What's your opinion on apophatic theology?

[DetlefK]

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/07/07/tell/

[Cartoonist]

1. Never heard of it

Looked it up. Trying to get my head around it. There doesn't seem to have anything to hold on to.

By not defining God in any way, you're not making him unassailable, you're making him nonexistent.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Karen Armstrong is a notable exponent of it

She's been frequently quoted in Religion Group threads. It makes for nice interfaith "all religions are about the same thing" discussions, but, as you say, really makes their basis non-graspable, which means there's no reason to accept anything that one religion claims that isn't claimed by all of them,

If taken seriously, it reduces religion to just another guess at 'the ultimate reality', with no more evidence than the idea we're in a computer simulation, or the characters in a being's story.

[onager]

4. Armstrong = the Kim Kardashian of theology

Just another con artist who created a great marketing opportunity. Especially among the "spiritual but not religious" demographic.

Almost all of Armstrong's name-droppers call her a "scholar," which she isn't. She's a former nun who failed to get a university degree. Her M.O. is to pick a Deity-Of-The-Day, and Armstrong hasn't yet met a deity she doesn't like, AFAIK. She vacuums up the research done by real scholars on that deity/religion, lets it digest for a while, then pukes it back up in a pile of her own bland metaphysical noodlings.

Her brown-nosing of Islam was especially egregious. Mohammed really loved the Jews! Anti-Semitism was created by the West! Give me a break.

If Armstrong really believes her own BS, she should go spend some time with the enthusiastic Sunni theologians of ISIS. As an unmarried woman past child-bearing age, I think she'd soon discover her real value in their society - fetching water and food for the Brothers. If she started mouthing off about how "we all worship the same God," she'd discover that's called apostasy. And carries the death penalty.

[Nitram]

7. Onager, I beg to differ.

Armstrong has written some excellent books. Well-researched, well-written. Her "Life of Buddha" is an excellent introduction to Buddhism.

[onager]

9. Well, differ away!

This old interview with Armstrong at U.S. Catholic sums up most of the things I dislike about her:

USC: How do people understand God in Western culture today?

Armstrong: The idea of God is treated as fact today. A lot of people see God as a discrete personality; God is a creator in the same way as you or I create something. In the 17th century in the West and during the Enlightenment, scientists and philosophers such as Isaac Newton and René Descartes believed that they could prove God's existence scientifically. They said science was the best path to all truth. The other ways of coming to truth, such as art or mysticism or ritual, were downplayed. God became a fact, pure and simple.

USC: What's wrong with seeing God as fact?

Armstrong: Theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas have said that God doesn't exist like you or me or this chair. They said you couldn't say God exists because exist is too limited a word...

USC: Are there other doctrines that could help us recover the sense of religion as practice?

Armstrong: We never really got Trinity in the West, but it was also a spiritual practice. In the early Greek church, the Trinity would be imparted not just as a jingle--"Three in one and one in three, oh, the noble Trinity"--but as a meditation after the transformative initiation of Baptism.

You swing your mind back from the three manifestations of God that we can sense, to the ousia of God, the one that we can never know, backward and forward. The doctrine is simply the end of the meditation. You have to go through the meditation and keep doing it all your life to understand Trinity. It's described very much as a transcendent experience. Ancient theologians were trying to remind Christians that it was impossible to think about God as a simple personality.

http://www.uscatholic.org/node/5076

"The idea of God is treated as a fact today?" Except for a few million or more atheists, agnostics and other doubters.

"...you couldn't say God exists because exist is too limited a word." Meaning Armstrong & Co. just make up any old crap they like to define God. I see that every day in Certain DU Groups. That's why we can never get a straight answer on what they believe. Or don't.

The "ousia" of God that we can never know? We have to "go through the meditation" ALL OUR LIVES to understand Trinity? This is just bafflegab and double-talk. Armstrong and her buddies in the Sophisticated Theology racket are past masters of that.

I can explain the Trinity without a lifetime of meditation - it was an attempt by the early Xian Church to explain some unexplainable doctrines the Church itself had created. The Church failed utterly to rationalize a basically irrational idea, and declared the whole thing a Great Mystery.

[Nitram]

10. OK, onager, I get it. Analysis of religious thought makes you very, very angry.

Interesting that you are so eager jump in and repeat your dull pseudo-intellectual mantras. You must enjoy acting out.

