And Finally...
Guess what? More quotes from that good book, which I finished (in Joni-talk: sinished) today. Some highly controversial points are made here, but who can argue - and come off the winner in that argument - with them? I'd like to hear from you if you think you can. I personally know many within one of the religious groups mentioned just below (hint: it's not the Taliban) who would take what is said about them there as a compliment, and to be truthful I understand why: if your religion is true, then things ARE black and white: there is no need for the grays of the modern tolerant (religious people prefer the word "permissive" - for its negative connotations I suppose) world- no need for you to see them, or to take them into account; no need to live your life as if things weren't clear to you, as if you didn't know the answers - to be sure, other religious people live their lives that way, but that's not the way Jesus (or whoever you follow) meant for it to be (and who can disagree with this?)! You see, if you take your religion seriously, that's where it should lead you: you don't, in other words, think about your (possibly) eternal future on your death bed, you make things of a spiritual nature the prime concern in your life, ahead of all else, NOW, and all else (in comparison) is "rubbish" to paraphrase (St.)Paul. This sounds rather positive doesn't it? That's what I'm saying, and therein lies the problem- all these positives make one huge negative, all these people taking their religion very seriously (fundamentalists) are turned against all the others who do likewise but believe anything but likewise, whether this is evident in spirit(or words) or in (witness September 11) action. Here are those quotes:
"All religions are such that, if they are pushed to their logical conclusions, or if their founding literatures and early traditions are accepted literally, they will take the form of their respective fundamentalisms. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Taliban are thus not aberrations, but unadulterated and unconstrained expressions of their respective faiths, as practiced by people who are not interested in refined temporisings or theological niceties, but who literally accept the world view of the writings they regard as sacred...that is where the most serious threat lies, because all the major religions in fact blaspheme one another, and each by its principles ought actively to oppose the others...where they can get away with it - as the Taliban did in Afghanistan - fundamentalists continue the same practices...it is only where religion is on the back foot, reduced to a minority practice, that it presents itself as essentially peaceful and charitable."
[In reference to Anthony O'Hears books] "his chief mistake is to accept the false and hackneyed claim that Western man is unhappy, empty and lost because material values have displaced spiritual ones. The opposite is the truth: more people are happier now than has ever been the case. It is a mistake to think that peasants were happier in days of yore - scratching their lice in church on Sundays, which they attended despite the hectoring sermons and boredom because it was warm and provided a diversion from their daily routines...and because they had been indoctrinated from childhood into thinking they would suffer eternal damnation if they did not at least sometimes conform to the requirements of the faith they had been born into. It is a mistake to think that they were more fulfilled and content with their laborious days slogging about in muddy fields, and their illiterate candle-lit nights drinking home made beer and chewing bread with grit in it, than their descendants who have television, football, bingo, cinema, shopping malls, theme parks, zoos, holidays in Majorca, sliced bread, and vastly more money and more things to spend it on than their forebears could even dream of. People are now, accordingly and as a rule, neither unhappy nor empty; to have the satisfaction of a good grumble they are obliged to complain about the weather or our national sports teams - barrel-scrapings by comparison to the harsh realities of life in the Good Old Days mourned by nostalgists...one can understand those who welcome modern dentistry, lap-tops, television and air travel; who marvel at the beauty and power of science, and what it has revealed about this extraordinary universe of ours; who welcome the fact that more and more people are gaining access to the good things in life, intellectually as well as materially - and who have no desire to send anyone back to life in a hut made of peat, lived under the oppression of priests and warlords, with only the rain and an early death for a horizon."
"All religions are such that, if they are pushed to their logical conclusions, or if their founding literatures and early traditions are accepted literally, they will take the form of their respective fundamentalisms. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Taliban are thus not aberrations, but unadulterated and unconstrained expressions of their respective faiths, as practiced by people who are not interested in refined temporisings or theological niceties, but who literally accept the world view of the writings they regard as sacred...that is where the most serious threat lies, because all the major religions in fact blaspheme one another, and each by its principles ought actively to oppose the others...where they can get away with it - as the Taliban did in Afghanistan - fundamentalists continue the same practices...it is only where religion is on the back foot, reduced to a minority practice, that it presents itself as essentially peaceful and charitable."
[In reference to Anthony O'Hears books] "his chief mistake is to accept the false and hackneyed claim that Western man is unhappy, empty and lost because material values have displaced spiritual ones. The opposite is the truth: more people are happier now than has ever been the case. It is a mistake to think that peasants were happier in days of yore - scratching their lice in church on Sundays, which they attended despite the hectoring sermons and boredom because it was warm and provided a diversion from their daily routines...and because they had been indoctrinated from childhood into thinking they would suffer eternal damnation if they did not at least sometimes conform to the requirements of the faith they had been born into. It is a mistake to think that they were more fulfilled and content with their laborious days slogging about in muddy fields, and their illiterate candle-lit nights drinking home made beer and chewing bread with grit in it, than their descendants who have television, football, bingo, cinema, shopping malls, theme parks, zoos, holidays in Majorca, sliced bread, and vastly more money and more things to spend it on than their forebears could even dream of. People are now, accordingly and as a rule, neither unhappy nor empty; to have the satisfaction of a good grumble they are obliged to complain about the weather or our national sports teams - barrel-scrapings by comparison to the harsh realities of life in the Good Old Days mourned by nostalgists...one can understand those who welcome modern dentistry, lap-tops, television and air travel; who marvel at the beauty and power of science, and what it has revealed about this extraordinary universe of ours; who welcome the fact that more and more people are gaining access to the good things in life, intellectually as well as materially - and who have no desire to send anyone back to life in a hut made of peat, lived under the oppression of priests and warlords, with only the rain and an early death for a horizon."
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 6:00 PM
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