8/21/2009—I have run into a problem I did not expect: secularists accepting religious fundamentalism’s definition of God.
My constitutional law proposal is that government may use certain religious images, such as the word God in the Pledge of Allegiance, when that religious image has nonreligious and broad meaning. For example, “One Nation, Under God” can mean we recognize that there are objective and enduring standards of right and wrong that are binding on this country.
To this proposal, in addition to other criticisms, Frederick Clarkson responded in the Pittsburgh City Paper, “It’s preposterous, God means God. It doesn’t mean ‘universal values’”.
This objection is now being repeated in blog postings discussing the netroots nation panel, for example the Friendly Atheist : “God is a deity”.
But put this way, the objection is childish. Have people never heard of the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich and his references to God as the ground of being, our ultimate concern and the God above the God of theism?
And what about the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, who wrote
that God really does not exist who operates and functions as an individual existent alongside of other existents, and who would thus as it were be a member of a larger household of all reality.
Instead, says Rahner, God is “the most radical, the most original, and in a certain sense the most self-evident reality.”
Frederick Clarkson even quoted Chris Hedges in his own book denying that God means a supernatural being: “God is a human concept. God is the name we give to our belief that life has meaning, one that transcends the world’s chaos, randomness and cruelty. …The question is not whether God exists. The question is whether we concern ourselves with, or are utterly indifferent to, the sanctity and ultimate transcendence of human existence.”
Why accept definitions of God propounded by people you don’t agree with? Maybe to kill any possibility of rational religion
About the Author
- Bruce Ledewitz
- Author of Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism (Indiana University Press 2011), Hallowed Secularism: Theory, Practice, Belief (Palgrave Macmillan 2009) and American Religious Democracy: Coming to Terms with the End of Secular Politics (Praeger 2007)
Events
- On Saturday, February 11, 2012, Bruce will present a CLE on church and state at Duquesne Law School.
- On Februrary 23-25, 2012, Bruce will present a paper at the Third Annual Religious Legal Theory Conference at Pepperdine Law School.
- On Friday, April 13, 2012, Bruce will give a talk at Duquesne Law School as part of a three-school colloquium of works in progress. Bruce will present a preliminary version of an article to be entitled, The End of Religion in Law.
- A podcast about the book can be accessed here.
- Indiana University Press has now published Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism. A trailer for the book can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n2aEHsYP5Q
Topics
- Atheists and Hallowed Secularists (16)
- Errata (1)
- Framework of Hallowed Secularism (21)
- hallowed secularims and God (2)
- Hallowed Secularism and Christianity and Judaism (54)
- Hallowed Secularism and Current Approaches to Gnosticism (2)
- hallowed secularism and economics (4)
- Hallowed Secularism and God (27)
- Hallowed Secularism and Harry Potter (2)
- Hallowed Secularism and Higher Law (3)
- Hallowed Secularism and Humanism (5)
- Hallowed Secularism and International Law (2)
- Hallowed Secularism and Longing (3)
- Hallowed Secularism and Materialism (10)
- Hallowed Secularism and Natural Law (7)
- Hallowed Secularism and Our Religious Traditions (101)
- Hallowed Secularism and Politic (1)
- Hallowed Secularism and Politics (13)
- Hallowed Secularism and Ritual (3)
- hallowed secularism and science (1)
- Hallowed Secularism and the 2008 Election (32)
- hallowed secularism and the Constitution (1)
- hallowed secularism and the election (2)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Family (4)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Fight over Evolution (3)
- hallowed secularism and the future (1)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Issues (62)
- Hallowed Secularism and the meaning of Life (4)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Name of God (7)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Natural World (3)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Secret of Life (5)
- hallowed secularism and the w (2)
- Hallowed Secularism and the Wall of Separation (121)
- Hallowed Secularism is More Than Not Going to Church (1)
- Hallowed Secularism's Relationship to American Religious Democracy (8)
- Hallowed Secularism: No Big Deal? (1)
- How Should a Hallowed Secularist Live (1)
- Public Life and Hallowed Secularism (8)
- Secularism's Indifference to Religion as the Task of Hallowed Secularism (7)
- The Failure of Secularism (8)
- The Growth of Hallowed Secularism (3)
- the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (1)
- The Life of Hallowed Secularism (10)
- The New Atheism and Hallowed Secularism (13)
- The Origin of Hallowed Secularism (4)
- The Sources of Depth in Hallowed Secularism (21)
- The Sources of Secularism (8)
- The Theologians of Hallowed Secularism (2)
- Theists (1)
- What Makes Hallowed Secularism Hallowed? (8)
- What Makes Hallowed Secularism Secular? (2)
- Why Secularism Should Embrace Hallowed Secularism (13)
13 comments:
Another generality: a big problem with this subject is the definition of secular/ism/ist. I get your Hallowed Secularist, but that leaves a lot of ground for Secularist to cover. Have you seen The Immanent Frame? A treasure trove of ideas.
