March 16, 2004
NOT THE COMPASS THAT GOD STEERS BY:
It's the heart versus the Bible (Dennis Prager, March 16, 2004, Townhall)
With the decline of Judeo-Christian religions, the heart, shaped by what the eye sees (hence the power of television), has become the source of people's moral decisions.This is a potentially fatal problem for our civilization. As beautiful as the heart might be, it is neither intellectually nor morally profound.
It is therefore frightening that hundreds of millions of people find no problem in acknowledging that their heart is the source of their values. Their heart knows better than thousands of years of accumulated wisdom; better than religions shaped by most of the finest thinkers of our civilization (and, to the believer, by God); and better than the book that has guided our society -- from the Founders of our uniquely successful society to the foes of slavery to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and most of the leaders of the struggle for racial equality.
This elevation of one's heart is well beyond self-confidence -- it is self-deification.
As Reinhold Niebuhr said:
[W]e may well designate the moral cynics, who know no law beyond their will and interest, with a scriptural designation of "children of this world" or "children of darkness." Those who believe that self-interest should be brought under the discipline of a higher law could then be termed "the children of light."
Every man would naturally like to be a god, but only the self-absorbed succumb to the temptation. The tragedy is that our culture has come to so celebrate the self that it is a breeding ground for narcissism. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 16, 2004 10:08 AM
What Prager ignores is that this elevation of the heart occurs within the Judeo Christian faith as well as without. Acknowledging God does not cure you of this disease, if the believer identifies God's will with the contents of his heart, he is likewise guilty of self-deification.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 16, 2004 1:29 PMYes, but for the faithful such is a sin. For others, the point.
Posted by: oj at March 16, 2004 2:02 PMMr. Prager laments the choice by people to put their emotional responses ahead of "thousands of years of accumulated [cultural] wisdom", and claims that religions have, over the eons, been crafted and shaped by brilliant minds.
(Never mind that those thousands of years of accumulated wisdom include the acceptance of polygamy and slavery, and that religion has also been shaped and molded by emotional forces, as well as plenty of distinctly non-brilliant minds).
Then, at the end of his essay, he claims that Christianity is the only religion worth elevating above personal emotion and reason.
Once that claim is made, then Harry Eager's objection to organized religions becomes very relevant, to wit: How do we know which religion is right and true ?
If Mr. Prager's point is that our societies have become less cohesive and less meaningful, due to a falling away from religion, wouldn't any religion do to counteract those forces, even if one worships an elephant god ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 17, 2004 12:11 AMMichael:
None of those societies that worship others are meaningful.
Posted by: oj at March 17, 2004 8:11 AMThe ol' "might = right" argument, eh ?
That's quite true in the geopolitical realm, but hardly a convincing moral or religious argument.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 18, 2004 7:21 AMWho set you up to judge what's meaningful?
Their religions are meaningful to them. Who else could they be meaningful to? How could they be unmeaningful to another?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 18, 2004 1:15 PMHarry:
If they were true they'd be universal, like Christianity.
Posted by: oj at March 18, 2004 1:27 PMSeveral of them claim to be.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 18, 2004 4:50 PM