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The antagonism between fundamentalist atheism and religious tradition show few signs of letting up and with the advent of the most important 'Christian' holiday coming up, expect more mud slinging to take place. One particularly good recent article taking atheism to task was John Gray's recent review in the London Guardian, The Atheist Illusion, yet however eloquent Mr. Gray's arguments may be, like all who have come before him, he is unable to address the defining question of religious belief tucked away within his review, but made clear quoting Daniel Dennett, 'the proposition that God exists is not even a theory'. And there lies the rub. To many, God has become just an idea competing with others and often discredited by the very traditions who claim to speak in the name of that potential reality. Whatever presumption to 'authority', tradition is not part of any criteria for truth the modern world has come to understand and trust. And if founded upon error, is equally capable of perpetuating illusions from one generation to the next as furthering any ideals of virtue or wisdom. And after several thousand years to make its case, religion remains unable to demonstrate its claims to represent a reality which history is unable to either confirm or deny successfully. The argument continues.While religion and secularism throw historical body counts at each other, as if any difference in the millions killed throughout history by either religious or secular tyranny, ideologies or theologies, gives one side a 'moral' edge, the God question always ends up back at square one. What the 'combined wisdom' of both religion and science can agree on is that a literal proof of God is not possible. A very big assumption considering the amount of evidential, descriptive material within the scriptural record. But of course if the case were otherwise, it would deny all monotheism its claims, humble science and bringing down any number of ivory towers. [a nice thought eh?]
In the West, atheism thinks it's on a roll. The religious narrative that God is somehow mysteriously intervening to make the world a better place is unraveling and less plausible every day civilization confronts new apocalyptic senarios of its own making, causing high anxiety within Christianity, which then falls back to a kind of 'we'll have the last laugh' messianic expectation which never seems to arrive, increasing their existential angst even more.
So here comes 'holy week' once more when Christian churches hope to replenish their coffers by celebrating the central tenet of Christianity: God's 'promise' of The Resurrection. The problem with the Resurrection taught by orthodoxy is that in the real world, a 'promise' is something, the worth of which we discover for ourselves, confirming both the integrity, honesty and the reality of the promise giver. An open ended promise begins to smell fishy at the very least? Whether this theological interpretation of scripture 'revealed' by tradition is true or not is yet to be known and remains open to valid doubts. Apologists would say that is the nature of faith, but they would wouldn't they?
A closer consideration of what a Promise is makes plain the incredulousness of the orthodox account. Lets start from the Oxford English dictionary for promise: 'An assurance that one will or will not undertake a certain action.' Thus accepting any assurance presumes an act of faith or trust in the expectation of results. We spend our whole lives learning, often the hard way, who we can or not trust, sometimes including ourselves? It is an intrinsic part of every relationship. And this is no abstraction. By offering trust as faith to anyone, we make ourselves intentionally or unintentionally vulnerable as the only way to discover whether that faith is well or missed placed. Whether the promise is true of not true. We expect to discover the honesty and integrity of the promise giver in whom we put our faith. Every promise is therefore a test of integrity and validity for both sides in a relationship. And the ends are self evident.
So if God is going to make a 'promise' as considerable as the Resurrection, it's not too much to expect that ones faith should lead to a result, an act confirming the nature of the relationship. Contrary to New Testament scripture, the 'promise' or 'word' of God defined by tradition has never been able to offer a faith that meets such a high standard. It's no wonder that atheism is having a field day.
That's where atheism grounded in modern scientific method has the edge. A good portion of our lives, even typing this diary entry on computer, relys on a conception of knowledge and truth which is dependable and demonstrates its integrity. If it claims or promises to do something and doesn't, something is wrong, someone is telling porky pies. [porky-pies=lies in English East end rhyming slang].
Even democracy, however flawed it may sometimes appear as an institution, has its own checks and balances and every time an election takes place the opportunity to retake our bearings presents itself, by asking new questions, discussing new ideas, we demonstrate wisdom by change, correcting our course. At least that's how it's supposed to work? But institutions without such checks, that only defend their claims, with no offer or expectation of evidence, can hold to the same set of antiquated ideas for hundreds if not thousands of years, OR until the means to question and expose those claims is discovered.
Is there a resolution to the dichotomy between religion and secularism? Is there a God or no? Could tradition simply be wrong? Is theology a valid intellectual endeavour? Has true religion even started? History, that final of all judges has discarded uncountable claims into its own dustbin of oblivion and real progress has often required the uncomfortable business of exposing baseless reason, that bloody chore of prying men loose from the myths they have created about themselves for themselves. It is some times called revolution.
Now humanity could be on the cusp of a revolution nobody could have expected, predicted or imagined, at least not in the form in which it's getting started. For circulating on the web is a wholly new interpretation of the moral teaching of Christ and it redefines the very nature of Faith and the Resurrection. Not as an abstract hope, but as a promise to be realized, as a direct intervention into the natural world, this time to create within man, a change in natural law, biology, and human ethical perception. Always intended to be understood metaphorically, this intervention is the Resurrection. 'Raising' human nature to a state of moral insight and integrity beyond evolutionary potential. And without which man remains 'dead' to truth. It doesn't get any more profound.
We are about to discover whether the last two thousands years of theological, scholastic exegesis is anything more than the accumulated pile of over inflated intellectual pretensions, vanity and the greatest self deception of history, Babble-on itself. The means now exist. Expect ecclesiastic feathers to fly. Anyone of a mind to resolve for themselves the greatest of all historical questions, the God question, begin here: http://www.energon.org.uk
