[lit-ideas] Re: Shadows, Fog, and Money

  • From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:06:55 +0900

On 2005/06/13, at 14:19, Andy Amago wrote:

> See above.  My definition of religious person is someone who can't
> imagine life without a tooth fairy to guide them along, tell them  
> right
> from wrong, give them a reason to live.  Please, I'm making myself  
> sick
> thinking about this.  I'm going to bed.


Andy,

Max Weber once distinguished between those who are "religiously  
musical" and those who are not. I would add that the music in  
question may be as different as Heavy Metal and Mozart.

Seriously, in much of the world, the discussion you are having with  
Marlene and others does not arise. Why? The issue of whether or not  
to accept the proposition that we should live our lives as the one  
God commands does not arise. Gods and goddesses are plural and  
themselves only a subset of spirits that include ghosts, demons,  
ancestors, etc. In this context, the choices are neither complete  
acceptance nor complete rejection of statements concerning spirits,  
but rather how to deal with spirits, depending on whether you need a  
favor, need to get them off your back, or, perhaps, simply to behave  
as if they were present to perform a ritual properly.

This last option is, by the way, the one recommended by Confucius,  
who famously says, in the Analects, that a gentleman should perform  
the rites as though the spirits were present but should avoid  
discussions about them.  A Confucianist following the Master's advice  
would have no trouble,

(1) saying "one nation under God" (a perfectly acceptable pretense  
for the sake of performing the ritual),
(2) see uttering these words as socially useful (helping to maintain  
a certain form of social order), and
(3) being utterly unconcerned with whether God exists, the more  
pressing issue being whether the rules articulated in his name define  
the way a society ought properly to be run  (debates about the rules  
are rationale, debating the existence of God is not).

Interesting, what.

John McCreery






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