Elok & C0ckney's religion and society thread.

[Lorizael]

I'm a spiritual atheist. I'm not sure that Richard Dawkins ever existed, but if he did, he said some pretty cool stuff.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Why can't spiritual Christianity be stable in the long-term? What makes you think it has to lead some back to dogmatic religion, and others to atheism?

Christianity, as a religion, is "spiritual" by definition, so I suppose "spiritual Christianity" is pretty stable seeing how it's been around for ~2000 years.

[MrFun]

(thanks for being the one person who actually responded seriously, a scabrous pox on the rest of you)

Excuse me? I responded seriously, as I'm interested in this conversation.

[MrFun]

Basically, I think. Kind of spiritual, but not religious or Deism with a Christian bent, with a but I really like that Jesus dude and think he was cool. Oh, and he may have died and been resurrected, but God loves us regardless.

So it's not okay when I poke fun at religious dogma, but it's okay for you to make fun of spiritual people. Got it.

[Ben Kenobi]

The one thing that has hold peace (in the western world) is the EU.

If anything the EU is the antithesis of the triumph of western values.

[Elok]

I don't think I really have the stamina to answer fully and properly right now, but as to "spirituality," it's a sort of religion for folks who like the idea of religion in a general way, but not the idea of commitment or discipline. There's no dogma, no hierarchy, no getting up early every Sunday, but you get what you pay for. There's also no structure, no strong community bonds, no guidance. I think of it as omphalotheism: navel-gazing elevated to the level of worship. Buddy Jesus cannot expiate your sins, and your belly button isn't going to give you any answers that you didn't give it yourself.

[Elok]

Re: American church influence, I've said before that secularism dominates most of our influential institutions because Christians have effectively self-segregated. I'm not sure why, when or precisely how it happened, but there are "Christian" colleges, "Christian" music, "Christian" everything right down to dating services. The result is that the stuff that isn't "Christian" . . . isn't Christian. And the stuff that is "Christian" tends to focus more on being "Christian" than it does on fulfilling its other function, whatever that is. Which means it almost invariably sucks, so actually talented people flee in droves.

The secular stuff tends to be distinctly hostile to religion in general, though it's been going on so long we hardly notice. I'd estimate that at least a third of this country is still sincerely and devoutly religious in some fashion, but can you name the last time you saw or heard of a significant movie that:

1. Was not specifically aimed at a Christian demographic (no Narnia or Left Behind), and
2. Contained a conventionally religious (NOT "spiritual") character, who
3. Was not Sister Miriam (is treated as neutral or generally positive)?

I'm told Tyler Perry movies do this every time, but I'm not sure who actually watches those. Black people, I guess? He keeps coming up with the money for them, anyway. Otherwise, I can think of, uh, Nightcrawler from X2 and the Coen Brothers remake of the Ladykillers. Both were a rather long time ago. Book of Eli counts for half, I guess, because Eli, while technically the hero, was a jerkoff, and the villain wanted his Bible so HE could be Sister Miriam. But that's about it. The same general rule applies to most of popular culture--and this has been going on for most of my life. I think that might explain some things, just a little.

Now that I think about it, the internet really can't gut those ****ing industries fast enough.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, there is also an argument that Liberal Protestantism (in the 50s, 60s in the US) has 'won' the culture. In that the current culture basically did what Liberal Protestants in the mid 1950s wanted them to do, in terms of social safety nets and whatnot and then the Liberal Protestant churches became superfluous. A victim of their own success. Not that I'm all into that form of Liberal Protestantism (I prefer Barthian neo-Orthodoxy) which seems almost solely social gospel.

As for the significant movie... do Noah and Exodus (later this year) count?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I thought of another one: Philomena.

While the Church did horrible things to her, Philomena Lee, the main character is a faithful Catholic who has forgiven the nuns who took her child. It takes her companion back when he realizes this.

