"...radically new information...by its effect on religion and so forth...tends to upset the cultures that Ydwyr's gang came to study." (p. 326)
We have to know what a local culture is before we can do anything about it. "There are many gods" is a false statement from either a monotheist or an atheist perspective but may be the right answer if the question was simply "What is the local belief?"
When I was a Religious Studies student teacher, I had to ask a pupil about his understanding of some basic religious ideas. One of the things that he said was "He saved us from not being born or something..." An interesting answer and, of course, it was the right answer in that context because I only wanted to find out his impressions of what he had heard.
A Religious Education teacher in Northern Ireland got some pupils to draw a picture of the Crucifixion. Noticing a strange object in the sky in one picture, she asked the pupil, "What's that?" and was told, "That's the helicopter." She asked the pupil, "Why did Christ die?" and was told "He died to save Ireland."
There is endless scope for study of what forms old ideas take in young minds.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And that is why the Catholic Church has a Magisterium, a teaching authority whose task is to preserve the fullness of what the Church believes and taking the steps needed, not always successfully, to teach that to her children.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: that's a fairly recent development.
In the medieval period, for example, most peasants had only a very sketchy idea of even the most basic Christian doctrines, and weird folk-religious beliefs were commonplace at that social level.
Poul catches this well in some of his stories set in that era.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, esp. in what we see being done after the Council of Trent. But there was a "Magisterium" before Trent as well: with the popes having archives, records, theologians, lawyers, etc., all helping to preserve orthodox Christian doctrines.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment