The revival of Soul?
Brooks describes the pushback against a militant materialism in an interesting article this morning:
Its a bit strange to see the things I've believed for 20 years start to creep into the mainstream. I'm not really sure how I feel about it.
First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.
Its a bit strange to see the things I've believed for 20 years start to creep into the mainstream. I'm not really sure how I feel about it.
posted by Jonah at 11:55 PM
3 Comments:
A bad piece, I think.
If "materialism" is to be understood as the doctrine that "there are no souls that can exist independently of bodies" then all four points can easily be accepted by modern science (or philosophers) without retreating one centimeter from that basic position.
The route: turn quickly to evolutionary processes to understand 1 - 4 and see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon but still reject claims about "souls."
I also doubt that anyone who is religious really wants to cling to #4 as the explanation for turns toward religion. If "God" just means "ability to transcend one's current situation" or "ability to see that things are always more than they appear at the moment (bringing in a sense of awe and mystery about the world)" then hell, Nietzsche would agree with that too, and you know what he says about God.
Bah on Mr. Brooks.
I think you're missing the point of the article. Its not that hard-core materialists can be contradicted by new science, but thatthis:
"debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible."
that is, science doesn't contradict religion (or spirituality), but Religions.
science and religious experiences will, according to Brooks, at some point, be reconciled.
J
You may be right -- I was busy and didn't read the actual article. I just went by the quote you supplied, which seems to support my above comment.
By the way, I just put you on my blog roll. My own blog has been on hiatus the last month (due to the end of school and finishing the book), but it's back up and running now.
Tough to keep a blog running, isn't it?
C
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