Via both SEB and DOF, a pointer to an excellent blog post by Greta Christina on Atheists and Anger — why it exists, why it’s justified, and why it’s actually a positive thing. It’s powerful, it’s profound, it;s one of the best things I’ve seen on the topic in a long time.
And I get angry about a lot of what she writes about, too. Because a lot of what she writes about doesn’t affect just atheists, or just non-Christians, but everyone in our society. Anyone who reads that litany and doesn’t find something — a lot of somethings — to be angry about is likely a part of the problem, not the potential solution.
She even sounds a cautionary note about that anger.
I’ll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it’s valuable, it’s necessary… but it can also misfire, and badly.
I understand that anger. I understand why atheists would feel a particular anger — though, in reality, I think there’s just one beat she’s missing here. Because, as I said, the things she’s angry about are things a lot of folks should be and are angry about, abuses and oppressions that affect a lot of people beyond the atheist community. By making it an anger of Atheists against Theists, there’s a lot of those “potential allies” out there that are being shut out of the picture — like Blacks turning down help from Whites who support civil rights, or, maybe turning down help from Hispanics or Asians.
There’s room and opportunity for a discussion about atheism/theism. But, actually, that misses the point of many of the problems described. Tarring theists as the equivalent of “white devils” is counter-productive, even in the short run.
Still, it’s a blog post worth reading. I strongly recommend it.
PZ Meyers pointed to it long ago, and yes it is worth reading just the same as it is worth reading some of the better Theist bloggers. 🙂
Hm…I don’t see that she was tarring theists as white devils, and I don’t see her as trying to alienate theists.
I saw that she blamed the Catholic Church as a whole for covering up for abusive priests, and I saw that she criticised Christians who try to differentiate between “good” Christians and “bad” Christians and put themselves on the side of the “good Christians”. Everything else was pretty specific, either directed toward specific people or specific acts (commissions vs. omissions) — rather than generalizing about groups.
Regarding those two issues, if you participate in a group, if you affirm you are part of a group, are you not responsible for the actions of that group? I don’t see that calling for Christians, as a whole, to take responsibility for Christianity, as a whole, is amiss. Atheists, too, need to take responsibility for Atheism as a whole; that is, however, another discussion.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Where, then, has she tarred theists as white devils? Other than criticizing them and calling them to take responsibility for mistakes that could not have been committed, or could not have gone on for so long, without widespread tolerance, where has she alienated them?
Yes and no.
Are you responsible for the actions of all women? Or all folks in Colorado Springs? Or all writers?
I do criticize other folks who call themselves Christian, but I also recognize that while I reject their authority, as such, over my own faith and actions, I cannot in turn exercise similar authority over theirs. All I can do is point out what I think are the Christian principles worth living by, and hope that by example I can teach same (without getting too swell-headed about it).
I can, and occasionally do, apologize on behalf of particular asshats who wear the badge of “Christian” or “theist” (or “American” or “male” or “IT”). That’s more to indicate that what *they* represent *I* don’t. But Greta, explicitly, doesn’t want to hear that — saying that Jerry Falwell’s brand of Christianity doesn’t jibe with mine is dismissed by her as (a) nonsensical (since religion is all made up), (b) hubristic (since it implies that I’ve got a pipeline to God), and (c) reflexively defensive (because when did it become about *my* feelings?).
I disagree. She’s not interested in hearing that I’m angry about a lot of these things, too, or that I disagree with the fundies, or anything like that. She’s interested in *atheist* anger, non-atheists need not apply. “It is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we’re going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it’s up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it’s not helpful. It’s patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it’s just going to make us angrier.” Never mind that *I’m* pissed about Creationism in schools, or abortion gag orders with Federal aid, or nonsensical prohibitions against gay marriage, or the increasing de facto banning of abortion through intimidation, or the intitutional protection of child molesters, but that I think there angrily laying it all at the feet of “religion” isn’t the best (accuracy aside) way to deal with it is insultingly wrong because it’s depowering to atheists, whose anger evidently trumps everyone else’s in these matters. (Never mind whether there are other groups in each case who arguably have a *more* righteous justification for being angry.)
