Ignored by the media was that Senate Democrats blocked a resolution welcoming the Pope until “pro-life” language was removed from it. Yet several notorious, pro-abortion politicians brazenly received communion during the papal visit, though not directly from the Holy Father.
“God Bless America.” These words began and ended the too-short visit of the true man from Hope, Pope Benedict XVI. Before his arrival, many pundits predicted that his Holiness would rain down torrents of recrimination upon our country and its President on topics like the Iraq War, capital punishment or our failure to heed the hounds of global warming. They of course were wrong in thinking that the German Shepherd would bite the hand that feeds the world’s poor or chastise the most pro-life leader our country has ever seen. But what else is new?
The press in this country constantly exhibits disdain for our homegrown spiritual leaders, so it was no surprise that they would distort the Pope’s message and the motivation behind his visit. Rare was the media outlet that failed to note that the Pope was received by cheering crowds "like a rock star;" that most depraved symbol of all that is unworthy of worship in America. Contrary to the soul-stealing allures of sex, drugs and rock and roll, the Holy Father consistently spoke of faith, love and hope.
But the hope among our mostly secular media was that most Americans would see the Holy Father and instantly be reminded of the grave sins committed by a small percentage of Catholic clergy. And indeed, on the lips of most commentators and right next to the spinning papal graphics, were usually the words, “sexual abuse scandal.”
And his Holiness did indeed address the issue of priests disdaining their vows, acknowledging their "gravely immoral behavior" and saying: “[I]t is more important to have good priests than to have many priests. We hope that we can do, and we have done and will do in the future, all that is possible to heal this wound.” He later met with victims and reportedly prayed with them, and later asked all Catholics "to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt."
Of course, no matter what apologies the Church makes, no matter how much money she pays, and no matter how many innocent and holy priests suffer because of the actions of a few, it will never be enough. In this country, there are some sins which are never to be forgiven; especially those that advance certain agendas. But, much to the dismay of the media (and mostly ignored by them), the Pope went further in his address to American bishops, on how to protect our children from sexual abuse:
What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today? We need to reassess urgently the values underpinning society, so that a sound moral formation can be offered to young people and adults alike. All have a part to play in this task – not only parents, religious leaders, teachers and catechists, but the media and entertainment industries as well.
Indeed, every member of society can contribute to this moral renewal and benefit from it. Truly caring about young people and the future of our civilization means recognizing our responsibility to promote and live by the authentic moral values which alone enable the human person to flourish. It falls to you, as pastors modelled upon Christ, the Good Shepherd, to proclaim this message loud and clear, and thus to address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores. Moreover, by acknowledging and confronting the problem when it occurs in an ecclesial setting, you can give a lead to others, since this scourge is found not only within your Dioceses, but in every sector of society. It calls for a determined, collective response.
Also ignored by the media was that Senate Democrats blocked a resolution welcoming the Pope until “pro-life” language was removed from it. Yet several notorious, pro-abortion politicians brazenly received communion during the papal visit, though not directly from the Holy Father. One can only hope that they were paying attention at Yankee Stadium where he said:
Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom also means . . . overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness. It also means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, "there is no human activity — even in secular affairs — which can be withdrawn from God's dominion."
Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who was a trained actor and a brilliant speaker, Pope Benedict’s innate sweetness and humility sometimes betray his deep intellectualism and the beauty of words, such as: “The spires of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of this busy metropolis, they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God.”
But like John Paul the Great, he also uttered the words that the American media dread like the plague. For, far from bashing George W. Bush, he echoed to thunderous applause the President’s belief that all life is sacred:
May you find the courage to proclaim Christ, "the same, yesterday, and today and for ever" and the unchanging truths which have their foundation in him. These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world, including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb.
Mr. Adams – if morals are conceived of as commands, then of course the authority of the commander is a primary concern. But if morals are conceived of as strategies – if they are discovered or developed rather than being ordained – then the authority or even identity of the discoverer is of only historical curiosity.
High school physics students learn about Hooke’s Law every year, but few of them learn – or need to learn – anything in particular about Robert Hooke. Newton’s laws of motion aren’t named that way because Isaac Newton decreed them, but because he was the one who deduced them. Chess theory is developed and expanded all the time, but very few chess strategies or tactics are even named after their discoverers.
I don’t think morals are ‘relativistic’ any more than chess strategies are ‘relativistic’. Some things are still open questions in chess, but there are a lot of things that are very firmly established. It’s the same way for morals.
Mr. Ingles,
You are missing something rather obvious: the importance of moral authority in matters related to morality and law.
We do not base our laws on chess theory or physics, as interesting a comparison as you seem to think they make. Morality without a moral authority is law with no teeth.
