Believer or Atheist:: A Range of Possibility
Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion places human judgement about the existence of God on a 7-point scale ranging from #1 - strong theist (100% sure of God's existence) to #7 - strong atheist (100% sure that God does not exist), with #4 - impartial agnostic (exactly 50%). For the "strong theist he posits the words of C.G. Jung: "I don't believe, I know."
Where do I place myself? Oh, I'm happy to place myself in the strong theist category along with C.G. Jung (or, if not quite as strong, close to it!). I've read that line of Jung's before and it resonated with me. Jung also had an inscription placed over his doorway in Latin that translated to "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." But, and I think it's a very important "but," Jung had a very broad understanding of God and religious belief, and his work on dreams, on myth and symbol (which I think is the only way of getting at religious truth) is tremendously important. Jung believed in the "collective unconscious" as the source of archetypal symbolic figures such as the anima, the shadow and the hero and so on that are found in the psyche. He was curious and very much interested in scientific exploration.
Dawkins dismisses Jung as a crackpot I imagine! (If I remember correctly he says Jung had books on his shelf that exploded with a loud bang.) But what of Joseph Campbell? I looked in vain in Dawkins' book for mention of Joseph Campbell, whose work is synonymous with the study of myth in religion. Dawkins is quick to ridicule such Christian "beliefs" as the virgin birth, but Campbell explains that "the mythic image of the virgin birth refers to the birth of the spiritual life in the human animal" (An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Michael Toms).
I don't think it's enough to just say the core beliefs of Christians are mad, ridiculous, insane and so on! That the New Testament is factually dubious, that the virgin birth is a legend, that the Old Testament is definitely not history, that there was no literal creation 'in seven days' and so on: there are many religious Christians who would agree on these points. But on many points of belief or doctrine one has to look at the historical development and the meaning behind the statements.
I cannot think of the author's name right now, but in The Gifts of the Jews we are led to appreciate the evolution of belief in one God from the gods who dwelt in rocks and in specific places to God who walks with mankind (Abraham). You would think that Dawkins, being such a firm Darwinian scientist could see some of the evolution of ideas without being so one-sided! Oh, sure, the Old Testament God is sometimes a petty, unjust, racist, bloodthirsty tyrant, but he is also the One who leads the Israelites out of bondage, who never gives up on them, who is healer and consoler and shepherd. Actually, now that I think of it, one could probably say that the whole history of religion is a great evolutionary epic!
Where do I place myself? Oh, I'm happy to place myself in the strong theist category along with C.G. Jung (or, if not quite as strong, close to it!). I've read that line of Jung's before and it resonated with me. Jung also had an inscription placed over his doorway in Latin that translated to "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." But, and I think it's a very important "but," Jung had a very broad understanding of God and religious belief, and his work on dreams, on myth and symbol (which I think is the only way of getting at religious truth) is tremendously important. Jung believed in the "collective unconscious" as the source of archetypal symbolic figures such as the anima, the shadow and the hero and so on that are found in the psyche. He was curious and very much interested in scientific exploration.
Dawkins dismisses Jung as a crackpot I imagine! (If I remember correctly he says Jung had books on his shelf that exploded with a loud bang.) But what of Joseph Campbell? I looked in vain in Dawkins' book for mention of Joseph Campbell, whose work is synonymous with the study of myth in religion. Dawkins is quick to ridicule such Christian "beliefs" as the virgin birth, but Campbell explains that "the mythic image of the virgin birth refers to the birth of the spiritual life in the human animal" (An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Michael Toms).
I don't think it's enough to just say the core beliefs of Christians are mad, ridiculous, insane and so on! That the New Testament is factually dubious, that the virgin birth is a legend, that the Old Testament is definitely not history, that there was no literal creation 'in seven days' and so on: there are many religious Christians who would agree on these points. But on many points of belief or doctrine one has to look at the historical development and the meaning behind the statements.
I cannot think of the author's name right now, but in The Gifts of the Jews we are led to appreciate the evolution of belief in one God from the gods who dwelt in rocks and in specific places to God who walks with mankind (Abraham). You would think that Dawkins, being such a firm Darwinian scientist could see some of the evolution of ideas without being so one-sided! Oh, sure, the Old Testament God is sometimes a petty, unjust, racist, bloodthirsty tyrant, but he is also the One who leads the Israelites out of bondage, who never gives up on them, who is healer and consoler and shepherd. Actually, now that I think of it, one could probably say that the whole history of religion is a great evolutionary epic!
Labels: God religion atheism books
posted by mamie @ 7:47 PM
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