Here is California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, on working with Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (stage name: “Mother Teresa”):
When I would pick up someone and help them shower or shave, I absolutely sensed that this is Jesus in my hands.
And here is local reporter Ron Orozco in response:
Brown is correct. When you look into the eyes of the destitute and dying, you sense the presence of Jesus. And it is a beautiful thing.
A non-Christian looking into the eyes of the destitute and dying is not going to “sense the presence of Jesus.” They might have a mental response to a confrontation with the edge of existence—perhaps a feeling of anxiety about the contingency of life blended with a sense of peace about the universality of unknowable nonbeing (or something like that)—but they are not going to perceive that experience as manifesting a mythic narrative about the person of Jesus.
Brown was just describing his own experience, which is fine. But Orozco grates with his matter-of-fact “Brown is correct” and universal “you”; Brown is not “correct,” and “you” may experience things differently.
I’m not sure (as implied by title of your post) as to what a non-christian, non-mythical “narrative of fact” would look like?
Since “narrative of fact” is your phrase, and since I have no idea what you mean by it, you will need to clarify before I can respond.
If I’m confusing myth with fact, and the narrative is the grounds, Then it would follow that a. narrative cannot be fact or b. there exists a factual narrative. Of which, I’m not aware of either.
I don’t know what you mean when you say “the narrative is the grounds,” but that appears to be the most important premise of your argument.
I read Brown’s comments as well, seemed like he was simply bargaining for religious brownie points which all American political leaders are fond of doing at some point in their run for office. But then again maybe he means it, who am I to know.
Ron O’s statement is rather dismissive of the 5 billion living humans, give or take, who don’t share his religious view. Which is the problem with all religions, at some point you have to exclude a lot of people.
Heath said:
Yeah, I agree. And it is effectively unknowable whether he really means it, which, in some sense, makes that question (“Did he mean it?”) irrelevant. Regardless, if saying things like that will win voters, then there is a pretty good example, in my opinion, of the difference between what I’m calling “myth” and “fact”: the “myth” is what he said and whether he means it, which can be anything, is not subject to verification or falsification, and is susceptible to honest disagreement, while the “fact” is the political reality that his having said it will likely endear him to voters who share the myth of what he said.
And again on “myth,” after commenting the other day I recalled a passage from Willard Quine’s famous paper, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” which I had to go find. Here it is:
I am using the words “myth” and “fact,” but I must agree with Quine that everything we say, whether we are talking about Homer’s gods or physical objects, fits along the same continuum of myth, in the sense that it is narrative we create, with the material of selected experiences, and not a one-to-one correlation of objective reality with subjective expression. And when I differentiate between “myth” and “fact,” I am talking not about the essence of phenomena, but about the degree to which the things compared are, as he puts it, “more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience” or better for “predicting future experience in the light of past experience.” A myth, while it may be internally consistent, or emotionally appealing, is still going to be a poor tool for “predicting future experience in the light of past experience,” while a fact must be internally consistent and a good tool for predicting future experience and “working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.” (See also the previous post, where I mentioned “meaningful information about how the world works,” by which I meant the same thing.)
When Brown says he “sensed Jesus” in the destitute and dying, it may be emotionally appealing or politically expedient, but it does nothing to predict future experience in the light of past experience. For example, there is no way in which “sensing Jesus” in the destitute and dying will give us the tools we need to prevent destitution or death. It may motivate some people to assist the destitute and dying, but since it will not automatically or predictably motivate everyone to so act, unlike, for example, how the myth/fact of gravity will predictably explain how everyone and everything with mass will accelerate toward other masses according to a pattern, which can be expressed mathematically. That gravity is so predictable pushes it strongly toward the “fact” end of the continuum; that it does not square with the behavior of matter at the quantum level reminds us that it remains on that “myth” continuum.
Speaking of myth and fact, have you heard that Anne Rice has now rejected Christianity? Again.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs-anne-rice-20100807,0,5152082.story
Yeah, she’s like the Brett Favre of Christianity.
Where does there exist a measure on the continuum of fruitful moral compassing.
You suggest that “sensing Jesus” may contribute to isolated works of “good” and provide gravity as example for the “fact continuum” and it’s better measure of predictability. I would like to see examples that warrant the claim (or predictors of a better moral compass).
Yes Peter, your gravity “narrative” is a better prophet of behavior, but it is irrelevant to the original narrative.
You have inaccurately attributed the word “good” to my argument and introduced the vague term “moral compass” (and the even vaguer derivative “fruitful moral compassing”). These aspects of your comment preclude my response.
Seems I am always guilty of misinterpreting what you meant, and then redefining it to the point of miscomprehension.
But I believe am I not guilty and will settle.
I didn’t say you didn’t understand. But if you want me to respond to your interpretation of what I said, then your interpretation should either be clear in its bases or include an explanation. Here you attributed “good” to my comment, even though it appeared nowhere and was not intended, without any explanation.
And if you want to talk about a “moral compass,” then you need to let me know what you mean by that concept and how you think it connects with what I’ve said.