** Becoming-who-you-are requires skepticism and self-assertion **

The word ‘islam’ means submission. Obviously submission to the will of Allah, as prescribed in the five pillars of faith. The big-3 monotheisms are alike in dismissing an individual’s will — “not my will but thy will done” as we’re shown in the poignant scene at Gethsemane in the NT. (But, the xian god-man is no hero.)

For the big-3 empire building monotheisms, self-assertion takes on the character not of honest questioning and personal growth, but of insubordination and rebellion. (Can’t be godly cannon fodder unless you obey orders, mister.)

>> One SicK danish strudel, to go!

With characteristic, combative verve, Kierkegaard condemns the doubter as insubordinate, a rebel against xian fideism:

“They would have us believe that objections against Christianity come from doubt. This is always a misunderstanding. Objections against Christianity come from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority. Therefore, they have been beating the air against the objectors, because they have fought intellectually [against] doubt, instead of fighting ethically [against] rebellion. . . .So it is not properly doubt but insubordination.” (Lowrie 122)

Thus, SK. Almost needless to say, but his rhetoric works equally “well” in the mouth of any fideist zoroastrian, jew, xian, muslim, or morman.

>> Got guilt? Well, why not, sinner?

Even attempting to leave a religious culture which demands ’subordination’ or ’submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the “apostate.” Irrational anxiety feelings get induced. Guilt is the nonexistent elder brother of nonexistent “sin.”

Becoming-who-you-are or “individuation” (to use Jung’s terminology) is the goal of personal growth. It cannot occur without self-doubt or without doubting authority and authority figures. When you’ve made a “leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it. You emulate not Jesus, but Odysseus. The hero labors, struggles, succeeds or dies trying; but throughout remains human.

>> Religious “commitment” is not a choice; it’s a moral cop-out

Irrational self-assertion characterizes our popular culture. Irrational fideism characterizes fundamentalism. One “commitment” to Christ and you drop into the womb of unknowing. “Rebirth” is a pale substitute for individuation.

Tolerance is that wide band of humane behavior, including rational self-assertion, lying between inhuman anarchy and inhuman puritanism. Trying to navigate there requires years of training and making a lot of very human mistakes.

The de-deification of culture (including all the sciences) is our task for the next 100 years.

anti-supernaturalist

Pride is found among persons of all social strata and so is humility.

There is a legitimate concern for a new scholasticism. But also for a resurgence of restricted piety – ditches both.

So what do you do? Not what do you blog about. Astronomy, Law, Linguistics, Oceanographer, Photo journalism? Some I know in these fields have Masters and some have PhD in Theology as well. How do you do that to the glory of God? Monasticism in practice is not a Biblical option.

That said, Kierkegaard’s warning to those of us who enjoy scholarship is appropriate. Perhaps one of Satan’s temptations to us scholars is to have us endlessly debating what the Bible says without putting it into practice.

Take this from one who has given the gospel effectively to atheists of all stripes, including the world’s leading atheist scholar at the time, Antony Flew, to a leading astronomer who is now a strong believer (Baptist nonetheless), the leading academic philosophical defender for several years of Roe V Wade , good men and women in Appalachia who had PhD’s and those who couldn’t read at all.

I do agree that the Bible is much more significant than it is generally credit – addressing right from the beginning, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.

Yet the source and direction of the quote in this blog by Soren Kierkegaard is reason enough to question its value to adding any clarity to the concerns.