Art as Truth

Art is the lie that tells the truth – Picasso

I was surprised to see such an overt religious theme in Avatar. Moreover, I was surprised that the scientists were upholding the natives religious belief as important, while the Marines were ready to burn the world down. That, if trends are accurate, is upside down. Lately it seems that the scientists are the ones calling people of belief idiots while more Marines than scientists (if I had a guess) have some sense of faith. Could just be the headlines though.

In any case what I found interesting was the scientists inability to understand the significance of the belief. They needed to understand the mechanistic ways in order to fully appreciate and believe in it. The natives lack any mechanistic world view, and therefore mechanistic view of their deity Eywa. It doesn’t matter how for them, only the meaning of the deity. And it seems the scientists cannot find any meaning for Eywa *beyond* the mechanistic one. Whatever ends justify the mechanistic means, and the ends have no appreciation for religious belief. So when someone tells you that full-blown naturalism is not a value-judgment, think again.

But I must wonder just what it means that all of this art continues to look past the mechanistic understanding. The only way they can find mystery is to encounter something they don’t mechanistically understand. But once it is understood, its over and done with. At least art continues to mine this well – because there is more out there. And I wonder if we’ll ever move past this mechanistic approach to everything.

Update

Apparently I’m far too optimistic when I look at things, Cameron gets a new hole from Dunedin.

Warm and Fuzzy

Through these cold winter months I am reminded that I am warm and fuzzy inside when I look at the toaster on my desk

Caprica’s Commentary

The Battlestar Galactica commentary on religion and belief continues on in the new series Caprica (you know you want to watch it!) set 50 years before the Cylon attack that opens the traditional story-line. Ronald Moore has been on record that his treatment of religious motifs is entirely on purpose, meaningful, and meant to be entirely serious. I happpened to run across a scholarly article (Rejecting Monotheism? Polytheism, Pluralism, and Battlestar Galactica, though I’ve misplaced the author) on the topic – so people are taking this seriously.

I’ve only seen the pilot so far, but the investigation in the plot (no spoilers) is hell bent on portraying monotheism as a minority movement creating radical, even, fundamentalist ethics. The abstract of the previously mentioned article purports to argue that polytheistic religion tends to create societies with greater degrees of toleration. I’m not sure how they’d argue such a case or Hinduism in India, but, there it is.

By the end of the 90 minute pilot they’ve also shown engagement with philosophical thoughts, namely, what makes us human, or which parts of us hold our humanity. Not exactly light topics, but topics that religions have fought tirelessly with. This series is not to be missed!

Copyright For Real

Lessig is at his best in this talk given just last month. If you care about creativity, publishing (scholarly or not), copyright, or the internet – you MUST watch this

Theories of Knowing

Over at the Tea Shop they’re talking about fortifying SBL against theologizers. I felt curious about the issue, since last year when I was at SBL here in Boston – Nawlins is just too far for a poor student like myself – I was not under the impression that SBL was being taken in such a fashion. It might be my naivete, or I picked some good sections, who knows.

In going through his discussion, I found this little bit: “some presentations seem to construe the Bible as the primary human text“. I find the objection to the possibility of such an idea strange. If one looks at the text through the critical lens, two billion people religiously find the text as their own. If we were to add in Muslims who honor the Biblical texts to a degree, that is another one and a half billion people. That is over half of the world who identify primarily with this text. That does not even count those who culturally are informed, either actively or passively, by this text. And that is only at this point in history. So, it seems an argument could be made to suggest that this is the primary text by which humanity sees itself, or has seen itself, or is at least in tension or heavily informed by. All this within a critical point of view. It would seem the existence of such a society named The Society of Biblical Literature and the lack of any other major religious literature society would have brought this point into clarity. But, whatever.

I commented to try and find the perimeter, the shape, of this secularizing argument:

I’ve often wondered about where the line of theology is drawn, so I’m glad you’ve brought it up. There must be some element of doing theology that is equally critical as critically examining someone else’s theology. Wouldn’t restricting sessions to only critiques create a situation in which theologies are only destroyed/lessened/rendered lame, rather than be constructive. And that constructiveness need not only be constructive for a specific group (e.g. the church), but for any group, and perhaps, hopefully, all groups? I guess I wonder at the specific audience-focused nature of some sessions that are permissible (feminist, lgbt) while some are not (faith-based). Granted, anyone refusing to be critical or academic in any of these specific audience-focused groups should be refused. I would find it strange that a group for theological readings of lgbt or feminist issues would be permissible while a group for theological readings of ecclesiastical issues would be denied (especially while lgbt and feminist issues are more and more being brought directly into ecclesiastical situations.)

