On Misology

[redcrosse]

Misology.

Miriam-Webster defines it as "hatred of argument, reasoning, or enlightenment." I found it in Chadwick's translation of City of God a few years ago, and immediately fell in love.

Some of you may already see why; you are clever, Christian, or overly familiar with Greek. As most things do, it has to do with Logos. Logos is often translated

Comments

[matt_rah]

That's a great word. I assume it has a more general meaning than you're using here. That is, what clicked with me when I read the top of this post was, "Oh! This is the word I've been looking for to describe why it is that trying to have a dialogue with someone on the hard right / Christian right is essentially impossible for me." Or really any fundamentalist group, and it's not just me-having a meaningful dialogue with "the other side" is really nearly impossible for almost any educated liberal. Because our entire way of engaging with the world is based around argument and reasoning.

Matt

[redcrosse]

Yes! That is exactly why I love it. I want to, like, copyright it; when I saw it in City of God, I felt like I'd unearthed this great treasure. And the amazing thing is, it works the other way: just as fundamentalists hate reason, materialists hate the other meaning of reason, which is also a meaning of logos, and hence, misology! Naturally, it can't be translated "Antichrist" unless you're Christian, but still, it means much the same thing on either side of any number of fences. And angers most people. I'll pick on "almost any educated liberal", and how misology often applies to us, later, but for now, yes.

Misology! What a word.

[matt_rah]

>>I'll pick on "almost any educated liberal", and how misology often applies to us, later...<<

I'm curious about this. Does it have anything to do with being mistrustful / skeptical about any sort of revealed Word/Logos that isn't backed up by Science! or Reason?

Matt

[redcrosse]

Science and Reason are two very different things, or rather, one is a small subset of the other, and derives all its authority therefrom. I'll write on it soon, likely. For now, must do actual, non-LJ things.

[russiandude]

It's funny, a few months ago I was describing how I see the world to some of my friends and it is similar (though not identical) to what you describe regarding interpreting scripture

[msarcher]

Kwame Appiah from Princeton says that we need to be on the look out for "truths good enough to live by"-- truths subject to input and revision, but still solid enough to base decisions on.

[ornithoptercat]

I totally saw that word and thought "the study of... miso soup?".

This post brought to you by the letters M, S, O, and the number 3am.

[noradannan]

Oh, yay.

Please keep posting things like this. Most of what I've learned of Christianity has come from English class, and while my religious upbring was always very clear that Jesus was totally awesome, we didn't get into a lot of detail there. It's fascinating and uplifting to hear your thoughts and discussions.

Also, I'd like to hear about John 15 sometime.

[redcrosse]

When I get around to Darwin, you will.