© Roger M Tagg 2010
Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.
Richard Holloway (b. 1933) was formerly an Anglican churchman, and at one time was head of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, based in Edinburgh. He left this position and has now written many "after religion" books, and is a much travelled speaker and broadcaster. Although I feel the book's organization is poor in a few places, the message comes through loud and clear. It's the best book on "what we can do to make things better" that I have read for a long time.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | xvi | "Art - in which I include religion, because whatever else it is, it is certainly a work of the human imagination." (RT: a good starting-off admission.) |
| xvii | Religion has historically made calls for redemption, i.e. that we should be "saved". Maybe a better view is to get us to recognize the truth. The call should be to repent, not just from from sin in the religious sense. Modern threats might include AIDS, the environment, carnage on the roads etc). We must no longer remain in denial, including of the fact that we are inevitably caught between being monsters and being saints. | |
| xix | Marx said that philosophers have only interpreted the world, but the point is to change it. However, at what cost? Schemes for universal redemption (whether religious or political) invariably end in cruelty, purging themselves of any pity. | |
| xx | Pity may only be weakness to the monster, but it is the only strength of the saint. | |
| Part I Ch 1 - Monster | 5 | Force is that "X" that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a 'thing'. (Simone Weil) |
| 6 | Law and religious authority, as well as to establish the authority of men over women, was also aimed at preventing men from destroying their own privileges through over-indulgence. | |
| 7 | Carried by life and sex towards death, the human experience is one of being pushed until crushed. (Angela Dworkin) | |
| 8 | Violence springs from the subjection of the human spirit to force (i.e., in the last analysis, to matter). (S Weil) | |
| 10 | Nature wages war on humans, because it knows no morality except its own will to live and replicate itself. (Schopenhauer) | |
| 12-13 | As well as childhood traumas, evil can be "violently coached"; even untraumatized people can become monsters. | |
| 13 | Just going along with the crowd can cause evil. | |
| 18 | The Milgram experiment - discovering how far people would go when told by men in white coats to increase electric shocks. | |
| 19-21 | Modern use of water torture, Abu Ghraib techniques etc were sanctioned by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. | |
| 27 | Empathy is, in the end, a gift. | |
| 31 | Most punishment only fortifies the alienation of the offender. | |
| 32a | Force is indifferent to the human cost of its momentum. | |
| 32b | Human existence is as if we have been given the keys to a powerful car, over which we have some but not total control; it seems to be subject to other forces. | |
| 33 | The "gravitational pull" of the human herd. | |
| Part I Ch 2 - Pity | 39 | Death, the last enemy, is the runner that is just behind us. (Bible - 1 Corinthians) |
| 44 on | With factory farming, man has taken nature beyond its own natural cruelty. | |
| 52 | We have lost the feeling for myth, which can hold a mirror to ourselves. | |
| 54 | The theistic myth: casting God as the separator between order and chaos. Freud's myth: the 3 storeys of id, ego and super-ego. | |
| RT: I didn't see a lot about Pity in this chapter; instead just more monsters and myths. | ||
| Part II Ch 3 - Soul | 68-71 | Rites for death: the human refusal to accept the finality. How did this arise? Also dreams of those who have passed away. |
| 73 | Transmigration of souls (RT: maybe another myth). | |
| 75a | Ensoulment: when does it occur? Catholics, at conception (RT: maybe before?); Greek Orthodox, 21 days after; Islam, 40 days after; Judaism, 80 days after. (RT: all these seem totally arbitrary). The dogma affects the legality of using a "morning after" pill, not to mention contraception. | |
| 75b | Resurrection of the soul is equally inconsistent. Some say it happens immediately, others not until the final judgment day. | |
| 76 | Roman Catholics only allowed cremation in 1963, and some are still uneasy. | |
| 77 | The New Testament is very reticent about Hell. | |
| 82 | The claim by Christian churches that only humans have souls might partly explain our ruthless domination of other animals. | |
| 84 | RH finds absolute assertions about the nature and destiny of the human soul increasingly hard to accept; would there really be no animals in heaven? | |
| 84-5 | RH prefers the idea of "a thinking, feeling, yearning, puzzling body-with-soul, the X factor (RT: presumably the monster), the bit that sings and prays and reaches out to others". | |
| 85 | On death: "it's the endless velvet night for me, thanks". | |
| 86 | Neither religion nor science has proved able to rescue humanity from its addiction to death and enslavement. "The visions of Hell in both traditions (Christianity and Islam) bear a remarkable similarity to what we have been doing to the earth for centuries." | |
| 87 | The Buddha understood how our incessant discontent plunges ahead of itself to mark the lives of those who follow us. So here he meant only metaphorical re-incarnation. | |