I think the aspect of being constructive is important, for all disciplines. Critical science is able to construct an understanding based on its premises. In all of this thinking I’ve found Jon D. Levenson’s two essays on this topic to be very formative. It is incredibly valuable that we all agree on the historical and critical methods by which we investigate these texts. We flatly do not, and cannot know about the authorship and history behind theses texts. The texts aren’t intended to tell us about this information. The critical methods have been developed to get us some of these answers. However, as Levenson argues, this method is just another system of knowing. All systems of knowing have an equal claim. Religious knowledge is another system of knowledge.

As the tea shop was so quick to point out, critical scholarship is incapable of making a value judgment. I would agree. However, one must recognize the critical project as a value judgment as well. Philosophers have gone well past recognizing the modernity project as failing at the attempt to be fully objective. Of course, religious knowledge are also making value judgments, that is no where in dispute. Why are we unable to recognize this fact? As a person of faith I am able to live in two worlds, the critical world as a would-be-someday scholar, and the religious world. I find some critical results to impact my world of faith. And my world of faith often gives interests and leads to my critical world. I don’t find these two offices to be antithetical whatsoever. As far as SBL goes, if the organization decides to make some sort of statement towards groups that are operating outside the critical method, that is fine. But as Levenson points out, those who only operate within the critical world have no business saying that the value judgments another system of knowledge (within which they don’t operate) are unbelievable.

Best Thing I Have Read

on the web in a long timehttp://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/12/blogs-are-godless-communist-bullshit.html

Fort Hood

I was just reading Time Magazine’s Cover Story about the Ft. Hood incident, in the actual printed version, and was really shocked by a few things – basic presumptions that people have about religion. I think the author’s main point was to question the treatment of this act under the question of “Is it terrorism?”. I recognize the administration’s point of refusing to label it terrorism, the power of that speech-act would be huge. It is not a refusal to admit anything, it is a refusal to give it power. I just wish that point was better made. What caught me were these basic assumptions that never get talked about or questioned.

#1 Being PC

Everyone seems to assume that being politically correct is a good thing. The way I see it, being politically correct is by no means “the desire to protect diversity” – as the author put it. Being politically correct shows that you only care about following the rules, not meaningfully interacting with that diversity. It is the perfect way to show someone you don’t care what they’re saying.

#2 Valuing Religious Traditions

The author described Hasan’s valuing Shari’a law above the Constitution as an alarm bell. If the journalist did his homework he would recognize just what a volatile issue this remains at the level of society. Specifically in Britain and France it has ignited concerns. So much so that Archbishop Rowan Williams discussed the very idea of allowing Muslims in Britain to live under Sharia civilly and the government should find a way to accommodate that. Of course the media misunderstood the issue then, just as they do now.

The refusal to give a true allowance of space to people to practice their religion in public life is one cause of all of these issues. Giving that space would cause society at large to meaningfully interact with these ideas. It is the blase PC treatment of difference, hand-waving it as “permissible” which removes religion as a distinctive for identity. Underneath we are all “Americans” striving towards the same ideal, when clearly we are all different – and still Americans. These individuals and community want to be distinctive. They do not find their sole identity in an “American” story, but also in the story of Islam.

Orthodox Salvation

[HT: Jesus Creed]

Turning Around a Wanderer

I came across these dueling articles, written by the same author, claiming that the only real theologians are Rowan Williams, and then Pope Benedict. Funny titles with serious content, and serious critique of “doing Theology”. James’ entire point is that “doing Theology” is not about arguing:

At the end of the day, academic theology is just about being intellectually sexy, about trying to coin some technical distinction in thought, about being the first to introduce some unknown figure into a debate or trying to mediate a debate through appeal to other thinkers. It is concerned with advancing a body of knowledge, either for the sake of one’s career or, for the slightly more noble, for the state of knowledge. The whole enterprise is purely cerebral, and even that may be too high a compliment.

I never understood, and therefore shied away from, arguing about theology. It seemed far too open ended to produce anything constructive. Without any anchors in confessions, epistemology, or even historical facts building castles in the air is far too easy, and so very impractical. And I’m a pretty cerebral, impractical, academic guy.

So I’ve largely kept away from theology, focusing instead on historical studies (initially from an equally backward approach of restorationism). But, as I’ve encountered more catholic theology I am finding precisely James’ point, that theology is about being affected by God and by that theology. It isn’t, necessarily, about an argument, but about a way forward to being altered by God and the way one thinks about spiritual issues.

For those who find themselves wandering into odd theological concepts I offer this catholic thought as a way of being grounded. Not that you come to the same conclusions – but it is at least a starting point, and operating in a coherent framework about what it means to think theologically. And that theology is true not just mental asentions to propositions that “orders your mental world”. I’m finding joy in being messy, because that is what we are. (Though if Prothero happens to wander over here: I’m not discounting wandering, I look forward to your book on the subject).