“Believers” who don’t like these things are basically told to shut up because the atheists are angry and it’s all “believers”‘ fault anyway, and anything that “believers” have to suggest about how to address it as a whole is being patronizing.
And maybe *I’m* feeling a bit angry about that. Though it seems that just means I should get some “perspective.”
All of which makes it sound like I disagree with Greta’s post as a whole or something like that. And I don’t. And that’s the kicker, because while I agree with probably 95% of what she has to say, at the end I feel like I’m being lumped in with the Bad Guys. I’m one of the “white devils” because I can’t possibly understand what Greta (or any other atheist) is feeling, so any commentary I might have on the subject, or advice on how best to address it in solidarity simply my being dismissive of her anger and rubbing salt in the wound.
I’m not sure that is a fair question to ask because you can’t really chose your gender, you happen to be born male/female (all things equal). Whereas you choose your beliefs and choose what groups are association with your beliefs.
As for Catholicism taking blame for Priests molesting little boys and girls, well as far as I am concerned they deserve it. If I was Catholic I would be pissed and would do everything I could to stop it. If the Priests don’t want to take action fine, but the whole issue could be solved quickly and decisively if all Catholics said, “You know what, I am not going back to church till this BS stops.” Or more simply, just write letters till action is taken.
Time to get back on track…
I don’t think her stating why atheists are angry about these issues in any way is a snide to those that are religious and feel the same way. Unless I am not reading into her post enough, she just seems to be stating that this is why atheists are angry and our anger is justified.
But then again maybe not. However, I would much rather have more religious people pissed off at the same things that piss off atheists. It makes the atheist cause stronger, but more than that it would help to change this image the religious can’t seem to let go of that atheists are evil immoral people.
Though that lets stand the question of profession or of where you live (etc.).
But it’s also not just about association. My being (for example) a Christian isn’t defined as “Someone who hands out with other Christians.” Let’s say I believe X, Y, and Z, and so does someone else — we may both be labeled Christians, but does that mean I’m responsible for that other person also believing W, or interpreting X to mean something I don’t agree with? Do I have the responsibility to do something about it (regardless of the ability). Or, more importantly, in this context, should I be *blamed* for it?
My ability to influence Pat Robertson, beyond sending him a letter and commenting here on his buffoonery, is pretty limited. I could call myself a “true” Christian, and Robertson a “false” one — but that’s exactly what he’d do (if he were aware of me), and, besides, Greta rejects that as a legitimate distancing maneuver.
Boy, did I mangle that sentence! I blame it on a lengthy and frequently interrupted writing of my response.
What I meant was:
That scans a bit better.
1. I wish more people were pissed off about these things.
2. It makes the cause against these things (which is not solely “the atheist cause”) stronger.
3. Not all “religious” have the image that atheists are “evil immoral people,” any more than (I hope) not all atheists have the image that religious folks are, say, “theocratic bigots.” I daresay there are some atheists who are evil and immoral, just as there are some religious who are theocrats and bigots. I don’t think the labels describe either group as a whole or even as a majority, but I am, myself, opposed to folks who are either (or both).
I almost wonder if she’s really closer to “passionate” rather than angry in some of her concerns. If a religious leader gives a fiery sermon on Sunday on the lack of concern for the profoundly hungry in our world, one might say he was passionate even though his demeanor was angry. Since the religious leader’s passion comes supposedly from God, does that legitimize his “anger?” Is an atheist’s anger at the riches adorning the Vatican in the face of starving people around the world less valid because God isn’t standing behind them (at least in their view of the world)?
With all the various denominations in Christianity, a believer can usually find a group to belong to that closely fits their beliefs. I think a member of any group needs to be ready to call the group to task when it doesn’t uphold its tenents. The local San Diego Catholic Diocese is asking members to donate to make up $25 million (of a $200 million dollar total) of it’s agreed upon settlement with survivors of priestly abuse, so that they don’t have to sell property they own (that is not churches or schools, it’s land and offices, etc). Regardless of how I feel about God, I don’t know how I could give to that settlement when I know how long the church fought against paying it and how long they covered up the abuse. Even if I didn’t lose my faith in God, how could I still hold faith with that institution?
I think it’s consistent with Greta’s view that a Christian could agree with her that the actions of some or many Christians towards Atheists is wrong. What she doesn’t want is for any Christians to attempt to minimize the importance of the issue or silence her. Telling her “well I’m not like those other Christians” is in some sense an attempt to get her to simmer down or silence her in that one who says that to her is basically saying “Don’t talk to me like that!” Stripped of its context-sensitive aspects, that is telling her not to speak. I think she’s right to be wary of any such move since it starts to limit her speech, and the limitations can then be expanded to silence her more and more.
On the other hand, I think it is unfortunate that people in ***Dave’s position are to some degree tarred with the same brush as the Christians who have done the things Greta complains about. It is unjust in some sense to hold all members of a group responsible for the actions of some members of that group. This might not be ss unjust as it seems if you regard silence and inaction as morally culpable, but even if this is true, those who are merely silent have done something that’s arguably not as bad as those who actively repressed atheism.
She seems to be in a real moral dilemma. On one hand, she can continue to allow people to limit her speech, thereby reducing her effectiveness in trying to eliminate an injustice done to atheists, or she can unjustly accuse some Christians of complicity with those who persecute atheists. Neither one is really ideal, and different people may view the choice differently, but I can see how she might think that any injustice to those who have been silent is outweighed by the value of freeing atheists from unjust treatment.
I think the solution is to recast the debate in terms of those who value toleration and those who do not. This may be what ***Dave is trying to get at. Rather than suggesting that all Christians are responsible, she could suggest that all who do not actively support toleration are responsible. This would allow Greta to avoid unjust criticism of all Christians, and would allow her to criticize those atheists who do not stand up for their rights.
In addition, I think that Greta’s distinction between Christians and Atheists leaves out the agnostics. I think agnostics are often treated much the same way that Greta thinks atheists are treated, partly because many people don’t distinguish agnosticism from atheism and partly because some people think agnosticism is just as bad as atheism. By casting the problem in terms of toleration rather than Christianity and Atheism, Greta makes the problem less personal, but she also gains supporters among agnostics and potentially among other religious minorities who can support the idea of toleration more easily than they can support the idea of rights for atheists.
Finally, I think it is important to emphasize a key point. Christians who strive to eliminate atheism may do so because they genuinely think they are doing the moral thing. I don’t want to discourage people from acting on what they think is moral. I don’t want to say that all intolerance is immoral, since I want to be intolerant of rapists, pedophiles, and murderers. I think the real problem is dogmatic intolerance, meaning people who are intolerant but who aren’t really thinking things through.
Not to cast any group as monolithic — but I wonder if there are those among atheists as well who disdain agnostics, similar to how I’ve heard bisexuals are often scorned by some homosexuals as much as by some heterosexuals.
You raise an interesting point, People can do things for the best of reasons that others find awful (and, yes, that cuts in many directions). I can appreciate someone doing something for motives that they (or even I) find laudable — which is why I’m less interested in folks motivations, or philosophical basis for their actions, than their actions themselves. If I’m convinced all those red-haired women down at the Safeway are agents of Satan and are out to poison our children, and so go after them with a machete, I may be acting out of the best and noblest and most heroic of motives … but I sure hope that doesn’t stop someone from stopping me.
But, then, I try not to confuse my own convictions with reality, and accept I might be (gasp) wrong about some things.
How to even sort all this out?
You said, “I disagree. She’s not interested in hearing that I’m angry about a lot of these things, too, or that I disagree with the fundies, or anything like that.”
