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Post by James Hannam on Mar 26, 2009 21:15:35 GMT
After enjoying A.C. Grayling's award-winning masterpiece over at the New Humanist, I had a look at some of the other material there. This article on the Two Cultures caught my eye. The gist of the article is that science has failed to biff religion and the humanities might make a better fist of it. Actually, it is a brilliant example of a lost cause (not the humanities, but biffing religion) and the poor dear who wrote it still appears to take psychoanalysis seriously. It did remind me of something that has been bugging me. We often hear that it was critical history that was the most serious threat to orthodox Christianity in the nineteenth century and not science. But it struck me that by coincidence, everyone who I'd heard this from happened to be a historian. So, is it true? Did the Germans who realised Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and tried to rewrite rational lives of Jesus really make all that much difference? Has anyone seen a proper analysis of this question? For myself, it is the history of events like the slave trade, the black death and other great disasters that most challenge my faith, not Darwinism or even biblical studies. So I wonder if it was critical analysis of the bible that threw back the tide on Dover Beach. Best wishes James
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Post by humphreyclarke on Mar 26, 2009 22:15:34 GMT
I think critical history was probably as important as evolution, in fact Darwin’s ideas were only a fairly minor part of an enormous religious controversy. From what I have read, the Victorian crisis of faith was fuelled by the battle between literalists and liberal critics. As well as science, it was the 'higher criticism' of German biblical scholarship which had a decisive impact, and it was met with both admiration and revulsion. This was an important part of the background to 'The Origin of Species', in particular the arrival on the scene of D F Straus's 'Life of Jesus' which treated the bible like any other ancient document. The debate over 'Essays and Reviews (1860), which called for a more liberal interpretation of the bible, actually ended up overshadowing that concerning Darwin's theories. In Britain, the conflict over ‘higher criticism’ ended up reinforcing the scepticism of those who were ready to turn away from traditional religion.
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