Intelligent Religion
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Posted by Matt Berry on June 14, 1998 at 17:59:12:
In Reply to: Intelligence & Religion posted by blue on June 13, 1998 at 23:05:28:
It's one thing to claim to be elite. It's another to build your faith upon the wisdom of the ages as revealed in the Bible.
Is someone who "builds faith upon the wisdom of the ages as revealed in the" Upanishads inferior to a believer in the Bible?
If "No," then we're all OK ... and no single metaphor is superior to another ... and perhaps we can set aside this constant Biblical drumming, when it becomes inappropriate.
However, this post implies and your other post directly asserts that the Bible is THE one and only true signpost. Then, if "Yes" is indeed your answer, then you are saying that believers in the Bible, as THE only true believers, are the elite. This is a key motive for the "true believer" of any sort of religion: the Flat Earth Society, Sokka Gakkai (new Buddhist cult in Japan, now making moves in the US), the Mormons, ... etc. All claim to be "elite."
I have recognized this in my own Mormon life, for which I thank Eric Hoffer: This sense of "superiority" is the means by which the True Believer borrows self-esteem from some external source ... like the Christian from the infallibility of the Bible, the Mormon from the excellence of the institution, or the biker from a spiffy motorcycle outfit. It implies, however, a personal sense of worthlessness. One has no inherent confidence in one's own existence, one's own relationship to factual reality, one's own social status, one's own conclusions or ability. Consequently, one seeks externally for some sort of compensation, something special -- like an excessive collection of Biblical facts -- which would then present the opportunity to demonstrate to others a personal illusion of "moral superiority."
I now rely on the "moral superiority" of grounded reasoning. This reliance increases a personal confidence in my own abilities, at the expense of external reliances (like the superiority over my own thoughts of the "Word of the Bible"). Ironically, scriptures begin to make sense, "The truth shall set you free," and "The Kingdom of God is within you." Ironically, the Truth sets me free ... even of the Bible.
But, if the need for the moral superiority of some external "One and Only" is not your motive ... then there must be something more which distinguishes you from these other cults. Something which makes you truly superior. What is that something more?
One possibility: Your personal cultural inheritance.
If you were born in the heart of China, and throughout your entire life never heard a word of the Bible, you most certainly would not have a faith in the Bible. Are you, as a believer in the Bible, merely fortunate? Or is your acceptance upon the Bible entirely dependent upon an accidental cultural inheritance? (Please don't skip over this point.) Is God a respecter of persons? Or is Salvation regionally dependent? God saves souls, regionally, in the same manner that he plants a cactus which can only grow in one part of the world but not another.(?)
Not at all. God chooses people without regard to their intelligence. I attend a weeknight Bible study with about 100 others, of
whom I'd guess at least 80 have a bachelor's degree of some sort, and in which at least a dozen are the academic elite of our
metro area.
But then I had a homeless man stroll into my Sunday School class a couple of weeks ago. He was barely literate, yet I was
shocked at his perception of Spiritual truth.
Was this a case of clear thinking or muddled thinking? (He obviously wasn't speaking gibberish.) I hope that you're saying that this was a case of clear-thinking and that you are simply making a distinction between the possession of academic credentials and real intelligence? (Real intelligence = clear-thinking, right?) But I hope you are not hinting that clear-thinking and spirituality just might be opposed to each other? These are two different issues. It is unclear to me which one you are asserting.
a) There are people who have academic credentials but who are not clear-thinkers (I agree)
b) Thinking clearly is inconducive to Faith in God. (If this were so, would a frontal lobotomy be the easiest way to God? Won't I be a sucker for the nearest emotion-based religion? For example, Mormonism or the Flat Earth Society?)
Which is it?
What is the difference between thinking clearly and intelligence?
You can't "think your way" into or out of the city of God. But we are all responsible to use whatever faculties we have been
given to study and grow in the Lord. Without that, your life goes nowhere.
Matching this post up with your other post: The Bible is the one and only signpost to God. So, a Buddhist has no possibility of growth unless he studies the Bible? Does that sort of God -- regionally biased -- make sense to you?
I'm confused: "You cannot think your way" but "we are all responsible to use whatever faculty we have been given."
If we are "responsible" then we must keep up our guard so that we are not deceived. We don't want to be fooled away from Truth. So we need to be "responsible" and use our "faculties" to avoid this deceit. (So far we agree, right?) However, once our guard is up for deceit (I.E., we use a little skepticism to uncover all lies and self-deceit ) then you suggest again, that we let that guard down: "You can't think your way." Now, when one stops thinking, when one's skeptical guard is no longer up, and any belief becomes possible again, and that will most likely be the nearest belief ... which is usually the belief of one's own inherited culture. No real choice has been made, even though the believer asserts, sincerely, to the contrary. This is the very definition of "smugness," but not genuine belief.
The institutional survival of a religion requires, first and foremost, the condemnation of the intellect -- clear thinking. Once that is done, once the subject no longer thinks or questions, he is completely tractable. So my questions are:
- At what point do you suggest that we stop thinking?
- But more importantly, at what point do we start thinking? Do we start with the presumption of the One and Only Bible or with the presumption of our own relationship to factual reality? Which is more responsible?
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