In continuing to develop my literate understanding of my own interfaith Christianity, and advocacy of modern interfaith spirituality, I note how modern education is involved in all the complexity of modern society. I deal frequently with "atheists", whose positions have characteristics more accurately described as anti-theist materialism, making them ideologues. One persistent character has begun focusing on that term, ideologue, and tries to flip it around. I note that the standard is empirical and philosophical scholarship involving the full range of University-based phenomena and knowledge domains. He blurs distinctions to "objective evidence" and flips to accusations.
The issues are common enough in the complexity of modern society. Richard Dawkins typifies the ideological approach. He was asked once if he had ever studied any theology, to which he replied, "I wouldn´t study leprochology to learn about the non-existent leprechauns, either" or the like. Yet, leprechauns are some kind of psychosocial and cultural phenomenon in Ireland, which actually touches on some serious issues for the British imperial vestiges of the African born Richard Dawkins.
Systems Theory provides a powerful framework, and is an important advance that seems based on the philosophy of "science." I use quotation marks to identify the mistaken qualities of the term "science." It was originally called natural philosophy. Auguste Comte seems to have been a pioneer in trying to promote the "sciences" as the primary knowledge framework, as he seems to have tried to fit psychology and sociology with physics, chemistry, and biology. Karl Marx´s Communist Manifesto was published around that time, and reflects the same kind of orientation as Comte´s positivism: describe, predict, and control. Marx´s deterministic predictions are famous, as in the prescription for a worker takeover and later, the ideal of the "withering away of the state." Totally premature and letting the imagination run wild.
Thus, as the term "philosophy" was dropped from all the empirically informed work in all related fields, philosophers still noticed the need to address psychosocial phenomena and knowledge. By the 1920s, Max Weber et al developed antipositivism and interpretivism to specify how human behavior involved symbol use norms, values, and agency that required understanding.
William James´ Varieties of Religious Experience drew for one on "mind-cure" testimonies, actually from Mary Baker Eddy´s Christian Science church and its derivatives that became popular in Joseph Murphy´s, Emmett Fox´s, and Louise Hay´s work, and to one degree or another, others.
BO Flowers, no less, was a journalist with theist sympathies who saw injustice in the hostility directed at the Christian Science church, and he organized a court proceeding to examine testimonies by high status individuals of Christian Science healings, doctors, lawyers, entertainers, etc. From that time, Mary Collson is an interesting figure who became an early woman Unitarian minister, then switched to Jane Addams´ Hull House social services, and finally, stressed, to Christian Science healing practitioner.
Also from that time, the famous figure Rasputin is worth citing. His very presence in history is because his humble background in Siberia didn´t hold back his spiritual, emotional, and social intelligence as he became a Christian monk, gained a reputation for healing, and in St Petersburg was brought to the attention of the Czar´s family, whose boy Prince Alex, was hemophilic. Rasputin was able to temporarily heal the boy´s wound-crises, a feat with no known tricks.
More recently, OC Simonton MD-R Henson´s Healing Journey in the 1980s was a popular book that consisted of the patient´s testimony in curing his cancer. Specifying the different Knowledge Domains, and Phenomena Domains, follows a sequence highlighted by Systems Theory. Physics to chemistry, chemistry to biology, and the question of emergent properties. Is biology reducible to physics and chemistry? Animal rights and environmental protection justice advocates don´t consider life reducible, for starters. The same for public health advocates. And from biology comes anthropology and psychology, with sociology as agricultural settlements began.
How are you aware of the role of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, etc in your own experience. Do you think it is all reducible to physics and chemistry?
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