email to a friend

I am putting this in because it might throw light on things and I will perhaps need to re-read it over the coming days. it's parts of a letter to a guy I met at a forum.

....Perhaps it comes of not having enough normal stuff to do, but it also connects with bits of stuff I've seen on youtube over the weekend after typing in the word 'catholic'. What came up was mostly anti- (though not all); for example, to my astonishment, Stephen Fry, who seems to rank close to R Dawkins in his hatred of, well perhaps not all religion, but all things catholic anyway. Even he was stumbling over his text with the rage he was obviously feeling - and this was a man not even educated in one of those Irish institutions or by agressive nuns in Hull or by a hell-fire spitting priest - none of those reasons: just intellectual loathing. Which relates back to your posts yesterday. There is an urgent need for me to try to be 'laisser-faire' here and, I promise, I will try to do this.
I suppose I just wanted to point out the 'reactive' nature of theology generally, (in the sense that Abraham could not sit down to do a theology course as there can be no theology without scripture) and the way in which churches, by which I mean those who preach in them, tend to 'dumb down' in the same way that tv does: in order not to lose their 'audience' perhaps but also because there is an important truth in the fact that 'Christianity' [as a 'package' if you like] cannot be seen to be 'intellectual' for its own sake - for lots of reasons but mostly because it has to be 'available to all' - like an omnibus perhaps. [Intellectual implies an elite]. The problem then comes that, for people who really do think (not because they want to, but because they need to - and I think you are one of those), the inadequacy of that simplified 'package' of Christianity-made-easy, when put alongside thorough, careful science, becomes ridiculous and incredible.
The catholic church began to grow through the 'dark' ages, when only monks could read and write. The ordinary people were illiterate, and their faith needed to be simple: sacrament was everything (along with pictures perhaps) It's almost impossible for us to get into the mindset of a Saxon peasant now. The reformation came about because of printing and because more and more people were educated, literate, and wanting to make up their own mind. The Catholic church became anachronistic because it couldnt reform rapidly enough for the new modern world and because it invested too much effort into holding back the tide (the counter reformation). Sacrament became less and less significant because of the overwhelming importance -relatively speaking - of the word (now it was out of the old Latin and into the vernacular, and, more important, widely available).
Today there is a new crisis and a new kind of reformation is under way and, as before, because of the nature of the Christian (rather than his church I think), he tends to spend his efforts in attempting to hold back the tide [as though the Holy Spirit was something that only happens yesterday: 'O ye of little faith'] rather than modernising. This is as true in the 'reformed' churches as it is in the 'old' church of Rome - (which has arguably only just begun to come to terms with the previous reformation - centuries behind) although their respective 'counter-reformations' do manifest themselves in very different ways.
America has become central in the life of Christianity now that the balance of power has moved from Europe - partly because of economics but, as I was saying earlier, it also has something to do with their experience (or lack of it) of war. The internet- it seems to me, will change the world in as many ways as the printing press did in the 15th century. Perhaps it has already. For a start it means that the simple religion of guys like 'xxx' on the forum (literate but not educated) is now there for all of us to see and wonder at (I've just seen his latest post in your thread). It also means that people like us can communicate for the first time and the cross-over between faith (and lack of it) and xxxness can express itself. The whole mix can become profoundly confusing, which is all the more reason why many retreat back into an ultra-simple defensive position. The instinct is to mock this, but I think this misses the main point: theology is even more complex, more difficult to 'suss' than the most complex aspects of science dealing, as it does, with invisible, highly debatable, and rather poorly documented concepts which can anyhow be so difficult for us as modern individuals to relate to in a 'tangible' way. The retreat into blatant simplicity is surely a natural reaction.
The danger is that, just as the Baptist American might retreat into a simple fundamentalism, and the confused Moslem might do the same, so might the confused scientist. The temptation to shake it all off as antiquated nonsense can become overwhelming (a la Dawkins) particularly because we are dealing with invisible, unquantifiable things - which very fact will immediately put any decent scientist on edge. Dawkins has been called a fundamentalist atheist but I think Stephen Fry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYt3sXJLw_w has persuaded me that there might also be such a thing as a fundamentalist humanist. It is all very well to retreat into a spitting rage over the wrongs of the Catholic church re Galileo or making Thomas More (who apparently burnt heretics (I never knew that!) a saint or to see humanity (and therefore all of creation as well I suppose) as the universal victim of a vengeful whimsical God but doesnt this just lead to impasse and . . . . what then? Where is there to go except into more diatribe?
The danger is particularly severe for people such as yourself. You are searching for truth: longing for coherent and meaningful answers which you can relate to and identify with (and which you will not find) so when you come across this forum with its amateur theology and simplistic Christian 'solutions' it is easy for you to use it as a way of creating a reactive position of your own.
With both Fry and Dawkins, where does their missionary zeal actually stem from? "they do protest too much, methinks."
Although they find themselves caught down ultimately dead ends, there is perhaps a sense of identity to be found in their position and it is my belief that it is exactly this overwhelming need for identity which is at the base of all religion.
The less secure our sense of identity actually is the more we clamour for it. The need to belong somewhere (anywhere!) can override everything else, but 'identity' is more important even than that. (I think it's possible to 'belong' without properly developing a sense of identity.)
This is why the fundamentalist view is so appealing: because it gives a sense of identity, albeit at the expense of credible truth, which becomes a secondary concern.
I have no idea what you will make of all this, if anything, and I'm not at all sure that I've got anywhere near the things that have been bugging me for days now. Time will tell . . . . .
In my own life, I am gradually coming to terms with my own inability to develop a convincing sense of identity or, for that matter, a sense of belonging and I begin to realise that this very lack might be an important aspect of our journey towards the truth of the matter; something we all need to confront if we are to escape what you call the stereotypical God.
In other words, I think the real journey is a constant battle with the temptation to create 'false' notions of God which the longing for identity and belonging throws up in us in numerous different guises as we journey from day to day. . . . .