How can you possibly attribute nonreligious meaning to capital G God? Citing theologians doesn't exactly help this reading.
As for have people heard of Tillich and Rahner, the answer is no. (Tillich, yes, Rahner, no for me - raised Protestant). And why should they? "Ground of being" and "self-evident reality"? What in the world do those mean?
God means a personal God for a very large percentage of Abrahamic believers, which I would guess is who Clarkson is referring to. And iIt makes perfect sense to accept the vast majority of believers' (and thus of Americans) definition of God. Non-believers don't have to agree, but that's the useful definition.
I don't get your citing Clarkson citing Hedges.
In any case, you've got me interested enough to read other accounts of this Netroots forum. I am also very into non-revealed religion - I'm an Unitarian, a naturalist, in terms of the divine. I haven't read it yet, but this book looks up my alley: Living Without God. by Ronald Aronson.
"But put this way, the objection is childish. Have people never heard of the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich and his references to God as the ground of being, our ultimate concern and the God above the God of theism?
And what about the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, who wrote
that God really does not exist who operates and functions as an individual existent alongside of other existents, and who would thus as it were be a member of a larger household of all reality. "
Who are those people and why should I give a crap about what they said?
secularists accepting religious fundamentalism’s definition of God.
We're just accepting the definition that regular people use. It's not like it's a rarely used word - it's in the Pledge of Allegiance, in most oaths of office, in court swearing ins, and printed on every piece of currency. The dictionary reflects this.
"1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe." - Random House's first definition
"1. God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being." - American Heritage Dictionary's first definition
"1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: as a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe b Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind" - Merriam Webster's first definition
No need to consult any fundamentalists. None of the dictionaries give 'objective and enduring standards of right and wrong' as a meaning.
Stop being such a pedophile*.
Why accept definitions of God propounded by people you don’t agree with?
Well, first, it's not like I agree with Tillich or Rahner. I accept the definitions of words that are accepted by society because I want to communicate effectively.
*For the purposes of this comment, a pedophile is one who redefines words to mean something other than what people who typically use the word mean.
"I have run into a problem I did not expect: secularists accepting religious fundamentalism’s definition of God."
Saying that "God" typically refers to something though of as an actual person does not mean that one is letting religious fundamentalism speak for all religion. Jim Wallis, for example, appears to believe in God as being a person (well, three persons, technically, but you get the idea), and he is far from the right-wing fundies. One can also note that in practice, religious people behave as if God or the gods that they believe in act humanlike, even if they profess belief in a more abstract God. "God" is whatever religious people believe him to be, and more often than not, what they believe him to be is a person.
There is a lot here. Norwegian, don't be so hard on "self-evident reality". Your country's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, spoke of self-evident truth. Just think of the most really real aspect of reality. Surely you don't think that that is matter, when matter dissolves into quarks and emptiness.
The point about Hedges is that Clarkson knows that that there are believers who don't see God as a old man. Hedges is one such believer.
Recall, these are two eminent theologians of the 20th century. I cite them to show that there is more to the concept of God than a being independent of creation.
Benjdm, I love this "pedophile" jibe. But, I am not inventing some opposite meaning. Jefferson wrote (or at least accepted) "endowed by their Creator" in the Declaration of Independence. Do you think Jefferson meant that a supernatural being injected rights, like some drug? The Declaration is an example of the use of religious imagery to endorse the higher law. In that case, to show that rights are real and not inventions of human beings.