| 88a | If we are equally revolted by the eschatologies of organized religion and the callous hedonism of modern secularism, we can make our protest by following the way of compassion. | |
| 88b | Rather than destroy ourselves over our disagreements, why can't we bring some modesty and kindness to the endless debate we have with ourselves about ourselves? | |
| Part II Ch 4 - Suffering | 91 | He puts forward 4 kinds of response to the question that life and its suffering puts before humanity (more a continuum). |
| 92 | The divine broadcaster (God) ran a revelation programme, but reception was dodgy. Reception was through visions, auditions (hearing voices), dreams and inspirations. | |
| 93 | Clerics shut down the station and replaced it by a book, giving them more control. But then, why do we still need leaders? Despite official attempts to fix a "correct" meaning, there are still many interpretations - and books on interpretations - from theologians. | |
| 94 | Option 1: strong religion - an unalterable lifestyle manual. But over time, this gives rise to conflicts, e.g. creationism versus science, evolution of social arrangements. | |
| 96 | All "isms" indicate an ideological mindset. | |
| 97 | Strong religion has a big problem with suffering. How can an all-powerful God let it happen? What about the Holocaust - was God responsible or not? Or blameworthy for letting man do it? (RT: also Lisbon earthquake, Black Death etc.) | |
| 99 | Primitive gods were capricious, so they didn't have a problem. They were analogous to capricious humans, like Al Capone. | |
| 100 | Can suffering really be punishment for sin, i.e. God's all-seeing justice systems? What about Job? | |
| 102 | Jerry Falwell - 9/11 was God's punishment (on all America) for liberals' support for abortion and gay rights. Indonesian moslem clerics blamed Western tourism for the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Other clerics blamed human sin for AIDS, biblical plagues (some natural, some caused by men like Hitler, Stalin, Mao). | |
| 105 | Option 2 - weak religion: less conflict with contemporary cultures - they are part of the "community of the present". | |
| 106 | They say "there's a big mystery here, so let's be gracious about different interpretations". | |
| 107 | Weak religion is adaptive, but this causes conflict with the strong religion traditionalists. | |
| 108a | It also upsets traditional one-dimensional oppositional typology. | |
| 108b | Neo-atheists are as contemptuous of Freud as of religion. They are "clinical practice", not academic science. But theoretical uncertainty is more of a strength. | |
| 109 | There's an ancient dilemma between S. Europe catholicism and N. Europe protestantism. Similar in Islam, between the Mediterranean (open to the world) and the desert (puritanical), e.g. Algeria. | |
| 110a | Psychotherapy and weak religion have sometimes joined forces in "clinical theology". | |
| 110b | God is no longer envisaged as an irate ruler offended by his delinquent subjects, but as a grieving parent whose heart is broken by his erring children. Talk ceases, wounds are bound, God becomes Job. | |
| 111 | 'Patripassianism' (meaning God himself suffers with our suffering) is regarded as heresy by many. | |
| 112 | Strong religion is a closed system. RH is not so bothered about 6-day creation versus Darwin, more about the consequential cruelty of its social ethic (e.g. condemning gays, subordinating women). | |
| 113a | Strong religion will do your thinking for you, weak religion expects you to do a lot of the work. | |
| 113b | Option 3 - after religion. Such a view says "it's all a human construct, but there is some meaning there". | |
| 114a | If religion is a human projection (Freud), that may still tell us something about ourselves, and provide a "mirror". | |
| 114b | Richard Rorty (a pragmatist) agreed with Marx that it's more important to change the world than explain it; but both Marxism and the New Testament keep alive our hope that the future might be better than the past and that human suffering might be alleviated. | |
| 115 | Rorty thinks it would be best if we could find a new document free of the defects of both Marx and the NT, but meanwhile, let's be grateful that we have both. | |
| 116 | Option 4 - complete absence of religious consciousness. We are stuck where we are and with what we have and are - so we just have to get on with it. | |
| 117a | Weak atheism: treating the heavenly hypothesis as real is an endearing eccentricity to be tolerated; or, it might be a comforting faith the atheists wish they could achieve in their own times of suffering. | |
| 117b | Strong atheism: these atheists are not content to keep their own certainties to themselves. But they may be strongly ethical and have a praiseworthy loathing of cruelty and violence. | |
| 117c | While anyone can persuade evil people to do evil things, only religion can persuade good people to do evil things. | |
| 118a | But religion can make good people do even better as well. | |
| 118b | Our position in the spectrum above may be more down to temperament and circumstance than a carefully worked-out conviction. | |
| Part III Ch 5 - Comedy | 122 | That a corrupt tree can bear good fruit is a truth that religious traditions find hard to accept - like in art, it's best not to look too closely at the artist. |
