Jennifer Michael Hechtwrites Doubt: A History

and Karla McLaren writes on Bridging the Chasm between Two Cultures

I notice when people discuss religion face to face and on various forums on the internet both sides end up talking at each other, past each other, and don't understand where the other side is coming from. As McLaren so precisely points out:

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It is not merely, as many surmise, a conflict between fact-based viewpoints and faith-based viewpoints. Nor is it simply a conflict between rationality and credulity. No, it's a full-on clash of cultures that makes real communication improbable at best.

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and Jennifer Michael Hecht touches on:

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Some people may be tone-deaf to the idea of evidence, some may be tone-deaf to the feeling that there is a higher power – we must forgive them each their failing. But there is also a tradition by which both sides refuse to engage the interesting questions: believers refuse to consider the reasonableness of doubt, and nonbelievers refuse to consider the feeling of faith. Believers value the sense of mystery human beings can feel when they look inward or beyond; nonbelievers value the ability to map out the world by rational proofs. Yet there is a kind of mutual blindness, as if personal affiliation with one camp or another means more than does interest in the truth.

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I liked the link you provided.

But the J. Hecht quote: I might be misinterpreting, jumping the gun, but that quote sounds like a feeble attempt at rehabilitating faith in the religious sense of the word i.e. believing in something without evidence.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
I have no trouble with "faith". But I keep it in a tight leash and subordinate to fact. And I call it "a hunch" to keep out the religious connotations. Faith, when left without surveillance, has this habit of leading us straight into wishful thinking and self-serving dogmas.

I liked the link you provided.

But the J. Hecht quote: I might be misinterpreting, jumping the gun, but that Jennifer Hecht quote sounds like a feeble attempt at rehabilitating faith in the religious sense of the word i.e. believing in something without evidence.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Actually, with out reading the whole book that quote could easily be taken out of context. Hecht attempts to rehabilitate nothing. Her book's premise is: in order to understand social change it is not enough to study the history of faith or faiths in the west or east, but to supplement our understanding of social change by studying the history of doubt as well.

For example... Jesus Christ's teachings are the basis of Christian Faith. However it was not Jesus's faith and claims of divinity alone that resulted in the social changes of the West. It was his posits of doubt (in conjunction with those characteristics mentioned) that contributed to social change. Read the Gospels and try and figure out the duality of Jesus' teachings. He offers hope, but first, before hope there must be a crisis in faith. How did Jesus set this in motion, what did he ask his followers to do?

It is an intriguing read. Consider the Protestant Reformation: was it faith alone that resulted in a schism in the church? or was it faith in conjunction with doubt? Read the 95 proclaimations/Theses of Contention of Martin Luther. From our perspective, looking back from our historical and social perspective, they appear to be proclaimations of faith. To Rome it was heresy and a loss of power and influence. To the Lutherites it was expressing doubt in the Papacy, St. Peter's Church, the ligitimacy of purchaseable indulgences, et al issues.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
How about the influence of greek and roman culture? The church fathers integrated quite a lot of greek and roman philosophy to their beliefs in an effort to justify them through reason. And the entire renaissance, and the "scientific revolution" that followed, got started in great part by the reading of classical thinkers. Socrates always started his "teaching" with a series of questions that instilled doubt...

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Well, obviously. Faith would have no meaning without doubt, and vice versa. Struggling with one's faith is the essence of a spiritual life. It's not meant to be easy; like all things of value it takes hard work and often personal sacrifice. It seems to me a vital weakness in our cultural life that these two qualities are so alienated from one another--and the easy, tone-deaf dogmas of religion (disguised as the word of God) and materialism (disguised as empiricism) are mainly responsible for it. I think Hecht's book in particular sounds great; thanks for the reference.

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Which qualities? Hard work and personal sacrifice or doubt and faith? From the point of view of the religious, is doubt a good thing then?

You wield the word materialism as if it was an insult, a bad thing. But, at its essence, materialism means that everything is matter. I'm essentially a materialist. But even a religious person is not necessarily obliged to find fault with this. If, say, souls could be detected, then they would be made of some kind of matter. Know what I mean? I think that the fundamental difference between the religious and the sceptical concerns proof and faith. I need evidence. You have faith that something exists, without a need for evidence. I ask you how do you know, you say "I feel it's true". It wouldn't be as much of a problem, I think, if this only concerned things impossible to verify, like the existence of God. But often religious people still accept as true things that have been proven to be wrong.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]