Do we have to love that which we don't understand? I read that somewhere, Camus', The Plague, I think. Do we have to love god? I have been thinking about our relationship with god. If we look back over the centuries and think about god's role in art in literature we see radical changes. From the bible to Samuel Beckett, it becomes clear that our belief in a loving, compassionate, all powerful god is disintegrating, slowly but inexorably. Is it knowledge that weakens god, just like in the Garden of Eden? Get knowledge, loose god. It seems that way. In the modernist writers, Camus, Beckett, Joyce god is there but it is a failed god no longer loving. He is, at best, mean and resented. Now we barely see or hear about him except in the born-again books like The Left Behind series and all sorts of books and films about the anti-christ. This new god seems to be getting even for our infidelity to his greatness and good and evil battle again for dominance. This is medieval construct. Can we create a new God that embraces all the science that seems to deny his very existence? Do we need to? There is a serious battle waging over God or no god so I would imagine some kind of second coming is at hand.
posted by Anne Coe | 6:50 AM
5 Comments:
Anne Coe CoeVert (an obvious pseudonym) said:
Can we create a new God that embraces all the science that seems to deny his very existence?
We can create (concoct) any kind of god we want to. We always have, we always will.
Do we need to?
No.
There is a serious battle waging over God or no god
Yes, indeed, and it's about time.
so I would imagine some kind of second coming is at hand.
God forbid. The first "coming" (invention) of "God" has caused problems enough, so let's just drop the idea of having another one hanging around.
It can be argued that the largest plague, in the sense of causing disease -- mental malaise, alienation, ennuie, etc. -- in the past few centuries, has been literary narrative. At one time you would have gone to the bible to understand god, now you are driven to seek answers in "art." If you and your reader are the true intellects, you will be as hard on literature as you are hard on the bible. If we argue that literature merely points out trends in current thinking, that is one thing, but literature FORMS thinking, it does not just reflect thinking.
The real question is not whether or not god exists. If you want science, you stick to testable hypotheses. We need to stop trying to be intellects by creating new stories, we need to use the tools that are available to us. Whether or not god exists is not a question we can answer with logic or with science.
What we can ask and answer is whether or not the behaviors encouraged by religion actually create internal cooperation. Do moral systems work and if not always, when do they work and when do they not work? NO ONE cooperates with outsiders. We are a xenophobic species. Why blame religion for a blot that is in all of our eyes. What the great prophets have done is created kinship groups out of warring tribes. They did this by citing a creator god, who is "father" to all, thus making all members of warring tribes brothers and sisters to one another. Prophets, the great ones, create kinship groups. The rule was to treat others as if they were your loved brother and sister. The problem is that humans are flawed, weak, etc. It is apparently easier to create a religion, although that is not easy if you want to get members engaged, than it is to have the religion persist over millenia. The issue is not religion and what it encourages, as it encourages us to love a great many others and treat them as our close relatives, the problem is that religions are not working with humans who understand what the actual game is all about.
The bible is part history, part story. I compare it to
Shakespeare's Historical dramas like Richard III. Clearly, art influences. Isn't that its job? But it is also when viewed overall, the story of our Race, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. We are trying to make sense of things. I am sure that there are those artist/writers who with, malice and forethought, try to influence us to anarchy and hatred but for the most part I do not think that is true. We are just reacting to a set of circumstances. It was our wars that destroyed our culture. WWI and WWII killed more than people. It killed our Gods.
Ann Coe CoeVert [sic] said:
It was our wars that destroyed our culture. WWI and WWII killed more than people. It killed our Gods.
Nope. Your gods are still alive and sick inside people's heads just about everywhere except in most of Europe and parts of Asia. What WILL kill your gods is for people to start thinking for themselves. Anybody who ponders -- for 15 minutes or less -- the various gods created by ignorant and superstitious humans will almost immediately come to the conclusion that these ridiculous entities called "gods" don't, in fact, exist.
anonymous 1 has made several important points, literature (which includes the bible) not only reflects current thinking, it forms current thinking; science must stick to testable hypotheses and the existence (or not) of god is not currently a testable hypothesis. It may well never be a testable hypothesis. Annonymous 2 (your gods are alive and sick...) is an ignoramus. With love, Anonymous 3
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