The Peripatetic Philosopher ponders:

THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO EMOTIONAL PEACE 

James R. fisher, Jr., Ph. D.

© December 1, 2019

A READER WRITES

Jim,

Since you mentioned him here is my post on Paine.

Whenever white supremacist fanatics try to justify their ideological hatred with religion, I’m reminded of Thomas Paine, which in turn, reminds me of why Paine himself was so reviled by millions of Americans. Paine was a Deist. Here is his take:

“Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism; and it means wealth, the avarice of priests; but so far as respects the good of man in general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter.”

--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason


Now, let this quotation simmer in your thoughts for a while and you can begin to appreciate how clashes of worldviews result in ferocious conflict, as when one ideology, worldview, belief, or religion, tries to invalidate or discredit another, and be advised that the Trump Administration wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment and allow churches to engage in politics without losing their tax exemption status.

In my view, any belief system that depends upon the notion of faith for its validity is apt to become hypersensitive and overtly defensive for having pushed the practical limits of credulity, because the world is awash in divergent beliefs which are experienced as sacred and are existentially bound to mortality salience and thus threats as to their veracity are felt as mortal intimidations, because if one view is right, all the others are wrong.

In a nutshell, our primordial tribalistic inclinations make religion a little like plutonium, a little bit goes a long way and for some people too much can be deadly. But nothing makes this clearer than the religious right’s declarations that there is something Godly about Donald J. Trump.


MY RESPONSE


Your prose are always thought provoking.  I hope you take this response in that context.

I was somewhat amused that you picked this quote from Thomas Paine’s interesting and entertaining “Age of Reason.”

Paine was a conflicted man who was never comfortable in his own skin going from cause to cause. The American Revolution was one in which he devoted considerable energy, and I have also quoted from this document in that regard.

As you will remember, he rushed off to Europe during The French Revolution, always looking to stir up emotions – and doing so quite eloquently – and generate a responsive audience. 

He was neither a devoted American colonial dissident nor a British loyalist but an opportunistic traveling man with a flexible agenda.

Not a happy man, Paine rode his emotions as his religion. He was like a comedian who needs the constant reinforcement of an audience to confirm the relevance of his conflicting emotions.

This is, of course, not bad as many Americans were riding the fence when the British attempted to put them back in their place in the late 18th century. The colonists needed someone to stir up the dust, and Paine came out of the woodwork.

RELIGION AS SOCIETY'S PUNCHING BAG

While no longer a practicing Irish Roman Catholic, I now realize how much Catholicism and Christianity has meant to my development and identity as a person.

As I have grown older, and by the accident of my many careers, I’ve been able to see how flawed my Roman Catholicism and to realize how foolish it was for me to have expected otherwise. 

Roman Catholicism, like all religions, is a human institution created by man designed to serve his weak and ambivalent spirit.  The fact that in doing so its evil side often surfaces upon which all of the attention is then the focus.

To realize my church was as flawed as I am was at first a shock then appalling as I believed (Shall we call it Faith?) all the Roman Catholic propaganda I was meant to absorb without question along with all its silly mystical assertions, while forgiving the church for its many transgression over the centuries which were a matter of history.

Like it or not, Western Civilization was formed by Roman Catholicism as the only form of Christianity the first 1500 years of the modern era. 

Society's first scientists came out of the bowels of its clergy, while Irish monks hand copied much of the wisdom of man during the "Dark Ages" after the "Fall of Rome" with “Muslim” written all over its many discoveries in science and technology.

Religion, as I have indicated in an earlier missive (including atheism and agnosticism) occupies the mind of more than 90 percent of man across this small planet. Now, why is that?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that to be obsessive compulsive about a man, a religion, or indeed, an idea or ideology leaves little time to enjoy this brief experience called “life.”

Enjoy life,

Jim