"Reason" vs. "Religion [Archive] - Kay Tastrophe's Military School

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GreyOne

09-11-2007, 08:24 PM

Argument: The thought systems born of the age of reason have caused as much hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world.

Discuss.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-11-2007, 09:12 PM

I've no idea what the first post in this thread says, but from my perspective the thread title is asking the wrong question.

I see no necessary conflict between reason and religion. It's quite possible to have rational religion - several forms of Buddhism and Spongian Christianity come to mind immediately.

The conflict, IMHO, is between reason and faith, which is a specific example of the wider conflict between reason and any form of dogma.

Morbidity

09-11-2007, 11:07 PM

Argument: The thought systems born of the age of reason have caused as much hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world.

Discuss.

Atticus quoted for you so you can argue on topic.

GreyOne Interesting proposition. Which thought system are you thinking of exactly? Are we talking science or philosophy or both?

GreyOne

09-11-2007, 11:39 PM

GreyOne

09-11-2007, 11:41 PM

Atticus_of_Amber

09-11-2007, 11:45 PM

Argument: The thought systems born of the age of reason have caused as much hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world.

If we're just measuring the harm side of the moral balance sheet, then the it's arguable that the the thought systems born of the age of reason have caused more hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world. Certainly in terms of suffering per year, the French Revolution was pretty damn bad at times. And the greatest child of the age of reason, science, gave us modern weaponry and nukes. Also, the industrial revolution (another child of the age of reason) gave us the kind of industrial organisation that made the holocaust possible.

But it's unfair to measure either thing that way, you need to offset the positives against the negatives and then compare the two balance sheets.

Now the good done for the world by the age of reason is immeasurable. Modern science and technology puts that beyond argument. Most people here, for example, would be dead without antibiotics.

The good done by religion is more modest, but still pretty impressive.

What I think is the real contrast is the manner of thought pushed by each system. Science and reason promotes a method of doubt and scepticism. A bedrock certainty that we are always wrong about something. And it promotes a constant urge towards criticism and improvement and refinement and sometimes even wholesale overturning of old ideas and finding (hopefully) better ones. I think that scepticism and pluralism is an essential precondition for good things liker liberal democracy and the rule of law.

Is religion incompatible with that? Not necessarily. But I do think faith is. Faith is a kind of dogma, a belief in something without good evidence or reasons. And that seems to me to be utterly corrosive of the rational world-view.

Now, much of the non-religious horrors of the twentieth century were example of non-religious dogmas ("secular faiths" if you will). There was very little that was sceptical and scientific about Nazism (which wasn't even atheistic, given its strange combination of paganism and Christianity) or Marxist-Leninism (which was explicitly atheistic). Indeed, despite its pretensions to being a science, Marxism's intellectual methods resembled nothing so closely as scholastic theology.

I suppose that exposes that my real beef is with dogmatism, and that faith is just a particular example of dogma. Indeed, faith was a sort of dogma that, until a few years ago, I thought was mostly harmless.

Morbidity

09-12-2007, 12:48 AM

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 01:12 AM

Morbidity

09-12-2007, 01:32 AM

Hmmm realistically how much damage has Islam or other religious “evils” caused? It’s all big headline stuff, but I think we’re all still more likely to die in a car accident than due to a terrorist act. What are we actually defining here as “evil”? And how are you judging degrees of evil – deaths?

Nationalism/racism is probably as strong a force as religion. The Ireland issue would be interesting to decide how much of that was nationalism vs religion. I think it would likely come down on the side of religion.

I’m becoming more enamoured of the evils of the one-child policy in China when associated with a societal preference for male children as a good example of a pervasive evil influence of a modern thought system. I think a conservative 300K deaths a year can be attributed to this. Other estimates state that there would seem to be roughly 300 million women missing from China today.

I don’t know how many deaths you might attribute to religious “evils”, but 300 million for “reason” seems like a strong starting point for “reason”.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 02:35 AM

Hmmm realistically how much damage has Islam or other religious “evils” caused? It’s all big headline stuff, but I think we’re all still more likely to die in a car accident than due to a terrorist act.

So far, not so much, I agree. If you look at the sweep of history, Christianity has probably caused as much misery as Islam.

In the last hundred years, Islam has a LONG way to go before it catches up to fascism and communism.

The argument against Islam is one of potential relating to WMD. Commies with nukes are subject to the disincentive of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Iranian fundies who believe the apocalypse is something earnestly to be desired are not deterred by MAD.

What are we actually defining here as “evil”? And how are you judging degrees of evil – deaths?

'Evil' wasn't my term. I suppose I'm really talking about deaths and suffering.

Nationalism/racism is probably as strong a force as religion.

Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon - a surprising fact until you look at the extent to which it was really an invention of the 18th century. However, it sure made up for its late start in terms of body count, I'll agree.

But again, nationalism is a kind of dogma - "my country right or wrong" and I deplore it for that reason.

The Ireland issue would be interesting to decide how much of that was nationalism vs religion. I think it would likely come down on the side of religion.

Indeed, how would you tell the difference between a Catholic atheist and a Protestant atheist in Ireland if that hadn't gone to different schools based on the religion of their parents?

Compulsory mixed education and a massive cultural turn away from religiosity in Ireland might not stop the conflict overnight, but I strongly expect that it would lead to a massive reduction in tensions over the long term. (Indeed, there is some date indicating that religiosity has been dropping off in Ireland - though it's still one of the most religious countries in Western Europe.)

I’m becoming more enamoured of the evils of the one-child policy in China when associated with a societal preference for male children as a good example of a pervasive evil influence of a modern thought system. I think a conservative 300K deaths a year can be attributed to this. Other estimates state that there would seem to be roughly 300 million women missing from China today.

Agreed. One child policy has some nasty consequences. But I'm not sure those consequences are the result of rational analysis or a belief in scepticism and doubt. The sexism of Chinese parents is, IMHO, hardly rational. Indeed, ideas of general male supremacy would seem to me to be a classic dogma.

EDIT: Where scepticism and reason hurt, I suppose, is when they insist on breaking down traditions because we currently don't see what good they do. That can bite you in the ass if it turns out that the tradition the you overturned last decade was performing an important social function, after all. Liberal Rationalists often need to remind themselves that sometimes "things have always been done that way" because of a process of memetic natural selection that might be best left alone until we understand what "evolutionary niche" the particular tradition was filling (in other words, "I don't know, but there might be" is actually a reasonable reasonable conservative answer to the liberal's question "so what Earthly good does this stupid tradition actually serve?"). That's why Karl Popper advocated only "piecemeal" social engineering.

The Winslow

09-12-2007, 03:56 AM

"Reason" taken to an extreme IS dogma.

I'm going to put forward that extremes are not reasonable, and that therefore reason taken to an extreme is no longer reason.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 04:34 AM

I'm going to put forward that extremes are not reasonable, and that therefore reason taken to an extreme is no longer reason.

I agree with the conclusion, but I think the more accurate way of saying it is that what we generally call "extremism" is dogma - that is the acceptance of an idea without question or doubt in a manner that is immune to new evidence or the presentation of better reasons.

In the end, I suspect its a tomayto-tomarto thing.

Morbidity

09-12-2007, 05:36 AM

Agreed. One child policy has some nasty consequences. But I'm not sure those consequences are the result of rational analysis or a belief in scepticism and doubt. The sexism of Chinese parents is, IMHO, hardly rational. Indeed, ideas of general male supremacy would seem to me to be a classic dogma.

Atticus, I don't think you're arguing on topic. The proposition was "The thought systems born of the age of reason have caused as much hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world." It said nothing about whether the outcome of that thought system was reasonable, only that it was born of reason. As such I maintain that the Chinese one child policy is a perfect example. The Chinese government thought it was likely going to have a huge overpopulation problem. They rationally concluded that the solution was that each couple would only have one child. The consequences of that rational thought process has been due to non-rational elements such as sexism, but it was born out of a rational decision. Even if you'd thought of taking sexism into account in the decision making process, I personally would never have guessed that people would prefer a male child so much that they would murder a female child if it was born ... or as in the case in the newspapers at the moment stick dozens of needles into the child in the hope it would die.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 06:02 AM

Atticus, I don't think you're arguing on topic. The proposition was "The thought systems born of the age of reason have caused as much hardship and evil in the world as the religions of the world." It said nothing about whether the outcome of that thought system was reasonable, only that it was born of reason. As such I maintain that the Chinese one child policy is a perfect example. The Chinese government thought it was likely going to have a huge overpopulation problem. They rationally concluded that the solution was that each couple would only have one child. The consequences of that rational thought process has been due to non-rational elements such as sexism, but it was born out of a rational decision. Even if you'd thought of taking sexism into account in the decision making process, I personally would never have guessed that people would prefer a male child so much that they would murder a female child if it was born ... or as in the case in the newspapers at the moment stick dozens of needles into the child in the hope it would die.

Well, since I was just going on the thread topic heading and didn't read the first post, I thought we were talking about reason v religion.

The "Age of Reason" produced a lot of irrational crap that killed people. Nationalism, for a start - thank you French Revolution, and you too Mr Bonaparte.

As to the predictability of murdering female children - since it's happened throughout history (most of the unwanted children exposed on the sides of the seven hills of Rome were girls), it shouldn't have been that surprising. I think its only surprising to us because we come from a culture that has managed to work out that women and men should be treated as moral equals.

But, the more I think about it, the more I'm coming round to the one-child policy being an example of the icky consequences of pure utilitarianism. I think, intuitively, we in the west believe in a balance between utility and autonomy. The justification for autonomy is that "we all" want to be treated as autonomous ends rather than as means to the ends of others. Problem is, there are many in the non-west who at least say don't think this at all (I sometimes wonder about that though).

