"many paths that lead around God" - great line and so accurate of much of modern religious belief.

"I would suggest that there are many paths that lead to God, many ways of walking in faith."

A lot of people say this, or something like it, but it's almost completely content-free. How many is many? Is it 5, or 9, or 100,000, or infinity? It's self-evident that there are many ways of walking in faith, given the diversity of beliefs even within single religions - the question is, are some ways better than others? Or are all ways equally valid? Anyone with an iota of intellectual integrity recognizes that, e.g. blowing up innocent bystanders as part of your "walking in faith" cannot be equivalent to, e.g., spending your life helping the poorest of the poor, a la Mother Theresa. All the statement amounts to is the modern credo: I get to determine the standard by which God will judge me, not God, and certainly not any fellow human being.

This is aside from the fact that his whole wrestling analogy is preposterous - even aside from the reference to Jacob, who wants to spend eternity in a wrestling match? His version is more like waiting for Godot, or Sysiphus - not very inspiring.

God-Wrestling is how we express our spiritual courage in the face of the relentless "I Will Be"; for Whatever or Whomever we might choose to call God, God remains the Holy One of Eternal Ambiguity.

Rabbi Rosenberg has an interesting philosophy of religion, but it is much closer to Zen Buddhism than Judaism. I still wonder why people so far from orthodox belief still bother to label themselves as Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, etc.

Matt, I think the answer is that it lends them a sort of credibility, an audience, that they would never otherwise have. Why the hell would anyone care what a self-proclaimed agnostic had to say about his spiritual wrestling exploits? But a Rabbi with Big Doubts and Big Questions--that's something almost scandalous. He's credentialed, but being an apostate Jew is simply unexciting, and it sure won't get you any columns in nominally Jewish publications. The same definitely goes for dissident (read: heretic) "Catholics." If they simply abandoned the label when they abandoned their faith, no one would notice or--more importantly--publish them.

Sage, I agree that the desire for credibility is a factor in some people's choice to label themselves Jewish, Catholic, etc. in spite of heterodox beliefs. However, it is hard to believe that significant numbers of people could be as blatantly and consciously disingenuous as your characterization might suggest.

The contradiction might also be explained in part by a desire for the comfort and security of belonging to a church and participating in its rituals. Committed believers often say that without belief in the absolute truths of faith, we are cast morally and spiritually adrift an absurd, chaotic universe. Perhaps some church members doubt the truths of their faith, but are afraid to take that doubt to its disturbing, rational conclusion.

From personal experience with dabbling in the 'many paths to God' notion, and from observation of people who went much farther down that path than I, here is my opinion:

It's easy! Just as free verse is easier than a sonnet, just as abstraction to the point of dribbles is easier than representation, the "many paths" is easier than living up to the requirements of a formal faith. Sure, there's abstract painters who can also do a fine water color of a landscape, but how many? Similarly, of the "many paths" theologians, how many really are able to live the more structured and defined life?

Intellectual laziness isn't unique to our time, but it certainly is popular in our time, so why shouldn't theological laziness be just as popular?

And there's another aspect to the easiness of this approach: if one is forever "searching", then one need not "arrive" and actually DO something. This also is much easier; it is no accident that the current culture not only produces "many paths" theology, but also perpetual grad students and "forever young" parents that shun their adult duties. It's all different aspects of the same cultural and personal failings, frankly.

Which reminds me, I need to get back to work!

Just as free verse is easier than a sonnet, just as abstraction to the point of dribbles is easier than representation, the "many paths" is easier than living up to the requirements of a formal faith. Sure, there's abstract painters who can also do a fine water color of a landscape, but how many? Similarly, of the "many paths" theologians, how many really are able to live the more structured and defined life?

IMO, the "dumbing down" of art, literature, theology, etc. in current times will turn out to be a transient effect. Human culture is still reeling from the 19th and 20th century shock waves of democracy, mass literacy, and global communication -- developments which are ultimately good for humankind, but whose short-term cultural effects are primarily destructive.