| (or paradox) | 123 | Quoting Yeats: religious mansions have been "pitched in the place of excrement" |
| 124 | The Abraham being prepared to sacrifice Isaac paradox - again! | |
| 125 | Standard theological interpretation is to applaud Abraham's obedience as a splendid example of faith. | |
| 126 | But what about Isaac - did he get consulted? | |
| 127a | "Voices" are still at work - but where do they really come from? | |
| 127b | Maybe such myths are just a story to reflect on, to understand our own lives. | |
| 128 | As with art, religion can bring out positive thoughts in us. | |
| 129a | The "wounded healer" may be the most effective. | |
| 129b | Tennessee Williams - afraid to exorcise his demons, in case he lost his angels. | |
| 132 | TW again: "nothing disgusts me unless it's unkind, violent". (Night of the Iguana) | |
| 133a | "The world is a comedy for those who think, a tragedy for those who feel." (Horace Walpole) | |
| 133b | The genius of a sane religious sensibility is they way its myth-making keeps the balance between tragedy and comedy, pessimism and optimism. | |
| 133 on | "The Fall" and expulsion from Eden - can be a useful myth, similarly Peter's denial and return. (RT: but too long on this!) | |
| 137 | The kind of society we have evolved in N. Europe, flawed as it is, has 3 redeeming features: 1) a mistrust of power and those who wield it; 2) tolerance, as a fundamental ethical imperative; 3) the conviction that it is wrong to harm people. | |
| 140a | The monsters can kill the poet (or a prophet), but never the poem. | |
| 140b | The world is a cruel place that devours its children and cares little for their pains. Two things minimize the horror - our capacity for pity, and Art. (Schopenhauer) | |
| 140c | Pity is treason. (Robespierre in Feb 1794) | |
| 141 | We all (Christians) at least remember Pontius Pilate. | |
| 142 | Maybe there is too much emphasizing the Fall (no to human hope) versus the Restoration (a forgiving Yes). | |
| 145 | RT: at last something about a comic view on life and "play" - exuberant purposelessness. | |
| 146 | If the meaning of life is life itself, then the comic way might stop us taking everything too seriously. | |
| Part III Ch 6 - Saint | 148 | Extreme asceticism is based on unconditional hatred of the world, "lest its blandishments lure the soul away from its lonely ascent to God". |
| 149a | Honest acceptance of our own lack of self-control may be the only thing that keeps us from trying to control others. So being a saint is not the same as being an ascetic. Hitler was an ascetic. | |
| 150 | Saints challenge those humans who have allowed themselves to be completely taken over by force and have become heartless instruments of domination of others. (RT: didn't the Old Testament prophets do the same?) | |
| 151 | Poem about thin-necked leaders (which cost the poet his life). This referred to Stalin henchmen, but could also mean people meeting royals, junior MPs the PM, junior RC bishops the pope - all cringing, fawning. The force of the 'big cheese' turns them into "things". | |
| 152 | The central question of this book is, "to what extent will we let force, in any of its forms, turn us into people who treat others as things? | |
| 154 | It is through suffering (with stigmata?) that we find the possibility of resisting the implacable force that often threatens to smother us like sand. | |
| 157a | Mugabe - another Stalinesque 'peasant-slayer'. | |
| 157b | The revival of religious fundamentalism is a fight back by the male power group against the advances women have gained. (Dworkin) | |
| 158a | Sodomy threatens the myth of males as dominators - it means there are dominated men. | |
| 158b | Christianity has survived the rise of democracy and the abolition of slavery though. (RT: surprising?) | |
| 159 | Power gets angry when it is under threat. | |
| 161 | Pulling back from the cycle of treating others as things. (RT: how, exactly?) | |
| 162-3 | The South African Truth and Reconciliation commission - aimed towards repentance and forgiveness, rather than retribution. But did it resolve all the evil? | |
| 165 | "In Shakespeare, only the fools tell it how it is - the rest lie." (S Weil). (RT: but a fool sings "The rain it raineth every day"!) | |
| 166 | Tolstoy said that the "sillies" are the best people in the world. They are indifferent to force, even though they may be victims. | |
| 167a | Christianity fell into the trap of using most of its energies to maintain itself. | |
| 167b | "Turn the other cheek" is an antidote to power, as was the crucifixion. | |
| 167c | Hierarchical Christianity is heavy with the pride of office and the dignity of person. It is cluttered with ceremonial deference. | |
| 170a | Empathy - rather than pity - is the only possible remedy for the knowing and unknowing cruelty we do against ourselves and the other creatures with whom we briefly share the earth. | |
| 170b | It shows ingratitude (for being alive) and a lack of imagination to spend the life we've been giving stamping on the lives of others, or sneering contemptuously at how they have chosen to make sense of theirs. |
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 20th January 2011
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .