//Rationalism cannot simply spin meaning out of thin air.//

Perhaps not, but neither can Christianity. That doesn't stop millions of Christians doing exactly that.

//Please direct me to a system of thought that will carry the day!//

Zoroastrianism. I'm not Zoroastrian but it seems as good an answer as Christianity. Especially considering that Christianity plagiarised half their ideas anyway.

To be quite honest, Sells, the most enlightening text on the meaning of life that I've read is The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which teaches us that the meaning of life is the number 42. But in H2G2 it isn't the answer that's important, you see: it's the question.

I perceive a valuable allegory tucked away there in all the humour: it is the process of seeking meaning and answers that it is the important thing. Picking up a Good Book which purports to have all the answers written down in it discourages people from asking questions and seeking meaning and answers for themselves, and thus hinders their development as a person.

Dear david f,

>>Christianity has a tendency to become Christendom<<

I think Christianity cannot “become Christendom” any more than mathematics can become natural science. In both cases, the latter cannot exist without the former but the former can exist without the latter. In both cases the former cannot “become” the latter but it can be “implanted” into an external world (including or not the human factor) whose “workings” it can then try to represent.

Dear George,

I was trying to use your terminology which was wrong of me. One definition of Christendom is the part of the world in which Christianity is the most prominent religion. I will leave it at that. China contains Christians but is not part of Christendom.

I think we agree on the value of the separation of religion and state and the desirability of democracy.

Toni,
Now you are just being silly. We live in a time in which all religion has been removed from us as an option. I know that your suggestion was not serious but it betrays a reality: we are a post religious people. It is now impossible to simply take up a religion because being "religious" has been deconstructed and now means nothing.

The vacuum that opens from the demise of religion leaves us stranded in the untutored, unhistorical self that does not even know what is good to desire. This is what I mean that we all now believe in nothing i.e. not that there is an absence of belief in anything but that we believe that "nothing" is the answer. We think that this sets us free to be whatever we want, even to re-invent ourselves but it is a kind of hell.

You should stop parodying things like the bible. Only fundamentalists treat it as an instruction manual.

Yes, Douglas Adams gave us a brilliant satirical view of where we are and a brilliant satire on the search for "meaning". It is not, after all a search for meaning but a search for the substantial and deep self.

Dear Peter,

<<We live in a time in which all religion has been removed from us as an option.>>

What nonsense - nobody is denying us the option to practice religion, not in Australia anyway, where in fact it is unconstitutional!

When you claim "we are a post religious people" you might be speaking of yourself but you have no right to speak on my behalf and on behalf of so many others who remain faithful to God.

<<It is now impossible to simply take up a religion because being "religious" has been deconstructed and now means nothing.>>

Nothing stops any of us from taking up religion: being religious has nothing to do with what others think of you!

<<The vacuum that opens from the demise of religion>>

Religion is alive as ever and is even better off without the shackles of involvement with authorities.

Yuyutsu,
Methinks you misunderstand me. I am not saying that religion is not allowed, I am saying that for most of us, any act of attaching ourselves to religious belief is increasingly impossible. Being post-religious we tend to see through all religions. That is why I have such a hard time of it on this thread. However, Christianity is not something we choose on its merits or in the belief that it will do us good or to fit in. We are addressed by a Word of grace and when we hear it we have no choice.

Christianity itself is a polemic against "religion". This is obvious in the OT. It is renewed in the NT in which it is the religious people who demand Christ be crucified. Thus the cross is the end of all religion. Religion, that which binds is displaced by faith that lives by grace.