Templeton Prize

Charles Taylor's speech on receiving the Templeton Prize is well worth a read, esp. for those readers who got involved in the Dawkins debate.

here's a clip:

The deafness of many philosophers, social scientists and historians to the spiritual dimension can be remarkable.  And this is the more damaging in that it affects the culture of the media and of educated public opinion in general.  I take a striking case, a statement, not admittedly by a social scientist, but by a Nobel Laureate cosmologist, Steven Weinberg.  I take it, because I find that it is often repeated in the media and in informal argument.  Weinberg said (I quote from memory): "there are good people who do good things, and bad people who do bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

On one level, it is astonishing that anyone who lived through a good part of the 20^th Century could say something like this.  What are we to make of those noble, well-intentioned Bolsheviks, Marxist materialist atheists to a man (and occasional woman), who ended up building one of the most oppressive and murderous brace of regimes in human history?  When people quote this phrase to me, or some equivalent, and I enter this objection, they often reply, "but Communism was a religion," a reply which shifts the goal-posts and upsets the argument.

But it's worth pondering for a minute what lies behind this move.  The "Weinberg principle," if I might use this term, is being made tautologically true, because any set of beliefs which can induce decent people, who would never kill for personal gain, to murder for the cause, is being defined as "religion." "Religion" is being defined as the murderously irrational.

Pretty sloppy thinking.  But it is also crippling.  What the speaker is really expressing is something like this: the terrible violence of the 20^th Century has nothing to do with right-thinking, rational, enlightened people like me.  The argument is then joined on the other side by certain believers who point out that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., were all enemies of religion, and feel that good Christians like me have no part in such horrors.  This conveniently forgets the Crusades, the Inquisition, and much else.

Both sides need to be wrenched out of their complacent dream, and see that no-one, just in virtue of having the right beliefs, is immune from being recruited to group violence: from the temptation to target another group which is made responsible for all our ills, from the illusion of our own purity which comes from our readiness to combat this evil force with all our might.  We urgently need to understand what makes whole groups of people ready to be swept up into this kind of project.

read the whole speech here

Comments

[Simon Barrow]

Excellent stuff from Taylor. It is sad that both religious and secular zealots (those characterised by an unreflexive belief that they have no need of each other, and a monopoly of determinative rightness in their own procedures) employ tautological reasoning - while simultaneously accusing the other of being wrong for doing so.

[Nick Taylor]

Hi Maggie,

I'm a pastor in So. California at a church called RockHarbor. While researching Tenebrae services today, I ran across your blog and so enjoyed the comaraderie I felt in reading some of your articles, thoughts,etc. I especially loved "In The Church, Not Of It," both the content and especially the title!

RockHarbor is a non-denom. church that's friendly with both mainline evangelicals and the emergent church folks as well. We get to do a lot of "postevangelical experimenting" without having to abandon tradition, which seems to be a rarity in the church world. It's a great community to be in.

Just wanted to tell you that Iappreciate the time and work you put in to your blog site, and I look forward to exploring more of it in the future. It's always refreshing to find those in the clergy who have depth, humor, and passion mixed together.

Many Blessings,

Nick Taylor
Pastor of Soul Care
RockHarbor, Costa Mesa, CA

[Mike R]

Thanks for this.

I'm finding the current Dawkins debate, and the accompanying resurgence of Modernism rather depressing, undermining and insidious at the moment, so this post is helpful.

Thank you.

[Karen]

Thank you for this artcile. I'm writing an essay on the Fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler. Taylor's article will help me understand the processes of absolutism.

[mamacrow]

simon b - fantastic comment, yes, that's exactly it!

honestly, I wish sometimes that people just concentrated on themselves instead of everyone else. A speck in his eye, a beam in your own and all that.

[sharon wortman farnham]

I watch history sometimes bad things happen but good always winds up winning out in the end . The evil that is done to people is eventually realized for what it is . Then it dissappears and good is what replaces it . I like to look for the good in the world not the bad let others waste their time on evil I would rather ponder good .

[Caroline]

I'm not sure that there's an answer to all this by looking at acts of evil. More telling, for me, are those acts of carelessness and omission enacted by 'good' people.

then there is the rational logic of pursuing 'our own interests'

followed by an 'othering' of those who we oppose

each of these steps enable us to alienate ourselves from others, justify 'difficult' actions and dehumanise those who we abuse.

and the tragic thing is that I see it in my life. ok not to the point of mass murder but that is to miss the point.

[Martin]

as has been said: without religion, good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things. To get good people to do bad things - you need religion