NYT LTTE - Our Changing Perceptions of God & Religion by Lawrence Krauss

[stopbush]

Our Changing Perceptions of God and Religion


Published: December 1, 2009
To the Editor:

Re “The Religious Wars,” by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Nov. 26):

There seems something facile about Robert Wright’s suggestion that the fact that “god” grows better over time reflects evidence that there is higher purpose, or Karen Armstrong’s notion that pushing reasoning powers to their limit, stretching language and living compassionately produce a transcendence that should be interpreted in a religious sense, and I am surprised that Mr. Kristof presents their arguments as if they offer some rational middle ground for discussion.

“God” has gotten more moral over time because even organized religions have been dragged forward, often kicking and screaming, by human reason, which itself has been pushed forward by our discoveries about nature — discoveries that belied obviously false notions about superiority of one race over another or the need to impose divine vengeance to respond to simple, explicable acts of nature.

While it is surely true that faith itself may exist beyond the bounds of rationality, what Mr. Kristof should be praising is reason and not faith.

If one wants to find transcendent examples of pushing reasoning to its limit and stretching language to the end of its tether, one could do worse than to read the books of my colleagues Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

Lawrence Krauss
Tempe, Ariz., Nov. 26, 2009

[Fumesucker]

1. Yawn.. Yet another slam on Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris..

They must be scaring the crap out of the theists, I hear their names mentioned in negative terms so often.

Meanwhile the Pope in Rome wants us to know that he disapproves of profligate excess consumption.

[snagglepuss]

3. I believe you may want to reread his letter since what you've written about

Kraus doesn't make sense.

[stopbush]

5. Yeah. What in the hell was Fumesucker commenting on anyway?

[Fumesucker]

10. Eh, I may have misinterpreted it but this sentence certainly sounds negative to me..

If one wants to find transcendent examples of pushing reasoning to its limit and stretching language to the end of its tether, one could do worse than to read the books of my colleagues Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

To my mind their reasoning and language is perfectly reasonable and not stretching anything except the biases of theists.

[ET Awful]

4. How is saying "You could do worse than to read" their books a "slam"?

Please explain.

That sounds like an endorsement to me.

[snagglepuss]

2. Yesterday I was speaking to someone about Catholicism and he pointed

out that Catholicism isn't and never has been interested in depth psychology. The confessional is not an opportunity to understand oneself or one's motivations, it is to simply to admit mistakes and not do them again. To be a Catholic, though it applies to all organized religion, is simply to obey an external set of rules. Delving into why we do what we do comes from science/reason/the Enlightenment.

[Jim__]

6. A link to Kristof's original column.

Here.

Based on the actual column, Krauss' claim that religion has been pushed forward by reason and discoveries in nature, isn't supported by Wright's claim that St. Paul softened Christianity:

As for Christianity, Mr. Wright argues that it was Saint Paul — more than Jesus, an apocalyptic prophet — who emphasized love and universalism and built Christian faith as it is known today. Saint Paul focused on these elements, he says, partly as a way to broaden the appeal of the church and convert Gentiles.

I'm not sure how much reason or knowledge of nature advanced between Christ's preaching and St Paul's preaching (he died about 67 AD).

[stopbush]

7. You've got it backasswards.

As you yourself indicate, Paul's writing were written before the Gospels were written (Mark was the first, c. 65CE), and many Biblical scholars acknowledge that the Gospel writers were quite aware of Paul's writings. Significantly, Paul references not a single event in the life of Jesus. In fact, a close reading of Paul's letters shows that he saw Jesus as a non-corporeal being who lived and died and fought his battles in heaven.

So, there's every reason to believe that Jesus was an invention of Paul who was taken up and fleshed out by the Gospel writers, specifically Mark, whose Gospel makes no sense as a history but a lot of sense as an allegorical fiction.

Taken in this context, there can be no question about any "advances" taking place between Paul's teaching and Jesus' preaching as one was most likely a real person (Paul) while Jesus is most likely a fictional person - not to mention that Paul's teaching came before Jesus' teaching. If anything, the Gospel writers REGRESSED in their depiction of Jesus, taking Paul's savior of the world (including Gentiles) and a message of love and turning Jesus into an (in Jesus' own words) "only for the Jews" savior, who preached a hell of eternal damnation and suffering for non-believing Jews, bringing a sword to separate even immediate families from each other.

[Jim__]

8. Hardly.

Krauss is criticizing Kristof's column for not arguing against Wright's claim of an evolving spituality. According to the column, Wright, at least partly, bases this on St. Paul's view as opposed to Jesus' view. So, Krauss' argument is not in the context you place it in; but rather in the context of Wright's argument and Kristof's acceptance of it; and Krauss says nothing about Paul's opinion about a non-corporeal Christ. If you want to talk about context, the letter and the column provide the context (as I said in my original post - based on the actual column). Your arguments are completelly outside the context of the argument as presented.

[stopbush]

11. Yer right. I just took the opportunity to get on my soapbox.

[DeSwiss]

9. Religion is a joke.

- A bad joke.

K&R