Comments on: Letter to a Christian Nation

By: knotano

knotano — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:47:55 +0000

Thanks for the insight, India. That poem could almost be a movie.

By: Deron Bauman

Deron Bauman — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 02:17:38 +0000

John, I appreciate both your comments and though I recognize what I am about to say is offensive I say it not as a means to offend (if that distinction means anything useful in this case.)

what I meant by ‘what is intellectual about christianity’ is this:

what is intellectual about the virgin birth, original sin, walking on water, the divinity of christ, turning water into wine, the resurrection, etc.

these things can only be taken on faith, there is no intellectual component to them, just as there is no intellectual component to a belief in the flying spaghetti monster.

over time, an intellectual tradition can be built up around either of them, but that doesn’t negate the fact that, at its core, a belief in the flying spaghetti monster and a belief in christianity, or judiasm, or islam, requires the opposite of the intellect.

all of the extraneous things you mention have intellectual components to them but are not central to christian belief. they are components of the intellectual tradition of christianity.

there’s a big difference.

in that sense, there is no difference in a fundamentalist christian and an intellectual christian (I have been one), both believe in the divinity of christ, an article that can, again, only be based on faith.

which, again, has nothing to do with the intellect.

By: India

India — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:50:46 +0000

I'm not getting into this discussion. Really, I'm not. But Knotano's mention of Giordano Bruno above made me remember this poem by Heather McHugh: What He Thought.

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:31:22 +0000

Deron: I agree. I’m happy to see that John is not offended by this thread, and that his intellectual curiosity remains intact–but for me, one may “be” an intellectual only by way of a capacity to call all knowledge into question. This thought usually elicits the quick leap to much sneering about relativism, but as I have said before in other posts, all of us move through life by way of various kinds of faith, and sincerely questioning the basis for such faith doesn’t, therefore, make jelly of the questioner. But imagine a scientist who says he or she believes in the scientific method–some of the time. Dawkins points out that he has known people who went to the trouble of taking a PhD in Biology, only for the purpose of undermining specific concepts commonly held by other members of the field. The fact that a person can do this doesn’t make them a scientist or an intellectual, since an essential level of questioning will always be absent in a person who persists in such an approach. I have to say that I think the same with respect to those who, like the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, see philosophy as the mere handmaiden of theology. John speaks of Aristotle in glowing terms, but seems to underplay the centuries of intellectual gymnastics brought to the task of making Aristotle’s ideas conform to concepts the man would have argued against. What bothers me about the constant reshaping of “inconvenient” ideas that goes for intellectual rigor in some circles, is that there is seldom seen in it the courage to stand up and say: I will set aside a belief when the mind and perception I bring to the search for truth tells me that some other view is superior to the old one.

I don’t want to approach the world of ideas through a process of transforming all I encounter into that which makes a case for what I already know to be “true.”

By: John Pakaluk

John Pakaluk — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:42:33 +0000

I ought to add: I am not offended, nor uncomfortable, nor etc.

It’s funny, no?, how what people believe hardly affects how they interact with real people in real life.

A strange fact: the majority of my close friends here at TAC freshman year were agnostic or protestant, who make up maybe %5 of the total population of the school.

By: John Pakaluk

John Pakaluk — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:31:40 +0000

Cindy, I’ve said it before on a Clusterflock page: in my mind, people like Pat Robertson are as far from Aquinas as Dawkins. That Dawkins speaks so vituperously about Christianity is about as hurtful to me as an intellectual as a southern Christian loony ranting about evolution or the big bang. I think both are essentially equal in intellectual dishonesty and immaturity.

Deron: eternity, time, being, non-being, creation, truth, goodness, evil, will, consciousness, immortality, death, life, action, potency, motion, essense, morality, politics…

By: Deron Bauman

Deron Bauman — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:22:14 +0000

well said, Cindy. my distate for Christianity is only hightened by it’s southern form. in the end, I believe, and there is no way to say this unoffensively, what is there in Christianity to be intellectual about?

By: Cindy Scroggins

Cindy Scroggins — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:07:42 +0000

This is certainly an interesting thread, and I’ve been thinking over Sheila’s suggestion that Texas itself is the root of much of the anti-Christian sentiments held by many Flockers. Texas and the entire American South have been (and largely remain) a haven for anti-intellectual Christianity. But most of my friends are from other parts of the country and other parts of the world, and on the whole we share the same views about religion in general and Christianity in particular.
What strikes me as the anomaly is not the experience of those of us in Texas, but the intellectual approach to Christianity often expressed here by John P and Andrew. Is it really the case that the rest of the country is filled with religious intellectuals, and I’m simply not hearing them because I’m stuck in Texas? Are the din and roar of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson drowning out the strong voices of intellectual Christians?
I’ve made this point before, but I want to say it without equivocation: Anyone concerned that Christians are getting a bad rap by Dawkins, Harris and others would better serve the cause by speaking out against the aggressively stupid who appear to have commandeered Christianity. Perpetuating a disdainful solidarity accomplishes nothing.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 01:03:39 +0000

John, that was a good one.

By: knotano

knotano — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:50:45 +0000

How regrettable was Giordano Bruno?