Irreconcilable Differences
Okay, I finally jumped. I took pity on the poor anguished people at Cliopatria, one in particular, who urged me to leave four or five times yesterday. No actually that’s not true – the taking pity bit. The urging five times is true! Ding, ding, ding, in came the emails, one after another, rebuking me for my sins and asking ‘Are you going to go?’ Terrific fun, because yesterday was also the day we were doing the last final positively last edits on the Dictionary, and I wasn’t really in urgent need of extra interruptions. But that’s okay, that’s no one’s fault. At any rate – of course as soon as people started pushing me toward the door I came over all stubborn and wouldn’t go. Isn’t that awful. What a sadist. But I didn’t feel like it yesterday. I felt like making him fire me if he wanted to get me out, rather than making it easy for him. Cruel, I know. But then…after all those endless repetitions of ‘You can say anything you want to’ followed by the instantaneous yells of rage as soon as I did say something – well I just didn’t feel like going quietly. Nope. I wanted to do a Diana and be difficult and stubborn. So I did.
And I might have gone on awhile being difficult and stubborn, too – though probably not. The fact is, I don’t want my name on a religious site. It’s that simple. But I wasn’t sure how overt it was going to be, so I was waiting to see. The answer came promptly – and it was certainly the perfect way to get rid of me! Yet another evangelical post – this one about Christian history. Urrrggghh. So I’m gone. Not out of pity at all, out of sheer revulsion.
The post quotes from an article by a ‘Christian historian’:
While ordinary history might look quite secular, Noll sees it as fundamentally Christian in its presuppositions and worldview. He compared it to science. Christian scientists do their work with confidence because they believe that the world will make sense, and that God has made it possible for the human mind to understand the world. So with the historian. “If I want to study the history of the American Revolution, I’m presupposing that something real took place, that the evidence left corresponds in some way to what really took place, that I’m intelligent enough to understand that evidence, that I’m able to put together a plausible explanation of cause and effect that might get us close to the truth,” Noll said. “All those enterprises I see as implicitly dependent on a Christian view of God.”
Eh? Presupposing that something real took place is implicitly dependent on a Christian view of God? Really? Who knew! There’s no other possible set of ideas that those presuppostitions can rest on then? Er – why?
Oh never mind, who cares. But we can see the problem. And we can also see why I felt inhibited about confronting it head-on at Cliopatria itself. Because I didn’t want to be rude, that’s why. But I must say, I didn’t think I had to censor myself here as well. I mean, be fair, as Monty Python used to say. On someone else’s territory, okay, I’ll shut up, I’ll be polite – but on ours? On territory that was set up precisely in order to expose and resist woolly thinking? It’s asking a bit much to expect me to shut up here too! But that was precisely the grievance: that instead of talking about it there (which of course I was perfectly free to do, oh yes, I could say anything I wanted to) I talked about it here. Ah. And things would have gone swimmingly if I had discussed my thoughts on the Holy Spirit and God’s will and the inerrancy of the Bible over there? I don’t think so! But we’ll never know, because I didn’t, and it also doesn’t make any difference, because there’s no way I would stay on a group blog that’s staging a Third Great Awakening. So I’m off. I prefer secular rationalist sites, thanks.
Their loss.
And did you ever try to use the archives at that site? I have never seen anything so poorly arranged.
“All those enterprises I see as implicitly dependent on a Christian view of God”
Apart from being very silly, this view is incredibly arrogant. Can you imagine the cries of horror which would result if we suggested that only atheists are capable of being good historians…?
So much for Thucydides and Gibbon.
Or if someone suggested that only a Muslim is capable of being a good historian?
Yes, and Tacitus and Hume and one or two other decent historians.
Just so you know, I’m a bit of a Christian myself and found the whole post rather ridiculous — as well as the stupid, but oft-repeated, view that feminism or Marxism or whatever are basically “religions.” I spent four years being educated in a specifically evangelical Christian environment, and I wouldn’t wish such a fate on my worst enemy.
Yeah, I wanted to take on that equivalence with Marxism and feminism stuff too, but I had only so much time and energy, so concentrated on the central issue.
Too bad about the evangelical thing. I was planning to go to Bob Jones for a PhD so that I could be a historian at last.
Leaving aside our many areas of disagreement, Ophelia, I’m sorry we won’t be able to have more exchanges on the “personal” versus the “intellectual” within feminism; I thought that was a productive line for both of us.
Just for the record, I’ve enjoyed reading B&W and will continue to do so. It’s important for me to be sharpened by fierce criticism; it is especially appreciated when that criticism is fair and tempered with humor — and I have, in our brief exchanges, appreciated both your fairness and your sense of humor. I do look forward to reading more of what you write, and I am very sorry that things have turned out as they have.
Cheers and best wishes to you.
HBS
Thanks, Hugo, that’s kind. That was an interesting discussion, wasn’t it…
Ironically enough, I liked your posts on anorexia and on the effect of a miniskirt and halter top on a classroom, very much – your whole take on the pressure on women to be sexpots. Despite radical disagreements in some areas, we agree in others. Makes ya think, don’t it!
Not to beat a dead horse, and I may be stupid, but I still see doctrinaire Marxists as sharing many of the functional characteristics of the religiously besotted. There is the all-encompassing explanation of the world and human nature, the Prophet, the holy texts, the saints and sinners, and the happy willingness to undertake genocide in the name of the faith. As I don’t find Marxism’s “scientific” basis very convincing, what is left but Marxism as a faith, a religion?
Well I beat dead horses all the time, at least according to one of our regular commenters, so no need to worry about that.
True enough, about doctrinaire Marxists. I would agree that they share many characteristics (whether functional or not I don’t know) of religious believers – but I would also say that there are some major differences. The kinds of truth claims that religions make are different from the kinds that Marxists make. The supernatural element is missing, for one thing, and the deity is missing, for another. Of course that still leaves plenty of room for baseless predictions and totalizing whaddyacallits, but the difference is not trivial. I think.
Good for you. Principles can be prickly things, but one thing worse would be the lack of them.
Thanks! (There’s no denying that I’m prickly, but I make up for it by being irritating.)
The reason you don’t want to believe in a Supreme being is because you want to be God and you think that you could do a much better job than what He does but if you really look over the last part of your life, you will see that you have a trail of messes that you have caused on yourself.