Okay, I have little hope that what I am about to post will be seen by many before it scrolls into oblivion. But James Carroll had a very interesting piece in today's Boston Globe entitled
Climate Change and it is really about a lot of things on religion.
Yes, I know this is a political blog. But the number of issues involving religion seem to be expanding -- AF Aacademy, the election of the new Pope, and story about Quran desecration are among the more recent ones, all of which Carroll addressses in this column.
Below the fold I will offer some selections, w/o comment -- if interested, go read the whole thing. If more itnerested, recommend for others or offer your own comments.
Opening paragraph
SCANDAL AT the Air Force Academy used to mean cheating or sexual harassment. Now the uproar is about the academy's religious ''climate," in the word used by an investigative task force. Christian cadets have been pressuring peers who believe differently, or who do not believe. Jewish cadets, in particular, have been targeted, charged with the murder of Christ.
After discussing briefly Guantanamo / Koran / Newsweek :
Whatever the outcome of investigations into these controversies, they point to a disturbing new ''climate" of intolerance.What happens when religious zeal is joined to absolute certitude? What happens when power is invoked to reinforce preaching? What happens when those who disagree with prevailing answers to life's great questions are, for that reason, defined as lesser beings?
Not so long ago, it seemed that these were settled issues. In America, and increasingly across the globe, the democratic ideal had established a new consensus. Pluralism had come into its own as a value, and diversity became a note of celebration.
After discussing the idea of neighborliness, Carroll notes and asks
In 1999, an astounding Vatican document declared that ''Pluralism has taken the place of Marxism in cultural dominance." An enlightened philosophical system based on respect for the other was suddenly labeled as a kind of nihilism, but this reactionary view was a throw-back to the defensive Catholicism of another era.
What happens, though, when the Vatican figure most associated with such resurgent theological triumphalism is elected pope? It is a Catholic asking.
Carroll asks quite few more hard questions. here's a sampling:
Is doubt part and parcel of rational inquiry, or not? Is ambiguity essential to human knowing, or not? ....
If the human species is evolving, how can perceptions of the truth not be evolving as well? Or is evolution to be trashed after all? Is science itself the sacrilege?
After offering a breif excursus of the history of religious conflict and intoelrance, including the idea that "democratic liberalism was forged in thje crucible of religious wars" of Christians slaughtering Christians, Carroll offers a final thought:
In the era of global warming, the link between human assumptions and climate is clear. The threat to the Earth of unintended climate change is a metaphor for the less tangible but equally grave threat arising from reasserted assumptions of religious superiority, polluting the human climate with intolerance, perhaps spawning winds of violence.
I have not quoted ALL of the good stuff. It is really worth your time to go read the entire article, and not just the snippets I have offered.