Is religion a conversation stopper?
Apr. 10th, 2005 02:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greybetaI should be sleeping, since they say that you shouldn't do any heavy reading before you go to sleep. So true, because my head is churning after doing my honors reading. It puts this post of mine into perspective. Arguing, "my faith says so" convinces nobody except those of your faith. But heck, a lot of "Christians" today don't know what they truly believe in, nor do they read their Bible very often.
Anyways, thisatheist anticlerical guy, Richard Rorty wrote a response to some Carter guy (Carter wrote something about how he felt religion was being taken out of the public sphere of debate). Rorty wrote in 1994, "The main reason religion needs to be privatized is that, in political discussion with those outside the relevant religious community, it is a conversation-stopper" (Religion as a conversation-stopper). To make a long story short, Rorty believes that religion should be privatized to preserve democracy. Institutionalized religion is a bad thing. You see, public discouse should be restricted to premises hold in common.
Of course, two other guys named Wolterstoff and Stout have criticisms. The first guy basically doesn't like the atheistic tone of Rorty and points to Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of someone who uses religion in the public sphere (An Engagement with Rorty). Stout thinks religion does have situational use because religion isn't a conversation stopper, because religion isn't essentially anything (Religion in political argument). Stout is careful to point out that anything that somebody cares about deeply can influence the public sphere, whether it be a hobby or religion.
The Rorty response to these guys in 2003 is to remind them for the occasional King, there are multiple Jerry Falwells (Religion in the Public Square). He then brings up the same sex marriage issue to clarify why he believes religion should be pruned back to the parish level. In refernce to citing the Leviticus 18:22 or Paul, Rorty says, "Citing such passages should be deeme not just in bad taste, but as heartlessly cruel, as reckless persecution, as incitement to violence." He equates such citing as "peacetime sadism", using religion to excuse cruelty. Down the road he says "The gays and lesbians, however, persist in thinking that if the churches would stop quoting Leviticus and Paul on the subject of sodomy, would stop saying that tolerance for homosexuals is a mark of moral decline...there would be fewer gay-bashers around". Many also are "struck by the fact that religious reasons are now pretty much the only reasons brought forward in favor of treating them with contempt." Homophobia is equated with anti-Semitism because "encouraging exclusivist bigotry brings money and power to ecclesiastical organizations". Then, we have a divide in America, where "a sizable body of opinion that treats gays and lesbians as contemptible and despicable and another body of opinion that treats those who quote Leviticus 18:22 as contemptible and despicable". Christians can have their Christian reasons for supporting redistribution of wealth or opposing same sex marriage, but Rorty is not sure "it counts having such reasons if the person who finds such marriage inconceivable is unwilling or unable even to discuss, for example, the seeming tension between Leviticus 22:18 and I Corinthians 13. Rorty feels entitled to his "right to urge social ostracism of homophobic preachers as they do to abuse gays and lesbians".
Rorty concludes by saying that he should have said "that citizens of a democracy should try to put off invoking conversation-stoppers as long as possible. We should do our best to keep the conversation going without citing unarguable first principles, either philosophical or religious. If we are sometimes driven to such citation, we should see ourselves as having failed, not as having triumphed."
Yet, people do have to draw a moral line somewhere. In the end, what one argues in public will ultimately be governed by what one personally believs in. And when we reach dead ends, our democracy relies on its votes and courts to carry the day.
Anyways, this
Of course, two other guys named Wolterstoff and Stout have criticisms. The first guy basically doesn't like the atheistic tone of Rorty and points to Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of someone who uses religion in the public sphere (An Engagement with Rorty). Stout thinks religion does have situational use because religion isn't a conversation stopper, because religion isn't essentially anything (Religion in political argument). Stout is careful to point out that anything that somebody cares about deeply can influence the public sphere, whether it be a hobby or religion.
