Troens elendighed – metafysisk forveksling fører til uanede mængder af vrøvl

Religionsforskeren Karen Armstrong gør i en kommentar i dagens Guardian opmærksom på, at den kristne religions vægt på “tro”, samt kirkens assimilation af den “videnskabelige” forestilling om, hvordan tingene er foregået (herunder, at verdens skabelse nødvendigvis må være foregået på én bestemt måde) har gjort meget for at forvrøvle forholdet mellem religion og videnskab:

The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on “belief” in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious people “believers”, as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity, and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie beyond the reach of empirical sense data.

Most other traditions prize practice above creedal orthodoxy: Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed to a transformative way of life that takes you beyond the prism of selfishness. All good religious teaching – including such Christian doctrines as the Trinity or the Incarnation – is basically a summons to action. Yet instead of being taught to act creatively upon them, many modern Christians feel it is more important to “believe” them. Why? (…)

Stories of heroes descending to the underworld were not regarded as primarily factual but taught people how to negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche. In the same way, the purpose of a creation myth was therapeutic; before the modern period no sensible person ever thought it gave an accurate account of the origins of life. A cosmology was recited at times of crisis or sickness, when people needed a symbolic influx of the creative energy that had brought something out of nothing. Thus the Genesis myth, a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion, was balm to the bruised spirits of the Israelites who had been defeated and deported by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar during the sixth century BCE. Nobody was required to “believe” it; like most peoples, the Israelites had a number of other mutually-exclusive creation stories and as late as the 16th century, Jews thought nothing of making up a new creation myth that bore no relation to Genesis but spoke more directly to their tragic circumstances at that time.

I hvor høj grad skabelsesmyter altid kan betragtes som “terapeutiske” er nok et godt spørgsmål, men Armstrong har helt bestemt ret, når hun identificerer påvirkningen fra oplysningstidens videnskabelige tradition som ophav til forestillingen om, at Bibelens skabelsesberetning nødvendigvis må være endegyldig. Traditionelt har mytiske fortællinger aldrig været endegyldige, men har ændret sig i takt med de kulturer, de er opstået i – på samme måde, som videnskabelige teorier heller ikke er endegyldige sandheder, men udformes og ændrer sig i takt med de empiriske data.

“Endegyldige” videnskabelige teorier fører til dårlig videnskab, på samme måde som ophøjelsen af kristendommens egen Skabelsesberetning til “endegyldig” fører til en forvrøvlet religion.

Link: Metaphysical mistake