i was thinking about the recent controversial speech the pope gave. i’m not really interested in the islamic part, but wanted to bounce this off people. i believe that this is what the pope is saying, except he’s coming at it from a perspective of inside the church.
the questions is: why should theology be taught in universities?
my (and essentially the pope’s) answer:
much of the world is religious. some of them are fundamentalists. it’s clear that fundamentalists of all religions hold some sort of power over non-fundamentalists. fundamentalists speak theology. in order to communicate effectively with fundamentalists you have to have a knowledge of theology.
what are your fundamentals,… that is your religion. All relion is (by origional definion) is a way of life.
Non fundamentalists are saying that they are their own God,… and are perceptive enough to figure it out themselves. They rely on their imagination and erroding sence of concious reasoning to say what is right and wrong. The problem is they sypathize with the devil.
i know where you’re coming from, but wouldn’t you say there must be sort of logic behind their speaking otherwise they wouldn’t be able to agree on anything. they must be able to reach some sort of agreement, otherwise they would have no power, and they definitely have power.
A person who studies a position with the goal of defeating the people who hold that position will get something different from their studies than the true believer. A teacher who presents a position with the intention of teaching his students how to defeat that position will present it differently than the teacher who presents it because he believes it himself. These might be good things to do, but one has to realize that they’re doing them, and not make the mistake of thinking they’re coming away with a real understanding of what the fundamentalist is all about, necessarily.
I’d be interested to know how fundamentalist and fundamentalism is defined by those participating in this thread. In conversations like these, it becomes hard for me to tell if folks are talking past one another due to differences in perceived meaning.
I consider myself a fundamentalist Christian, for example…and by this I mean that I accept as true and integral to the Chrsitian faith most of the fundamental tenets established by a consensus of evangelical leaders in the early 20th century in response to a percieved rising tide of erosion of the principles of Christianity by progressive thought.
Does this definition qualify as the much-maligned fundamentalism intended by posters here? Just curious.
thanks for the response. good point. i think a better term might be radical fundamentalist, unless you can think of a better one. what i’m referring to is the extreme position in religion.
Universities work hard to clarify their presence separately from culture- because they seek to identify themselves independant from the common cultural values.
In other words: Universities want to prove their goal in solving the TRUTHS out of things through disciplines, and what the student wishes to accomplish with those truths (in culture) is up to that student.
The institutes of education are offering their students a sanctuary from fallacy and nonsense. The only way they can feasibly do that is to eliminate culture within their campus. Particularly culture which uses various basis for its actions, other than the pursuit of truth.
Universities are incompatible with culture- simply for the reason that they work to resist culture. Not to say they wish to be cold and inhospitable- but that culture comes second. Learning comes first.
Theology is a pollutant of universities. The pope is begging the question by saying that it should adopt fundamentalist reasoning in order to convince fundamentalists. The liberal use of “communication” and “language” makes it deliberately ambiguous in assuming that being able to speak with someone necessitates believing what they believe.
I’m very ashamed that theology still today has such a profound impact in education. I’m not even interested in learning from institutions that teach it.
Now -on the other hand-
I can admire places that are culturally influenced and wish to offer their identity. Churches, synogogues, all the religious doctrines / temples / traditions. These often have a very ellegant and positive impact on what we do. In fact, sometimes this may be more important than school. But it should be heavily differentiated that such things are not the pursuit of truth. And things dedicated to such a task should not be influenced by them. We tried that very heavily in a time we now call the Dark Ages. They were pretty crappy times.
If only I had thought of reviving a 3 year old thread with my first post.