Mr Eagleton… It’s the reward for affluence, not the price…

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Terry Eagleton believes that, until recently, we were all striding into a “posttheological, postmetaphysical, even posthistorical era.”  Did I sleep through an era? 

Eagleton could not be talking about the era of ongoing intra- and inter-religious wars raging in the Middle East.  It could not be the era when an American president waged foreign policy with evangelical Christian advisers correlating biblical prophecy and contemporary terrorism.  It could not be the era of increasing religious tension and violence between secular China and Tibetan Buddhists, and escalating conflicts between Muslims and Hindus on the Indian continent. 

Is that the “posttheological” era that Eagleton is referring to?

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Practical materialism, political pragmatism, moral and cultural relativism, and philosophical skepticism are awesome. I want more of exactly that.

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“9/11 was not really about religion”

That’s like saying that getting to work in the morning isn’t really about cars.

Islam is what allowed the 9/11 perpetrators to whip themselves into the fundamentalist frenzy that precipitated their attack, whether it involved non-religious motivations or not.

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Why is he still published?
Is it…contract?
Is it…increased sales of Commonweal?
WHAT IS IT?//???

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Also,
Very “deepity”of him,: a statement that has two meanings, one of which is true but superficial, the other which sounds profound but is meaningless.
Thank you Dan Dennett via Jerry Coyne.

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I just had to return and read this article again. And my feeling towards it still stands: Is there anyone who knows what he is saying? What does any of this mean? Is it a parody on quasi terms and vivid academic language?

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“Practical materialism, political pragmatism, moral and cultural relativism, and philosophical skepticism are awesome. I want more of exactly that.”

Oh the perceived comfort a closed mind offers us. The religious fundamentalist finds that same comfort in their religion in spite of the evidence.

Within one sentence this person claimed as awesome four ism’s and wants more ism’s. That is quite a feat. When our ism’s become thee ism’s it is like when our religion becomes thee religion.

This is a living example of how materialism and religion are two sides of the same coin and neither side has a clue they are so much alike. Not a clue.

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@ -ID62-
“Deepity” is a great term and I, too, am glad for hearing about its coinage by Dan Dennett via Jerry Coyne.  It captures the frustration expressed by Alabasterocean above, and so many of us.
If theists have something to say, then it must be coherent.

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Albasterocean, I agree with you, except that instead of reading the article twice to try to understand what he was talking about, I simply gave up half way through.

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Alabaster, I had the exact same reaction.  It would be nice if our foes were metaphysical, then we could have metaphysical casualties instead of real ones.

“9/11 was not really about religion, any more than the thirty-year-long conflict in Northern Ireland was over papal infallibility.”

Isn’t this a bit like saying, “The Superbowl isn’t really about competition, anymore than the World Series is about the infield fly rule.”?

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“Why is it that my local bookshop has suddenly sprouted a section labeled “Atheism,” “

That’s like asking why book stores in the early 20th century started sprouting sections on physics, or the mid-20th century on cosmology.
Maybe it’s because people are becoming more interested in factual liturature providing reasoned discussion on the advancing understanding of the human species.
Maybe it’s because fairy stories won’t do anymore?

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I am all in favor of eliminating the nonsense that says that these religious conflicts, like Northern Ireland and Palestine/Israel, are not “really” religious, but secular.  Baloney.  They may not be *theological* conflicts, but they are religious, for the simple reason that religions are about more than the theology, and include such things as community and tribilism.

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“Will Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins read this and experience an epiphany that puts the road to Damascus in the shade?”
Eh, did you read ‘End of Faith’? I think if you do you will find very quickly that you are embarrassed by your article. I mean, if you are going to try and muddy the waters, you should check there’s mud to be had first. You have made yourself look ignorant and stupid.

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Bill,
I hear what you’re saying.  Although I believe it was Sam Harris who wrote “End of Faith”...