But that wasn’t what this post was about, getting the position of non-fundamentalist Christians on fundamentalist Christians. In fact, she said that she was angry about Christians who wouldn’t shut up an listen when the subject was brought up. She may or may not be interested in what you have to say; she wants people to take a moment and listen to what *she* has to say.
You asked, “Are you responsible for the actions of all women? Or all folks in Colorado Springs? Or all writers?”
Actually, Dave, I consider myself a human being over any of these groups, and yes, I consider myself responsible for the actions of humanity, inclusive of those groups. Are all men my brothers? Am I responsible for the actions of my brothers? Well, yes. Do I have control over them? No. Do I have influence? Yes, indirectly. And *I’m* not a Christian.
Like was said by Webs later of the Catholic Church — “the whole issue could be solved quickly and decisively if all Catholics said, “You know what, I am not going back to church till this BS stops.”” I respect that you disagree with people who think being assholes = Christianity and that you’re not willing to give them the power to make you walk away from Chrisitanity, but that does mean that you’re adding your name to the list of Chrisitans when those fundamentalists say things like, “It’s a Christian nation.”
And — to go back to the white/black metaphor — we both benefited from being born white. We didn’t create slavery. The idea of people being treated like animals makes me want to hurt someone. But I wasn’t born black. Christianity: we both benefited from being born into Christian families. I no longer choose to be a Christian, but I still have benefited from having been born into that group. I still benefit *now* when people assume that I’m a Christian, because I don’t trumpet my beliefs on the corner. We both get the benefits. Should we not also take up the problems?
I think you are. I think you’re helping shoulder the weight of what Christianity has done; I think you’re helping change people’s minds about what Christians are and are not. Nevertheless, you still call yourself Christian, rather than believing in Christ and not associating yourself with the group — for good and ill.
My personal opinion — which I’m going to mention, but more for you to see where I’m coming from, the basis of what I’m saying, not as a personal attack, because, again, I respect very highly what you do, as a Christian — is that to deny the darker aspects of something you participate in is an untruth; to deny the potential that you yourself might be part of those darker aspects is an untruth. Again, my loyalty being to humanity, this means I acknowldege that the potential for every crappy thing humanity does is in me, too. But I also believe that if you don’t acknowledge the darker parts, you can’t really acknowledge the joyful parts, either.
You said, “Not to cast any group as monolithic — but I wonder if there are those among atheists as well who disdain agnostics, similar to how I’ve heard bisexuals are often scorned by some homosexuals as much as by some heterosexuals.”
I’ve been fortunate with (or at least amused by) both Christians and atheists; it seems to be more of a “well, at least you aren’t one of *them*” reaction. Puzzlement, trying to find points of common ground/ethics.
Actually, the point that bugged me about the original post (Greta’s, not Dave’s) was her criticism of Mother Theresa:
“I’m angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I’m angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.”
Okay, granted that I don’t know enough information to decide on the validity of her comments about the hospitals. Is suffering a necessary part of salvation? I have no idea. But it sounds like she’s saying that Mother Teresa wasn’t acting as a Christian (lost faith in God), but as a crazy person (obsession). I disagree with that. So many people say “faith” when they mean “opinion” that when they begin to doubt their opinion, they say they are losing their faith. When people are still drawn in the same direction, no matter what the little rabbity logical voices in their heads say, that’s more indicative of faith, I think. Faith in what? Maybe not the same thing as one’s (possibly former) opinion. But faith.
Dust:
In my eyes Mother Theresa was not a good person and did a lot of terrible things. She let hundreds of people die under her watch, and did nothing to help them. They basically suffered till they died. Many of these people laid in their own filth and shit and she lifted no finger to help them. All the while taking in millions from donors around the world. Why didn’t she use any of this money to help these people? Doctors from around the world practically begged her to let them help these suffering people and they were turned away.
Mother Theresa couldn’t even spend a few bucks to get the people a cot or bed to lay on. Instead, many died on cold wet stone floors. The Catholic church used her to bolster their image. And she funneled millions to them.
