[BRIEF NOTE] Some notes on faith
May. 31st, 2010 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTall Penguin, the blog of a co-worker of mine, became famous when P.Z. Myers linked to a picture of our bookstore's Bible section stripped of Bibles by some amused people. People strayed for her accounts of the life that she built after she left the denomination of the Jehovah's Witnesses behind, how she started to radically reconsider her world from that point. She gained such famed that she became the subject of a podcast interview at the blog Irreligiosity.
The interview is great; hers is a terrible story. The extent to which the denomination sought to manipulate people--to isolate them by discouraging them from critical thinking via higher education, by lying about the procedures determining doctrine, by reversing doctrines arbitrarily (one moment receiving organ donations was cannibalism, the next it was acceptable) at the expense of so many lies--horrifies me. The doctrine of the 144 000 people who would ascend to heaven in the end times, strained by the fact that the current number of Jehovah's Witnesses number in the million, is ridiculous: arguing that people in the past who seemed faithful were not and that it is quite possible that people with true faith will replace the bad one is as self-serving as any that I think of. And Tall Penguin broke away from all that, simply because of a chance encounter that she had with a book that her partner had brought home, something that inspires her to think critically about her universe. Given the denomination's dislike for engagement with outside thoughts, and its appalling desire to police the innermost thoughts, it isn't surprising that she was a victim of a shunning.
Faith is something that I have been engaging with personally of late; I still go to St. Thomas's. I've found it centering; I like the idea of structure. At the same time, the idea of faith that supposes itself to be beyond reason appalls me. I would like to believe that I can have a faith that is compatible reason: if I was asked to believe something unbelievable--if, in short, it seems to violate natural law--I wouldn't be attending St. Thomas's. (Yes, I think there can be natural law, of a sort at least. Read Robert Wright's Non Zero for more.) I would like to think that it is possible to combine an informed faith with respect for reason. I think it is possible. Certainly Tall Penguin's story confirms that there are some faiths that are entirely uninterested in reason. Is that a risk for all denominations?
What do you all think? I would be interesting in hearing from others.
The interview is great; hers is a terrible story. The extent to which the denomination sought to manipulate people--to isolate them by discouraging them from critical thinking via higher education, by lying about the procedures determining doctrine, by reversing doctrines arbitrarily (one moment receiving organ donations was cannibalism, the next it was acceptable) at the expense of so many lies--horrifies me. The doctrine of the 144 000 people who would ascend to heaven in the end times, strained by the fact that the current number of Jehovah's Witnesses number in the million, is ridiculous: arguing that people in the past who seemed faithful were not and that it is quite possible that people with true faith will replace the bad one is as self-serving as any that I think of. And Tall Penguin broke away from all that, simply because of a chance encounter that she had with a book that her partner had brought home, something that inspires her to think critically about her universe. Given the denomination's dislike for engagement with outside thoughts, and its appalling desire to police the innermost thoughts, it isn't surprising that she was a victim of a shunning.
Faith is something that I have been engaging with personally of late; I still go to St. Thomas's. I've found it centering; I like the idea of structure. At the same time, the idea of faith that supposes itself to be beyond reason appalls me. I would like to believe that I can have a faith that is compatible reason: if I was asked to believe something unbelievable--if, in short, it seems to violate natural law--I wouldn't be attending St. Thomas's. (Yes, I think there can be natural law, of a sort at least. Read Robert Wright's Non Zero for more.) I would like to think that it is possible to combine an informed faith with respect for reason. I think it is possible. Certainly Tall Penguin's story confirms that there are some faiths that are entirely uninterested in reason. Is that a risk for all denominations?
What do you all think? I would be interesting in hearing from others.