JJ., I am not trying to tell believers what the word God means. To them it may mean just what you say. In my understanding of the Establishment Clause, the government must justify traditional religious references in nonreligious terms. The word God can mean one thing to the believer and something else to you and me.
" I am not trying to tell believers what the word God means."
You're trying to tell non-believers what God means.
"Do you think Jefferson meant that a supernatural being injected rights, like some drug?"
I don't know what Jefferson meant. Even there, though, he was using 'our Creator' instead of 'God', and was writing 230+ years ago. Rights are clearly human inventions - try and convince a bear that he shouldn't eat you because you have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Today, in the U.S., the word 'God' is not that fuzzily defined. It refers to a deity, a thinking, sentient being.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/godnature.htm
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/08/25/atheists-and-ambiguous-wording/#comment-350582
The most really real aspects of reality aren't matter? Hmmm....I don't see energy being more 'real.' Nor do I see any more complex arrangements of matter and energy being more...real.
Thanks for responding to us all. You obviously struck a nerve.
"Self-evident truth" referred to Natural Rights endowed by their Creator, not the Creator. And I think Jefferson chose "truth" quite deliberately. I don't think he ever thought about using "reality" instead, do you?
"[T]he most really real aspect of reality." Is that a theological phrase? It must be, because I have no idea what it means. And I'm afraid that I lost all respect for your argument when you trotted out "quarks and emptiness." Please, don't tell me you're a Deepak Chopra fan.
Yes, I do believe that matter is the bedrock of reality. Along with dark matter and dark energy. I guess the Hallowed is more important than the Secular for you.
Agreed,the p*phile joke was good. But a warning, be careful of such words, as the Google eye sees all. In addition, the home page of this site is blocked for me at work (Warner Connect) on the grounds of "Match Making". Individual pages are fine for me, but you might want to check into this.
But the rest of the comment to Benjdm showed more Hallowed bias. First, your Jefferson and the Creator argument is awful mushy and facile. Second, "real and not inventions of human beings"? Now you've pushed the definitional problem of "God" back to "real." Doesn't help much.
As far as the Establishment Clause, do any actual cases hinge on whether the words can mean two things to two different people?
Someone else told me to be careful of certain words on a google site. Does this mean we have no freedom on the Internet? I thought the point of the Internet was freedom.
And what is "match making" and why is it blocked? Does this mean my site is read somehow as a dating scene, or is this some euphemism?
No, I am not a fan of Chopra. Your question about ambiguity and caselaw is interesting. There are many cases that turn on the ambiguity of language (maybe most cases). But my specific proposal about the Establishment Clause is new.
The question about the foundation of reality is an old one. If you say matter, then the question of what matter is cannot be sidestepped. In light of quantum indeterminacy, the nature of matter is certainly not obvious.
Benjdm, I'm not sure you are right about rights. I hope that I can say more to the Nazis than that in my opinion, Auschwitz was wrong. The founding generation did not think that rights were a human invention. Maybe they were wrong, but our system might not have come about if people had agreed with you. You remind me of a story about C.S. Lewis. He once said that if humankind found intelligent life in the universe that life might be very different from us. But they would know about taking your turn.
Recall, I am merely suggesting that religious language has meaning on many different levels and that nonsupernatural meanings are not fanciful.
"Recall, I am merely suggesting that religious language has meaning on many different levels and that nonsupernatural meanings are not fanciful."
Then why is it a problem if secularists understand the term 'God' to refer to a conventional deity?
Benjdm, I'm not sure you are right about rights.
Then you'll have to explain or link to an explanation of what it meant for homo sapiens to have rights for the 200,000 years (or so) we've been around. Or how homo erectus had or did not have rights. Etc.
I don't even begin to see it.
I can't tell you about the blocking, only that our filter is very strict. Sometimes it is programming, not content. And only your homepage is blocked, so maybe there is something only there that sets it off. Send me an email, address on my homepage, if you want more info.
Quantum indeterminacy acts on matter, it does not affect the nature of matter. Ordinary matter is made up of the particles of the Standard Model, but quantum mechanics says that the interactions of matter are not deterministic, but probabilistic.
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