Joan Chittister

[miriam_e]

What a remarkable woman she is. You will be hard pressed to find a sharper, more honest mind. She embodies great hope for us all. I can't even say I'm sorry she is religious (she is a Benedictine nun), because she and people like her may help religious people find their way out of the blindness that too commonly afflicts them. It would be good to not feel I have to stand against religion because of the damage it does. It would be wonderful to feel it doesn't threaten our survival as a species. Unfortunately that isn't so yet. It would be very cool if people like Joan Chittister could help make it so.

My only qualm is that she talked eloquently about how people of all spiritual persuasions can find common ground for tolerance and build upon a basic goodness in spiritualism, but as is so common in religious people she ignored the fact that they are surrounded by atheists and agnostics who are good and tolerant people without spiritualism. Sad that even one so brilliant as she ignores that.

One of the incredible insights she explained in the program was the second commandment, not to take the name of god in vain. I'd always felt this was a rather irrelevant commandment, but as she put it, it is central to making religion more tolerant and just. By making, for instance, homophobic pronouncements against gay people then religious people are taking their god's name in vain. They are assuming to speak for their god -- an incredibly arrogant thing to do.

She is filled with such illuminations. A very smart woman indeed.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/default.htm

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I'll be listening to the interview again later (because I like to squeeze as much out of such cool talks as possible) so I'll keep that possibility in mind.

I have such great respect for her and I don't believe she would deliberately exclude such a large part of humanity. It is almost certainly that she is talking about spirituality in particular, as you say. However I'm reminded of some male friends I've had in the past who have defended their use of male talent and ignoring female talent. When it is pointed out to them they've often been genuinely puzzled and replied that they guess women just haven't been suitable. Of course that is wrong; they'd been quite unconsciously sexist and exclusionary. Good, honest, well-meaning people can still be sexist. I tend to think it is the same with Joan Chittister and many other good, honest, well-meaning religious people: it simply never occurred to them that atheists and agnostics can be good, true people with a moral purpose and a high respect for life. Such exclusionary religious people are certainly not bad because of that, but it makes it no less irritating to be on the receiving end of the assumption that you are a moral vacuum because of your absence of religion.

I've heard it argued that atheism is a belief, but it seems a very dubious argument to me. Atheism and agnosticism are a lack of a belief; not a belief in something.

You'd resist someone trying to define you because of your skepticism about a higher alien civilisation using crop circles to communicate with us. It is entirely natural to not believe such silliness, especially since the two guys who made the first several have owned up to it. If someone said you are a believer in non-alien crop circles you'd probably correct them and say that no, there is nothing to believe. Belief doesn't come into it. That is how it is with atheism and agnosticism. (Though I must admit I have met a small number of people who Richard Dawkins calls fundamentalist atheists who fervently believe in no god. He rejects their belief, and so do I, as being just as ill-founded as religion.)