And here we hit the "bedrock" limit of rationality - eventually we reach premises that are matters of common agreement or brute observation or intuition rather than matters capable of rational justification or rebuttal (physics gets its spade turned by the physical constants, for example). You eventually end up hitting this bedrock somewhere in rational discussion that seeks fundamentals - eventually "our spade is turned" as Wittgenstein said. The trick, IMHO, is to come up with a system with as few bedrocks as possible - and to make sure they really are bedrocks (i.e. really aren't amenable to further rational enquiry).

Ok, need to get back to work...

Kwalish Kid

09-12-2007, 08:12 AM

Well, take for example the notion of eugenics which advocated that racial traits could and should be bred into or bred out of the various "races."

The notion of eugenics is definitely an outgrowth of the "age of Reason."

The discredited "science"of eugenics has been used (not trying to Godwin the thread before it begins) most notably in Europe with the effect of causing great suffering and evil.
Eugenics has a rich tradition in the Christian faiths. (See, for example, Creationists for Genocide, http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Genocide.cfm )

Eugenics is an outgrowth of pre-Enlightenment notions of noble blood, which is part of the doctrine of Divine Right.

Eugenicists did try to marshal science in the service of their beliefs. However, when the science of eugenics failed test after test, the supporters of eugenics turned to non-scientific rationales to defend their programs.

Kwalish Kid

09-12-2007, 08:15 AM

A more clear case is perhaps the one-child policy in China. The one-child policy was created due to a thought that the Chinese population growth needed to be controlled (a very modern idea born of science). The direct impact of that policy is a high degree of female infanticide.
Chinese population growth does need to be controlled. However, nothing scientific says that the methods used should be the ones used by the Chinese government. Actual scientific studies do show us effective methods that curtail population growth without coercive means.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 09:23 AM

Chinese population growth does need to be controlled. However, nothing scientific says that the methods used should be the ones used by the Chinese government. Actual scientific studies do show us effective methods that curtail population growth without coercive means.

Indeed, the best method of reducing population growth is feminism. Give women equal life opportunities to men and, on average, they'll have fewer children.

Northcott

09-12-2007, 12:56 PM

Northcott

09-12-2007, 01:01 PM

They’re both interesting b/c when discussing “evils of religion” you are discussing Buddhism and fundamental Islam at the same time, though likely only considering one to be evil. When discussing “evils of thought systems” you are discussing eugenics along with female emancipation/end to slavery and similar.

This is also why I reject the idea that "faith" is some kind of binary concept that must be expressed in an extreme to fit the definition that some would hang upon it. There is far too much variety in notions of faith for it to ever be quite so utilitarian in promoting one's own cause. It's not a 3/4 inch hexnut that will fit the same on every machine built to its scale. It's a human concept that not only holds different applications from person to person, faith to faith, but may change and grow over time.

I think the interesting question is how much are the actions supposedly caused by the thought systems caused by the thought system and how much are they caused by people creating thought systems which result in actions they approve of. I’m not sure how much this is making sense.

It makes perfect sense. It's one that Lisa threw into the stew back on NTL: the notion that religion is responsible for neither good nor evil in the world. People are. Individual choices. Religion is merely a justification -- as is politics, or any other stripe of potential ideology. People can be fanatic about damned near any subject, and break into violence over the most trivial things. Look at (the reputation of) English football fans.

To give an example: With religion, if a group of people attack and kill another group of people and that action almost certainly would not have occurred except for religion then I think religion can be blamed for the “evil act”.

You'd be hard pressed to find such an example through history. Even the Crusades, the penultimate example of "religious war", at a time when the cult of Catholicsm was at its most powerful and influential, were chiefly political in motivation.

In fact, if we were to look at the 3rd crusade in particular, we have the twin examples of two iconic leader: Richard Lionheart and Saladin. Richard went because his father promised England's aid. Had Richard not taken his armies to the Holy Land, he would have suffered censure from Rome, and his enemies in other nations would have taken the opportunity to prey upon that weakness... particularly Phillip, who was a weasely little bastard with an eye on Richard's massive French holdings. Even in examining his progress through the Holy Land we see a tactitian's hand at work.

Saladin, on the other hand, acted in the manner of a man compelled by religion: his primary targets held theological importance, and from there he spread out. Given the light of todays Islamic fundamentalists, one would think this would have resulted in massive bloodshed or prejudicial attitudes -- but by all save the most biased accounts, Saladin not only minimized bloodshed wherever possible, but brought peace and order, granted mercy, and in some cases personally went out of his way to grant succour to the innocent regardless of their faith.

Richard, on the other hand, had a couple thousand muslims guardians of Acre slain because they were an inconvenience on his march south... or because he didn't like Saladin's ransom counter-proposal. Which one depends on the source.

It was, of course, the rational thing to do. It was also abhorrant. There are tales of the name of King Richard being used as a boogeyman in the middle east after that point.

With eugenics, racism has been around for centuries and eugenics was just a convenient socially acceptable front for it. I think that the actions would still have occurred if the science hadn’t been there.

I think we went from elitism to racism. I believe that the mass migrations of populations to new continents fostered racist thought. Before that point such interactions were usually small scale (wars being the exception), and so individual merit an easier thing to judge. Conflicts were less about race than about culture or religion.

Modern weapons are more efficient at killing people but similarly modern technology has made us more peaceable, so it’s not fair to say that technology has caused “evil”.

I'd argue that modern technology hasn't necessarily made us more peaceable, but that it's been a societal evolution over a period of millenia: sometimes nudged along by philosophies inspired by religion or politics of convenience, sometimes hindered by them. From Henry II's broadening of the influence of law to bring order to England in the 12th century, to the growth of humane thought in Victorian England that sought to create a more equitable and compassionate state for people of all strata of society, we can trace that evolution in one nation alone, and it certainly was not singular in that regard.

Nationalism/racism is probably as strong a force as religion. The Ireland issue would be interesting to decide how much of that was nationalism vs religion. I think it would likely come down on the side of religion.

Not really. :) "Papists" and "Prods" is merely a convenient way of defining each other. While the Catholic faction considers themselves the "true" Irish, and date their troubles back to Henry II's conquest of Ireland in the 1170's, the real shit began to stir in the pot during the English crown wars of the 1700's... which does give it a religious origin. However, history shows that on a village level, the Catholics and Protestants were capable of getting along just fine.

The English aristocracy originally imported Scots Presbyterians over to farm the land as they drove troublesome Irish Catholics off it. This created initial turmoil, but in short order the English began to treat the Scots as poorly as the Irish, and the two, already being of similar mind on many things in a cultural context, began to unite against the English. When this threat became clear, the politics of division were enacted: land, property, and basic rights were stripped away from the Catholics: farms taken and given to Protestants, education for Catholics outlawed, possession of property outlawed, right to vote removed, made to work the land they once owned, and taxed heavily if they dared fix up their dwellings to be warmer or look nice.

Needless to say, resentment set in fast and furious. Once again, we have less a conflict of religion -- because really, the difference between Catholicsm and Anglican thought (which the English were) isn't that great a jump -- but a conflict based upon elitism, poverty, and what might be termed "racism" in that all Irish Catholics were presumed to be stupid, drunken, lazy, thieves and compulsive liars. An attitude that carried over into the new world, and faded much faster there.

Religion was simply the easiest way for them to break the conflict down into an "Us vs. Them" concept. I'd argue that's where all such conflict stems from: the simplistic need of humanity to take complex issues and break them down into basic recognition of Us and Them. Once we get past that particular instinct, issues of politics, faith, etc. tend to fade into the background. Not always, of course, but to a significant degree. We still have that pack instinct that can only be overcome not by reason, but through compassion.

Kwalish Kid

09-12-2007, 01:39 PM

Cable TV and wide-spread Internet access? :D
Which reminds me...

Playing on your TV in hell this fall: The Big Bang Theory

http://www.tv.com/the-big-bang-theory/show/58056/summary.html

Northcott

09-12-2007, 04:02 PM

Which reminds me...

Playing on your TV in hell this fall: The Big Bang Theory

http://www.tv.com/the-big-bang-theory/show/58056/summary.html

And so it came to pass that my daughter would have no siblings.

Hastur T. Fannon

09-12-2007, 04:05 PM

I see no necessary conflict between reason and religion. It's quite possible to have rational religion - several forms of Buddhism and Spongian Christianity come to mind immediately.

Is anyone else thinking of Spongebob Squarepants in robes? (yes I do know who the Harlot from Charlotte is)

It's funny - the question in the OP would make no sense at all two hundred years ago

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 05:49 PM

Wrong thread.

The Winslow

09-12-2007, 05:55 PM

Is anyone else thinking of Spongebob Squarepants in robes? (yes I do know who the Harlot from Charlotte is)

For those who don't, and who, like me, are confused: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

Shouldn't it be "Sponggian" rather than "Spongian", by the way?

Atticus_of_Amber

09-12-2007, 06:12 PM

Is anyone else thinking of Spongebob Squarepants in robes? (yes I do know who the Harlot from Charlotte is)

It's funny - the question in the OP would make no sense at all two hundred years ago

Out of interest RF, what do you think of Spong?

I have to say that he's almost the only modern Christian theologian I've ever read who didn't apear to be talking nonsense.

His main theses seem to be:

Martin Luther ignited the Reformation of the 16th century by nailing to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he wished to debate. I will publish this challenge to Christianity in The Voice. I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically. The issues to which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

Not sure I agree with all that, but it makes a lot of sense.