[onager]

15. Actually, it makes me LMAO.

And if Armstrong ever comes up with any worthwhile religious thought, let me know and I'll take a look at it.

[Nitram]

17. You're use of language does not indicate amusement. It suggests deep anger.

And if you ever decide to open your mind to some good scholarship, let me know.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Anyone who says this:

"your dull pseudo-intellectual mantras. You must enjoy acting out"

is the one with the closed mind. onager doesn't like Armstrong's ideas, and says why; you've just leaped in with petty insults of the person you're talking to. This makes me think you won't have a decent idea of 'good scholarship'.

[Nitram]

19. Hi Muriel. Tell me what do you make of onager's language in regard to Armstrong:

call her a "scholar," which she isn't. She's a former nun who failed to get a university degree
- I don't assume that an ex-nun (horrors!) couldn't be considered a scholar. One does not need a university degree to be scholar except in the mind of close-minded bigot.

Her M.O. is to pick a Deity-Of-The-Day
-Belittling an attempt to explain the origins and thought of the major religions of the world. Nice.

Armstrong hasn't yet met a deity she doesn't like
- What is the point here except to scornfully put down the process I described above

She vacuums up the research done by real scholars
-Do scholars vacuum up their study of original texts? Is the task of distilling and making sense of an entire religion in a clear and accurate way not scholarly?

then pukes it back up in a pile of her own bland metaphysical noodling.
- The use of the word "pukes" in this context is disgusting, and would only be used by someone who has a very angry axe to grind. "bland metaphysical doodling" is condescending and gratuitous description of what Armstrong does - unless you have a particular theistic or atheistic axe to grind.

Her brown-nosing of Islam was especially egregious.
- Getting inside a system of thought and moral behavior requires empathy and an open mind. Clearly onager has neither.

If she started mouthing off about how "we all worship the same God," she'd discover that's called apostasy. And carries the death penalty.
- Islam lived peacefully side-by-side other religions and systems of thought in their societies when the west was burning witches at the stake. Yes, there are some radically conservative aspects to some Islamic societies today. Let us not forget that Christianity committed crimes during the Inquisition and the "conquest" of Latin America. Every religion has been used by people to do good works and commit terrible crimes. Religions reflect the minds of the people who believe in them.

Armstrong and her buddies in the Sophisticated Theology racket
- Another "sophisticated" put down of anyone who studies theological topics.

I can explain the Trinity without a lifetime of meditation - it was an attempt by the early Xian Church to explain some unexplainable doctrines the Church itself had created. The Church failed utterly to rationalize a basically irrational idea, and declared the whole thing a Great Mystery.
-And so, at last, we come down to the truth behind onagers scathing attack on Armstrong. He believes religion is just a racket hidden in pseudo-mystery. He can't understand why anyone would want to try to understand the origins and beliefs that started major religion. I can't explain the anger and scorn, but I suspect there is a personal history that explains the depth of anger's revulsion.

[onager]

25. Don't quit your day job.

n/t

[Nitram]

29. So posting on DU is your day job onager? Figures. nt

[cleanhippie]

27. And your use of language indicates projection.

If someone disagreeing with you earns them

your dull pseudo-intellectual mantras. You must enjoy acting out.

perhaps looking into a mirror is in order.

[Nitram]

28. Using words like "puke" to describe a respected author's writing is projection?

Sounds like I'm not the one projecting. But I get it. Careless and crass language passes for clever snark in this forum. I'll try to avoid contact in future.

[cleanhippie]

30. Yes. You should do that.

Bye, Felicia.

[awoke_in_2003]

20. This is the atheist and agnostic group

I would reckon most of us don't give a damn about "analysis of religious thought ". The term "religious thought" is, itself, an oxymoron.

[Nitram]

24. There is a difference between belief in God and the study of religious thought.

If religious thought is an oxymoron, then you would suggest ignoring the influence it has played throughout history?

[RussBLib]

26. to me, Karen Armstrong does not simply analyze religious thought

She is one of the primary apologists on the scene today. She is so prolific that I'm afraid people confuse quantity with quality.

To say that violence is caused by multiple factors is a no-brainer to most people, but Armstrong strives to exonerate religion from any culpability. It's always something else, like nationalism, or colonialism, or religious members not even fully understanding their own religion.