The Rorty response to these guys in 2003 is to remind them for the occasional King, there are multiple Jerry Falwells (Religion in the Public Square). He then brings up the same sex marriage issue to clarify why he believes religion should be pruned back to the parish level. In refernce to citing the Leviticus 18:22 or Paul, Rorty says, "Citing such passages should be deeme not just in bad taste, but as heartlessly cruel, as reckless persecution, as incitement to violence." He equates such citing as "peacetime sadism", using religion to excuse cruelty. Down the road he says "The gays and lesbians, however, persist in thinking that if the churches would stop quoting Leviticus and Paul on the subject of sodomy, would stop saying that tolerance for homosexuals is a mark of moral decline...there would be fewer gay-bashers around". Many also are "struck by the fact that religious reasons are now pretty much the only reasons brought forward in favor of treating them with contempt." Homophobia is equated with anti-Semitism because "encouraging exclusivist bigotry brings money and power to ecclesiastical organizations". Then, we have a divide in America, where "a sizable body of opinion that treats gays and lesbians as contemptible and despicable and another body of opinion that treats those who quote Leviticus 18:22 as contemptible and despicable". Christians can have their Christian reasons for supporting redistribution of wealth or opposing same sex marriage, but Rorty is not sure "it counts having such reasons if the person who finds such marriage inconceivable is unwilling or unable even to discuss, for example, the seeming tension between Leviticus 22:18 and I Corinthians 13. Rorty feels entitled to his "right to urge social ostracism of homophobic preachers as they do to abuse gays and lesbians".
Rorty concludes by saying that he should have said "that citizens of a democracy should try to put off invoking conversation-stoppers as long as possible. We should do our best to keep the conversation going without citing unarguable first principles, either philosophical or religious. If we are sometimes driven to such citation, we should see ourselves as having failed, not as having triumphed."
Yet, people do have to draw a moral line somewhere. In the end, what one argues in public will ultimately be governed by what one personally believs in. And when we reach dead ends, our democracy relies on its votes and courts to carry the day.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 09:53 am (UTC)I don't carry my religion into open discussion because I think that most people really don't want to hear about one's religion. And people really don't want to hear about my religion in public discourse, because it's hard to explain.
And I don't ask people to abide by the tenets of my religion. I don't ask them to do the things I do or believe the things that I believe, just as I think they should not ask me to do the things they do and believe the things that they believe.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the basis of governance and law in American society, or rather, they should be - as there have been rather egregious violations of same by the people in public office who are supposed to be protecting these things. Morality is personal; Ethics are common sense. Every religion has "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" encoded in its DNA somewhere.
however that being said, there are many people on the Right, and more correctly the Far Right Fundamentalist Christian Right, who are bringing unarguable first principles to the table. Unarguable in that they do not wish to argue about them, nor do they wish to hear any dissent. This frightens me, and the loudness of their voices in public discourse frightens me. And frightened people very often become angry, and fight back with the force they feel the Other is using toward them.
Frustration: they do not stop. Dominionist theology, which is the primary mode of thought in the far right fundamentalist christian camp, does not brook dissent, and it does not tire or waver. In being this way it demands a response of the same kind from those who do not cling to this "moral" framework; every action produces a reaction, everyone sees the flipside of themselves when they look in the mirror.
Agreeing to disagree is part of the problem; debate and, insofar as it is capable, objective decision making that takes all points of view into account is part of the solution.
These are human things, governance is or should be decided by the people. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He drew a sharp line between political involvement and spiritual involvement. This can be seen over and over again in the New Testament. The story of the Pharisees who asked why Jesus didn't pay taxes is an example; Jesus cared so little about their opinion that he had Peter go down to the sea and catch a fish, and in the fish's mouth was enough money to pay for both Peter and himself. By which Jesus was saying (IMHO) that he simply could not be bothered; his work was elsewhere, and if they wanted taxes then they would have them. Which is when he said the "render" line.
another example: when the soldiers came to get him in the Garden, and Peter pulled a sword and struck off a soldier's ear. Jesus told Peter in no uncertain terms to put away his sword, and promptly healed the soldier's ear.
Peter, like a modern fundamentalist, was willing to war over what he believed was right. Jesus knew more about what was going to happen, and stopped it, because Peter would have interfered with the plan.
historically, when Christians believe they know the future - when they believe they know better than God, and when they try to inflict their values (which may be erroneous; look at Cotton Mather for an example) on the society, the worst always, always happens.
Spirituality is a private matter. Rules of societal conduct are in the laws and the constitution.
Which is why Tom DeLay scares me with his talk of revenging himself on judges. The ghost of Cotton Mather looks at us over DeLay's shoulder and gives a mocking Puritan laugh as he watches the so-called witches swing from the gallows, and he hisses, "God's work is done." what God did he serve by killing crazy old ladies and grumpy old men who did not agree with the Puritans' views?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 04:57 pm (UTC)Personally I am not sure about this. I think that morals and ethics are, or should be based on, what works for the greatest good of the individual and of the society at large, as much as possible. I suppose this makes me an ethical relativist, but I think my lines are more firmly drawn than that term would indicate.