Christians
Believers’ lives have significance because they and their kind are part of this glorious unfolding. Their faith is suffused with expectation and hope. If they were to learn that they were simply a dead end, they would-- figure out something else to do. This is hard, and scary, so they do not do it.
Jesus, I am so sick of the tolerance with which we approach this tendentious crap. Christianity today isn't even really Christianity; it's an appearance of piety, a fucking show. And Brooks is a show of literacy.
Anon - in order to understand ancient texts, one needs to actually study ancient history, which is something most organized religion discourages greatly, because the seat of its power in the world rests upon the ignorance of its followers.
Most religions are for show, and always have been. That's part of the point - the ritual works on both a societal and personal level. What makes modern Christianity more of a show than collecting the most relics, or Confucianism, which explicitly is about the show?
There's no more some halycon days of Christianity where people actually believed than there is the same for American politics.
Wikipedia says that Brooks is a Jew, although Chris Matthews once referred to him as the neocons' shabbos goy, which seems inarguable to me.
Well, Rowan--a pagan, by any chance?--your point is well-taken, because lies have always been part of it.
Let me add, though, that people believed in curses for realz when Christianity was still alive. People believed in the devil's magic, in Jesus actively dooming or lifting up nations. They didn't just say these things. They believed them. Maybe not unanimously. Skeptics have always been about. But before you had science explaining so much of the world, you had more room for--what is that quaint expression?--the God of the Gaps.
We are so steeped in front and facade that we imagine the world has always been this load of sophistry, this disingenuous, this feigning, this perversely insincere. But it hasn't. It used to be much less comfortable.
That said, lies have always been around, I won't argue with you. Rulers have always posed as liberators. But let's not fail to notice the Caesarians that now shake and quake when they speak about Jesus. They are charlatans, and they make the lunatics that they replaced look more desirable, if for nothing else than that the crazies were sincere in their superstition. Now we're all atheists, but few dare to admit it.
Religion of what ever shade can be better understood if one regards it as a commercial business selling an intangible product, eternal life, paradise or whatever. By the time the customer tries to take delivery of the product, it's too late to complain or get a refund, he or she is dead.
Brooks has said on tv,while I was watching, that he was a Jew.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"Does that include the followers of atheism? Or "too stupid to conduct your business" applies only to others."
Ahm, yes, the followers of "Atheism." Shouldn't that be CAPITALIZED, as it is such a definitive school, with a priesthood and sacred texts and a creed and all?
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