People and Planet

People and Planet – unprecedented change Blog #3

August 26, 2010

Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Retired RN BSN & MS (Nursing Education)

In case you did not see this post that I responded to for Tom Doyle’s blog, I want to include it here because it gets to the fundamentals of why I have a blog.

8-22-10 I have to respond again to Fr. Tom Doyle’s essay because I think that he’s getting at the heart of some of 21st century Catholicism’s problems.  It surely is an excellent start. 

Esteemed progressive Catholics, we have to go back to the beginning.  If we do that, I think ‘reform’ will become further ‘progression’ and progression will metamorphose like a pupae or a tadpole.  An evolution is occurring.  I think that we are in transition from an Axial Age religion to a post-Axial Age faith phenomenon.  Tom Doyle speaks to some of the inventions in history.

But we need scientific biblical-historical scholarship like the kind Pope Pius XII promulgated because we need to get to the very early issues, as fundamental as the incarnation and resurrection beliefs.  While talking about scientific scholarship we also need to move to the relevant sciences for a twenty-first century faith.  This identifies our belief as a post-Axial Age faith not an Axial Age religion.  This will become more apparent as we study the issues.  I think the evolution is as dramatic an evolution as an ancient polytheistic system being superseded by a monotheistic system.

We also need philosophical reasoning (epistemology) to get to belief, justification and knowledge issues.  And we need other philosophical reasoning such as critical thinking skills and logic.  Catholicism is beset with assumptions that must be challenged.  The synod of the baptized is coming up.  But a conference even more basic is needed in the future for an authentic transformation that is as radical as is required for the evolution that is at stake.

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Now back to my regular blog.

Rue having addressed the central features of human nature in the

Evolution Of Behavior, brings us to chapter 3 The Education Of Emotion.  Human nature is shown by how we came to exist and how we persist.  By way of evolution, complex and interactive behavior mediation (support) systems manage our ability to persist or carry on in meeting the challenges of daily living.  The emotions are vital both to an understanding of human nature as well as to an understanding of religion.  That is why Rue focuses on the emotional systems.

He says that the central importance of emotion studies in academic (scientific) psychology has been recognized only in recent times.  He gives a brief but very important historical summary of the indispensable nature of the emotions.  “Emotion and cognition are now viewed as “partners in the mind.”  Once considered obstacles to reason, the emotions are now considered essential to rationality.”

The emotions are of even more importance to an understanding of religions whether the tradition is Christian, Buddhist, or other traditions.  In fact Rue argues that religious traditions may be seen as schools for educating the emotions.

More later.  Marie