{"id":1163,"date":"2005-03-19T10:51:19","date_gmt":"2005-03-19T14:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2005\/03\/19\/roots-of-atheism-in-religion\/"},"modified":"2005-03-19T10:51:19","modified_gmt":"2005-03-19T14:51:19","slug":"roots-of-atheism-in-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2005\/03\/19\/roots-of-atheism-in-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Roots of atheism in “religion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

One of BF’s advisers, the atheism guy, gave a speech in Rome this
\nweek<\/a>.  Father Buckley is fascinating and frightfully intelligent,
\nand his<\/a> books<\/a> have been about how modern atheism and modern religion have given birth to one another, in a sense.<\/p>\n

\n

In essence, Buckley argued that by the 19th century, “religion” had
\ncome to mean something very different than it did in the medieval
\nperiod for thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas. For Durkheim and Freud,
\n“religion” was a cluster of beliefs, symbols, and rites, essentially a
\nsubset of the artifacts of human culture. Religion was a genus, of
\nwhich the various “religions” — Christianity, Hinduism, and so on —
\nwere species. <\/p>\n

From this point of view, “religions” are a little bit like
\nPepsi and Coke — specifications of the generic category “soda.” (The
\nanalogy is my own, not Buckley’s). They become separate and mutually
\nexclusive “brand names.”\n <\/p>\n

For Aquinas, on the other hand, the idea of “a<\/i> religion”
\nwould have made no sense, Buckley said. Aquinas regarded religion not
\nas a set of beliefs and practices, but as a moral virtue “by which one
\ngives God what is due to God, and lives in appropriate relation to
\nGod.” Symbols, hymns, rituals and doctrines are not “religion,” they
\nare the acts or objects of religion, with God as its ultimate end. This
\nvirtue of religion is universal, even if people and cultures have
\ndifferent ways of cultivating it. <\/p>\n

Buckley argued that the scientific study of religion thus
\nsettled the issue in favor of atheism from its opening move. When one
\nsees “religion” as instructive not about God but about human culture,
\nhe said, the question of God’s existence is already asked and answered.\n <\/p>\n

“God is either incomprehensibly absolute in his being and in
\nhis goodness and so adored in his self-communication, or God is not at
\nall,” Buckley said.\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s an interesting alternative viewpoint to the study of religion
\nconcept.  I often explain to people who ask what BF does that
\nreligious studies approaches religion from outside of any belief
\nstructure while theology is the study of religion from inside a
\nparticualr set of beliefs.<\/p>\n

But I have often pondered how the atheism of religious studies is
\nreplicated in other social science disciplines.  Do we political
\nscientists not believe in politics?  (I think that this may be
\noften true.)  How does that affect how we study the phenomena?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of BF’s advisers, the atheism guy, gave a speech in Rome this week.  Father Buckley is fascinating and frightfully intelligent, and his books have been about how modern atheism and modern religion have given birth to one another, in a sense. In essence, Buckley argued that by the 19th century, “religion” had come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-iL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}