Why The Christian's Laughter Is Full Of Pain

[Glaswegian]

Perspective is the underlying problem in any breakdown in communication. Words don't now have and never have had objective meanings. So perspective is everything. Aside from that, I can't imagine how you could engage in a dialogue with anyone, which of course, defeats the purpose in communicating in the first place doesn't it?

When you say that 'perspective is everything', doppelganger, you are expressing a basic tenet of Postmodernism, aren't you? 'There is no objective truth, no objective knowledge, no objective meaning, no objective morality - everything is just a matter of perspective'. These are just some of the claims made by postmodernist writers. And they are right - inasmuch as none of these things is independent of the creatures who construct them: namely, us.

Words don't have and never have had objective meanings.

I agree. The meaning of words is never fixed but is always shifting, always in flux.

I can't imagine how you could engage in a dialogue with anyone, which of course, defeats the purpose of communication in the first place doesn't it?

I know. This is an old problem, isn't it? Philosophers call it: 'The Problem Of Other Minds'. For all you know, doppelganger, you could be having this dialogue not with me but with yourself. But I am faced with the same possibility as well.

Um . .. this perhaps? . . . "That would only distract you from my posts. It is important that you approach my posts in the most objective fashion possible."

Despite what postmodernism tells us about everything being 'just a matter of perspective' we still strive for objectivity in many areas of our life, don't we? For example, let's suppose you had a pet tortoise, and a man cut off its shell with an axe in order to see what it looked like inside, and that this man went to trial for it. Now, the law would never allow you to sit as a juror in this man's trial. This is because in the eyes of the law you would be incapable of giving him a fair hearing, your emotions would get in the way. The law wants a juror to consider the facts in any given case as dispassionately as possible. And this is what I mean when I say that 'it is important that you approach my posts in the most objective fashion possible'. In my view, doppelganger, anything you know about me only serves to undermine your ability to be objective about my posts.

(Post Continued Below)

 

[PureX]

Hi Purex, I think the reason no one addresses it from that angle is because disdain for creation is not part of the Christian theology. God created it and it was good. When Christians speak of rising above nature, it refers to rising about our own animal inclinations, where those inclinations make us focus on self rather than loving our neighbor. Sure, just like any cross-section of humanity, there are Christians who are hurt or otherwise disordered, ill, out of balance and they will focus on the 'sin' and depravity. Heck, Augustine was brilliant but I think he was a rather tormented man, and it shows in his theology. So, we inherit those fallible human ideas as well.

The idea that Christians believe in reincarnation, rather than a spiritual release from some kind of fleshy prison, and the belief that God incarnated into a flesh and blood body, also illustrate that the Christian view is that this material world and our lives in it are good, even if they are hurt or broken.

I understand what you are saying, but I can't help but think that your view is a distinctly modern view of Christianity, and doesn't necessarily represent even a majority view when taken in the context of greater history. And that the view of natural existence as "hopelessly fallen and sinful" is and has been far more prevalent than the views of a few contemporary "ill members".

Just as a simple example, some years ago I was acquainted with a national collection of "roots music" singers called "Shape Note Singers" who have a tradition in America running back three hundred years, and who have collected many of their songs in a book called the "Sacred Harp".

These songs were written by just average American folks, most of them Christians, and they reflect the predominant life themes that were on the people's minds as they wrote them. And I was shocked by the prevalence of death, and hopelessness, and suffering expressed in so many of these songs, but done so within a paradigm of full expectation, as prescribed by their religion. It is obvious, from reading the words of many of these songs, that the authors had been raised fully expecting life to be a horrible travail of suffering, through which one proved himself worthy (hopefully) of God's forgiveness. I honestly believe that these themes have run through Christianity strong and deep since before the middle ages. And they in fact represent far more human being's experience of Christ than the more modern-day love and joy based paradigms.

I also feel that as the old and traditional Christian paradigms (based on sin and suffering) fall away, and are being replaced by the newer and more modern "feel good" Christian paradigms, we are seeing a reaction to this from the religious right, or the more conservative-minded Christians among us, who feel that their religion has lost it's dominance and is slowly becoming an eccentric "fringe" version of Christianity. Which in fact it is, here in America, as expressed in your own post. And a lot of the politicization of the religious right in America is as a reaction to this shift to a more modern love-based Christian paradigm.

