{"id":2451,"date":"2009-08-09T17:04:15","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T01:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2009-08-09T17:04:15","modified_gmt":"2009-08-10T01:04:15","slug":"the-mysteries-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-mysteries-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mysteries of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

A xeroxed announcement appeared in the mail room of my Manhattan apartment building a while ago: \u201cOur Lady of Fatima Visits Our Parish.\u201d\u00a0 The notice had a photo<\/a> of one of those creepy painted sculptures of Mary with oversized, tear-encrusted\u00a0 eyes and an undersized mouth; a very large crown perched on her head.\u00a0 This itinerant wooden doll was going to visit a church on E. 90th Street, where believers could touch and crown her.\u00a0 \u201c\u2019In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph,\u2019\u201d the announcement declared.<\/p>\n

Non-believers are told again and again that they must respect religion.\u00a0 I try, I really do, but I confess that such manifestations of religious faith make following this injunction somewhat of a challenge.\u00a0 It would be one thing if this chromatic doll were putting in an appearance in Mexico City, filled as it is with superstitious peasant believers; it\u2019s another to figure out what the doll is doing on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side.\u00a0 I ask in all sincerity: are Secular Right\u2019s fellow highly-educated conservatives ready to prostrate themselves before, and put a toy crown on, a wooden effigy?\u00a0\u00a0 Or do religious conservative pundits see such outbreaks of folk superstition as the price they must pay in order to preserve the higher mysteries of the\u00a0 faith?\u00a0 But isn\u2019t such a bargain terribly condescending?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I must respect religion.\u00a0 I understand, but I honestly don\u2019t see how to distinguish the worship of a wooden icon from the belief in the healing power of crystals or in the predictive power of entrails.\u00a0 I know I must be missing some essential distinctions here, but for the moment they elude me and I remain at a loss to understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A xeroxed announcement appeared in the mail room of my Manhattan apartment building a while ago: \u201cOur Lady of Fatima Visits Our Parish.\u201d\u00a0 The notice had a photo of one of those creepy painted sculptures of Mary with oversized, tear-encrusted\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[259,304],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}