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I recently read Phil Zuckerman’s Society without God, a thoughtful and exploratory sociological analysis of secularism in Scandinavia, particularly in Denmark, where he conducted most of his research.  Denmark would evidently be one of those Western countries which, according to Eagleton, has to ‘skate by on believing as little as it decently can’.  However, the profile of Denmark I gleaned from Zuckerman’s research was that of an ‘unholy mélange’ of sanity, pragmatic and sometimes stoic realism, sound universal education which included critical thinking, enviably low rates of serious crime and incarceration, a deeply embedded tolerance of diversity, decent civil and ethical behaviour, a high rating in terms of proportion of GDP contributed to assisting developing nations, a high level of public security, humane treatment of more vulnerable groups and prisoners, among the lowest disparity in incomes among Western nations, together with a widespread respect for ‘erstwhile metaphysical foundations’ in the form of recognizing the value of the most socially and ethically beneficial aspects of Denmark’s cultural inheritance.  Not really a bad exemplar of postmodern secularism?  If the implication of Eagleton’s view is that a basically humane Western society, with decent ethical values by any global standard, a rich cultural and intellectual life, and a stoic sense of existential uncertainty, can survive the apocalyptic confrontation óf his foreboding only by reinventing some eternal metaphysical skyhook, I would rather go out with my secular boots on!

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Dave:
I have taken some interest in Zuckerman’s study and his end result is flattering in the view of my strong disposition towards he secular and rationality. And not at least that I live in Sweden who is a global sense is quite like the Danish people. But I do have one objection, or addendum, on this subject.

In resent years the anti immigrant party in Denmark has grown in power - witch is also true for the Swedish political arena. And this do contradict the view that Danish people are liberal and strongly hold diversity as a good thing. There is also evidence that the Danish media vilify and portrait immigrants - read Muslims - as people who are dangerous and problematic. This is not a good thing. But, there might be a more sound answer to this then pure “racism” or hostility towards outsiders.

I hold one probable answer to this, one that fits with the Zuckerman-view of Denmark. The reason seems (on the surface) to be that some, not all or even a majority, of humans practicing the Islamic faith is hostile towards the secular, freedom for all and the notion of equality for women (If it doesn’t fit their cause that day). I somewhat hold the hypothesis that a lot of the criticisms comes from the idea that Islam, in some or a few cases, hinders or destroys hard fought advances in our struggle towards equality. This would would fit the idea that Danish people, or us Swedes, strongly hold the secular and equality as a primary moral compass that is worth fighting for. The conversations stoppers “racist” and “Islamofobic” do seem to hold of any open and honest conversation abut this, I am sorry to say.

My point is that hostility towards Islam, or any other idea - like real racism - doesn’t by law of nature equal hostility towards diversity or even mild prejudice. It just might, could be, the case that most people are sensitive towards cultural expressions that don’t commit to more modern secular values. We do know that progress in this area is hard won, and steps- even hints of- viewed as backwards is something they hold as a real threat.

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Alabasterocean

Thanks for that interesting clarification.  Zuckerman acknowledges (how could he not as a sociologist!) that even a detailed snapshot of a culture at a particular time can only be just that.  Recognizing that changes may come with further immigration, Zuckerman’s view is that, even so, it seems more likely that for Scandinavians it will be in the direction of strengthening the values of rational and democratic secularism.  This corresponds with your assessment: ‘This would would fit the idea that Danish people, or us Swedes, strongly hold the secular and equality as a primary moral compass that is worth fighting for’.

I rather think these kinds of particularities, as seen by those who are intimately aware of them, tend to be concealed from Eagleton’s distancing macro-clash-of-cultures discourse.  A dose of empirically established statistics can be a useful antidote.  Those which regularly suggest fairly robust correlations between greater religiosity, economic disadvantage, poorer education standards and the lower status of women are a good case in point.  Eagleton’s final comment about the ‘price you pay for affluence’ maybe offers a hint about a way forward, but the latter seems to me to have far more to do with an ethical global economics than with a revamped metaphysics.

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Dave

I do agree with you. But I have to refute myself to some extent. I took a dive for some facts about attitudes towards immigration in Denmark and found that a recent study shows that only 5% think it’s all bad and 32% think it’s mostly negative. A majority is positive or neutral. I did think it was worse, much worse. Glad for now to see it’s only somewhat bad.

(http://www.johannorberg.net/?page=displayblog&month=10&year=2009#3344)

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