It Takes A Generation To Raise A Prophet

I find it difficult to accept that that the only value of organized religion has is whatever social action it engages in, as George says here.

Surely those who have had a religious experience, and there are more of them than most secular people realize, need some community within which to develop their reaction to it, and work out its implications for their lives and for the lives of the people they touch.

I know that Rugged Individualism is the American Way, but this is an area of life where it is particularly inappropriate.

[To be fair, that's not what I said. I do believe that if an organized religion fails to address critical social problems then it has no reason to exist. The converse, however, is not necessarily true. What I mean is, if an organized religion has an authentic spiritual center then inevitably it will address social problems but that if it doesn't address them one can reasonably infer the religion has no authenticity. Not at all the same thing. g.]

I agree with the idea that the only value of a religion is its effect on people. If they choose to act in ways that benefit others, I don't care what strange belief system led them to do it. Likewise if they act to the detriment of others and the society at large, no belief system should shield them from criticism.

This was a strange interview. I have rarely heard an academic who wasn't able to mount a strong defense of his theses, but I never found Dr. McKanan convincing. Perhaps the discussion of slavery was colored by my recent read of Morris Berman's new book "Why America Failed", where he takes an unorthodox look at the Civil War among other things. (Highly recommended.)

I would say that the only value of a religion is its intrinsic truth. If it is not true, it is a delusion — too much is claimed and is at stake. If religion is true, then it is true in its essence for all time, regardless of what men make of it or of how much or how little they participate in it through spiritual aspiration and effort. Men make of religion what they will: there are those like St. Francis and there is the mass of ordinary lukewarm or mediocre men. That men do not live their religion is one thing, but that that signifies the lack of worth or truth of the religion is quite another.

Sandy is quite right. Most people will live their religion in the manner most convenient to their normal activities. Such behaviour is violently denounced in many religions, but it nonetheless persists.

While I am not Orthodox, I think that the following quote from the late Father Seraphim Rose offers a great insight on this point:

"Atheism," Father Seraphim wrote in later years, "true 'existential' atheism, burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God Whose ways are so inexplicable even to the most believing of men, and it has more than once been known to end in a blinding vision of Him Whom the real atheist truly seeks. It is Christ Who works in these souls. The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips."

http://www.deathtotheworld.com/seraphimrose/index.html