This is from a short Op-Ed piece by David Brooks appearing in yesterday's NY Times:

"In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day."

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I read this column the other day, and found it particularly interesting for a few reasons. First, Brooks is one of the NYT's house conservatives (with a publishing background rooted in the WSJ and The Weekly Standard) - so this is more of note than if it came from Frank Rich, say.

Second, I've been reading a good deal by and about Spinoza lately, and this statement from the article rang a very Spinozan bell:

The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

Remove the reincarnation aspects of Buddhism (I know, that's a significant amputation), and you're very close to what Spinoza was saying back in Holland in the 1650's. He rejected the personal God who rewards and punishes (and the supersititions and rituals built around that metaphor), and found his spiritual satisfaction in the awesome intricacies of the universe's laws - which he believed were ultimately rational and knowable, even if we human beings could not know everything due to our inherent limitations.

Everything else - and here's the Buddhistic connection - is merely transient phenomenae ("illusion" in the Buddha's terms), "modes" of the one substance which Spinoza called "God" (or "Nature", which he used in the sense of the nature of things, not the trees & flowers & bunnies nature) , including ourselves.

I agree with you that what brought my attention to this piece was that it was Brooks who was the author. I wish he had elaborated more about his last statement ("It’s going to have big cultural effects.") as to what he thought would be the most likely significant effects to occur.

It will only affect those who don't know God.

it's not about "knowing" God. It's more about how you conceive God.

The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

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Like Primate, I found that to be the truly intriguing passage. I think too many 'believers' -- including some FB Christians -- are very firmly focused on atheists as their 'opponents/challengers'. They're pretty clueless about dealing with people who simply have a different concept of the sacred, esp a Buddhist type concept.

THe "personal God" is fading.

The mysteries of nature are explained by science...we now have the power of "Sodom"-like destruction and soon the power of "Eden" like creation (via genetic engineering).....and soon our very natures will be combined with technology to produce a being beyond that explanable by the old dogmas, and close to what those dogmas reserved soley for "God".

We're putting the old dude out of a job..."outsourcing Him" to ourselves as it were.

...we can count on people like Truett to tell us what that means, and to decide who really "knows" God based on their particular faith and knowledge of buzzwords. This is one reason I left Christianity...the smugness of people like him.

When folks like him say they "know God," they are thereby dismissing anyone of 'liberal' bent. They are attempting to marginalize anyone with a more sophisticated or philosophical view of God, they're saying 'We get to decide....you believe what you want, but unless we say you believe, you really don't.'

How much stock a believer wants to put in that viewpoint is another matter, but that's the way these people think.

TruettCollins:

It will only affect those who don't know God.

Agreed.

And I'm glad the article made this clear:

"And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible."

One of the somewhat tiresome aspects of all discussions about 'faith' in USA is the synonymity of 'God' 'Sacred' 'Divine' etc etc with the Biblical Yhwh....whether by atheists rejecting this concepts or believers defending them.

I wonder if its the same in Europe etc, or whether this is a more 'American' phenomenon.

Like no one from the Apostle Paul to the saints Aquinas, Augustine, Benedict, Calvin, Scofield, Lewis, Graham ever tried to explain anything to you.

How avante garde.....

Dd.

the existence of the sacred, eh? let's call them what they are - morons. casinos and racetracks exist primarily because some people think their feelings are somehow indicative of, and predictive of, reality. idiots.

with your brain instead of your heart or colon or whatever organ you're currently using.

"One of the somewhat tiresome aspects of all discussions about 'faith' in USA is the synonymity of 'God' 'Sacred' 'Divine' etc etc with the Biblical Yhwh....whether by atheists rejecting this concepts or believers defending them. "

it's because it's all nonsense to atheists. god, sacred, divine, yahweh, krishna. it's all the same because it's all bullshit. sorry that's tiresome for you. that's just how atheism works. show me an atheist that doesn't find all those things to be interchangably nonsensical and i'll show you someone who is not an atheist.