is religion possible

An old question, but why not?

Hans Jonas
Kant
Allama

~~~

In an age dominated by reason, science, facts (the world of values shrinks)it seems barely likely. Or if it does, then it will be a very arid,abstract, 'scriptualistic'(Gellner) religion that appeals to a half-baked mind, the bazaari class: the Idea of God. Worse, much worse, it will degenerate into the kind of soppy, mind-numbing platitudes of the American Sunday-school variety, or the breathtaking silliness of the evangelicals.

Cut loose from reason, tradition, a sense of continutiy -the importance of urbanizaion and technology cannot be overestimated-it can quite easily morph into, has morphed into in many instances, a terrible fundamentalism (Gibbon was right here: the problem is not so much institutionalised religion-though that brings its own horrors-but the unhinged imagination, "fancy", that loses any connection with the world). As Christopher Hill informs us in 'The World Turned Upside Down,' this was always a possibility with the 'religion of the heart'.

After the holocaust how can there be religion? Really. If you haven't thought about that then you haven't really thought about religion very seriously.

De-mythologisation: Iris M.

Well, no more transcendental models (the cosmos, nature) and rituals, symbols, and dogma all seem too rigid (think of how pejorative these words are: dogmatic, purely symbolic, ritualistic). And if there is only contingency, what binds us, what can bind one human being to another?

Is religion possible without 'bridges' (Simone Weil), channels, receptacles, places of refuge, shared symbols (Peter Fuller), a common world, a reverence for texts, a north, north of the future?

But yes, despite this religion is possible (whence the nod to Chatwin in the title of this post).

Not simply as an impulse-as if that was a mere whim, something that wasn't fundamental to our being. But a response that is deep-rooted. Lesley Chamberlain says it better in this fascinating piece here .


'We are involved in the mystery of lived time, our being here and elsewhere. What is true is 'beyond' but its reflection is also here...spiritual reality is the same as ordinary reality.'
---Iris M.