George Will had a great column a few weeks ago called the strangness of everything. Sometimes I like George and sometimes I don't. This particular column was great. It basically talked about how amazing the universe is and how improbable we are. Then, in the middle of a really good column, he says the magic words "people with an exess of certitude".
A week latter I was reading the letters to Newsweek and most all the letters regarding Wills column were pretty positive. However certain religious people felt that the remark was directed at them and they felt assualted by it.
I am troubled by how many people who claim to follow Christ get so easily offended by talk like that. From my point of view it is as if they don't really put much faith in God. They speak constantly of being undersiege, or made war on. They appear to be storing up the grapes of wrath. I think the majority of Christians do not feel so affraid all the time. But the Christians who support men like Bush do, like Osama Bin Laden, or James Dobbson, feel threatened by the world. Their shallow understanding of nature of life the universe and everything, keeps them reactionary, condoning of violence, and blinded to their own hypocracy. I also think it is of absolutely no use in discussing this with them. They are wired differently than the rest of us.
My reading of Wills comments goes like this:
There are many people with an excess of certitude. There are those that think they are right because Gods says so. There are those that think they are right because they themselves says so. There are right wingers who think they are certain because of the dogma they follow and there are those on the left that think they are right because of the dogma they follow. Certitude is a dangerous thing no matter the leanings of the person feeling certain.
The other reading of Wills comments:
Why is he attacking my faith!?!?!?!?!?!?!
In my philosophy of religion class, low those many years ago in college, there were two people who were always arguing with each other. One man was an atheist, the other woman was a devout Christian. She would quote scripture to him, and he woud quote his own scripture back at her. We got a kick out of it. But the two really didn't see eye to eye. I think they both were the same kind of person. In truth the atheist was as devout a man as the Christian woman. For even an atheist has to have faith, even if it is in the non existance of God.
I think the really great theologians were always grappling with the nature of God and what they, as human beings, were bound or not bound to do. Certainly the billions of pages of Christian literature, the thousands of varying demoninations, and the wide scope of thinking are not a sign of a close religion.
The people that have minds wired like the man who wrote in all upset are really people who can't accept that other people have right to say and think what they want. There is only one road to salvatioin and any diviation is a road to hell.
On the other hand the other type of person believes there are many roads to salvation
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