I think there's a lot more going on here than people realize.

 

[James the Persian]

I understand what you are saying, but I can't help but think that your view is a distinctly modern view of Christianity, and doesn't necessarily represent even a majority view when taken in the context of greater history. And that the view of natural existence as "hopelessly fallen and sinful" is and has been far more prevalent than the views of a few contemporary "ill members".

No, it's not a modern view. It's a very ancient view. What Lunamoth describes is exactly what the Church taught from the beginning and what still is taught in the east. Your dissenting majority view is not, then, in the context of greater history so much as in the context of a post-Augustinian (as he is really the originator of this line of thought) history, limited to the west. The ancient and modern view of the east is and always was that creation is good, all creation, and that sin is illness. The Incarnational theology that is, and always was, expressed in the east simply cannot be fitted into such a docetistic and dualist world view as that which overtook certain strands of western society. Lunamoth's post was completely accurate.

James

 

[PureX]

No, it's not a modern view. It's a very ancient view. What Lunamoth describes is exactly what the Church taught from the beginning and what still is taught in the east. Your dissenting majority view is not, then, in the context of greater history so much as in the context of a post-Augustinian (as he is really the originator of this line of thought) history, limited to the west. The ancient and modern view of the east is and always was that creation is good, all creation, and that sin is illness. The Incarnational theology that is, and always was, expressed in the east simply cannot be fitted into such a docetistic and dualist world view as that which overtook certain strands of western society. Lunamoth's post was completely accurate.

James

But aren't you minimizing the effect that such western Christianity has had on the world? How many of these western Christians are there, compared to Eastern Orthodox? Seems to me, a LOT! I mean we're talking most of Europe, North America, and South America. Even if what you say is true, and I have no reason to believe it's not, you have to admit that Eastern Orthodoxy has not been the dominant form of Christianity in most of the world. And that the "fallen, sin-filled, and righteous suffering" vision of Christianity has been dominating for centuries.

 

[Glaswegian]

(Post #141 Continued)

What you call my 'intensity of feeling about Christianity' holds for monotheistic religions in general (and all other forms of supernaturalism).

So you are okay with polytheistic religions?

I include polytheistic religions under the categorization 'all other forms of supernaturalism', doppelganger. In my view, the Gods of polytheism (e.g., Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, Mars, Astarte, Mithras, Apollo, Poseidon, Artemis, Hermes, Pan, etc.) are no more real than the Gods of monotheism (e.g., Jehovah, Allah, and the triune Christian God). In other words, all of these Gods have no reality independent of the humans who invent them - which is to say, no reality apart from their human creators.

What do you mean by 'spiritual experience'?

Define it however you'd like. I'll go with your definition.

Okay. I'll define 'spiritual experience' as the sheer wonder one feels at being alive in the world. Religion has no monopoly over this type of experience because it is felt by all human beings - the religious and non-religious alike. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that there is something wrong with a human being who does not experience it at some time in his life. In great scientists, philosophers and poets etc. the experience operates very powerfully. The kind of experience I''m talking about is expressed well by Schopenhauer in the following extract from his masterpiece The World As Will And Representation:

In endless space countless luminous spheres, round each of which some dozen smaller illuminated ones revolve, hot at the core and covered over with a hard cold crust; on this crust a mouldy film has produced living and knowing beings: this is empirical truth, the real, the world. Yet for a being who thinks, it is a precarious position to stand on one of those numberless spheres freely floating in boundless space, without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings that throng, press, and toil, restlessly and rapidly arising and passing away in beginningless and endless time.

 

[Glaswegian]

I have never met a Christian that said the words "The Jews killed our Messiah"

In that case, Anade, please allow me to introduce you to a Christian who did say them - in fact, one of the most powerful and influential Christians who ever lived. His name is Martin Luther.

In 1543, Martin Luther wrote one of the most infamous anti-Semitic books in history. It is called On The Jews And Their Lies. Let me provide you with a couple of quotes from that book. Viz...

'We [Christians] are at fault for not slaying them [the Jews] for the death of Jesus Christ.'

'Our Lord also calls them [the Jews] a "brood of vipers" (Matt. 3:7); furthermore, in John 8: 39, 40, 44 the Lord states: "If you were Abraham's children you would do what Abraham did. But instead you seek my death...You are of your father the Devil."