What did she do that makes her a saint? Or what did she do that makes what Greta stated wrong?
A couple links
I sort of see the point — though telling other people to shut up because you’re tired of people telling you to shut up seems … off, somehow.
But that’s a responsibility one takes up. So, as a Christian, I feel apologetic (to non-Christians) for Pat Robertson, even though I also know he’s not my fault, and not someone I can do anything directly about. But if someone turns around and tries to impose that responsibility upon me — then I think it’s fair to feel it’s unreasonable.
I’m not sure how to articulate it better.
No, it doesn’t, any more than certain yahoos declaring themselves True Americans in a way I find objectionable means that I either renounce my citizenship or find myself counted among the Americans population they consider behind them. (Ironically, they would probably not consider me any more an American than Pat Robertson would consider me a Christian.)
If I sit back and acquiesce to it, then, yes, I’m at least a collaborator (ironically, this came up this week in another context, where a NY Times writer suggested that Americans who stand idly by while the Bush Administration continues to shred our government’s reputation, decency, and Constitution risk becoming little more than the “good Germans” who professed studied ignorance of all the bad things going on the Third Reich). But aside from speaking out, voting, etc., my ability to do anything concrete about pedophiles in the Catholic Church (or elsewhere), or the likes of Robertson or Dobbins or the late Falwell, is limited. It’s a task I can take upon myself, but I’m not sure it’s one justly thrust upon me.
Perhaps. Though I see it more as taking up problems because we *can*, not because we didn’t get them thrust upon us. Regardless, that doesn’t make me responsible for those who are then doing the thrusting … if I haven’t mangled that metaphor all to pieces.
Not in the least. The anger is legitimated by the ends toward which it directed and the manner of that direction.
That has indeed had an impact on the Catholic Church, in America at least, both in terms of folks leaving the Church and in their reducing or eliminating donations (often giving them directly to groups or charities of their choice). It’s a difficult situation, since the Church is more than just the clerical hierarchy, but the doctrine, traditions, history, and other members. It’s quite possible to lose faith in the insitution’s leadership but still love the institution as a whole.
“I sort of see the point — though telling other people to shut up because you’re tired of people telling you to shut up seems … off, somehow.”
Dave, I considered this further today, and I have come to the conclusion that you are prejudiced in favor of debate. However, there do exist other valid methods of communication in which one person is keeping quiet with the lips. Also, as long as afterwards, the person is willing to be open to response, telling someone to shut up (so you can have a turn) should be okay.
“But if someone turns around and tries to impose that responsibility upon me — then I think it’s fair to feel it’s unreasonable.
I’m not sure how to articulate it better.”
I would draw the line when someone tries to impose how you will carry out that responsibility, personally. But my opinion is that if you call yourself a Christian, you’re either taking the bad parts of it with the good, or you’re trying to call the tune without paying the piper. You’re part of a group until it makes you feel uncomfortable, at which point you say, but that’s not really the group that I’m part of? Of all people, I would think it would be quite for you to say, “Yes, I’m a Christian. There are elements about it I don’t like, and I’m working to change them.”
I’m not sure what else it is you’re trying to say here, though.
“It’s quite possible to lose faith in the insitution’s leadership but still love the institution as a whole.”
Go USA 🙂
Webs:
I didn’t find either of the articles satisfying. The Hitchens Interview: there wasn’t any hard information, no facts about the hospitals, just a lot of things that one could have expected: Mother Teresa, who was a very traditional Catholic, acted like one. Mother Teresa, who was a leader inside an established religion, played politics. It raises interesting points — where did all the money go? — but spends more time on Hitchens playing himself up, playing up his work, talking about how nobody else investigated the truth, etc. In short, it sounds very biased and unprofessional.
House of Illusions: This sounded a lot more professional. Not unbiased, but at least more focused on the issue than the personality of the person writing it. However, all I got out of it was that Mother Teresa led a group that was part of an organized religion; the group behaved in cultlike ways. Okay, and? Again, where did the money go?
