I'm just locked out of that kind of thought process entirely. Don't get it, can't see it, makes no sense whatsoever. I have asked believers to let me in on the secret and they gave me advice like: just look around you, or, look into your heart, and the like. I've looked. Nope. Not a thing. In fact, I've looked into all my organs, and not a dicky bird. Ah well. I'll try to be good nonetheless.
But Neil, if you are the same Neil Forsyth who wrote the excellent review of John K. Hale's Milton's Cambridge Latin in the March 23 issue of the TLS, you must have some imaginative sympathy with faith. Otherwise, Milton would be lost on you, which clearly is not the case. That said, you do raise a salient point: How communicate to someone, lacking same, the experience of faith. To be honest, I do not know. For what it's worth, when I attend early Mass during the week, the sense of community I share with those few present moves me deeply - even though, as I have said here frequently, my own religious sensibility generally has more in common with what Wordsworth tries to get across in "Tintern Abbey."
Not him, I'm afraid. It would seem that guy is an intellectual of some stature, whereas I am a mere dilettante. For what it's worth, I do possess some imaginative sympathy with faith. Who doesn't? Even our friend Dawkins, I'm sure, has let his mind wander on occasions. Of course, if we try, our imaginations can take us anywhere. It's just that, for me, it's not enough. I can't take the necessary leap - intellectually. My reason kicks in, and says no, no, no, get back in line. Essentially, I am a humanist. And as such, I have a deep sense of my own and others' humanity, our constant striving to make sense of the world we live in, and the perpetual struggle to be good, or at least do no harm. Fundamentally, I want this life to work. And that keeps me going. I'm sure you share many of the same aspirations as I do, Frank, you just feel differently about them.
I'm a dilettante myself, Neil, so that makes two of us. Not only do I share the aspirations you mention, but what you say sounds to me like a genuinely religious sentiment. Doctines and articles of faith, I think, ought to be discarded if they get in the way of what, for want of a better term, I shall call virtue. This is something Jesus - along with Zen masters - seems to have understood. I am not interested in things that set us at odds with each other. There are enough of those. It is common ground - and aspirations - that we need.
I'm just locked out of that kind of thought process entirely. Don't get it, can't see it, makes no sense whatsoever. I have asked believers to let me in on the secret and they gave me advice like: just look around you, or, look into your heart, and the like. I've looked. Nope. Not a thing. In fact, I've looked into all my organs, and not a dicky bird. Ah well. I'll try to be good nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteBut Neil, if you are the same Neil Forsyth who wrote the excellent review of John K. Hale's Milton's Cambridge Latin in the March 23 issue of the TLS, you must have some imaginative sympathy with faith. Otherwise, Milton would be lost on you, which clearly is not the case.
ReplyDeleteThat said, you do raise a salient point: How communicate to someone, lacking same, the experience of faith. To be honest, I do not know. For what it's worth, when I attend early Mass during the week, the sense of community I share with those few present moves me deeply - even though, as I have said here frequently, my own religious sensibility generally has more in common with what Wordsworth tries to get across in "Tintern Abbey."
Not him, I'm afraid. It would seem that guy is an intellectual of some stature, whereas I am a mere dilettante. For what it's worth, I do possess some imaginative sympathy with faith. Who doesn't? Even our friend Dawkins, I'm sure, has let his mind wander on occasions. Of course, if we try, our imaginations can take us anywhere. It's just that, for me, it's not enough. I can't take the necessary leap - intellectually. My reason kicks in, and says no, no, no, get back in line. Essentially, I am a humanist. And as such, I have a deep sense of my own and others' humanity, our constant striving to make sense of the world we live in, and the perpetual struggle to be good, or at least do no harm. Fundamentally, I want this life to work. And that keeps me going. I'm sure you share many of the same aspirations as I do, Frank, you just feel differently about them.
ReplyDeleteI'm a dilettante myself, Neil, so that makes two of us. Not only do I share the aspirations you mention, but what you say sounds to me like a genuinely religious sentiment. Doctines and articles of faith, I think, ought to be discarded if they get in the way of what, for want of a better term, I shall call virtue. This is something Jesus - along with Zen masters - seems to have understood. I am not interested in things that set us at odds with each other. There are enough of those. It is common ground - and aspirations - that we need.
ReplyDelete