tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post7251110826660919346..comments2024-02-19T10:15:55.380+00:00Comments on CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints: Palm Sunday - "ein wirklicher Ausverkauf", a real clearance sale or there's no such thing as a free smorgasbord . . .Andrew James Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02693417061963197121noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post-54017558540030140392010-04-05T03:15:40.721+01:002010-04-05T03:15:40.721+01:00Hi Andrew,
I think you've hit the nail on the...Hi Andrew,<br /><br />I think you've hit the nail on the head - at least in so far as my own experiences go. Having gone from radical Christianity through agnosticism to - well, more agnosticism - originally triggered by the realisation that punishment for erroneous belief didn't add up, I feel somewhat like a microcosm of the historical shift you set up. It's very helpful to have that articulated (the explanation for the anxiety caused was an added bonus!).<br /><br />I have to say that I would like to feel strongly committed to a set of ethics, along the lines for freedom, reason etc. I'm just not sure I know what these things mean, or what they mean for humans when they are generalised beyond the local situation. What happens when reason and inclusivity are at loggerheads? Or wisdom and freedom? Or (heaven forbid!;) reason and love? I think if I could stake out a principle that I feel I can't do without, it would be self-honesty - interrogating everything I think to make sure that I really think it, and to find out why. But I'm not sure this is really an ethic, or even possible.<br /><br />Jess<br />ps - hello from America! This may well be my annual email to you all :o) If it's any excuse (and it isn't), I'm even worse at keeping in touch with my mother.Jessnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post-16377357789384517592010-04-01T15:21:54.781+01:002010-04-01T15:21:54.781+01:00Dear Anon.,
Thanks for your point - which is corr...Dear Anon.,<br /><br />Thanks for your point - which is correct as far as it goes. However, as the new British Social Attitudes Survey 2010 suggests, that the growth in the groups you mention is being outweighed by the loss of membership in Anglican, RC and other mainstream Christian churches. Th headline figures are as follows. <br /><br />No religion - in 1983 it was 31% and in 2008 43%.<br /><br />Christian (as a whole) - in 1983 it was 66% and in 2008 50%.<br /><br />Non-Christian - in 1983 it was 2% and in 2008 7%.<br /><br />In short, with regards to the UK (which is all I claim to know anything about) I fear my basic point stands.Andrew James Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02693417061963197121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post-44945500735116466542010-04-01T13:18:24.149+01:002010-04-01T13:18:24.149+01:00Religious belief may well be declining in your (li...Religious belief may well be declining in your (liberal intelligentsia) circle, but not in all circles in Europe.<br /><br />Emergent Christianity, Evangelical Christianity, Western Buddhism, Euro-Islam are all growing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post-90177197499302210292010-03-30T18:32:49.283+01:002010-03-30T18:32:49.283+01:00Thanks Yewtree, as always, for your comment.
I, l...Thanks Yewtree, as always, for your comment.<br /><br />I, like you, think that values and ethics should and could be sufficient unto the day but, especially given the decline in traditional religious belief and the general distrust (at least in Western Europe) in the truth of metaphysics, it seems to me urgent that one finds ways to move confidently and openly towards a non-foundationalist ethics. That is a really hard thing to do for a liberal tradition (such as the Unitarian one) which is essentially Platonist (and even when it was a wholly Christian movement - capital C - it was a Platonic Christianity). I think this move is important to make because of the most interesting things that seems to be coming out of the new physics is that the Platonic understanding of the nature of universe is increasingly looking like it is just plain wrong (see the work of Bernard d'Espagnat on this matter).<br /><br />On that lighter note, I'm glad you like the blog makeover.Andrew James Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02693417061963197121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5144051388547159240.post-929324214184258672010-03-30T09:42:53.663+01:002010-03-30T09:42:53.663+01:00You make some very interesting and compelling poin...You make some very interesting and compelling points.<br /><br />However, I feel myself to be very strongly committed to a set of ethics (freedom, reason, inclusivity, truth, justice, wisdom, love) against which I test all my actions. I sincerely hope that if I were put to the test, I would defend these values. I hope I would have been like Mary Magdalene and not like Peter, but I am all too aware that I might fail in that. These ethics trump all other considerations. So yes, religion/belief has failed to retain its grip on people, but I do not think that ethics have failed to do so (not in all cases, anyway).<br /><br />I admire the liberal version of Jesus because he also seems to have been committed to these ethics. I don't hold the values because he held them; I admire him because he held them (and likewise Gandhi, Buddha and Martin Luther King).<br /><br />I think the story of Palm Sunday reminds us that we can get up and start again after we have failed to show commitment. Like Martin Niemöller.<br /><br />(On a lighter note, I like your new blog design.)Yewtreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02028699564003381058noreply@blogger.com