In time the novelty of deconstructing the old forms will pass, and we will have no choice but to return to a culturally constructive course. Would't it be wonderful to see the emergence of New Masters, whose art doesn't look primitive and silly alongside the Old Masters. We'll probably never live to see it though ...

While I hope and pray that the current spiraling descent of standards in all aspects of Western civilization can be arrested and reversed on a large scale, there is no guarantee. Moslem philosophy seems to have reached its highest point right around 900 to 1000 AD, and froze there. The highest ordered political structure achieved so far in Islam is some version of monarchy. If one human culture can be "stuck" for 1,000 years due to self imposed limits, then others can do the same thing to themselves.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to do real science in the West on a number of topics, from global climate to educational methods to effects on children of early sexuality. If standards continue to decline, at some point there won't be any living person who has ever done real science, just politically correct pseudoscientists who practice something along the lines of Lysenkoism.

notdhimmi said:

Just as free verse is easier than a sonnet,

As a poet, I wish you had used some example other than this.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to do real science in the West on a number of topics, from global climate to educational methods to effects on children of early sexuality.

I agree that Western science has become stagnant, but not due to eroding standards of scholarship. Rather there has been a change of focus from the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of funding and personal glory. Compounding the problem is the perverse tendency to measure a scientist's value in kilograms of paper produced per year -- witness the torrent of derivative, inconsequential work that clogs the scientific journals lately.

I agree that Western science has become stagnant, but not due to eroding standards of scholarship. Rather there has been a change of focus from the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of funding and personal glory.

Oh, I don't know about that, there's always been some pursuit of personal glory in science. What I see is more along the lines of "drawing the curve, then plotting the points": a conclusion is desired, and something is whomped up to support it. The work of Dr. Arthur Kellerman in the "New England Journal of Medicine" on "guns" comes to mind. A lot of the work on "patriarchy" in the social "sciences" comes to mind. Heck, Mead's work on Samoa comes to mind, so it isn't completely new. All of these share in common the notion that the end justifies the means, that the goal of the authors is so noble as to justify bad science (lying, to be blunt).

This notion is antithetical to science. One might say it is "political science", that is, science turned to the service of political aims (perverted might be a better word than turned). The spread of Marxist ways of thinking through Western culture may well be at the root of this degeneration of science, as it seems to be underlying so many other evils.

What I see is more along the lines of "drawing the curve, then plotting the points": a conclusion is desired, and something is whomped up to support it. The work of Dr. Arthur Kellerman in the "New England Journal of Medicine" on "guns" comes to mind. A lot of the work on "patriarchy" in the social "sciences" comes to mind.

You may be correct when it comes to the fields to which you are referring (social science, medicine, ecology). I am less familiar with these fields than with the physical sciences, where the experimenter cannot so easily play those kind of tricks. Either particle X hit detector Y, or it didn't -- there is no room to ask it leading questions, or take into account its "social context". It makes one wonder whether the classical scientific method is really applicable to complex phenomena of the type you mentioned.

I agree that Western science has become stagnant, but not due to eroding standards of scholarship. Rather there has been a change of focus from the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of funding and personal glory. Compounding the problem is the perverse tendency to measure a scientist's value in kilograms of paper produced per year -- witness the torrent of derivative, inconsequential work that clogs the scientific journals lately.

I would say that "a change of focus from the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of funding..." is part and parcel of the "eroding standards of scholarship". It's kind of a chicken-and-egg issue: did the standards slip because people changed their focus, or did people change their focus as the standards slipped? Likewise with the emphasis on number, as opposed to quality, of publications.

The larger question is, what is behind this change of emphasis/lowering of standards? I think the ideas associated with Marxism have some role, but as Matt says they aren't as prevalent in the natural sciences (although such ideas surely affected many people, such as Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin). But for me, the short answer is the root of most modern problems: man has placed himself as the measure of all things, and turned his back on God. As Francis Schaeffer (and others) have outlined, this has affected all parts of our culture, including science.