…a person who doesn’t believe atheists exist? I was an atheist once and I think I’m a pantheist now. Kind of ironic
God this is a difficult subject. I remember back in fifth grade, Catholic School in the early seventies, Sister Mary Ernest (yes, that was her real name) told us to be good…so we could get into heaven. I thought for a second and raised my hand. “Sister Mary, we shouldn’t be good just to get into heaven, shouldn’t we be good, just to be good?” Sister Mary thought for a minute and then told me to shut up. She was never my favorite habit.
I think we all have “religion.” We might call it something else, we might treat it like something else, but we still have it. It’s certainly been one of the more popular hobbies over the years, all the years that is. Why is that? The religious laugh at that question and answer it I suppose with logic that resembles some kind of circle. The Stonehenge layout is just a coincidence.
Speaking of circles, the more I think about things, especially the things that are now happening in the world (and not happening), the more I think religion is going to make a comeback. Like everything else in history, it won’t look exactly the same, but it will definitely serve some functions
High priests aside, the idea that there are absolute rules, even absolute limits that no one can escape, is pretty tantalizing in a Wells Fargo world. Humility is an interesting concept too. It might be a function of survival. It seems “logical” that our first religions were some kind of patheism. A system, a natural system where everything is “sacred,” is exactly that, an interdependent system. It has limits, it strives to balance but it continues to function. It certainly adjusts, it certainly changes, but it survives not in spite of interdependency but because of it. It recognizes that truth and respects it, even worships it. It’s not central bankers, it’s wealth is “grounded,” and its resiliency is redundant.
A great piece Prof. Collum, as usual.