
From an interview with Marilynne Robinson, Paris Review.
"You have to have a certain detachment in order to see beauty for yourself rather than something that has been put in quotation marksto be understood as “beauty.” Think about Dutch painting, where sunlight is falling on a basin of water and a woman is standing there in the clothes that she would wear when she wakes up in the morning—that beauty is a casual glimpse of something very ordinary. Or a painting like Rembrandt’s Carcass of Beef, where a simple piece of meat caught his eye because there was something mysterious about it. You also get that in Edward Hopper...
I don’t like categories like religious and not religious. As soon as religion draws a line around itself it becomes falsified. It seems to me that anything that is written compassionately and perceptively probably satisfies every definition of religious whether a writer intends it to be religious or not."
~~~
I don't really think of myself as religious and that view is confirmed by friends and relatives alike who see me as either too serious for religion or too much of a joker to take religion seriously. Yes, well...religion "vs" religious".
Would love to get a copy of M.R.'s talk, 'Metaphysics and Value Statements' where she, apparently, lays into Macintyre. There does appear to be a strain in modern thinking that is resolutely anti-modern. Which is not to deny that there are some things towards which one should be opposed. However, the tone of it all is a bit sad. It's the usual culprits, the usual morose tendencies in play: the falling away from Truth, Beauty, Meaning (all with capitals, please note) and the only thing left to do is to determine when this veritable second Fall took place: the Renaissance and the monstrous assertion of the 'I'; the Reformation and the reliance on conscience, an 'inner' I over the weight of tradition and accumulated wisdom; or was it industrial capitalism, bourgeois society that produced this Frankenstein, at one stroke rebellious against both nature, society, as well as any notion of 'place' or order of the soul?
And of course, that view of 'atomisation', 'fragmentation', alienation will always, I guess, appeal to a particular type of person (estranged intellectuals, for starters; unhappy teenagers for another). Oh, and of course, the religious radicals will latch onto any semblance of a critique, since to feed on negativity is always an easy option.
I do love Macintyre's essays on 'Faith and Reason' though.
~~~
Not a religious bone in my body. Except my funny bone. You hear the call to prayer each morning, since the loudspeaker seems to be located two yards outside my house. (loudspeakers, now, there's a Jewish invention for you, if ever there was one..if only I could convince them of this!). Now and then you'll have the odd dream about not praying but by and large you don't have any sense of guilt about this. What was that line by Fenelon on indifference again?I'm reminded of my old buddy, Piracha, who swears he's going to get his shotgun out and blow the maulvi away.Religious people are a curse, or simply too boring to be worthy of consideration.
Steady on, b. Genuinely religious people are fascinating. all you've got here is religion or religiosity.
~~~
Have you had a religious experience? Well, that type of question is really frowned upon. Even if I had, you hardly think I'd share it on blogland do you?! But yes, I guess Rothko at the Tate comes closest (followed closely by coffee and cinnamon rolls).
But what is a religious experience? Should it be "marked off" from other areas, scientific endeavours, artistic creation, being a good citizen? (Dewey). Is it the "quality of an attitude" or can we pin it to something more objective? Must there be an appropriate 'object ' of faith?
~~~
I don't really think of myself as religious and that view is confirmed by friends and relatives alike who see me as either too serious for religion or too much of a joker to take religion seriously. Yes, well...religion "vs" religious".
Would love to get a copy of M.R.'s talk, 'Metaphysics and Value Statements' where she, apparently, lays into Macintyre. There does appear to be a strain in modern thinking that is resolutely anti-modern. Which is not to deny that there are some things towards which one should be opposed. However, the tone of it all is a bit sad. It's the usual culprits, the usual morose tendencies in play: the falling away from Truth, Beauty, Meaning (all with capitals, please note) and the only thing left to do is to determine when this veritable second Fall took place: the Renaissance and the monstrous assertion of the 'I'; the Reformation and the reliance on conscience, an 'inner' I over the weight of tradition and accumulated wisdom; or was it industrial capitalism, bourgeois society that produced this Frankenstein, at one stroke rebellious against both nature, society, as well as any notion of 'place' or order of the soul?
And of course, that view of 'atomisation', 'fragmentation', alienation will always, I guess, appeal to a particular type of person (estranged intellectuals, for starters; unhappy teenagers for another). Oh, and of course, the religious radicals will latch onto any semblance of a critique, since to feed on negativity is always an easy option.
I do love Macintyre's essays on 'Faith and Reason' though.
~~~
Not a religious bone in my body. Except my funny bone. You hear the call to prayer each morning, since the loudspeaker seems to be located two yards outside my house. (loudspeakers, now, there's a Jewish invention for you, if ever there was one..if only I could convince them of this!). Now and then you'll have the odd dream about not praying but by and large you don't have any sense of guilt about this. What was that line by Fenelon on indifference again?I'm reminded of my old buddy, Piracha, who swears he's going to get his shotgun out and blow the maulvi away.Religious people are a curse, or simply too boring to be worthy of consideration.
Steady on, b. Genuinely religious people are fascinating. all you've got here is religion or religiosity.
~~~
Have you had a religious experience? Well, that type of question is really frowned upon. Even if I had, you hardly think I'd share it on blogland do you?! But yes, I guess Rothko at the Tate comes closest (followed closely by coffee and cinnamon rolls).
But what is a religious experience? Should it be "marked off" from other areas, scientific endeavours, artistic creation, being a good citizen? (Dewey). Is it the "quality of an attitude" or can we pin it to something more objective? Must there be an appropriate 'object ' of faith?