Hastur T. Fannon

09-13-2007, 02:00 PM

Out of interest RF, what do you think of Spong?

Thank you Atticus, and I mean that sincerely. You encouraged me to dig up and re-read Rowan's response (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13880.htm) to Spong's f^Htheses and it's quite refreshed me. It (Rowan's response) also contains a number of things pertinent to the various discussions we're having at the moment, plus this absolute gem

Living in the Christian institution isn't particularly easy. It is, generally, today, an anxious inefficient, pompous, evasive body. If you hold office on it, you become more and more conscious of what it's doing to your soul. Think of what Coca-Cola does to your teeth. Why bother?

Well, because of the unwelcome conviction that it somehow tells the welcome truth about God, above all in its worship and sacraments. I don't think I could put up with it for five minutes if I didn't believe this; and - if I can't try to say this in a pastoral, not an inquisitorial, spirit - I don't know quite why Bishop Spong puts up with it.

The guy's a fricking genius. Thanks again Atticus for (accidentally) reminding me why I do this

Northcott

09-14-2007, 08:57 AM

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

A few of his points seem based upon this preposterous statement, and so fall flat. Theism is dead? If that were true, it would not be in use, and not be an evolving perception/philosophy. He's taken a personal musing and tried to apply it as a broader, objective truth. That's about as rational as telling other people how they feel in direct contradiction to the feedback they give.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-19-2007, 08:05 PM

Thank you Atticus, and I mean that sincerely. You encouraged me to dig up and re-read Rowan's response (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13880.htm) to Spong's f^Htheses and it's quite refreshed me. It (Rowan's response) also contains a number of things pertinent to the various discussions we're having at the moment, plus this absolute gem

The guy's a fricking genius. Thanks again Atticus for (accidentally) reminding me why I do this

Here's the Archbishop's response in full, with my comments:

Is it time for a new Reformation? The call has gone out quite a few times in the past three or four decades, and the imminence of the Millennium adds a certain piquancy to it.

The Right Reverend John Spong, Bishop of Newark in the US, is right to say - as he has done in his diocesan journal - that his own version of this demand is of a rather different order from the earlier Reformation; and this surely makes it imperative that his bold and gracious invitation to debate these theses should be taken up with some urgency and seriousness, not least on the eve of a Lambeth Conference that will undoubtedly be looking hard at issues of Christian identity and the limits of diversity.

So I had better say at once that, while I believe Bishop Spong has, in these and other matters, done an indispensable task in focusing our attention on questions under-examined and poorly thought through, I believe that these theses represent a level of confusion and misinterpretation that I find astonishing.

He has rightly urged the Church to think more clearly in many respects about issues of sex and gender; but I am bothered by the assumption here that the Church has failed to think through a number of central matters on which quantities of fairly sophisticated literature have been written over the entire history of Christian theology.

The implication of the theses is that the sort of questions that might be asked by a bright 20th century sixth-former would have been unintelligible or devastating for Augustine, Rahner or Teresa of Avila. The fact is that significant numbers of those who turn to Christian faith as educated adults find the doctrinal and spiritual tradition which Bishop Spong treats so dismissively a remarkably large room to live in.

Doctrinal statements may stretch and puzzle, and even repel, and yet they still go on claiming attention and suggesting a strange, radically different and imaginatively demanding world that might be inhabited. I'm thinking of a good number of Eastern Europeans I know who have found their way to (at least) a fascinated absorption in classical Christianity through involvement in dissident politics and underground literature. Or of some American writers who will, I'm sure, be known to Bishop Spong, from Denise Levertov to Kathleen Norris, who have produced reflective and imaginative work out of the same adult recovery of the tradition. Is this tradition as barren as Spong seems to think?

To answer that requires us to look a bit harder at the theses themselves. In a way, the first of them indicates where the trouble is going to come: for there are at least three quite distinct senses of theism current in theology and religious studies, and it is none too clear which is at issue here.

At the simplest level, theism is, presumably, what atheists deny. Spong doesn't appear to think of himself as an atheist, so this can't be it.

In a more specialist context, scholars of the phenomenology of mysticism have sometimes distinguished 'theistic' from 'monistic' experience - theistic experience being defined as focused upon a reality ultimately distinct from the self (and the universe), as opposed to a mysticism of final unification. I'm not convinced that this distinction is actually a very helpful strategy, but that is another matter; it may be that something more like this is what Spong has in mind.

But there is also the sense, recently discussed by writers like Nicholas Lash, of theism as the designation of that abstract belief in God independent of the specific claims of revelation that flourished in the age after Descartes - a sense quite close to but not identical with that of 'deism'. It is in this sense that large numbers of theologians would say that classical Trinitarian orthodoxy is not a form of theism.

I suspect that Spong is feeling his way between the second and the third senses. His objections seem to be to God as a being independent of the universe who acts within the universe in a way closely analogous to the way in which ordinary agents act. The trouble is that, while this might describe the belief of some rationalist divines in the modern period, and while it might sound very like the language of a good many ordinary religious practitioners, it bears no relation at all to what any serious theologian, from Origen to Barth and beyond, actually says about God - or, arguably, to what the practice of believers actually implies, whatever the pictorial idioms employed.

Classical theology maintains that God is indeed different from the universe. To say this is to suggest a radical difference between one agent and another in the world. God is not an object or agent over against the world; God is the eternal activity of unconstrained love, an activity that activates all that is around God is more intimate to the world than we can imagine, as the source of activity or energy itself; and God is more different than we can imagine, beyond category and kind and definition.

Thus God is never competing for space with agencies in the universe. When God acts, this does not mean that a hole is torn in the universe by an intervention from outside, but more that the immeasurably diverse relations between God's act and created acts and processes may be more or less transparent to the presence of the unconstrained love that sustains them all.

The doctrine of the incarnation does not claim that the 'theistic' God (i.e. a divine individual living outside the universe) turns himself into a member of the human race, but that this human identity, Jesus of Nazareth, is at every moment, from conception onwards, related in such a way to God the Word (God's eternal self-bestowing and self-reflecting) that his life is unreservedly and uniquely a medium for the unconstrained love that made all things to be at work in the world to remake all things. Jesus embodies God the Word or God the Son as totally as (more totally than) the musician in performance embodies the work performed.

I don't find this bankrupt; I don't find that it fails to make sense to those trying to learn the language of faith.

And the same point about God not competing for space is pertinent to several of the other theses. Exactly how the presence of God's action interweaves with various sets of created and contingent causes is not available for inspection. We have no breakdown of the relations between God and this or that situation in the world.

Theologians have argued that the holiness of a human individual or the prayer of a believer may be factors in a situation that tilt the outcome in a particular way. This is an intellectually frustrating conclusion in all sorts of ways, but seems to be the only one that really manages to do justice to the somewhat chaotic Christian experience of intercession and unexpected outcomes (miracles, if you must). If the world really does rest upon divine act, then whatever you say about the regularities of casual chains is relativised a bit by not quite knowing what counts as a 'cause' from God's point of view, so to speak.

Bishop Spong describes the resurrection as an act of God. I am not clear how an immanent deity such as I think he believes in is supposed to act; but if such a God does act, I don't see why it should be easier for God to act in people's mind than their bodies. 'Jesus was raised into the meaning of God'; yes, but meanings are constructed by material, historical beings, with cerebral cortices and larynxes. How does God (or 'God') make a difference to what people mean?

Spong clearly has no time for the empty-tomb tradition; so it is no surprise that he also dismisses the virginal conception (though why on earth this makes Jesus's divinity 'impossible' I fail to understand). I am aware that there are critical historical grounds for questioning both narrative clusters and I don't want to dismiss them. But I am very wary of setting aside the stories on the ground of a broad-brush denial of the miraculous.

For the record: I have never quite managed to see how we can make sense of the sacramental life of the Church without a theology of the risen body; and I have never managed to see how to put together such a theology without belief in the empty tomb. If a corpse clearly marked 'Jesus of Nazareth' turned up, I should save myself a lot of trouble and become a Quaker.

The virginal conception looks less straightforward, if you are neither a fundamentalist nor someone committed to the principled denial of miracles. Is it possible to believe in the incarnation without this? Yes, I think so (I did for a few years). But I also have an uncomfortable feeling that the more you reflect on the incarnation, the less of a problem you may have. There is a rather haunting passage in John Neville Figgis about - as it were - waking up one day and finding you believe it after all. My sentiments exactly.

Perhaps the underlying theme in all this is that if you don't believe in a God totally involved in and totally different from the universe, it's harder to see the universe as gift; harder to be open to whatever sense of utter unexpectedness about the life and death of Jesus made stories of pregnant virgins and empty tombs perfectly intelligible; harder to grasp why people thank God in respect of prayers answered and unanswered.

Perhaps, too, it has a bit to do with the sense of utterly unexpected absolution or release, the freeing of the heart.

The cross as sacrifice? God knows, there are barbaric ways of putting this; but as a complex and apparently inescapable metaphor (which, in the Bible, is about far more than propitiation) it has always said something sobering about the fact that human liberation doesn't come cheap, that the degree of human self-delusion is so colossal as to involve 'some total gain or loss' (in the words of Auden's poem about Bonhoeffer) in the task of overcoming it. And that human beings compulsively deceive themselves about who and what they are is a belief to which Darwinism is completely immaterial.

Of course, if you want to misunderstand Darwin as establishing a narrative of steady spiritual or intellectual evolution, you will indeed want to say that all existing ethical standards are relative. How, then, are you going to deal with claims by this or that group that they are moving on to the next evolutionary stage? In what sense can ethics fail to be about the contests of power, if there is nothing to which we are all answerable at all times?