As should be pretty obvious, I have problems with organized religion. But what I’m seeing is that the criticism of Mother Teresa focuses on the fact that she acted pretty much as one could have expected her to act, that she was a human being and not a saint. Well, all right.
I want evidence on 1) conditions at her hospitals being disproportionately worse than other hospitals in the area, 2) that she acted in ways contrary to her faith, and 3) where did the money go?
A quick scan of “Mother Teresa critical” gave me pretty much what you provided. I don’t think she was a saint; I don’t have enough information to really argue with you on this point.
I still disagree with the original article, which has nothing to do with what you’re saying: “I’m angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity.” If Mother Teresa lost her faith, then how could she have enough faith to treat suffering as a gift from Christ? Is that logic? I disagree with the implication that Mother Teresa, because she was unhappy about losing her faith, went crazy. What, doubt make you nuts? She should have become an atheist?
Your argument seems to be that Mother Teresa was a bad person who fundamentally didn’t care about other people. I’m talking about whether or not her doubts invalidated her actions. Not the same argument — I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that wasn’t where I was headed. More information, as given above, would be appreciated & read.
I think that is probably true.
I see what you’re saying here — though I think it’s altogether possible to say that the “Christian” label is too broad to make that sort of monolithic judgment (just as, say, “atheists” is). Heck, the folks with whom I disagree would probably disagree over the very definition of the term.
On the other hand, I’m not a big proponent of orthodoxy and toeing the line to a single creedal statement. Honestly speaking, I use the label “Christian” more as a convenient reference (I go regularly to an Episcopal church, so I suppose that if I have to check off a box, Christian’s that’s the one I’d check). I don’t say that as an excuse, but to say that it’s not simply a matter of my being “part of a group.”
Indeed.
Re Webs and the Mother Teresa thing — I’m not informed enough to make a judgment (and, honestly, I’d trust a Christopher Hitchens expose about Mother Teresa as much as I’d trust a Pat Robertson expose about Mohammed). In this case, consider my relative silence to be an admission of ignorance until I actually do some research.
Apparently in letters she wrote before her death, she expressed how she was losing her faith.
For perspective, this is an example of the arguments made against Mother Teresa.
As for the three points, I will do what I can:
Point 1 and 3 and another point 2 article, though the points in this one are hard to verify.
Not sure she really acted in contrary to her faith. She continually espoused anti-abortion and contraception quotes every chance she got. I would rather argue the first point and the last one.
My understanding is that Mother Teresa had an ongoing crisis of faith for about fifty years — not feeling the “presence” of God in her life except for one brief period (around John Paul II’s death). Some faithful point to this as a sign of her “saintliness” — that she stuck it out without even the emotional/spiritual comfort of God. Others take it as a sign that she saw through to the “truth” but refused to accept it. Like most such discussions, it isn’t “provable” either way, though it does raise some interesting questions about what one would expect from God and one’s relationship thereto.
I think it’s a more irksome topic that her private letters to her confessors were made public against her wishes. Though there’s precedent, even precedent I agree with, in authors asking their estates to burn their private papers, and I understand that part of it is also a part of the whole beatification/canonizatoin process (more about which some other time), but it also seems like an awful betrayal.
It’s to my understanding that the Catholic Church allowed the letters to be released because an author was writing a book about how the letters show Mother Teresa’s faith in God. The whole thing is little confusing.
Well, the part I *can* talk about is “losing your faith,” which is where my disagreement with the original article started. The benefit of too much philosophy, psychology, and early religious upbringing.
1) Are feelings faith?
No. Feelings can be irrational, momentary, incorrect, inappropriate…you can feel anger (as in, “Why did that jerk cut me off?” rather than a righteous anger) to prevent yourself from feeling scared (as in, “I almost had a wreck because somebody pulled into my lane bare inches in front of me”). You can interpret “I feel better than I have in my entire life” as “this is good” and only be on ecstacy.