Now, Anade, here is what your compatriot - David Chidester, the renowned professor of Comparative Religion - says about On The Jews And Their Lies in his acclaimed book Christianity: A Global History....

In a polemical tract, On The Jews And Their Lies (1543), Luther advocated banning all rabbinic teaching, confiscating Jewish prayer books, and burning Jewish homes, schools and synagogues. If they still refused to convert to Christianity, Luther proposed, then the Jews should be expelled from Germany, even though he thought that Christians would be "at fault for not slaying them".

 

[Glaswegian]

Using that logic, we could say that "the Jews killed our Messiah", too.

Could say? That is, indeed, what Christians have said about Jews across the centuries - "The Jews killed our Messiah".

Maybe you will recall the following words of mine from another post, sojourner:

The myth that Jesus was God incarnate has been used over the last two millennia as the fundamental justification for anti-Semitism in the Christian world. Why? Because according to the New Testament the Jews did not just kill a man. No. They committed the worst crime imaginable. They killed God in the form of Jesus. Because they were held to be collectively responsible for this most awful and heinous of acts, the Jewish people have been systematically used by Christians throughout the ages as the scapegoat par excellence on which they could project and discharge their accumulated feelings of guilt, inadequacy and self-loathing. As 'the murderers of Christ' no punishment has been deemed too terrible for Jews by Christians historically.

Yes, sojourner, the road to the Nazi death camps leads all the way back to the New Testament. In fact, all the way back into the mouth of Jesus himself when he said to the Jews:

'If God were your father, you would love me...Your father is the Devil and you choose to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning...' (John 8: 42-44)

The omniscient God who was allegedly in Jesus must have known that this condemnation was destined to be used by Christians not only as a rationale but as an ideological basis for vilifying, oppressing and murdering Jews over many centuries. And yet knowing this He still allowed those dreadful words to pass from Jesus's lips.

The fact that the omniscient God who was allegedly in Jesus was fully aware that the condemnation of the Jews which He allowed Jesus to utter would have the most terrible consequences for the Jewish people across the centuries clearly indicates that He was grossly irresponsible and malicious in the extreme for allowing Jesus to utter this condemnation.

Are there any Christians in this forum who disagree with this view? Alternatively, are there any Christians here who think that God was right to allow that condemnation to pass from Jesus's lips knowing full well the disastrous consequences it would have for millions of Jews at the hands of Christian persecutors?

 

[James the Persian]

But aren't you minimizing the effect that such western Christianity has had on the world? How many of these western Christians are there, compared to Eastern Orthodox? Seems to me, a LOT! I mean we're talking most of Europe, North America, and South America. Even if what you say is true, and I have no reason to believe it's not, you have to admit that Eastern Orthodoxy has not been the dominant form of Christianity in most of the world. And that the "fallen, sin-filled, and righteous suffering" vision of Christianity has been dominating for centuries.

But you didn't say 'in the modern world' you said 'in the context of greater history'. Whilst what you say about more recent history is true (we plus the OOs together being about one third the size of the RCC), that has only been relatively recently. For the whole of the first millennium it was our view that dominated. For the first half of the second millennium (until the Fall of Constantinople or thereabouts), our view was a much greater influence on the world than since the Turkish conquest and, in fact, the Augustinian view was represented only by Rome, and their version of it was often far less severe than many modern expressions. Really, the dominance of the anti-materialistic, self-hating 'we're all doomed' Christianity has its origins with people like Calvin and so is firmly within the last 500 years (though it clearly existed as a relatively smaller current of thought before then). I don't doubt that that anti-Christian philosophy has had a major influence on the west, which is today's dominant culture, but in the context of greater history it is just as clearly the minority view.

James

 

[James the Persian]

The fact that the omniscient God who was allegedly in Jesus was fully aware that the condemnation of the Jews which He allowed Jesus to utter would have the most terrible consequences for the Jewish people across the centuries clearly indicates that He was grossly irresponsible and malicious in the extreme for allowing Jesus to utter this condemnation.

Are there any Christians in this forum who disagree with this view? Alternatively, are there any Christians here who think that God was right to allow that condemnation to pass from Jesus's lips knowing full well the disastrous consequences it would have for millions of Jews at the hands of Christian persecutors?