Of course the parameters of ethical understanding shift: but the shifts in Christian ethics on, for example, slavery, usury and contraception, have had to argue long and hard to establish that they are in some way drawing out an entailment of what is there, or honouring some fundamental principle in what is there. In other words, these changes in convention have had to show a responsibility to certain principles that continue to identify this kind of talk as still recognisably Christian talk.

It makes for hard work - as is obvious with current debates about homosexuality or nuclear war; but it is hard work because of the need to continue listening to what is said and written.

But then we discover in Spong's theses that there is, after all, a non-negotiable principle, based upon the image of God in human beings. Admirable; but what does it mean in Spong's theological world? What is the image of a 'non-theistic' God? And where, for goodness' sake, does he derive this belief about humans? It is neither scientific nor obvious.

It is, in fact, what we used to call a dogma of revealed religion. It is a painful example of the sheerly sentimental use of phraseology whose rationale depends upon a theology that is being overtly rejected. What can it be more than a rather unfairly freighted and emotive substitute for some kind of bland egalitarianism - bland because ungrounded and therefore desperately vulnerable to corruption, or defeat at the hands of a more robust ideology? It is impossible to think too often of the collapse of liberalism in 1930s Germany.

It is no great pleasure to write so negatively about a colleague from whom I, like many others, have learned. But I cannot in any way see Bishop Spong's theses as representing a defensible or even an interesting Christian future. And I want to know whether the Christian past scripture and tradition, really appears to him as empty and sterile as this text suggests.

It seems he has not found life here, and that is painful to acknowledge and to hear. Yet I see no life in what the theses suggest; nothing to educate us into talking about the Christian God in a way I can recognise: no incarnation; no adoption into intimate relation with the Source of all; no Holy Spirit. No terror. No tears.

Does he know that generations of believers have argued the need to separate hope for life after death from earthly rewards and punishments? They believe that the present and future delight of enjoying God's intimacy made all such talk irrelevant.

Does he see at all that the recognition of God's image in everyone, in such a way as to drive people to risk everything for it (Wilberforce? Dorothy Day? Desmond Tutu? Bonhoeffer? Romero?), seems persistently to come from an immersion in the dark reality of God's difference and in the uncompromising paradoxes of incarnation of the Almighty?

Culturally speaking, the Christian religion is one of those subjects about which it is cool to be ignorant. Spong's account of classical Christian faith simply colludes with such ignorance in a way that cannot surely reflect his own knowledge of it. I think I understand the passion behind all this, the passion to make sense to those for whom the faith is at best quaint and at worst oppressive, nonsense.

But the sense is made (in so far as it is made at all) by a denial of the resources already there - to the extent that Spong's own continuing commitment to the tradition becomes incomprehensible.

Living in the Christian institution isn't particularly easy. It is, generally, today, an anxious inefficient, pompous, evasive body. If you hold office on it, you become more and more conscious of what it's doing to your soul. Think of what Coca-Cola does to your teeth. Why bother?

Well, because of the unwelcome conviction that it somehow tells the welcome truth about God, above all in its worship and sacraments. I don't think I could put up with it for five minutes if I didn't believe this; and - if I can't try to say this in a pastoral, not an inquisitorial, spirit - I don't know quite why Bishop Spong puts up with it.

At the time of writing Rowan Williams was Bishop of Monmouth. Rowan Williams is now Archbishop of Canterbury.

But, when you strip that of its rather silly pretentiousness, it's agreeing with Spong for the most part!

Most of the criticisms is that Spong hasn't mentioned that what he's saying agrees with what some sophisticated theologians already say. But so what? Spong's point is to take that out of the seminar room and into the heads of the ordinary churchgoer. The good Archbishop notes that the views of the theologians he claims Spong is ignoring are not the views of the ordinary churchgoer, but then seems to ignore the fact that this is the very phenomenon that Spong is trying to combat.

Where there does seem to be disagreement is where Williams tries to square the circle of marrying the god-as-idea claims made earlier with the claim that the resurrection actually happened. And there, I'm afraid, the good Archbishop seems to me to soil himself with the sort of ridiculous gobbledegook that would embarrass a faire-ground astrologer.

Northcott

09-20-2007, 01:45 AM

But, when you strip that of its rather slimy pretentiousness...
...
Where there does seem to be disagreement is where Williams tries to square the circle of marrying the god-as-idea claims made earlier with the claim that the resurrection actually happened. And there, I'm afraid, the good Archbishop seems to me to soil himself with the sort of ridiculous gobbledegook that would embarrass an fair-ground astrologer.

Rich, your patience with this bastion of offensive irony never ceases to amaze me. I am in complete awe.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-20-2007, 03:09 AM

The guy's a fricking genius. Thanks again Atticus for (accidentally) reminding me why I do this

Far from being a "genius", he seems to me to be a very good politician trying desperately to hold together a church that is exploding.

I suppose, on reflection, I haven't lost quite as much respect for Archbishop Williams as I thought I had when I first read his response.

While his "response" totally fails to even address Spong's claims, that really wasn't it's purpose. Its seems tolerably clear that Williams agrees with Spong's case. His problem is that Spong has come out and said it plainly and for the laity, rather than cloaked in academese and restricted to the theology seminar rooms of Oxford and Cambridge (it's no coincidence, by the way, that one of Richard Dawkins' friends is the Bishop of Oxford).

What Williams had to do is both distance himself from Spong and say that Spong is saying nothing new - simultaneously. This he achieved in a tour de force of truly Clintonian brilliance.

And, ironically, Williams' tactics would find favour with the views of the more reflective of the New Atheists, Daniel Dennett. Unlike Dawkins (and, it would seem, Spong), Dennett is far more into a kind of political gradualism in the move away from theism. I suppose, as a matter of politics, I agree with Dennett and the good Archbishop. Spong is a trouble-maker; whereas a bit of gradualist gobbledegook is exactly what's required for the Anglican church right now.

But it does disturb me that you find Williams' response in any way intellectually satisfying...

EDIT: Something else just occurred to me. Williams might have been genuinely trying to "have his cake and eat it too". To acknowledge the central Spongian insights while at the same time clinging to a religion with some kind of "supernatural" content. I suppose that's my perception of what you're trying to do as well - acknowledge the man made nature of God while at the same time insisting on the reality of Jesus' ressurection and miracles. This just seems weird to me - when I was religious I believed in the supernatural and now I'm not, I don't. But I suppose I have to acknowledge the existence (though I can't pretend do understand it) of a genuinely held "have/eat cake" position. If I can believe that you genuinely hold tit (which I do), then I suppose I have to believe that Archbishop Williams does. But I'm yet to see how one can hold those two ideas in one's mind without one's head exploding from the cognitive dissonance caused by such a patent contradiction...

EDIT: And my final sentence has jsut reminded me of the "Electric Monk" from Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency:
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they'd have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City. It had never heard of Salt Lake City, of course. Nor had it ever heard of a quingigillion, which was roughly the number of miles between this valley and the Great Salt Lake of Utah.

Northcott

09-20-2007, 07:18 AM

Rich, in the name of sanity, walk away, man. I know that my own compulsive streak makes this kind of advice laughable given the source, but he's coming around full circle to the very position he's championed from the beginning, and the one that he's most frequently avoided answering to when confronted with it: the prejudicial assumption that because faith is irrational, therefore those of religious nature cannot be trusted to be rational, or spoken to as if rational.

This great ego-centrism underlays almost all his responses on the subject, ranging from the outright insulting to passive-aggressive undermining through couched phrases.

For months now, in the most simple and basic of terms, you (and others) have attempted to explain the word "infinite" to him and point out how it changes, through logical application of language, the definition and perception of diety. Over and over again. He simply refuses to acknowledge such concepts and continues to ignore them, stating issues as a binary proposition when faced with myriad options. When a rare, third way is acknowledged, it's done with statements phrased to disrespect the perceptions of others, usually demeaning their grasp of logic while himself failing to meet basic reading comprehension standards.

Save the effort for when a worthwhile debate on religion pops up, with somebody capable of keeping up with the game. It's precisely this kind of myopic vision of the subject on this part that lead me to stop treating Atticus with any measure of respect.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-20-2007, 09:52 AM

Hey Richard,

In the spirit of friendship, let me make it clear that you really aren't making sense to me. My frustration is born of a genuine attempt to understand what you're saying. But, my friend, it seems to me that that the contradictiona and illogicaluties keep piling one on top of the other.

Do you genuinly see Rowsb Williama' piece as an adequate response to Spong? It read to me like a condescending and evasive attempt to avoid all the questions Spong is so brave to face. How does it actually answer Spong? I genuinely don't see it.

And how can you reconcile your statement that God exists only in our minds with your statement that Jesus actually performed miracles and actually rose from the dead? How can these propositions both be true?

Your position would make so much more sense if you'd go back to a stance you almost took some time ago of saying that god is probably only an idea, the Jesus miracles are a myth, but that you derive enourmous benefit and are a better person when you act AS IF it were true.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-20-2007, 09:56 AM

Hey Richard,

In the spirit of friendship, let me make it clear that you really aren't making sense to me. My frustration is born of a genuine attempt to understand what you're saying. But, my friend, it seems to me that that the contradictiona and illogicaluties keep piling one on top of the other.

Do you genuinly see Rowsb Williama' piece as an adequate response to Spong? It read to me like a condescending and evasive attempt to avoid all the questions Spong is so brave to face. How does it actually answer Spong? I genuinely don't see it.

And how can you reconcile your statement that God is only in our minds (and if the human race ceased to exist, so would hod) with your statement that Jesus actually performed miracles and actually rose from the dead? How can these propositions both be true?

