If you're not familiar with Peter Rollins, I hope you'll check out his work sometime. I find it really interesting and challenging. Rather than reading some paltry description of mine, this is from his website (I'll put a link below):
Peter Rollins is an author, philosopher, storyteller, producer and public speaker who has gained an international reputation for overturning traditional notions of religion and forming “churches” that preach the Good News that we can’t be satisfied, that life is difficult, and that we don’t know the secret.
Challenging the idea that faith concerns questions relating to belief; attacking the distinction between the sacred and the secular. It critiques theism and it sets aside questions regarding life after death to explore the possibility of life before death.
Hmmmm, right?
I recently watched a video of his that contained some ideas that I believe are worth spending time thinking about. He was talking about some people who are non-religious or liberal that seem to take pleasure in attacking the religious, in particular evangelical Christians.
He makes the case that attacks based on the rationality or irrationality of a person's belief fail to look at "the function of religion for people." Rollins' video gets a little complex and there are short tangents, but it's even worth watching more than once to let the ideas sink in a little more. To simplify, if I convince someone to change their beliefs, they might be cast adrift; the glue that held their world together has been removed, and they cannot cope without it.
I read a similar argument about changing someone's mind politically. The writer made the excellent point that, if I ask someone to change their mind politically, I am also asking them to give up their support system... their tribe. It’s the same with religious beliefs.
In either politics or religion (and who knows what else?), instead of being satisfied with changing someone's mind and carving another notch in my belt, I should care about the aftermath, and invite the person into MY tribe where they will be accepted and supported in their new belief. Unless I'm willing to do that, it could be argued that I don't care about the person at all, but just want an intellectual victory.
We should be mindful of the "function" of our own actions. Do get pleasure from arguing with someone about the irrationality of their beliefs, even if it's our own aggravation that is giving us pleasure in a warped way? What solution is that providing for US? Can we truly care about the other person? It's worth some introspection, I think.
The video:
I enjoyed this.