The attempted condemnation (at least the only one that appears to have so far been discussed in this thread) was uttered by the Jews in the crowd, not by Christ. On the contrary, Christ said 'Forgive them for they know not what they do'. I think you need to actually stop to read the Gospels before making claims that make you look ridiculous. It is vaguely possible that you have some other condemnation in mind which, if ripped out of context, can be used to justify anti-Semitism by those with such an agenda, but I fail to recall a single one which is related to the events of the Crucifixion, which is clearly what you were talking about. Oh, and Martin Luther is a way more minor figure than you try to give him credit for, and utterly unrepresentative of wider Christianity (though I agree wholeheartedly that he truly was a hateful man).

James

 

[PureX]

But you didn't say 'in the modern world' you said 'in the context of greater history'. Whilst what you say about more recent history is true (we plus the OOs together being about one third the size of the RCC), that has only been relatively recently. For the whole of the first millennium it was our view that dominated. For the first half of the second millennium (until the Fall of Constantinople or thereabouts), our view was a much greater influence on the world than since the Turkish conquest and, in fact, the Augustinian view was represented only by Rome, and their version of it was often far less severe than many modern expressions. Really, the dominance of the anti-materialistic, self-hating 'we're all doomed' Christianity has its origins with people like Calvin and so is firmly within the last 500 years (though it clearly existed as a relatively smaller current of thought before then). I don't doubt that that anti-Christian philosophy has had a major influence on the west, which is today's dominant culture, but in the context of greater history it is just as clearly the minority view.

James

None of this is really the point, however. The point is why did this dark version of Christianity become so popular? What is there in it that people have been drawn to? How wide spread is it still? What has it's effect been on humanity as a whole? What is the "antidote"? And should we even want an antidote?

I believe that as this dark version of Christianity struggles to survive, it's causing a lot of strife. What, if anything, should we be doing about it? What are your thoughts on this? In the opening post it is implied that it makes the adherants very unhappy. Does it? And if so, why do they embrace it?

 

[James the Persian]

None of this is really the point, however. The point is why did this dark version of Christianity become so popular? What is there in it that people have been drawn to? How wide spread is it still? What has it's effect been on humanity as a whole? What is the "antidote"? And should we even want an antidote?

I believe that as this dark version of Christianity struggles to survive, it's causing a lot of strife. What, if anything, should we be doing about it? What are your thoughts on this? In the opening post it is implied that it makes the adherants very unhappy. Does it? And if so, why do they embrace it?

I can't really answer most of your questions because I don't claim to know the answers. I think that the Augustinian view overtook the west as the west became more or less confined to Latin sources and so forgot much of the faith of the Fathers who wrote in Greek. The fact that Augustine's aberrant theology was never corrected was also due to the east forgetting Latin. Had we never had the Great Schism we probably would not have had this strand of thought and probably no Reformation either, and that seriously exacerbated it. But this is all speculation.

I think the view you describe is still widespread in the west, particularly amongst Protestants, though it isn't always so extreme. I don't however, think it makes the adherents unhappyy. If anything it seems to make them perversely happy and self-righteous when they take it to the extreme. I know it didn't make me unhappy when I grew up in it, but it did contribute greatly to the rejection of that faith. As to how we solve it, to do that I think we need to rediscover the theology of the Fathers and, in doing so we must reject western Christianity, either by moving east, as I have done, or by reforming those aspects of our churches that are peculiarly western and destructive (which the RCC, for instance, appears to be slowly doing). Unfortunately many of those who adhere to such concepts as 'total depravity', cling to them with a force that makes you wonder if abandoning them would result in the utter abandonment of Christ so, I'm afraid, we will probably always have with us, at least as a minority, those who would prefer to persist in the heresy started unwittingly by Augustine and expanded on by Calvin et al, than to rediscover a healthy appreciation for the inherent goodness in all of God's creation, even man.

James

 

[doppelganger]

I include polytheistic religions under the categorization 'all other forms of supernaturalism', doppelganger. In my view, the Gods of polytheism (e.g., Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, Mars, Astarte, Mithras, Apollo, Poseidon, Artemis, Hermes, Pan, etc.) are no more real than the Gods of monotheism (e.g., Jehovah, Allah, and the triune Christian God). In other words, all of these Gods have no reality independent of the humans who invent them - which is to say, no reality apart from their human creators.