Your position would make so much more sense if you'd go back to a stance you seemed to almost take some time ago of saying that god is probably only an idea, the Jesus miracles are a myth, but that you derive enourmous benefit and are a better person when you act AS IF it were true.[/QUOTE]

Hastur T. Fannon

09-20-2007, 04:23 PM

And how can you reconcile your statement that God is only in our minds

At no point have I stated that. I've been back through the posts I've made over the past fortnight and, among the cheap one-liners, I think I've found the one that you've chosen to interpret that way; this post here (http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/showpost.php?p=13993&postcount=53), right?

Can you please try to get it into your head that me, Rowan Williams and just about every single serious religious thinker ever doesn't believe that existence is a concept that can be meaningfully applied to the concept of God?

God is more different than we can imagine, beyond category and kind and definition.

You can't skim Rowan, particularly when he's writing a theological paper. He moves fast and expects you to keep up. But he's worth it.

If, after you've gone back and re-read every single word, every single sentence (re-reading them again if you're having trouble parsing them - there's a couple of places where whoever transcribed that article skipped a comma), all the while assuming that the guy actually believes what he's writing, if after all that you still don't get it I suggest that you give up. Because I have

Your position would make so much more sense if you'd go back to a stance you seemed to almost take some time ago of saying that god is probably only an idea, the Jesus miracles are a myth, but that you derive enourmous benefit and are a better person when you act AS IF it were true.

That's still my stance - though expressed more negatively than I'd put it

Kwalish Kid

09-20-2007, 07:06 PM

God is more different than we can imagine, but not so different that we can't imagine him not backing our power plays 100%. ;)

Northcott

09-21-2007, 10:21 AM

God is more different than we can imagine, but not so different that we can't imagine him not backing our power plays 100%. ;)

:lol:

Atticus_of_Amber

09-22-2007, 06:14 AM

Moving relevant stuff from the Mother Teresa thread to here.

(There's a summary in the next post for those who don't want to read through all this shit.)

But you don't need faith or any belief in the supernatural for just war theory. Which is why it's taught in every international law class in the world, stripped of most of the Christian superstructure.

There's no doubt that religion has been the incubator of much that is useful. But just as we don't speak of Christian physics (Newton was a Christian mystic) or Islamic algebra, we will come to cease speaking of Catholic just war theory or Buddhist meditation. Indeed, in international law classes, we already do with respect to just war theory.

As for tools for living, I agree wholeheartedly. As I've said again and again, I'd be a regular church-goer if Anglicanism would just drop the faith and the belief in the supernatural. Which reminds me, I have to work out how I'm going to get the vicar to let us sing Jerusalem at our wedding...

No, but it helps - particularly if you have to put it into practice. Why do you think that USMC recruits have to memorize the citations of every single Marine who's been awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor and be able to recite the details even when they're completely exhausted? Myth, Atticus, myth - it's what drives human beings when everything else is gone

Fine - so long as you admit its myth.

"Religious stories about the formation of the world and how things came to be"? Sure, the Bible contains myth

But it only works, properly, if you also believe it's true

Now, it works if you know its a myth - just not as well.

Hmm. Now we're at a real issue. Can I strongly recommend the latter chapters of the God Delusion where Dawkins talks about the virtues of the placebo effect? It's mostly a crib of what Dennett says in Breaking the Spell, but it's essentially a scientific examination of exactly what you just said.

That's the rub. Faith makes people irrational - but that can make them irrationally good as easily as it can make them irrationally evil. And faith can perform amazing feats of psychosomatic healing. As Dawkins says, homeopathy and faith healing probably does work - because its a very effective way of selling placebos.

One of the few disagreements between Dennett and Dawkins is over this. Dawkins, like the naive "But is it true!" child that he is (and that I am a bit, I'll admit) doesn't care what damage he does in his search for the truth. Dennett worries that "breaking the spell" may be a bad thing. Indeed, Dennett's discussion of human susceptibility to the placebo effect and the prevalence of shaman healers is a wonderful argument for the immensely positive survival value of human gullibility.

I'd really recommend you read both books. (However, be warned that, except on arguments for and against God's existence where he's very good; Dawkins' book is really just a John-and-Jill summary of Harris and Dennett.)

I've skimmed to around page 31 (where he defines the God Hypothesis), confirmed that he used a definition isn't used by all Moslems, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews and almost all Christians and then I put it back on the shelf (we've just had a thread on this - did you crib?). I understand that another large chunk is taken up with the various "proofs" of God's existence - if he'd actually talked to any theologians, he'd have been told a section of the first year of any theology degree is taken up with explaining why these "proofs" are so much dingo's kidneys (when unpacking after we moved recently, I found the essay I wrote taking apart Aquinis's Five Ways, but I'm tangenting). If you're suggesting that somewhere at the back of the book there's something worth reading, you're going to have to try harder to convince me

Yeah, I read a review of Dawkins program on homeopathy - it was either in New Scientist or the Grauniad. Very interesting assertion; if doctors took the time to actually talk, build trust and an actual relationship with their patients then conventional medicine would be even more effective - the placebo effect would be added to the real ("real"?) medicine

Something I've kicking around for a while, it that we (as a species) are moving from a time of competing stories (modernism), into a time where we are/will be consciously manipulating our own stories and the stories of those around them (not "postmodernism" - that's just a phase like "deism" was a phase between pre-modernism and modernism; I don't think it has a name yet)

Hmmm. If you mean the Einsteinian god, then Dawkins explicitly says he has no problem with that. And I think Dawkins acknowledges that there are super-moderate theists who don't subscribe to the God Hypothesis and says he has no problems with them. But, I think you dramatically underestimate the number of people who DO adopt the God hypothesis.

EDIT: To put it in the terms of the "Courtier's Reply" I posted in the other thread. Dawkisn has no objection to people who say that the Emperor's clothes are imaginary, just to those who say they are certain that they are real but invisible.

The fact that many theologians admit that teh "proofs" are crap didn't absolve Dawkins from having to deal with them in a book that argues that God almost certainly doesn't exist.

If you don't adopt the God Hypothesis - that i, if you don't think there actually is an intelligent thing that created the universe and occasionally intervenes in it, then there's not much point in you reading the GD, because you already agree with its central point.

Yes, there's some interesting stuff in the back, but it's all really a crib of Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.

Yep. Dawkins goes so far as to play with the ideas that doctors should be allowed to lie to their patients and give them sugar pills buy tell them they are medicine.

There's a good Dennett-style argument that we should leave homoeopathy alone because it creates a useful division of labour: medicine for strictly scientific actual cures and treatments; homoeopathy of mumbo-jumbo to disguise effective placebos.

The problem with that is that some traditional healing techniques work beyond placebo. Herbal cures often contain active ingredients and rigorous examination of traditional "medicine" can often tip drug companies off to very useful future medicines. And there are some interesting studies done on acupuncture and meditation.

Hmmm. I'm afraid I agree with Dawkins and Sokal, etc that post-modernism is a dangerous crock of shit. Indeed, I see the Bush administration's approach to reality as being a particularly dangerous example of post-modernism.

However, I suspect that what Dawkins calls "fraco-phonyism" is not what you were referring to when you used the word "post-modernism"...

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

Atticus. If you, one more time, suggest that mainstream theists believe or, frankly, ever have believed that God is a being you can say hello to my ignore list. Possibly permanently. Maybe badly educated lay people wouldn't word it in Tillichian terms, but, if asked, they'd probably be able to articulate that God isn't a being in the same way that Barry Manilow is a being

This is the sort of thing I mean by you having difficulties in reading

This one? (http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html) I read a version in "A Brief History...". I suspect that Steve would say that "God" in this lecture is a metaphor and, since he lost the bet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne-Hawking-Preskill_bet), it's my understanding that the now believes the dice are eventually found

Richard, I know you don't believe that, but I think you're just wrong to suggest that the majority of religious people don't believe it. Maybe in nice genteel circles of British Anglicanism, yes (indeed, that's what I love about nice genteel British Anglicanism). But I just don't see the evidence that that holds true for the numerical majority of Christians, let alone theists in general. For example, I'd be amazed at the suggestions that the average Muslim takes a Tillichian "imaginary clothes" view of Allah. (Again. check out The End of Faith and the PEW study discussed there.) And what of evangelical protestants? What of mainstream Catholic doctrine? What of Mormonism?

As I've said, if you believe in a Tillichian God, you pretty much agree with Richard Dawkins. If it's true that the majority of mainstream Christians believe that, then surely the appropriate response to Dawkins should be "Actually, professor, we agree with you entirely." But, as I keep saying, it would be nice if "mainstream religionists" were a little more clear that you don't think there is actually a God outside of the minds of the human being's who believe in Him. I have to say that I was a regular church goes for almost twenty years, was confirmed, and have been to church numerous times since and I didn't get that impression. Perhaps there needs to be an addendum to the Niscean Creed spoken each Sunday?

EDIT: Indeed. if you read the books that criticise The God Delusion, such as Alistair McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion, they seem to me to argue that God DOES exist in precisely the sense that Dawkins attacks. And that's guy's an Anglican professor of theology at Oxford, for Christ's sake. Though, I must say, McGrath seemed to get incredibly slippery in refusing to answer direct questions on that issue when Dawkins interviewed him (full video available on googlevideo). That may have been that his posituon was subtler than I understand it to be, but if so the guy's a horrible communicator because Dawkins gave him ample opportunity to explain himself.

