Filling the hole in modern life
By Mark Vernon on Friday, November 16 2012, 12:04 - General - Permalink
There is a long review of God: All That Matters and The Big Questions: God in today's Tablet. It's online here. A taster:
Sometimes Vernon’s arguments can feel a bit brisk, and it is natural that in such concise but also wide-ranging treatments the author cannot do everything. These two books are, however, very accessible and readable (the tone is conversational), and Vernon has an admirable flair for illustrating his points through references to contemporary popular culture: he can see a popular British TV series as evidence of the God-shaped hole, trace an implicit spirituality in Philip Pullman’s New Statesman articles, and make astute philosophical points about, for instance, the use of the word “spiritual” in the Body Shop’s Body Care Manual. Vernon’s books do as they say – they take religious traditions and practice seriously, confront the central issues that matter most to humans, and nurture searchers, enquirers and the curious in their questioning and contemplation.
Comments
All human beings require Divine compassion, love and blessing, the thread of Communion with the Divine made certain and true and directly experienced. There is no truly human life without such Divine Communion, or the surrender of the entire conscious and functional being to the Absolute Divine Reality within which it appears, on which it depends completely. Without that Divine Communion there is no true humanity, no responsibility, no freedom. Without Divine Communion the individual is simply a bewildered functional entity living the adventure of functional relations. There is no sacred or Divine plane to his or her awareness.
In this age where scientific materialism rules, doubt is the only certainty and substance of mind. Therefore, people in this age are profoundly crippled in their capacity to grasp matters of higher certainty or to relate to subtler mental and physical processes. Likewise, they have been wounded in the root wherein we are naturally moved toward Truth, rather than what is merely and temporarily factual of true. Therefore, this is an age in which people demonstrate little ability to understand and practice any kind of esoteric Spiritual religion, as distinct from what is available at their local church. True Spiritual awakening has been reduced in the popular mind to the staus of mere historical based mythology.
Likewise the modern interpreters of religion do not approach their subject as such awakened practitioners and wise advocates. Rather, they approach their subject with the same scientific mind, empty of everything but doubt and doubts opinions. The usual interpreters of religion and Spirituality are not themselves really religious or Spiritually informed and motivated. At most they may represent some conventional and profoundly secularized "religious" mind, such as tends to characterize comtemporary Christianity.
Referring to your most recent post people like Robert Bellah and Charles Taylor fit entirely within this narrow spectrum.
All human beings require Divine compassion, love and blessing, the thread of Communion with the Divine made certain and true and directly experienced. There is no truly human life without such Divine Communion, or the surrender of the entire conscious and functional being to the Absolute Divine Reality within which it appears, on which it depends completely. Without that Divine Communion there is no true humanity, no responsibility, no freedom. Without Divine Communion the individual is simply a bewildered functional entity living the adventure of functional relations. There is no sacred or Divine plane to his or her awareness.
In this age where scientific materialism rules, doubt is the only certainty and substance of mind. Therefore, people in this age are profoundly crippled in their capacity to grasp matters of higher certainty or to relate to subtler mental and physical processes. Likewise, they have been wounded in the root wherein we are naturally moved toward Truth, rather than what is merely and temporarily factual of true. Therefore, this is an age in which people demonstrate little ability to understand and practice any kind of esoteric Spiritual religion, as distinct from what is available at their local church. True Spiritual awakening has been reduced in the popular mind to the staus of mere historical based mythology.
Likewise the modern interpreters of religion do not approach their subject as such awakened practitioners and wise advocates. Rather, they approach their subject with the same scientific mind, empty of everything but doubt and doubts opinions. The usual interpreters of religion and Spirituality are not themselves really religious or Spiritually informed and motivated. At most they may represent some conventional and profoundly secularized "religious" mind, such as tends to characterize comtemporary Christianity.
Referring to your most recent post people like Robert Bellah and Charles Taylor fit entirely within this narrow spectrum.