That's a fair assessment, provided one can only imagine "gods" and "godesses" as representing things outside the mind. As things in one's inner phenomenology, they are quite real, however. Their value lies not in seeing their names and images, but what experiences those names and images represent to the one who finds them real.

Okay. I'll define 'spiritual experience' as the sheer wonder one feels at being alive in the world.

Great definition! Frubals . . .

Religion has no monopoly over this type of experience because it is felt by all human beings - the religious and non-religious alike.

I'd go so far as to say that what I understand to be "religion" is an attempt to control this sort of experience and sometimes even negate it.

In great scientists, philosophers and poets etc. the experience operates very powerfully. The kind of experience I''m talking about is expressed well by Schopenhauer in the following extract from his masterpiece The World As Will And Representation:

I agree with that. I'm also a Schopenhauer fan. Albert Einstein says something very similar to what you wrote above about great scientists, philosophers and poets - he even expressly includes "atheists" and "heretics" as those awakened to this "cosmic religious feeling."

Good post, Glas. Welcome to the forum!

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The OP sounds like bunk to me. Poetic. But irrational and based on a false premiss.

... ...

 

[Glaswegian]

The attempted condemnation...

Your use of the word 'attempted' here, James, is indicative of evasion on your part. Either Jesus condemned the Jews or he didn't.

The attempted condemnation (at least the only one that appears to have so far been discussed in this thread)...

Your attention is slipping, James. In this thread I have provided three examples from The New Testament in which Jesus expresses condemnation of the Jews. Look back and check.

The attempted condemnation (at least the only one that appears to have so far been discussed in this thread) was uttered by the Jews in the crowd, not by Christ.

The fact that you have resorted to denying the words spoken by your Lord in The New Testament is very sad, James - and very revealing.

Jesus's condemnation of the Jews in the New Testament is clear and unambiguous. Here is what Jesus says to the Jews in The Gospel According To John (in the section of that gospel entitled 'God's children and the Devil's children'):

'Jesus said, "If God were your father, you would love me, for God is the source of my being, and from Him I come...Your father is the Devil, and you choose to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning..."' (John 8: 42, 44)

And...

'They [i.e., the Jews] retorted, "Abraham is our father". "If you were Abraham's children", Jesus replied, "you would do as Abraham did. As it is, you are bent on killing me, a man who told you the truth, as I heard it from God. That is not how Abraham acted. You are doing your own father's [i.e., the Devil's] work." John 8: 39-41)

It was not John the Baptist or Mary Magdalene or Pontius Pilate who uttered the above condemnations of the Jews, was it? Of course not. The condemnations were uttered by Jesus himself - as John's gospel makes explicitly clear. So why on earth are you seeking to deny this? Why are you pretending to yourself that condemnations of this sort were 'uttered by the Jews in the crowd, and not by Christ'?

Now, allow me to re-state what I said earlier in this thread. Viz...

The fact that the omniscient God who was allegedly in Jesus was fully aware that the condemnations of the Jews which He allowed Jesus to utter would have the most terrible consequences for the Jewish people across the centuries clearly indicates that He was grossly irresponsible and malicious in the extreme for allowing Jesus to utter these condemnations.

Do you agree, James? Or do you think that God was right to allow these condemnations to pass from Jesus's lips knowing full well in His omniscience the disastrous consequences they would have for millions of Jews at the hands of Christian persecutors across the centuries?

 

[Glaswegian]

Martin Luther is a way more minor figure than you try to give him credit for

Martin Luther - a minor figure in the history of Christianity? Bejesus and bejabbers, James! How can you make such a preposterous statement as that when the entire Reformation stands against you? Please tell me that you are not being serious when you hold that Martin Luther is a minor figure in Christianity - please tell me you're just being silly.

Let me provide you with one assessment of Martin Luther's standing in World history - and not merely his standing in Christian history. It comes from the entry on Martin Luther in Wikipedia (so it's very easy for you to check with a couple of mouse-clicks). Viz...

'[Martin Luther's] teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines and culture of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions, as well as the course of Western civilization.'

Martin Luther - a minor figure. You are absolutely hilarious, James! :biglaugh:

Next you'll be telling me that Jesus is a minor figure in Christianity!

 

[James the Persian]

Do you agree, James? Or do you think that God was right to allow these condemnations to pass from Jesus's lips knowing full well in His omniscience the disastrous consequences they would have for millions of Jews at the hands of Christian persecutors across the centuries?