What would convince you? I seem to remember that last time I linked to the motherfudging Catechism of the Catholic Church

That's not what I'm saying at all and that's not what Tillich was saying either

Not "a being", but "being" itself; "I am who I am"; Plato's uncaused cause and unmoved mover; "The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way"; "the ground of all being";

Is any of that triggering anything? Surely you've felt transcendence before - even Hitchens has felt transcendence

Of course I've felt transcendence, but what has that to do with external reality? I've felt happy before, but that doesn't tell me anything about the external world any more than feeling sad or angry or high does.

Either you believe there is an intelligent being independent of human minds who created the universe, in which case you're adopting the god hypothesis and you need to meet Dawkins arguments; or God is a human concept (like justice and fairness and good and evil and blue and orange and beauty and ugliness), in which case you and Dawkins are in furious agreement.

The Einstinian God is a metaphor and thus falls into the second category. I must say that every time I read any Tillich, I come to a different view of what he's saying. He seems to be either deliberately dodging the question, or he's just confused.

Plato's uncaused cause and unmoved mover is a God hypothesis in Dawkins' sense.

Not "a being", but "being" itself doesn't actually say anything. What does that mean? Is it an idea that doesn't exist outside human minds? Or not? Is it intelligent? Or not? It's seems to me to be just a way of dodging the question.

"The ground of all being" - ditto. Unless you mean the its the ultimate nature of reality, in which case that's a question of physics.

"I am who I am" - a simple tautology that doesn't actually say anything more that it's first two words.

"The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way". Fine. I get that. But he way is a way of navigating the human experience. It wouldn't exist if humans ceased to exist. It's a concept and a method. Not a real existing thing that exists independent of the human mind.

EDIT: RF just to be clear, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth here. Either I just don't get what you're saying - in which case it would be nice if you tried to be clearer; or you might just want to re-examine your own views to see if they really are coherent. Because, from where I sit, your position seems to keep shifting every time you're pressed from a different direction.

Let's try to clear this up with some simple questions: Do you believe that God exists outside human minds? That is, if every human ceased to exist, would there still be a God? Is god anything more than an idea?

Which, IIRC, didn't say what you said it said. Wanna repost so we can check, because I remember being singularity unimpressed last time. But maybe I'm misremembering. Have you got the reference so I can look it up?

I mean, come on, this was the church that until very recently believed in Limbo.

And those PEW poll figures were pretty convincing, btw. Something like 30% of Americans claimed to believe that Jesus would be physically returning to Earth in their lifetimes.

Hold on a sec! I didn't use the bad word "being". I said "thing", which was the term we agreed on the last time we had this discussion. Are you changing your position?

I believe that I said that at some point, but that was years ago. These days I wouldn't deny that anyone is a Christian if that's what they say there are. However, I will say that Mormons are outside of the mainstream of Christian thought.

That's interesting. Are you suggesting that emotions are something other than the outward expression of biochemical changes in the brain?

But have you thought that transcendence (given that it's something that is common to all cultures and all peoples) might just have some sort of function and religion is a exploration of a cultures shared experiences of transcendence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_%28religion%29)?

Logical fallacy: excluded middle. Also one of your premises is dodgy

There's a third possibility - that he's trying to describe the indescribable. Which was (probably - haven't seen the interview), the same difficulty that Alistair McGrath had

Only if the the Mover is of the same order as the rest of reality - and given that this (Plato) the guy who invented the theory of forms I don't think this is what he meant

"No" to every single one of your questions. Whatever you say God is, He isn't

I think Lao Tzu would disagree with you. I'll rephrase that; given the rest of the stanza. I know that Lao Tzu would disagree with you

In order: no, yes, yes

The concept of existence is not an attribute that can be applied to the concept of God in any meaningful use of their of those words

You and me both, mate

To be honest, I remember it being a pain in the butt to find and I don't think it would do any good

AND AGAIN!

One more time, for the cheap seats, the Catholic church has never ever believed in Limbo. It was a folk belief and never part of official doctrine

Jesus was a physical being, Jesus is a physical being, Jesus will be physical being (though the definition of "is" in this sentence is a bit slippery)
Jesus was God, Jesus is God, Jesus will be God
This does not mean that God is a physical being because God is more than simply Jesus

Did we? Can you dig up my actual post? I'm fairly sure I hedged it with a number of caveats and I may have agreed to use it just to let the discussion proceed

No. At least, given the current evidence, I don't think so.

Depends on what you mean by transcendence. If you mean the feeling of transcendence, then I agree religion can be the exploration of a cultures shared experiences of transcendence - and so does Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet and (I think) Richard Dawkins.

Excluded middle is only a fallacy when the issue isn't genuinely binary. So, what's your supposed middle?

And which of my premises is "dodgy" and how?

McGrath certainly seems to be arguing in favour of physical existence.

As for "describing the indescribable", that seems to me to be a dodge. If its indescribable, why try? But first, how do you know its indescribable? And if its indescribable, how do you know it's not just an inchoate idea in your own head?

Not so sure about that. There's evidence that Plato actually thought the forms actually existed somewhere other than people's heads.

Doesn't one of those no's directly contradict an answer you give below?

Maybe. But if so, Lao Tzu was probably wrong.

So:

(1) You believe that God does not exist outside human minds.

(2) But you also believe that if every human ceased to exist, would there still be a God.

(3) And you believe that god is something more than an idea?

How on earth do you reconcile (1) with (2) and (3)? Or have I misunderstood you.

Why? What's evidence or reasons do you have for believing that to be true?

Didn't hear it the first time. I'm surprised to hear it. That certainly isn't what WikiPedia said the last time I looked Limbo up. Do you have a reference for the proposition that it was never part of official doctrine?

Do you believe that Jesus will physically return to Earth and judge the living and the dead and perform miracles?

And on a related point, do you believe that if we got in a time machine and went back to turn-of-the-millennium Palestine, we'd see Jesus actually raising people from the dead and actually turning water into wine, etc?

On the old boards - nothing land. In the "Do you believe in God and Why" thread I started.

You got pissy at me for using "being". I said, "Ok, didn't realise it was a technical term. Is "thing ok?" You said yes, we got on with the conversation.

Now I deliberately say "thing" in a conscious effort to not create the same misunderstanding twice and you explode at me. Very strange.

Thanks Ed. Atticus, I believe you have Ed on ignore. I suggest that you take him off ignore, at least for this thread. He's already responded to most of your questions

I haven't

Because that's my experience of transcendence. It's also the experience of just about every single serious religious thinker from every culture, ever. I'm having to think hard to come up with one that didn't (Joseph Smith - there you go)

I can't believe I actually need to argue that a transcendent experience is an experience of transcendence

I don't

No

Yes. Existence is not an attribute that can be applied to God

It's my experience of Him and just how about every religious thinker has experienced God or Brahman or Allah or Waheguru or Śūnyatā (back in your box Maddman, I know I'm mangling what the Buddha said, it's just I experience it differently. My emptiness has a face ;) )

Really? I could have sworn we had a discussion about it a few years back. I'm sure there was a thread on one incarnation of the boards when they finally announced it

Second paragraph: "never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium"

What I believe about the End Times is a whole separate ball of wax that I don't have time to go into at this point. Start another thread in a month or so

Yes

I believe that this is about the third time we've had a discussion about the nature of God - possibly the fourth. Last time, I must have tried a different approach. Obviously, it was a mistake

Varaj: 12 million? The Holy Roman Catholic Church has over a billion. Now that's mainstream

I'm afraid I can't do that. Happy to respond to you if you want to quote and adopt what another poster has said, though.

I think you've missed my point. How do you know the experience of transcendence is anything more than just an experience? If I sit on my hand, I can feel pins pricking it, but that doesn't mean there actually are pins pricking it.

Fair enough. But it would be nice if you made that clear. And the question whether it is more than an "inchoate idea in your own head' is a scientific question that can in principle be answered by reason and observation. Why not get interested in teh answer?

But why? How do you know this? Where does this proposition come from? Why should it be believed? What is the evidence for it?

But again, how do you know that this experience is pointing to anything that exists outside your head? How do you know this is not just an idea that you are making up to make sense of an experience?

Ok. Here I think you've finally managed to pin yourself down. Whatever God is, it has enough effect on the world to cause its "son" (whatever that means, perhaps a physical manifestation of God itself) to have the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, and to raise said son from the dead. If we went back there, we'd see it happen, you say.

Aren't THOSE scientific propositions that are, in principle, testable? Surely that necessarily buys into Dawkins' God hypothesis?

Either you think God has an effect on the world apart from human communication and thought, in which case you're buying into the God hypothesis and have to address Dawkins' arguments. Or you don't, in which case you're in furious agreement with the good professor.

Yes you can. What you're saying is that you won't

Isn't that a modern definition of consciousness?

No. Because even if you could do that, it wouldn't prove or disprove the existence of a theistic God, not just because (once again) existence is not an attribute of theistic concept of deity, but because all that it would show is the existence or otherwise of a being that can heal the sick and raise the dead. Could just be a space alien.

Local fallacy, excluded middle. Again

Could you expand on that for those of us in the cheap seats?

Oh, and did you ever find anything out about that martial artist you had some doubts about? I can't even remember who it was, or why he was going to be doing something (giving a talk, maybe?), but it pokes at me everytime I see you post.

That's the question I keep asking, and I'm yet to get a reply.

As I've said at least once before, "excluded middle"* is only a fallacy when there really is a middle. So, what's the middle?

Like you Non-Bob, I'd really like to know; because at present, I have absolutely no idea what he's referring to.

Have to work today. Will post more later tonight. (It's 9am my time now.)

