two ways of looking at things in True Detective…
so much going on here that I don’t have time to write about it all yet… but coming soon… watch the whole series – it is amazing!
This is a wonderful clip for thinking about religion and ethics. For those not familiar with The West Wing the bald gentleman plays Toby Ziegler, a senior aide to the President. In this episode, President Bartlett is face with a decision on whether to pardon a criminal due to be executed.
Non-religious people tend to think that religious people suppose they have some sort of ‘monopoly’ on truth when it comes to ethics, but this clip shows the ‘uncomfortableness‘ of religious ethics.
A long long time ago Plato recorded Socrates posing a difficulty for all those who believe right and wrong are what the god(s) say they are. This was the position held by the young and ‘upright’ Euthyphro.
Was just having a wee read at this blog… if I were to write an internal assessment, I might very well choose something like this… obviously the possibilities are endless but you could write an excellent answer on whether religion has been (is?) good or bad for the world (whether it is a monster)?
If you were really keen to grapple with the picture, rather than just go your own way, I would be tempted to place Karl Barth’s thoughts on what he calls ‘Lordless Powers’ in Church Dogmatics IV against the sentiments that lie behind JFK’s often quoted:
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
John F. Kennedy, speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963