Thursday, July 25, 2013

People Using Big Words (And Sometimes Even Short Ones) They Don't Understand, ie Theologians

"Narrative." "Meaningful." "Powerful." "Dialectic." "Analytical." "Experiencing truth." You starting to smell the theology? Good. "As long as we're clear." "Hermeneutics." For at least the past few centuries, probably more like the past few thousand years or longer, religion has always been opposed to clarity. "A powerful approach to rethinking narratives." (Beware of the superfluous use of words three or more syllables long.) For as long as people have been spotting religion's inconsistencies, and replacing religion with things like science. Maybe religion did have some tremendous benefits 5000 years ago. Got people motivated and organized, took them from tiny villages to big cities, even if they were motivated by errors. "A telling prognosis of the public debate." More recently, however, some bright folks have been trying awfully hard to "impart" that religion leaves a lot of room for improvement. Ideally not by switching to an improved version of religion but by leaving religion behind. People still read Homer, but no longer in a religious way. And that's an improvement.

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