*The excluded middle: The excluded middle is a fallacy where by an argument proceeds on the assumption that all entities are either A or non-A and ignores the possibility that there may exist an intermediate state between A and non-A. A good example might be George Bush's infamous "you're either with us or your with the terrorist" remark from his post 9/11 address to Congress. But for it to be shown that an argument has fallen into the excluded middle fallacy, it first has to be show that there really is a middle. Just crying "excluded middle!" like a mantra without establishing the existence of the middle has a tendency to look like trying to throw sand in the bull's eyes.**

**Throw sand in the bull's eyes/Sing the bull to sleep: From "dilemma" meaning horns of the bull. If you're presented with a dilemma, in logic you can choose to address (and risk being gored by) the left horn, or the right horn, or you can try to strike between the horns (prove there is an excluded middle). However, in rhetoric you also have a couple of other choices. You can throw sand in the bulls eyes by trying to confuse it with fancy words ("Excluded middle"!). Or you can try to sing the bull to sleep with soothing high-minded words (what Rowan Williams' piece appears to me, at least before I give it a second reading, to have done so expertly).

Read it. Wasn't answered, far as I can tell.

There is the set of <things that affect the world apart from human conciousness>, and there is the set of <things that are not in the set of things that affect the world apart from human conciousness>. I don't see how something can be in both, on account of how it can't by the definition of the sets; being infinite does not mean it can't be put in a set.

Have to leave now. Shit. gonna be late.

That still doesn't mean I can't put it in a set. I can't conceive of the set of real numbers. It's just too damned big. I can't even count the thing. I can still say there is a set consisting of two elements, the set of real numbers and a bunny. One of those things I can't fully percieve (well, both of them, really, on account of the atomic and sub-atomic stuff that's going on in the bunny), but I can still put 'em in the set.

Try this: everything blongs to either the set 'God' or the set 'Not part of the set of things that are God'. I don't have to know what is in each set to define the sets.

If you say "logical fallacy, excluded middle" when I tell you God is the first set, I'm going to look at you funny, because I defined him to be there. We can have all sorts of discussions and arguments about what belongs in the second set (maybe nothing, maybe everything except the chair I'm sitting on), but as soon as you tell me God is in the second set you've left behind what I know about logic.

If you're wanting to say "You can't define God to be in any set" then please do, but that's a premise that hasn't been defined in this discussion.

Stop right there.

I'm not replying to that, I'm talking about the thing Rich was talking about when I quoted him. The first one, yeah, I can see how that could be worked out - There exists God, independent of human thought, and there exists God*, creation of human thought, the two are linked but separate. Great, fine, not two sets of things that are defined to be mutually exclusive.

The one I'm talking about is
These are two sets where you can't be in both. If you're wanting to say that "There is God, who has had an effect on the world outside of human thought and communication, and there is God*, who has only had an effect on the world through human thought and communication" then that would be the explanation I was looking for.

Also, all further discussion on the topic would kind of require that the two be identified properly, so as to cut don on wordy shit like this. Fuck, I'm supposed to be a goddamned lurker for the most part, and look at what you've made me do!:mad:

If that's the case, I imagine AA has been trying to talk about God, while Rich may have been talking about God or God*. But I don't know, so I asked.

Nu-uh. Your 'reasonable'(1) response would be "Wood". Your logical response would be "How the fuck should I know, asshole!? I'm groggy, bound and only able to see a tiny part of the fucking floor! Now untie me, or Captain Canuck is going to beat the shit out of you!".

...Or something like that.:D

(1)definitions of 'reasonable' may vary. Offer not valid in places where wood doesn't exist. No refunds!

Precisely right. "Infinity" seems to me to be a complete red herring here.

Again, I agree.

I meant the same thing in both statements. However, the first one was a little loosely worded and thus apt to be misinterpreted by those inclidned to do so.

Of course an object can be both real* [set A] and imaginary [set B] in the sense that I can imagine the tennis ball that is also really sitting in front of me right now. The sets intersect.

(1) There are imaginary things that are not real (unicorns, probably; god, probably) [that part of B not intersecting with A].

(2) There are real things that are not imagined (things that exist out there that we've never even thought of yet) [that part of A not intersecting with B].

(3) There are things that are both imaginary and real (the tennis ball in front of me) [the intersection of A and B].

(4) And there are things that are neither imaginary nor real (ideas that have not been thought up yet that do not correspond to real things) [the complement of the union of sets A and B].

My question was whether God was imaginary but not real (option 1) or both imaginary and real (option 2). (options 3 and 4 seem to be excluded by the fact that God has been imagined). I wanted to get clarification on what Hastur meant by "God" because his statements seemed to me to vacillate between the two options.

*By "real" I mean capable of affecting the world directly apart from human minds and communication. For example, capable or creating the universe, raising the dead, making the shape of the Virgin Mary appear in a cut tomato, etc.

Exactly. And better said that I did.

THAT is my question. Is Hastur talking about just the imaginary God, or is he also talking about a real one as well? Some of his answers suggest the former (in which case he has no beef with Professor Dawkins); some suggest the latter (in which case he has to address Dawkins' arguments). All I wanted to know is which it is.

As you and I have both said now, if there is an "excluded middle" it needs to be identified. So far, I haven't seen one. If you can, given that you and I seem to speak the same language, could you please explain it to me, because trying to understand Hastur so far has made my head hurt.

I agree, again. I'll think you'll find that particular the poster has a rather odd, science-fiction-Spock-parody view of what logic and rationality actually is.

In that situation, the best you can say is that the very limited evidence (the composition of the floor) is not enough to reach a conclusion but that, if the whole ship is made from the same substance as the floor, the ship is wood. Of course, if you could hear the ship shifting and had some experience of ships and boats, you might be able to tell the difference between the distinctive "woody" creak, or fibreglass echoes or metal "gong" that ships of different makes make when then shift. And that might be enough to make a probabilistic assessment.

Anyway, thanks for your intervention. It's reassured me that I wasn't actually going insane. If you can see what the "excluded middle" is here, please feel free to explain it. Because I'd genuinely like to know.

Good, because then I'm going it right

As Lao Tzu should have put it: "The Way that doesn't make your head hurt is not the true Way."

Cute song, but this bull can't be sung to sleep - and throwing sand in its eyes just makes it more determined.

You still haven't answered Bob's question of exactly what this "excluded middle" of yours is. So, for perhaps the tenth time, what excluded middle?

Because, as I (and to some extent, now Bob) have said very clearly, if you want to be logically coherent and if you can't identify the middle, then you need to either address Dawkins' arguments, or agree with him.

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Atticus_of_Amber

09-22-2007, 11:23 AM

Summary for those who don't want to read through all that shit*

In my discussions with RF, I've hit a roadblock of communication regarding what moderate Christians actually believe about God.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, makes a very interesting case for the proposition that God is extremely unlikely to exist. Immediately this seems to fall foul of some terminological peculiarities of moderate theism. Posters like RF insist that, since God is the "ground of all being" it makes no sense to speak of him "existing". Indeed, they even tend to get up in arms over Dawkins definition of God (an intelligent being that created the universe, has a plan for it and in particular us humans and who occasionally intervenes in this universe) because the "ground of all being' can't be described as a "being".

This all seems at first blush like evasive terminological quibbling erected in a desperate attempt to avoid the question. But it's never a good idea to jump to conclusions about the people motives of people who disagree with you (cough-Norhtcott-cough), so in an attemp to get at what's really going on here, I decided to attack the problem from a different angle.

I asked RF whether God existed outside human minds, in the sense that God would continue to exist/be/ even if the human race ceased to exist. To this proposition RF seemed to say "no". In other places, he similarly seemed to acknowledge that God was a creature of myth. He's since denied that this is what he meant and I [I]think I believe him, but I'd be more confident of that if I actually knew what he did mean. In any case, for reasons discussed below, I think that's become largely irrelevant.

OTOH, Richard seemed to me to nail his colours to the God hypothesis mast when he elsewhere agreed that if we got in time machine and went back in time, we;d actually see Jesus actually performing miracles and actually rising from the dead and actually ascending into heaven.

The point became important when RF claimed to not need to address Dawkins arguments because they didn't apply to his idea God - because God isn't a "being" and does not "exist" but is the "ground of all being/existence".

My point was that, if you don't think God is anything more than an idea in human minds, then you are actually in furious agreement with Dawkins and yes, you probably don't have to read him because you agree with him (and all his stuff about issues other than God's existence is unoriginal stuff cribbed from Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and one should really read them instead).

However, if you do think God is something more than just an idea in human minds, then you are buying in to what Dawkins calls the "God Hypothesis" and you can't avoid Dawkins arguments by saying that don't apply to you.

So, I put to RF, which is it?

Richard's response was that this fell into the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle". My response was that the "excluded middle" was only a fallacy when there really is a middle, and I'm not aware that a middle between the two choices I've offered exists. If there is one. I invited him to nominate and explain it.

There followed a series posts by Northcott (not RF), which were rather handily dealt with by a new entrant to the discussion, there_is_no_bob.

The upshot of it all is that we're still left with the question, what is this excluded middle of which RF speaks?

*While I've tried to be as neutral as possible, it's probably unavoidable that RF will have seen the course of previous discussions differently to this summary. It might be worth reading through "all that shit" after all if you want to come to your own view. Failing that, RF may give his own summary...

Northcott

09-22-2007, 05:40 PM

Heh. Deleted the original. I think I'll deal with this in Rich's "Attention Atticus" thread. :)

Atticus_of_Amber

09-22-2007, 07:06 PM

It occurs to me that there's a rather simple way to test these claims AND get the discussion back on topic: Bob, Adriak, or anyone neutral on the issue, go back, and ready the recent responses and tell me, what is this "excluded middle" Hastur and Northcott keep talking about? (http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/showthread.php?t=622&page=8)

If you can find a coherent answer from either of those guys, I'll happy admit that I've somehow massively missed the point here. Indeed, I'll actually be extremely happy (though a bit embarrassed at being so think) as I'll finally understand what the hell is being said.

