I am right there with John Anthony West in deriding what he calls the Church of Progress. I am really tired of people pretending they are profound when in fact they are merely sheep following trends. The trend of the past tiresome century, and this one to date, is to regard religion as superstition, as if blind faith in “progress” or in “science” were anything but superstition.
This piece, via my brother who called it to my attention, from The New York Times http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/?emc=eta1 .
God Talk
Stanley Fish
In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance – science, reason, liberalism, capitalism – just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”