I didn't deny any words. I simply didn't see these condemnations mentioned. I'd note, though, that they were not condemnations of the Jewish people but condemnation of the practices and beliefs of those Jews who rejected him - anti-Judaic they may have been anti-Semitic they were not. If those who followed on chose to reinterpret those condemnations in anti-Semitic terms then they are the ones at fault and not God. Your charge, frankly, is ridiculous. God is Truth and I would not expect Him to lie and it is those who perpetrate crimes that are responsible not those who uttered the words they have twisted to justify them.

As for Luther, I didn't say he was minor, I said he was far more minor than you suggest. He was merely the impetous for the Reformation, which was a religious movement confined to the west, with no impact on the east at all and little impact on southern Europe, being pretty much confined to the north west. In terms of the overall history of the Church, the Reformation is relatively small, seing as it didn't even take anything like half of the Roman Catholic church and was confined to only the last 500 years or so. Historically and even in the modern world, the vast majority of Christians have had absolutely nothing to do with the Reformers, their churches or their novel doctrines. The only way you can make Luther out to have been as influential as you do, is to say that he was a major figure in western European history - and you'd get no argument from me on that - but historically and on the Church as a whole, other heresiarchs, say Arius, could lay claim to having had a far more major effect, and your view merely shows off your rather parochial western bias.

James

 

[Glaswegian]

Okay. I'll define 'spiritual experience' as the sheer wonder one feels at being alive in the world. Religion has no monopoly over this type of experience because it is felt by all human beings - the religious and non-religious alike.

I'd go so far as to say that what I understand to be "religion" is an attempt to control this sort of experience and sometimes even negate it.

You are quite correct, doppelganger. This has been the strategy of "reIigion" historically. I have previously described "religion" as hijacking and perverting this sort of experience in the following way:

....It is generally agreed by rational individuals that Religion is rooted in fear, ignorance and self-deception. But Religion has a further source which is in no way reprehensible like the three just mentioned: namely, a powerful metaphysical need. This metaphysical need is a natural consequence of simply being alive in the world. The need is tied to a momentous awareness which comes to all thinking creatures sooner or later concerning themselves and their situation, and it usually expresses itself in the form of a question - the most fundamental question: viz. Why is there such a thing as existence as opposed to complete nothingness? Why does the universe exist, along with myself, and all of these other living things that I see around me? Instead of nothing, why is there anything at all?

Schopenhauer depicts this profound metaphysical awakening as follows:

'In endless space countless luminous spheres, round each of which some dozen smaller illuminated ones revolve, hot at the core and covered over with a hard cold crust; on this crust a mouldy film has produced living and knowing beings: this is empirical truth, the real, the world. Yet for a being who thinks, it is a precarious position to stand on one of those numberless spheres freely floating in boundless space, without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings that throng, press, and toil, restlessly and rapidly arising and passing away in beginningless and endless time.'

Within every human being, then, there is an enduring need to obtain an answer to the mystery of existence. But what is tragic from the point of view of humanity is that throughout the ages Religion has hijacked and perverted this need by falsely claiming to know the answer to the metaphysical mystery. As Schopenhauer notes:

'The fundamental, secret and primal piece of astuteness of all priests, everywhere and at all times...is as follows. They have recognised and grasped the enormous strength and the ineradicability of the metaphysical need of man: then they pretend to possess the means of satisfying it, in that the solution to the great enigma has, by extraordinary channels, been directly communicated to them. Once they have persuaded men of the truth of this, they can lead and dominate them to their heart's content.'

The hijacking and perversion of the metaphysical need by Religion has been tragic for humanity historically. For instead of this need being allowed to express itself naturally - that is, as the fundamental driving force behind every attempt to understand the universe and increase human knowledge - it was channelled by Religion into myriad worthless endeavours (e.g., endless pilgrimages), preposterous theological speculation (e.g., 'How many angels can stand on the end of a pin?'), and some of the vilest conflicts on record (e.g., the Crusades)...among other lunacies. And this tragedy continues in the present day under new forms (e.g., the rise of the Religious Right in America).

The sabotaging of the metaphysical need by Religion has been harmful not just for humanity but, paradoxically, for Religion itself. Thus, Carl Sagan is correct when he writes:

'How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My God is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.'