The other scenario that's a possibility... (Main Forum)

by James, Australia, Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 11:26 (577 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

Brian,

Personally I think the religious and spiritual impulse in society is a long way from dead. The future does not belong to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens any more than it belongs to Benedict Ottaviani and friends.

To some extent, it depends on what you mean by "spiritual" and "religious".

Dawkins, Hitchens etc, would say that the awe created by the universe is a "spiritual experience". Brian Cox who produced the Wonders of the Universe series and who describes himself as a humanist, says,

Science is clearly economically valuable and clearly spiritually valuable. I don’t see why you would need anything else.

http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/527

I have a good friend, as agnostic and unbelieving as they come, but who has a stressful medical job, has no hesitation in going off to 10 day meditation retreats that he finds very helpful and enlightening. Although the centres are run along Buddhist lines, he has no inclination to become Buddhist or anything else.

If that is what you define as "spiritual", I don't think that inclination will ever disappear.

I also think that it is unlikely that the inclination that you describe as

...the need for some sense of a personal God "sittin' up in heaven sending down thunderbolts and miracles to water our crops, protect us from global warming and tsunamis, or cure our cancers.

is likely to disappear too quickly. But that is certainly the type of "spirituality" and "religion" that seems to be disappearing at least in Western society.

And I agree with you that the future does not lie with anyone in particular, whether Dawkins, Hitchins, Ottaviani or Ratzinger. What I do think is that humanity as a whole has to draw from all sorts of sources and points of view, in order to make a better world. That obviously does include science, but it also includes lots of other things, as Professor Peter Doherty said on the ABC Late Night Live last week, it includes what the theologian has to tell us, the novelist and the poet, as well as the good people whether religious or otherwise who are increasingly working in secular charitable organizations.

The human race seem to take two steps forward and one back, as we saw with the Americans after the Second World War, with the Marshall plan, with social democratic programs to help those less well off, with the idea of globalized justice with the Nuremburg trials with the United Nations etc.

Then we had the steps back Ronald Reagan, ("the rich aren't working because they don't have enough money and the poor aren't working because they have too much") and Margarent Thatcher ("there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families") and George Bush (Guantanamo, refusing to sign the treaties against torture, or for the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, not to mentions his wars). And of course, we have the clarion calls to the lizard brain in this country too over asylum seekers - Media Watch had an excellent one on this last night.

And we have to add to the one step back, Paul VI and Humanae Vitae, Josef Ratzinger with his and his predecessor's policy of covering up child sexual assault by clergy, and his refusal to support condoms as one way to reduce AIDS, and the support of the Latin American hierarchy appointed by John Paul II for the rich and privileged in those countries and the demonising of those working for the betterment of the poor as "communists".

And that is the problem with the Church at the official level. Another very good example is George Pell's comment on the latest case in NSW over claims against the Church. Reliance on legal technicalities mirrors the morality of James Hardie directors in sending all their assets to the Netherlands to avoid responsibility to asbestos victims. The very fact that there are now calls for reform of the law to force the Church to accept its responsibilities for the damage done by paedophile priests is an indication of how far behind it has fallen.

The Church is only going to be part of the human race's two steps forward when it ceases having to be taught be secular society on how to behave. At the moment, it seems it will only do so if it is forced to by law.