Reductive on Religion

It disheartens me that so many of my colleagues tolerate and even proliferate a reductivist view on matters of religion despite their protests against oversimplifications in their own fields.

Statement: "Those Catholics teach that if you don't believe in their God, you're going to Hell."

What if we applied the structure of this statement to other fields and concepts?

"Those physicists teach that if you let go of something, it always falls."

"Those mathematicians teach that if you subtract one number from another, you get a smaller number."

"Those doctors teach that if you gain weight, you aren't healthy."

While all of the statements above are sort of true, I don't think any physicist, mathematician, or doctor would say that they quite capture the complexities of their fields...and I don't think a teacher would let a student get away with them as a grounds for argument.

If a physics teacher reduced gravity to things always falling, I think most people would agree he or she isn't using a very sophisticated or effective way to teach gravity. It would be something of a physics scandal.

If a Catholic teacher taught that disbelief in God de facto equated to eternal damnation, it would be just as much an oversimplification and just as much of a scandal.

The last time I checked, the Church taught that Christ was the means of Salvation, and anything else was questionable -- not a guarantee of damnation. The Church teaches that we are all essentially damned except through the grace of Christ, and that the acceptance of Him is the surest way to escaping our self-imposed damnation. The Church also teaches that there are behaviors that cause severe -- but not irrevocable -- damage to our relationship with God, so much so that we must ask forgiveness. Even in with such actions, though, there are a host of mitigating factors, such as the need for freedom of our will, sufficient forethought, and grave matter. And I'm pretty sure I'm just on the tip of the iceberg here...

Comments

[Tommy]

A Reductionist, by reducing would be engaging in 'reductivity'? 'reducivity'? 'reductionism'? Which term is correct?

[PeterTerp]

For consistency, I assume you'd have to go with whichever one was shortest...