Pericles

My reading of the first quote is that “hard rationalism”, is unable to cope with paradox etc, not that atheists can’t.

The grammar seems a little lacking in the next quote, so maybe it could be read as:

- the disciplines of anthropology etc are unable to approach the deeply human;
- students are unable to approach the deeply human through these disciplines; or
- “those who strictly adhere to this kind of rationalism” are unable to approach the deeply human.

I took Sells to mean the third of these, but even the other two reading don’t seem to me a condemnation of (e.g.) anthropology or anthropologists. They merely claim that social sciences cannot describe to totality of what it means to be human. If that’s what Sells means, I agree with him.

He probably says it more clearly here:

“…to exclude the humanities and rely on science alone is a recipe for anomy and despair because the narratives that are created out of science do not touch the human soul.”

A kind of analogy – I have some economics training, and economics is based on a particular understanding of human nature, motivation, values etc. This provides a useful and effective working model for many purposes, but I’d be the first to admit that the economic model doesn’t capture the breadth or depth of human nature

“For paganism, individual human beings had no faces, they were resources, wives were incubators, slaves were non human, soldiers were fodder for battle.” – Sells

To the pagans, the Christians were uncivil atheists. Uncivil, because the catechumen in the early centuries, before Nicaea, went on rampages sinning up-front before commitment. Atheists, because, they would not pray for the good of Rome. In 248, some Roman cities experienced famine and the Romans were under threat by the Goths. Decius, as restitutor sacrorum, issued a decree, to make peace with the gods, when the Christians refused the superstitious locals fell upon the Christians. In the persecutions that followed, the Christian laity were highly exposed, because the bishops ran away and hid.

Regarding slaves, a pagan slave, who felt mistreated, could stand next to a statue of the Emperor and expect adjudication by a magistrate and possibly be allowed into public service, away from the Master. Christian slaves would go to clerics for help, but would be returned to the Masters, based on Biblical teaching.
Highly competent soldiers could raise to the highest ranks in the Roman government.

Christian armies?

“Contemporary chroniclers of the crusade also described siege cannibalism by the Christian troops … Fulcher of Chartres, for instance, includes the following in his report of the siege of Ma'arra in 1098: "I shudder to say that many of our men … cut pieces of flesh from the buttocks of the Saracens lying there dead. These pieces they cooked and ate, savagely devouring the flesh while it was insufficiently roasted. In this way, the besiegers were harmed more than the besieged.” (Price) Christian, Richard the Lionheart, also ate a Saracen head:

"'Etes, and southes off the browys swote, brows {sweat} Thorwg grace off God it schal be youre boote. {benefit} Beffore Kyng Rychard karf a knygte: He eete ffastere than he karue mygte. The kyng eet the fflesch, and gnew the bones, And drank wel afftyr, for the nones {occasion}'” Price

Apart from the crusades and other religious wars, we should also recall Christian involve in he slave trade over the centuries.

Freedom of the Third Estate (Common Man) was freedom from the Church and State, with its aristocrats and clergy, was hard to achieve. This is where the Enlightenment has its roots in the eleven century and its fulfilment in the eighteenth century. In the West, after the tyranny and bloodlust of the Christians, we find Locke in “Two Treatises of Government arguing, Man is endowed by nature with natural rights. Great thinkers, including Diderot, Voltaire and Montesquie further developed this theme, wherein “being human” was not to be vassal. Rather, individuals have great worth.

Sells, like it or not, there are many who believe in “The Declaration of the Rights of Man”, which reads in part:

“The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom of fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people” - United Nations

The Declaration also states that Peoples should act with “reason” and “conscience” and “brotherhood” and that no State or other group (the Churches) should act to destroy these Rights.

Perhaps Sells would take us back to before the Enlightenment, to the days of absolute monarchs, clergy and lords "over" the laity; A world that might find Sells, a bedfellow in von Treitschke:

“Forgetting himself, the individual must only remember that he is a part of the whole, and realise the unimportance of his life compared to the common weal."

Of course subodination does not apply to Popes and Kings!

Alternatively, individualism leads us to esteem of others, and to respect their individuality, or, as Carl Rogers, put it, “unconditional positive regar towards others".

We can be a community of reasoning and loving individuals with sovereignty with the People "over" overState and, allowed to believe or not believe in God. In today's West, the Churches, have a valid may place for some. But the Churches must never again define humanity or control human beings in a sovereign manner, as in the histories of old.

rhian, it's off your main point but i'd be careful.

>>The conflict between science and religion arises when either strays into the domain of the other ...
>>when rationalists argue that the absence of material proof of God demonstrates that he doesn’t exist.

i don't know anyone who argues that, though they may question *why* anyone would believe in god without some such material proof. what some people do argue is that, to the extent that religious beliefs imply material beliefs, then those religious beliefs are then indeed open to question by science. for example, if one believes that the earth is 6000 years old, or that jesus was born of a virgin, etc.

It's more than that Bushbasher. Rationalists argue that the monotheistic God can be conclusively disproven by philosophy and logic alone. The disbeliever does not have to delve into hardcore science, although she may.

I recommend Victor Stenger's books on the impossibility of the monotheistic God.

George, your point is well taken.

>>" in order for some people to feel good about their own beliefs/unbeliefs/world-view, they frequently find it necessary to i) decry the beliefs/world-views of others or ii) ascribe unfavourable characteristics to non-believers or believers, especially Christians."<<

However, it is very rare to find the non-religious writing regular articles on OLO, boosting their own lack-of-religion by decrying the beliefs of Peter Selleck. What you see here in the responses to Sells' piece is a reaction to his, frankly, perpetually insulting attitude towards non-Christians.

Similarly Rhian, you were correct to point out that the text itself does not fully support my position.

On reflection, my interpretation of this particular insult is reached, not by isolating and parsing the paragraphs on their own, but by locating them within Sells' standard pattern of behaviour.

Your point is valid, to the extent that it may well be argued that he is merely proffering his opinion that

>>“those who strictly adhere to this kind of rationalism” are unable to approach the deeply human.<<

But you must also ask yourself whom he has in mind when framing this particular aperçu

Who are these “hard rationalists” that he targets? How do we recognize them, these steely-eyed slaves-to-logic?

What separates them from the normal warm, feeling human beings that we meet every day? Those people who “understand a poem... [are] deeply moved by an opera... understand the complexity and contradiction of characters in the great novels... fall in love and rear a family”?

If Sells has no particular cohort in mind, his “hard rationalist” is pure fantasy, an elaborate straw man.

But given the history of his output here, and his general disdain for anyone not as deeply immersed in the minutiae of academic theology as he, I would suggest that the image before him on the page is of us benighted, bewildered, emotionally-stunted, barely-existing atheists.

Wouldn't you agree?