Week 2 Discussion

[clunney]

Let's keep the discussion going!  I'll post some thoughts on the next couple chapters later today or this weekend, but feel free to start the discussion on your own.

Oh, and if you've got more comments or discussion on previous week's discussion, by all means continue!  The more information exchange and ideas voiced, the better!

[Toast]

I've got my book now, I'll just have to start catching up!
 

[Zoroaster]

I'll be glad to get the ball rolling this week, here goes:

I think it obvious that with the revivalism beginning in 1800s that secularism's advance quieted significantly.  Jacoby carries us through a period of nearly 60 years in as many pages when it is fairly obvious that she could've spent double that on the Revolutionary years (but I'm not saying that she should have).

Anyway, the ties between secularism and abolitonism/feminism are real enough but fairly tenuous.  The Seneca Falls Declaration made specific references to "God."  Jacoby waves this off by declaring the participants "religious liberals" who "reject[ed] a literal interpretation of the scriptures," (page 91).  

At this point, I am enjoying this book and I find Jacoby's effort a worthwhile read, but it is becoming clear to me that rather than a work of unbiased historical scholarship, this is a polemic which seeks eradicate all doubt as to seculraism's influence on the U.S.  The problem with polemical discourse doesn't usually lie in the facts - which are mostly well researched in this work, but in the explanations proffered which usually involve some level of "spin."  Polemics do have their place, but they need to be noted for what they are - that is a writing with an agenda, rather than an investigation into history.

Furthermore, lurking just beneath the surface is always a flippant glare at the present state of affairs with respect to government and religion.  Note on page 80, the entirely unnecessary comment "some things never change" with respect to congressional franking priveleges.

Lastly, on Abraham Lincoln most historians agree that later in his life he adopted a sort of unconventional personal religion that wouldn't be incompatible with Christianity, and rather than acknowledge that head on, Jacoby seems content to to leave us hopeful that the skeptic of his youth was still dominant if not only dormant.

 

[bsabel]

I'll comment more on the content later but I want to add a bit to Z's words.  My biggest complaint about this book is Jacoby's occasional transparency in regards to her personal politics.  While I happen to be in her camp, I think it takes her credibility down a bit when she shows her hand.

[jsabel]

I completely agree.  I think Jacoby has done an amazing job on her research.  I truly enjoyed the book because of the history that I learned.  But, her constant biased comments and spin do keep the book from being as great as it could be.  As I said before, a good book of history should be as timeless as possible and this one is not.

[bsabel]

Chapter 3

This chapter is full of a number of very interesting historical facts that I did not know before I had read it.  Not surprisingly, my education had little mention, if any, of the most of the characters of Chapter 3.  Jacoby is quick to blame negativity toward the atheism and feminism of these people for their absence in the history books.  I wonder if there might not be more to it than that.  Abolitionism and women's sufferage are both dramatically underserved in the history texts; the little that does get in does not usually have the breadth and depth to accomodate a nuanced discussion of the specific players in the battles.  I think the omission of these people is probably due more to the abbreviated treatment these subjects are given in the first place.  In contrast, the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s are thoroughly documented.  Why the difference?  I think violence and civil unrest coupled with news media with unprecedented reach had a lot to do with the difference.  Not that there was not violence and civil unrest inregards to abolition of slavery and women's sufferage (there was that whole Civil War thing after all) and not that there wasn't effective new media.  But the culmination of many factors led to a better documentation of the civil rights battles than the others.  Am I off base with that?

I think the last page of the chapter is conspicuosly out of place but contains some of my favorite material of the book.  It does not flow elegantly from the preceding material but is a theme she comes back to many times in the book.  But she is dead on with it.  The absence of a hierarchy in our belief system is, ironically, both its best and worst feature.  Every generation must reinvent the intellectual wheel.  That keeps the movement vibrant but also slows its progress.

[bsabel]

Chapter 4

You know, the whole "In God We Trust" thing on the currency really irks me.  Nobody actually even considers the meaning of it any more if they are even aware of it.  And, ironically, if anyone tried to remove it, it would spark a huge revival of "In God We Trust" fanatics and more blabbing about religion being under attack.  But I sure wish it weren't there!

Regarding Abraham Lincoln, it's no surprise that every system of beliefs is trying to claim him as their own.  His own language leaves us will little that can prompt us to say, "I think he was a [choose your title]!"  And just enough to make just about any claim.  I think the reason for this is that Lincoln himself couldn't say, "I think I'm a [choose your title]!"  I think he was a man of many doubts but I don't think he wanted to be that way.  The hazy nature of his views of religion answer more quesions about it than I think most people are willing to credit.  Historians are often quick to try and fit him into a certain category.  If you could go back in time and ask him point blank what he believed, I'm not sure we would know more about his faith than we know now!

[Zoroaster]

You'll have to excuse my tangent here, but I've found myself wondering what the statement "in god we trust" can possibly mean.  Trust, I think,  is generally understood as a relationship of fidelity and confidence that the trustee (so to speak) will behave commensurate to the trustor's understanding and wishes (my own definition).

Relationships require communication, and if there is a god she speaks to no one and even by the bible hasn't directly spoken to anyone since Job (assuming it is assembled chronologically).

What I'm saying is, how can one trust a being about which we only know things from word of mouth and antiquated writings?  Faith, I think, is very different from trust.  Faith is not a relationship of fidelity, rather it is the belief that something is so, regardless of facts or evidence.  At least the statement "In God We Have Faith," on our currency would make sense from a semantic standpoint.

This probably doesn't matter and I think I've beaten this dead horse enough.
 

[bsabel]

Speaking of tangents, I was at a meeting the other day and, when discussing a particular regulation, the leader of the discussion said, "I don't want to beat this issue with a dead horse but I can't understate the importance of these disclosures."  :huh:  The imagery was really great!

Oh, yeah, and the thoughts on "Trust" were very interesting, too!