I’m reading Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, a completely written new within the delusion style (a mode I like and which I’m writing in as chances are high you’ll possibly possibly almost definitely almost definitely stumble on right here). One his tiny aspect tales made me ponder non secular versus atheistic tales and what relation they non-public to love, goodness, and activism to support and alternate the enviornment.
I’m now not seeking to label and even give proof for or towards any religion on this musing. I non-public to claim truthfully, though, that I’m dissing the atheists’ legend. So almost definitely I’m giving a subjective argument towards the materialist-naturalist-atheist meta-memoir. But you be the make a resolution.
I’m attracted to the key Jewish and Christian tales. Some of what I articulate right here could be equally utilized to Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and I’m certain other non secular tales. That’s irrelevant to me for now. Basically, I’m attracted to how the atheism legend doesn’t line up despite the protests and ancient Vulcan logic of Hitchens and the quite quite a lot of new atheists. (In point of fact, Spock would have indispensable higher, so I shouldn’t malign the Vulcans).
There are four tales I non-public to touch upon:
(1) The Mount Sinai legend.
(2) The Yeshua (Jesus) legend.
(3) The enviornment to reach abet legend.
(4) and the materialist-naturalist-atheist legend.
The Mount Sinai legend selects a of us (the Jewish of us) and appoints them as the priests of divine holiness to the enviornment. Included within the requires of this legend are ritual components (the purity licensed pointers) and ethical components (therapy of the uncomfortable, the marginalized, like of neighbor, and so forth.). I’m now not saying the Mount Sinai legend has no problems (slavery tolerated and legislated, divine warfare, and so forth.). But it is a memoir elevating human beings up to a stage of responsibility and inspiration thru guarantees of union with God.
The Mount Sinai legend conjures up and motivates like, justice, and indirectly equality (the role of non-Jewish peoples within the Mount Sinai legend enters in thru the Abraham narratives and about a other subject issues so that, properly interpreted, the Mount Sinai legend is now not appropriate a Jewish legend).
The Yeshua (Jesus) legend assumes the truth of the Mount Sinai legend (a truth sadly distorted in Christendom as quite a lot of Christian theologians will agree). It is miles a memoir of a particular person that came therapeutic and serving and who indirectly remained devoted to a imaginative and prescient of laborious calling from his Father (God) who required dying within the face of corrupt.
The Yeshua legend, properly interpreted, leads followers motivated to affix Yeshua within the work of therapeutic, serving, and even sacrificial like. Fair as Jewish history has examples of faithfulness to boot to unfaithfulness to the legend, so does this one. Judaism motivates many to loving activism and so does a spirited, biblical Christianity.
The enviornment to reach abet legend says that this world comprises in it goodness that can endure and not utilizing a cease in sight and badness that can reach to an pause and not utilizing a cease in sight. Nothing merely on this world might possibly possibly possibly almost definitely furthermore now not be higher on this planet to reach abet and nothing faulty on this world will continue to exist into the enviornment to reach abet. Right here is a Jewish and Christian legend.
The enviornment to reach abet legend, properly interpreted, is now not about ignoring this label world however renewing it in phases alongside the technique to the enviornment to reach abet.
In inequity with all of these, the materialist-naturalist-atheist legend rejects any transcendent beginning put for human beings and any goal or motive for history or the future. We came from randomness and pause in randomness. Conventional makes an are trying at ethics include the view that that “we’ll be happier all the plot thru out short, meaningless lives if we give to charity and/or work for peace and wellness.”
The aspects at which the atheist legend if truth be told works are the aspects which undercut and overthrow the legend itself. As an instance, we might possibly possibly possibly almost definitely furthermore evaluate human lifestyles to a dying patient in a in uncomfortable health mattress. And one make of atheist legend might possibly possibly possibly almost definitely furthermore creep like this: to be ethical is a comely thing, like giving water to a dying child to ease their passage. That sort of legend is inspiring. But it is inspiring precisely because it values one thing irrational and lovely, one thing non-cloth and supernatural. It values like for like’s sake. It values consolation and nourishment. It looks to be like beyond this lifestyles, admit it or now not, and suggests that such values non-public enduring meaning.
Theoretically, non secular faith outcomes in greater like and goodness and activism. In discover, we know that non secular faith is linked to hypocrisy and corrupt as properly. Theoretically, atheism outcomes in abandonment of values and ethics. In discover, we know that in quite a lot of circumstances agnostics and atheists discover like, goodness, and activism.
The adaptation is that view within the non secular tales lines up with what discover might possibly possibly possibly almost definitely furthermore quiet be.
And that makes the materialist-naturalist-atheist legend a unsuitable one — whenever you occur to suspect in like and goodness and activism.
Authentic Biblical Holy Land Crown of Thorns
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