Wonderful article, many thanks for writing it. This really helped me with a bunch of questions I've been struggling with this year. Just one little piece of advice: I think there's a little error in the text.
"Each often meditate spend pages meditating on apparently trivial details"
Seems to be one "meditate" too much! It's such a great text - it deserves to be free of mistakes :)
As usual, this is some really intense writing-- in a good way. I read this whole piece aloud to my twin on the phone in an effort to better understand it and it took a little over half an hour, excluding the breaks I took to stumble over new words.
Overall, this is a gorgeous essay. I'm agnostic myself, but I follow everything you've written here, and I think your view of Christianity is one that would do a lot of people a LOT of good if it were widely adopted by Christians; the level of self-awareness you advocate here is in my view (after a lot of time spent in religion classes and seeing the real-world impacts of self-centered dogmatism) the true goal of any kind of belief, religious or not.
I was chatting with a Christian friend a few weeks ago; he told me he calls himself a Christian only because he believes Jesus existed and that his teachings were good. His belief or nonbelief in God does not, for him, imply anything about the nature of his Christianity. This is a fascinating take because I believe the same things, but I don't describe myself as a Christian, and wouldn't even if I did understand God the same (beautiful) way you articulate in this post. So much of belief is an individual openness to the divine. I'm with Kierkegaard on that. And I think your definition of what it is to be a Christian in the broader sense can, necessarily, only be understood once you do all that individual, open philosophizing. It's a noble thing to be able to set one's self aside in service of any kind of divine truth-- the way you've articulated that is persuasive.
Per usual, amazing post. I really enjoy reading these, even if I don't always comprehend everything here. I just read The Brothers Karamazov for the existentialism course I took this semester; I thought I was finally free, but alas, it's ubiquitous. Best wishes, Sam, and thanks for posting. Happy holidays.
Cara! So lovely to hear from you. I hope you're enjoying a wonderful Christmas. You're very kind - rest assured this one gave me a bigger headache than it could any potential reader, given the number of slimming revisions it required.
Your friend offers another interesting take on the question. If I can achieve nothing else, I think it would simply be to cast scepticism on the ridiculous tribal binary that religious life is reduced to, whereby one 'is' or 'is not' in a relationship with God--a clailm that by nature infinitely misunderstands the Divine. I would much rather see a looser Christianity (or even an agnosticism or atheism) that actually asks genuine questions of life rather than asphyxiating it with prevenient answers. God cannot fail to manifest himself 'outside' the fold of religious institutions; the gates erected to keep him in are human, all too human.
And no - the Brothers won't go away. I've had the same thing since that class. It's almost like a curse. Once you've read it, you start seeing those siblings everywhere.
Wonderful article, many thanks for writing it. This really helped me with a bunch of questions I've been struggling with this year. Just one little piece of advice: I think there's a little error in the text.
"Each often meditate spend pages meditating on apparently trivial details"
Seems to be one "meditate" too much! It's such a great text - it deserves to be free of mistakes :)
Good spot! Thank you for reading.
As usual, this is some really intense writing-- in a good way. I read this whole piece aloud to my twin on the phone in an effort to better understand it and it took a little over half an hour, excluding the breaks I took to stumble over new words.
Overall, this is a gorgeous essay. I'm agnostic myself, but I follow everything you've written here, and I think your view of Christianity is one that would do a lot of people a LOT of good if it were widely adopted by Christians; the level of self-awareness you advocate here is in my view (after a lot of time spent in religion classes and seeing the real-world impacts of self-centered dogmatism) the true goal of any kind of belief, religious or not.
I was chatting with a Christian friend a few weeks ago; he told me he calls himself a Christian only because he believes Jesus existed and that his teachings were good. His belief or nonbelief in God does not, for him, imply anything about the nature of his Christianity. This is a fascinating take because I believe the same things, but I don't describe myself as a Christian, and wouldn't even if I did understand God the same (beautiful) way you articulate in this post. So much of belief is an individual openness to the divine. I'm with Kierkegaard on that. And I think your definition of what it is to be a Christian in the broader sense can, necessarily, only be understood once you do all that individual, open philosophizing. It's a noble thing to be able to set one's self aside in service of any kind of divine truth-- the way you've articulated that is persuasive.
Per usual, amazing post. I really enjoy reading these, even if I don't always comprehend everything here. I just read The Brothers Karamazov for the existentialism course I took this semester; I thought I was finally free, but alas, it's ubiquitous. Best wishes, Sam, and thanks for posting. Happy holidays.
Cara! So lovely to hear from you. I hope you're enjoying a wonderful Christmas. You're very kind - rest assured this one gave me a bigger headache than it could any potential reader, given the number of slimming revisions it required.
Your friend offers another interesting take on the question. If I can achieve nothing else, I think it would simply be to cast scepticism on the ridiculous tribal binary that religious life is reduced to, whereby one 'is' or 'is not' in a relationship with God--a clailm that by nature infinitely misunderstands the Divine. I would much rather see a looser Christianity (or even an agnosticism or atheism) that actually asks genuine questions of life rather than asphyxiating it with prevenient answers. God cannot fail to manifest himself 'outside' the fold of religious institutions; the gates erected to keep him in are human, all too human.
And no - the Brothers won't go away. I've had the same thing since that class. It's almost like a curse. Once you've read it, you start seeing those siblings everywhere.