{"id":11834,"date":"2017-02-18T21:08:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T05:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11834"},"modified":"2017-02-18T21:08:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T05:08:01","slug":"philosophical-ethnography-a-life-happens-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/philosophical-ethnography-a-life-happens-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophical Ethnography: A Life Happens Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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To believe or not to believe?<\/p>\n

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Life is full of opportunities to believe or not to believe.\u00a0 We face it every day.\u00a0 If you open social media or if you follow news sources, there is a constant struggle to
\nknow where to put your trust for information.\u00a0 James Smith in his book, How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, \u00a0constructs a book to explain a book about the Secular Age.\u00a0 Charles Taylor\u2019s daunting tome is a very intimidating book even though it is a monumental work.\u00a0 Taylor\u2019s purpose is writing this book is to look at what happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith even for the staunchest believers, is only one human possibility among others.\u00a0 the digression of a society\u2019s belief in God.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0His outlook is not that this happened all at once or that it dissolved.\u00a0 Instead the secular world has embraced a myriad of ideas and thoughts about belief that has diluted into a belief in multiple spiritual things.\u00a0 This \u201ccliff notes\u201d approach of James Smith is very helpful in \u201ceating the elephant\u201d by making this a bite size approach.<\/p>\n

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Philosophical Ethnography<\/p>\n

The jumping in point brings up language that I have heard before.\u00a0 Ethnography is a word that we have explored in the arena of the visual. Philosophical ethnography is a close look at the results of the everyday and even closer look at the world we inhabit.[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 It is an adventure in self-understanding, a way to get our bearings in a secular age, whoever we might be:\u00a0 believers or skeptics, devout or doubting.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 These words are repeated by Smith as he starts to unpack this information.\u00a0\u00a0 What is the landscape of our society?\u00a0 What does it truly look like?\u00a0 As he starts to explore the thoughts and concepts the word believe or belief become a part of this language.<\/p>\n

Belief<\/p>\n

Let me highlight a few that caught my attention on belief.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t believe instead of doubting, we believe while doubting.[4]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> \u00a0This principle is powerful in exploring God and belief in him. \u00a0The challenge of exploring the decline of the spiritual and the rise of the secular causes lots of emotions, thoughts and passions.\u00a0 This topic stirs the soul and statements of belief may not always have researched facts to be built upon.\u00a0 To pinpoint where faith has taken steps away from God and has placed belief and or faith in human reasoning instead causes emotional response.\u00a0 This can cause us to get into the \u201cfog of fraudulence.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Exploring the conditions of belief:\u00a0 a shift in the plausibility conditions that make something believable or unbelievable, develops our view of what is or isn\u2019t secular.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Because of this indifference toward belief and the drift toward secularism, unbelief has become the major default option.[7]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>\u00a0 When there is a digression of a society from one point of view to another then there must be defaults.\u00a0\u00a0 We will just go with this thought or this idea because we are being told this is what is happening and where the trend is going.<\/p>\n

What happens when we fixate on expressions of belief rather than conditions of belief.<\/em> [8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Subtraction Stories<\/p>\n

\u201cSubtraction stories\u201d is a piece of language that Taylor uses to attribute everything to disenchantment.\u00a0\u00a0 Science gave us \u201cnaturalistic\u201d explanations.\u00a0 Then people started to look for alternatives to God.\u00a0\u00a0 Secular terms are also introduced to change the language.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

The greatest extent of the subtraction story with the fading of God\u2019s presence in all three domains made us look afresh for alternative possible reference points for fullness. The transfer of God\u2019s power to our own power was the natural progression.\u00a0 Humanism points us toward ourselves and away from God.\u00a0 So the subtraction of the story forms the truth and pushes us toward opinions.<\/p>\n

Belief is explored<\/p>\n

Subtraction stories are added<\/p>\n

Humanism is championed and God is in decline.<\/p>\n

Secularism is the new world order and God is a point of reference for a few who still believe that way.<\/p>\n

The world is different than it was but the principles and the word of God says that He never changes and he stays the same and relevant no matter other people\u2019s opinions or the world\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n

This progression is very intriguing.<\/p>\n

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Ladies and Gentlemen,
\nThis is a life happens week.\u00a0 I have overbooked myself and time is not on my side to write something completely.\u00a0 I have emailed Jason and he asked me to at least post something of my thoughts. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These are incomplete thoughts.\u00a0 Thanks for your grace and mercy toward the lack of depth and clear communication. \u00a0I leave for a student retreat tomorrow afternoon after our morning service. \u00a0Hopefully wifi will allow me to connect on Monday with you. \u00a0I will be at Sky Ranch in Quapaw, Oklahoma, so we will see.<\/p>\n

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Kevin<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> James K.A. Smith, How(Not) to be secular:\u00a0 Reading Charles Taylor, <\/em>(Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014) Introduction.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., viii.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., ix.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 4.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 15.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 18.<\/p>\n

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[7]<\/a> Ibid., 19.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 20.<\/p>\n

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[9]<\/a> Charles Taylor, A Secular Age<\/em>, (London, England: Belknap Press of Harvard, 2007), 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    To believe or not to believe?   Life is full of opportunities to believe or not to believe.\u00a0 We face it every day.\u00a0 If you open social media or if you follow news sources, there is a constant struggle to know where to put your trust for information.\u00a0 James Smith in his book, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[701,833,836,189],"class_list":["post-11834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dmlpg6","tag-james-k-a-smith","tag-life-happens","tag-taylor-secular","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}