I remember that she claimed that the 9/11 attackers didn't even understand their own religion. Ah, of course, they were not "truly Islamic" according to Armstrong. She's one of the biggest defenders of Islam around. If only people really took the time to study their religions more deeply, we'd be better off. Well, probably.

I've studied them long enough to realize they are mostly all based on bullshit, and all the scholarship in the world exploring the contributions of religion to society and the intricate interactions between a government, a church and their members isn't going to change that fact. Study it all you want.

My time is much better spent elsewhere.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. That's just the kind of doublethink that annoys me about Armstrong

One moment she's saying that to exist is too limiting a concept for her God, and the next she's invoking the Trinity - which is, among all the major religions of the world, the claim that is most explicit that 'God' exists, and was physically present on Earth at a specified time and place with a definite history.

Here, for instance, is Aquinas saying God exists just like a chair, or a human being - because Aquinas thought he was incarnated as a human being: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4046.htm#article1

I think the Trinity was the church's successful attempt to appropriate the neoplatonistic concept of 'The One', 'nous' (mind/Logos) and 'world-soul'.

In Plotinus' model of reality, the One is the cause of the rest of reality, which takes the form of two subsequent "hypostases", Nous and Soul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism#The_One

[onager]

16. Have you ever read E.M. Forster on Plotinus?

I don't know if Forster was any more of a religious expert than a Certain Ex-Nun. But his writing on the subject subject is rollicking and entertaining.

Been a while since I read it, but IIRC according to Forster, Plotinus wanted to go to Persia and study philosophy. Unfortunately he had the usual Philosopher's Dilemma - he was broke. But a war was going on, so he joined the army to travel. I believe Forster said Plotinus "must have been the unlikeliest soldier in history."

The war went badly. One of Forster's funniest lines (from memory): "Plotinus always said he was embarrassed by his physical body. His military experience almost relieved him of that embarrassment."

The more things change, the more they etc...

Plotinus claimed that he studied philosophy under Ammonius Saccas, a dockworker/philosopher in Alexandria.

Dockworker/philosopher? Yep, because at the time Alexandria was the world center of philosophy schools and they were fiercely competitive.

According to Forster: if you were a young person who landed at Alexandria wanting to study with Philosopher "A," you'd be greeted by mobs of disciples representing Philosopher "B thru Z." All of them claiming that their master was the Most Philosopheriest of them all, and the guy you wanted to study with was an ignorant clod.

And all of them wanting your tuition money. So the whole thing sounds a lot like today's diploma mills. Or places like Liberty University.

[Iggo]

12. "...just another guess..."

Ayup.

[Iggo]

11. Exactly.

[AlbertCat]

14. you're making him nonexistent.

and that would be redundant.

[whatthehey]

3. It's both sensible and silly

Bear with me.

Incidentally it's not quite as the comic shows.. Apophatic approaches are all about negatives. God isn't human, God isn't limited, etc. It's approaching the above but from the other way and technically it's possible to fairly closely define something if you negate enough potential attributes.

It's sensible in that if any god worth calling that exists, it's way further removed and superior in regard to us than we are compared to, say, starfish. Now if starfish could communicate they would be able to say little to nothing positive about us, have no idea what we do and why. How much less can we make positive claims about God? We can only say he's not, metaphorically a starfish and does not do starfish things. Ineffability, it's true, is the final destination of any rational theology.


And therein lies the silly part. If we cannot say God is X or God is Y, on what do we base claims of knowing what he wants? It's much easier, to stretch a metaphor brutally, for a hypothetically sentient starfish to know that we are larger and more advanced than they are than for them to infer the existence of our general desire for ice cream over broccoli. So if we cannot even describe God so positively as the above, and we cannot, how are we supposed to know he prefers credulous piety over rational disbelief using the brains he supposedly intended for us? How can an ineffable being be immanent in any way?

[RussBLib]

5. grasping at straws?

Hey, if it gets people to STFU about their GOD, I'm all for it.

I'll try: God is not real.

There. Done.

[NeoGreen]

6. Isn't this already written into the rules of their game?...

...it seems almost like a command that they should STFU and "stay in the closet", so to speak.

[mountain grammy]

8. Great post!

[awoke_in_2003]

21. What is SITC? nt

[NeoGreen]

22. stay in the closet (nt)

[awoke_in_2003]

23. Ah, thank you. nt