[Elok]

I did not see Noah because I was told Noah was a grubby, murderous lunatic who "talked to God" by doing shrooms with his grandpa. I.e. a sort of blasphemous parody, which movie critics called an insightful commentary on blah blah blah because they say that about every popular blasphemy which does not actually sink to the level of Piss Christ. They said the same thing about Dogma, and except for Buddy Jesus that was utterly vapid.

Philomena I haven't seen, though it has Judi Dench so I might have to. I had mentally classed it with Doubt (which I also did not see) as one of those movies that seems to exist as a commentary on Church scandals (i.e., essentially anti-religious in intent); the main character in that case has to be sympathetic as a matter of dramatic necessity. But hey, I didn't see either, so what the hell do I know?

[Elok]

Lord only knows what they'll do to Exodus (isn't it called Gods and Kings?). I am confident that they'll screw it up somehow, since Hollywood understands religion about as well as fish understand arithmetic. Anyway, I hope you take my point: for a mostly Christian nation, we almost never show Christians in mainstream art, except as villains. I'm not saying they have to be shining perfect heroes, but our choices in general are "not there at all" or "grand inquisitor."

[Lorizael]

...since Hollywood understands religion about as well as fish understand arithmetic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23288253

[Imran Siddiqui]

Noah was quite fantastic in my mind . The complaints were lame, IMO. Aronofsky engaged in the Jewish tradition of midrash on a Biblical story. I saw it in the theater with a mentee of mine (from Church). It made him think about what we have done with God's Creation. I have pre-ordered it on Blu-ray. I mean, it is not as good as Tree of Life as a meditation on God, but what is. Watch it!

[C0ckney]

I don't think I really have the stamina to answer fully and properly right now, but as to "spirituality," it's a sort of religion for folks who like the idea of religion in a general way, but not the idea of commitment or discipline. There's no dogma, no hierarchy, no getting up early every Sunday, but you get what you pay for. There's also no structure, no strong community bonds, no guidance. I think of it as omphalotheism: navel-gazing elevated to the level of worship. Buddy Jesus cannot expiate your sins, and your belly button isn't going to give you any answers that you didn't give it yourself.

i agree with that, however, to me that is its strength and indeed the source of its stability. religion, as a subset of culture, has become less important in the last, let's say 70 years for the sake of argument. this means that less cultural space, less thought is directed towards the issue of religion, and therefore less space for religion in people's lives. a quick, easy, undemanding religion is probably a partial response to this.

of course we can also ask how many people, who went to church and went through the other motions of organised religion, when it was stronger, really thought about, and examined, these things for themselves. i don't know the answer to these questions, but it is at least interesting to consider.

[C0ckney]

to respond to your general point about the hostility to religion in popular culture. i think there is some hostility, organised religion is an easy and often worthy target after all, but there is something else going here and something which is ultimately far more of a threat than direct hostility. i'm talking about the increasing irrelevance of christianity in mainstream culture and society. people care less and less about religious questions in general, and christianity in particular, in a western context; other matters occupy western thought. this is the result of a long historical process which has been playing out since before the appearance of mass culture, and which has been accelerated by it.

as to why this has happened i would suggest the following, in no particular order: philosophical changes; the increase in general education levels; the increasing dissemination of scientific knowledge (which makes the supernatural claims of christianity untenable); industrialisation; the rejection of traditional social models and the breakdown of those models; mass transport and; mass communication.

in light of the above it might be argued that the retreat you describe into a 'christian cultural ghetto' is a move dictated by self-preservation. i'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

there is also the fact that mass culture itself is quite new and inevitably there was going to be a certain distance between this type of culture and the culture that came before, that was, to a certain extent displaced by mass culture (you can see this in other non-religious types of culture too). mass culture plays a part in shaping, but is also a reflection of society in general, so it can be hard to disentangle the two, but to me it seems clear that religion is becoming less important in society in general, and mass culture is both a cause and a reflection of that. you talked about films presenting religion and religious characters in a bad or stereotypical light. if i were a christian this would not worry me; i would start to worry when religious themes and characters are presented not as great questions, but as matters of minor social interest, and that, in my opinion is the way things are likely to go.