2) Is a direct insight required for faith?
I’m talking about the “I feel the presence of God/the divine in my life” type of direct insight.
No. When I was a Catholic, I had what felt to be direct insights into the divine, from time to time. Not so much “God spoke to me” as “the presence of God is everywhere.”
Then, after I stopped being a Catholic, I had the same levels of direct insight — into different areas. Why trees are different. How similar people are. That there doesn’t need to *be* a God. Etc., etc. They felt the same.
Those direct insights do not reflect *the* absolute truth (maybe a truth? maybe that paradox is the essence of truth), or I wouldn’t have been able to have them both about and not about a Catholic-based God.
Maybe Mother Teresa’s brain no longer needed to give her a sense of the presence of God; alternatively, maybe God no longer needed to give her that sense.
2) Is opinion faith?
No. People say they believe a lot of things, and then don’t follow their beliefs. There’s the hypocracy of knowing you’re acting in opposition to what you’re saying, but then, there’s the hypocracy that comes from not really knowing yourself or understanding the things you’re saying.
3) What is faith?
There’s a classic child-development experiment where a baby is put on top of an acrylic box. Half of the top surface of the box is lined with colored paper and appears to be a solid surface. The other half of the box is not and appears to be not a solid surface.
Very small babies can crawl over the surface without hesitation, but at some developmental point, they can’t. Babies learn about falling, and cannot act against the belief that the clear area is unsafe. The testers can put toys on the clear area, the baby’s mother can call to it — but the baby cannot go across the clear part of the box.
Later on, we learn that appearances can be deceiving, but until then — the baby can’t do it. That’s faith. I can’t find the “walking on water” story in the New Testament offhand, but I think that would support that opinion.
I also suspect that it’s possible to have faith in something that’s pure d. wrong — just like the baby — but that’s another discussion.
4) So why would the Catholic Church say the letters proved Mother Teresa’s faith?
Their argument seems to be that Mother Teresa believed so deeply in God that even though her heart and brain were telling her there was no God, her faith would let her act in no other way.
I don’t know that I agree with it — I lean towards it as an explanation — but it might also indicate that she was acting out of a sense of obligation or of an enjoyment of the position she was in.
There’s this paradox — your faith as a Christian can’t be proven through good works, but an inability to act in a way against Christianity is supposed to prove your faith (e.g., martyrs, Job). I get it, but it’s confusing. Faith will force you to act in a certain way, but faith might not be the only reason you would act in that way.
Anyway, different types of crises of faith are (to me) some of the most interesting human dilemmas, so I try to keep up with them. When people turn it into a black and white situation, it’s just disappointing. Did Mother Teresa do the right thing or the wrong thing? A simple answer wouldn’t do justice. Did PJPII do the right thing or the wrong thing? Another complex question.
Okay, I will check out the links when I’m not in a mood just to spout my mouth off 🙂
Very interesting Dust, thanks for the discussion I really appreciate it. Please don’t take anything I write personally, I am not trying to attack you or anything, just interested in dialog. 🙂
I do look forward to your opinion on the articles, however it’s hard to find information about Mother Teresa that goes against what we hear. Interestingly enough, most of those talking about all the good she did, have never visited one of her missions, and certainly haven’t seen the one in Calcutta.
Anyways,
Isn’t it possible that someone could confuse their feelings with faith? I would tend to agree the two are separate, but I doubt people find it easy at times to distinguish between the two.
I agree, and many people build their religious foundations on not knowing anything for sure one way or the other.
But this is a kind of tricky one. I could go to 5 churches of the same denominations and hear 5 ministers give 5 different explanations of a Bible passage (even though I might only hear 2 or 3, that’s not the point). I have even heard ministers of the same denomination give different ideas as to what faith is. All of this can be very confusing.