Thinking about it overnight, the following also occurs to me.

If God is defined as "everything" (that seem to be Norhtcott's position, but I'm not sure it's a fair characterisation of RF's), then surely that's also a God Hypothesis. One is saying that somehow, everything in existences, taken holistically, is an intelligent [insert mysterious noun here] that created the universe, has a plan for us and occasionally deliberately intervenes. I cant see how that immunises one from having to address the arguments against there being a God.

It seems that RF's position is cloer to a kind of platonic - a belief that perfect "forms" (of which the things we see are merely imperfet reflections or applications) actually exist somewhere, somehow. Now I'm sure this is an oversimplification of RF's position, because I'm pretty sure I don't properly understand RF's position, but if it is something like that, surely there's a LOT of philosophical heavy lifting (against the tide of a century of philosophical thought) to be done to back it up. And all that effort towards avoiding confrontation with a simple set of arguments against there being a god?

Again, I'm sure I'm getting RF's position wrong, but I'd love to understand what it actually is. Does anyone else get it?

In other words, does anyone else understand what is this "excluded middle" Hastur and Northcott keep talking about? (http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/showthread.php?t=622&page=8)

Atticus_of_Amber

09-22-2007, 10:46 PM

To bend over backwards to be fair, he's Norhtcott's last post, to which Bob has not yet responded.

That still doesn't mean I can't put it in a set.

The problem with that is the concept of trying to limit the unlimited for easier definition. Which brings us to...

If you're wanting to say "You can't define God to be in any set" then please do, but that's a premise that hasn't been defined in this discussion.

I thought it would be understood that Rich's repeated message of trying to define God (and thus the whole kerfuffle over the word 'being') as being a quite explicit statement on that.

Stop right there.

I'm not replying to that...

My bad! I was confused. I was looking at the original logical fallacy, not the second one.

There exists God, independent of human thought, and there exists God*, creation of human thought, the two are linked but separate. Great, fine, not two sets of things that are defined to be mutually exclusive.

Here's the mind-bender. If God (the divine principle) is a part of all things and apart from nothing, then it is also not seperate from the human philosophical concept of God, and may act through that as well. This ties into the Buddhist notion that perception of the world is illusion and enlightenment comes from 'being'. Circle back to the notion of God not as a being, but as being.

To understand where Rich is coming from on this, or most theologians of that stripe, one needs to deliniate between perceptions of dichotomy, and how those perceptions will affect their stance in the examination of the notion at hand.

The one I'm talking about is
These are two sets where you can't be in both. If you're wanting to say that "There is God, who has had an effect on the world outside of human thought and communication, and there is God*, who has only had an effect on the world through human thought and communication" then that would be the explanation I was looking for.

The answer to both sets is "yes". Really, man, if your parameter for defining the first set is "that is infinite", then it cannot be held entirely seperate from the second set. And that's where this discussion is likely to break down, because perception without seperation is mind-fucking business. We're hard-wired to seperate things into easier perceptions, after all (or so I believe, at any rate).

Fuck, I'm supposed to be a goddamned lurker for the most part, and look at what you've made me do!

:D

If that's the case, I imagine AA has been trying to talk about God, while Rich may have been talking about God or God*. But I don't know, so I asked.

Rich has been talking about both. AA has been exclusively discussing the latter, while periodically paying lip service to the former... then missing the point and seeking convenient reductions of the concept into self-defeating definitions. For example (not that these were Atticus' points): somebody trying to claim that a being of infinite power couldn't create the universe as it was a) brought into being at that time and could not pre-date its own existence, b) is a concept of man that may exist independently but thus cannot predate man, etc. Well, if we're talking about a being of truly infinite power, time may not mean the same thing to it, if time even has bearing on such a concept.

Nu-uh. Your 'reasonable'(1) response would be "Wood". Your logical response would be "How the fuck should I know, asshole!? I'm groggy, bound and only able to see a tiny part of the fucking floor! Now untie me, or Captain Canuck is going to beat the shit out of you!".

This is why I'd make a rotten Captain Canuck; I swear too much.

How does this answer the question of how can there be a middle between God existing just as an idea and god existing and affecting the world apart from human minds?

Help me out here you lurkers. Can you see it? Because I sure as hell can't.

Bob? Do you grok this?

Remember, the issue here is whether or not Hastur's theology is engaged by Dawkins' arguments in the God Delusion. It seems to me that if he believes that Jesus actually performed miracles and actually rose from the dead and that God was the way he did this then you have to be buying into the God Hypothesis and thus you are engaged by Dawkins' arguments. :shrug:

Hastur T. Fannon

09-23-2007, 04:52 AM

Indeed, they even tend to get up in arms over Dawkins definition of God (an intelligent being that created the universe, has a plan for it and in particular us humans and who occasionally intervenes in this universe) because the "ground of all being' can't be described as a "being".

We also have problems with "intervenes", but that's a whole other ball of wax...

I asked RF whether God existed outside human minds, in the sense that God would continue to exist/be/ even if the human race ceased to exist. To this proposition RF seemed to say "no".

I didn't. I said I didn't agree with the proposition (because of it's faulty premises)

In other places, he similarly seemed to acknowledge that God was a creature of myth.

I'm not sure that I said that.

Richard's response was that this fell into the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle". My response was that the "excluded middle" was only a fallacy when there really [I]is a middle, and I'm not aware that a middle between the two choices I've offered exists. If there is one. I invited him to nominate and explain it.

In this case the third possibility is that the premises on which the question are based are flawed

It seems to me that if he believes that Jesus actually performed miracles and actually rose from the dead and that God was the way he did this then you have to be buying into the God Hypothesis and thus you are engaged by Dawkins' arguments.

Why? Even if we were able to transport a fully-equipped laboratory back to 30ish AD, staffed by a crack team from CSICOP, even if we were able to get Jesus into that laboratory and observe him changing water into wine, even if we were able to find no scientific explanation for how he did it, it would still have no real impact on the faith of any mature Christian (by mature, I mean Fowler stage 5 and above (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_faith_development)). It would be extremely funny, but no more than that

Snatch

09-23-2007, 10:38 PM

Why? Even if we were able to transport a fully-equipped laboratory back to 30ish AD, staffed by a crack team from CSICOP, even if we were able to get Jesus into that laboratory and observe him changing water into wine, even if we were able to find no scientific explanation for how he did it, it would still have no real impact on the faith of any mature Christian (by mature, I mean Fowler stage 5 and above (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_faith_development)). It would be extremely funny, but no more than that

How about the resurrection? What if that was shown to be a myth?

Northcott

09-24-2007, 12:23 AM

How about the resurrection? What if that was shown to be a myth?

There was that whole "Tomb of Jesus" thing awhile back. I found it fascinating, personally, and a little sad. Putting aside matters of belief for the moment; if this were the actual tomb of the man who changed the world with a philosophy meant to foster love and compassion, so adored that he ended up worshipped as a divine icon by millions -- well, Hell. For that guy to have condos built over his tomb, and to end up sitting on some metal shelf in an archeological artefact warehouse is a shame.

And to be fair, Rich: even in your theology, God would be a creature of myth. It's just that is' not all he'd be. The difference between God of Man, and God the greater truth again. Limited perceptions and all that jazz.

there_is_no_bob

09-24-2007, 03:41 AM

In this case the third possibility is that the premises on which the question are based are flawed
Oh thank fucking <something>! I no longer have to try and deal with all that crap.

I thought that was the answer, but I wasn't sure. I'm pretty sure that's not an excluded middle, though. It's a violation of a premise, which is a whole 'nother thing.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-24-2007, 03:47 AM

[B]Richard's response was that this fell into the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle". My response was that the "excluded middle" was only a fallacy when there really is a middle, and I'm not aware that a middle between the two choices I've offered exists. If there is one. I invited him to nominate and explain it.[/SIZE]

In this case the third possibility is that the premises on which the question are based are flawed
Oh thank fucking <something>! I no longer have to try and deal with all that crap.

I thought that was the answer, but I wasn't sure. I'm pretty sure that's not an excluded middle, though. It's a violation of a premise, which is a whole 'nother thing.

Precisely. There is no excluded middle. Hastur's criticism is really that one or more of my premises is flawed.

Which means the question for Hastur becomes, which premise is flawed? And how?

there_is_no_bob

09-24-2007, 03:49 AM

Which means the question for Hastur becomes, which premise is flawed? And how?
That God can be discussed in terms of sets.

You can't define God (as opposed to God*) to be outside of a set, more precisely. Or at least that's the way I see it.

Atticus_of_Amber

09-24-2007, 03:55 AM

That God can be discussed in terms of sets.

You can't define God (as opposed to God*) to be outside of a set, more precisely. Or at least that's the way I see it.

Ok. If that's what he's saying, I have a response to that (which brings us back to the original issue of whether his view of God is engaged by Dawkins' arguments).* But I want to see if that's what he's saying first.

*Said response also dovetails with my response to his statement that he could swallow Dawkins' better if he used the word "fanaticism" rather than "faith". But that's only really a substantive issue if Hastur is taking the position you think he is taking and this debate has been way too heated in the recent past for me to do anything that could vaguely look like putting words in anyone's mouth.

Northcott

09-24-2007, 07:56 AM

Oh thank fucking <something>! I no longer have to try and deal with all that crap.

Sorry for the merry-go-round, NoBob! :)