Casting a Spell: An Easter Vision

The title of this thought experiment refers to Daniel C. Dennett's masterwork, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Dennett is one of the three wise atheists (with the strident Richard Dawkins and the ironic Christopher Hitchens, of recent memory, who had his kids baptized, just in case).

Without animus, Daniel examines the why and how of religion, from animism to the belief in a belief in God. Dennett is a master of identifying memes through the ages. Like most modern atheists, he asserts that ethical values, especially love, can life outside the realm of religion. After reading his book, I emailed him that he is a better Christian then most Christians, to which he responded, thank you.

His ideas (and ideals) are a good resource for young atheists (like my daughter) and members if the Curia who have lost (or never really had) their faith in God. They can hardly admit this publicly without loss if income and position (more about them later).

He is not alone. His approach is a modern evolution of the theodicy of Hegel, which traces the idea of God in the same way from the irascible God of the Old Testament to the God (or concept of God) in modern existential philosophy.

The History of God by Karen Armstrong follows the same evolution, including Judaism and Islam. The evolution of humanistic religions, including the Eastern religions, are all traced to the Axial Age identified by Jasper. Diarmaid MacCulloch examines Christianity, The First There Thousand Years, with the first thousand located in both Greece and Israel.

Elaine Pagels work, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, casts the last book of the bible as cultural history and social criticism rather than mysticism. The Hebrew prophets and Jesus of Nazareth would likely agree.

The oldest debate in Christianity is whether it should be a part of Judaism (as practiced by James, the Brother of Jesus) or be transplanted into Gentile culture, as led by Paul (Saul of Tarsus). Paul believed that, once the Apostles (witnesses) had baptized all nations, Jesus would return; sooner than later. His writings are more pastoral than revelatory.

John of Patmos, writing after the destruction of Jerusalem, attacked Pauline Christianity in his prediction if the return if Jesus as a restoration of Judaic Christianity. He had the last word in the New Testament, but his predictions did not materialize. His reactionary approach still exists, however, in Fundamentalism.

Pauline Christianity evolved into the Orthodox Catholicism of the Great Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Nicaea. Augustine of Hippo grafted neo-platonic misogyny onto Catholicism and it has not recovered since.

The Babylonian rabbis of the exile and Anselm's transactional vision of salvation turned the prophetic God of justice for the poor to the enforcer of morality. Thomas Aquinas brought Aristotle’s natural law philosophy and Scholastic method to Catholic doctrine, where it persists through John Paul, the voice of tradition at Vatican II, and Benedict who had been one of the liberals.  The latter abandoned his liberal mindset when faced with the anti-authoritarianism of his university students.

Is Dawkins right or can we find common ground between modern atheism and a more modern Christianity. I believe we can.

In Christian theology (from John the Evangelist through Aquinas) portrays the Christian Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) as transcendent Being, Logos and Love. In Platonism, physical reality is a shadow of the world of ideas. Whether these are values and memes or divine persons does not really matter. How they are lived does. They can be useful in perceiving reality, acting with compassion and making life easier to live.

Whether there are cash and prizes in a future life does not really matter and cannot be proven except by dying and staying dead. Near death experience can be explained in terms of brain function. Any transcendent experience of death could not be recorded in a brain that has been turned off.

Jesus taught that those who are not against him we are with him. Those who respond to the poor and despised as if they were responding to him are with him, rather than those who invoke his name and do the despising.

The reality is what matters, not the partisanship. His moral teachings are useful, regardless, including his idea if a kingdom of God on earth. The key feature is living charitably, rather than by self-reliance.

The Church seems to have forgotten that last bit. It is why many clergy realize they are not really believers, which both Dennett and Vatican insiders point out. Jesus defined God as meek and humble of heart with a humanistic rather than legalistic morality. Its why he was killed by the religious and imperial authorities of his day.

Originally the Church was led by people who had seen the risen Jesus, not just the original eleven. We know that Paul's letters are real. Archeologists have unearthed copies that are dated to the right time. The chain of custody really does go back to people that Paul knew who claimed to have seen Jesus raised, regardless of later history. Whether their witness can be trusted is a matter of belief.

The history of the Church can be seen as proof that it is a farce. It can also be evidence of reality, as its core message and experiences of grace occur despite the politics. Only the leadership of the Church regards itself as a perfect and unchanging manifestation if Christ in earth. This is only proof of its humanness.

Since Clement of Antioch used distributing Communion as a way to enforce loyalty up through those who would do the same to Joe Biden for holding that banning abortion is both unworkable and misogynistic, the distance between profession and reality has been obvious.

It is easy to pick apart the flawed papal teachings on democracy, epistemology and sex over the past 200 years. I wrote a book doing so titled The Illuminati Respond to the Papal Anachronists that does just that.

The reason that democratic countries have an anti-Catholic bias is because it has been vocally anti-democratic, anti-science and anti-woman. Vatican II and lately Francis have been trying to move the needle, but it takes time for the authoritarians to die out. A humanistic morality devoted to social service, rather than enforcing neo-platonic sexuality is inevitable as society moves from capitalism to cooperation.

That authoritarianism cannot last is becoming obvious, from the inevitable downfall if Trump to the imminent collapse of social distancing. I have written about this too, both on my Christian Left blog and The Future is Calling book series (It Wants a New God; a Refund; Your Stuff). The apocalypse is truly upon us, but not the one the Fundamentalists hope for. Happy Easter.