That’s a very interesting experiment. Do you think it might show how faith can be learned? If babies don’t have faith in their mothers to cross, but at some point they do…
Oh, no, I didn’t take anything personally. Are you, too, in favor of debate? I feel like I’m learning a second language with debate; my first is “Oooh, shiny — what can I do with it?” I’m more interested in possibilities than in definites.
The Bullshit/Penn & Teller video link was fun, but I still have the same probablem with Christopher Hitchens: All the things you’ve heard are wrong.
Again, how is Mother Teresa different than the Catholic Church in general? Heh. “Hopefully this will cover my soul for talking shit about Mother Teresa.”
I thought the “JesusIsBorg” article was the most intersting. Hopefully, with the attention Mother Teresa’s getting now, there will be more critical voices that can come up with proof — it looks like Chatterjee, Hitchens, and two former nuns constitute almost the entirety of the cricism against her organization. I hate it that her organization can just say, “never you mind where the money went.”
If you want to go off about the Catholic Church, I can follow you down that yellow brick road. I feel like a divorcee, bitter about marriage but bittersweet about the guy himself.
I suppose, like most people, I used to use “Mother Teresa” as an ultimate in conversation. “Would Mother Teresa be able to love X?” I think was one discussion.* It’s like — serial killers on one end and Mother Teresa on the other.
The further away I got from the Catholic Church, though, the more I came to question the idea of that kind of spectrum. Did I want to glorify, even off-handedly, someone who saw the world in black and white? Does seeing the world in black and white fundamentally flaw you? Because being able to judge or not judge absolutes applies to all kinds of ideas; are all rapists essentially evil? If so, at what point do they become so? Because essential evil, it seems, should be something irrevocably decided at conception — a part of the soul — there in a baby, there in a toddler. What is evil? Is there any? If your deepest spiritual urge is to kill people, is it evil? Is it any more or less evil than killing people because someone else tells you to?
Anyway, I ended up being an agnostic, with the opinion, “Mother Teresa would probably be one of the most interesting person I might ever meet.” Not nice, but interesting. Working at a nursing home probably also influenced that. More women survive into old age than men; my idea of extreme old age is trying to find a reason not to sink into the mundane; the best of the old ladies put on a happy face despite the horrible things that were happening to them — death, lonliness, lack of freedom, abandonment. They weren’t necessarily nice, though.
Dave — my fascination with little old ladies is where old Dame Reality came from, no doubt 🙂
*I have this button that says, “Even Gandhi would have smacked you on the head.” I wonder where it went.
I loved her.
I didn’t think you did, but I like to be on the safe side. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how someone feels on an issue when the communication medium is online. LOL about the shiny remark, I can definitely relate…
So true. Which is what makes me think some if not most of the stories surrounding Mother Teresa are BS. She is one of the few cases where if you call her deceitful, a system is in place so that you are automatically a bastard because of course Mother Teresa is the greatest person ever to live…
dust said
I think dust is saying that faith is exemplified by the baby when it crawls across the apparent cliff.
From what I remember from long-ago psychology class, the reason a baby will crawl over what appears to be a cliff up to a certain age but will not afterwards is that a baby’s visual system is only able to perceive depth after a certain point in development. If that’s right, then there’s no faith involved in the baby’s willingness to crawl over an apparent cliff. Instead, the baby just doesn’t see it as a cliff.
Philosophers regard faith as a way of holding a belief that is distinct from and contrary to rational belief. So from a philosopher’s point of view, to say one has faith that God exists is just to say that one believes that God exists but that one does not have rational reasons for believing it (or perhaps that one would believe it even if one did not have rational reasons for believing it). Using this understanding of faith, faith is not a feeling, but it is one way of holding an opinion (another being through rational reasoning). For most philosophers, I think that faith leads to fideism since if one has rational reasons for a belief, then faith is not required.
More on fideism.
For myself, I don’t believe that God can be rationally argued (and have concluded that’s intentional). After the “leap of faith” to belief, however, I think that reason can be applied to that (irrational) axiomatic foundation — and, in fact, must be applied to it.