Hands are placed on Bibles while taking oaths and promisses are made to God, because there is no higher authority. What would you replace that authority with in your dream scenario?
As I pointed out earlier, moral law without authority is law without a Constitution – much weaker, more relative and easier to challenge and change. Not good for our well being and stability.
This country was founded on the belief that man has inalienable God-given rights and that men may not deny them.
But certainly deny them we may when we transfer the source of those rights and morality from God to men. The idea that what God gives us, let no man take away is powerful. I am not clear what makes you beleive some honor/consensu system based on the idea that “what man gives us, let no man take away” carries anything close to the same weight.
I understand you don’t believe in God, thus it is fairly easy for you to conceive of getting along without God and inserting science in His stead, but as pointed out in my previous post, God and the authority of His laws is quite special and important to billions, and is the very basis of our freedom.
Your science and reason may do for you, but I’ll ask again: Just what makes you think it will do for a world dominated by the faithful?
The browned bits of scientific data do not a good spiritual gravy make.
Mr. Adams – chess strategies don’t need authority behind them to be convincing. They are convincing because they win chess games. People may look to – e.g. – the World Chess Federation for guidance about the strategies they should use, but the proof is in the actual outcome of the games. Anyone is free to test them out, or look at how they’ve been applied to past games. One gets to be a chess authority by learning or developing, and then applying, good strategies. If you want to learn to play good chess, you go talk to good chess players, or people who’ve studied them.
Morals as strategies can be convincing in the same way. Look at what we see from history – the more open and tolerant the society, the more it encourages equal opportunity for all… the better off the whole society is. Slavery leads to technical and social stagnation, for example. China is doing reasonably well economically, but that’s mostly by copying and reverse-engineering developments that come from elsewhere. And they’ve only made it as far as they have by becoming more capitalist. It’s not clear how open they can become before the current power structure is destabilized – such as what happened in the Soviet Union.
The U.S. has managed an area the size of a continent for over two hundred years with only one major civil war. It’s the most prosperous nation on Earth, and millions of people ‘vote with their feet’ every year to come here. That’s better than almost any regime in history, and powerful arguments that its style of government works well.
BTW – hands don’t actually have to be placed on Bibles and oaths made to God in the U.S. Everyone has the right today to make an ‘affirmation’ instead of an oath. (This isn’t a ‘dream sequence’ – you can look this up yourself.) The penalties of perjury apply with full force to such affirmations, just like oaths.
And say, why do we bother with legal penalties for perjury, if the authority of God is so decisive? Can you point to any evidence (beyond your own intuitions) that affirmations lead to more (or less) perjury than oaths? If so, by what amount and in what direction? All the evidence I’m aware of seems to indicate that worldly punishments and inducements have much more effect than otherworldly ones. God, allegedly, doesn’t go away during police strikes, but police do. Which one seems to be the stronger determinant of behavior? I think we can see what already ‘carries… the same weight’ today.
It’s actually even better than that, because, as I’ve stated many times here, we have inbuilt systems (that I believe evolved) for understanding moral situations. Not many people have an inbuilt talent for chess, but with morality it’s the other way around – not many people lack a talent for that.
Kids learn languages easily, what with their inbuilt talents for doing so. Adults are less flexible, and take much more time and effort to learn languages. I know I have to write a lot here to explain my points here, but I think that’s because I’m coming from a different paradigm – speaking a different language in a sense – and it takes a lot of work to communicate across such gaps. Our arguments are stylistically like those between classical and relativistic physicists, or classical and quantum physicists. Kids, like new physics students, don’t have so much to unlearn.
Mr. Ingles,
Morals as strategies can be convincing…,you say? That is precisely my point. Convincing men that man- made strategies are effective is a job that falls to men, who will argue with other men that the strategy is flawed.
When there is an authority on high, and most concur with the omnipotence of that authority, the problem is resolved. The answer is clear, my God-given rights cannot be touched by man, even by a majority in a free society (see Declaration of Independence – ours in the U.S. anda few others).
I will ask one last time and hope you will address it: We know now what you believe to be superior and more beneficial than faith, yet you cannot or will not provide a roadmap for us. How would you would pry faith from billions and convert them to the power of man-made moral strategies?
In the case of the U.S. and countries with similar foundations, how do you alienate inalienable rights – and having done so, how do you guarantee liberty in a system in which inalienable rights do not exist?
And I certainly hople you do not suggest the circular argument that man-made moral stratgies and the rights based on them may be declared or voted to be inalienable and every bit the equal of the previously recognized God-given rights.
I also hope you do not expect logic to prevail. Your chess/moral strategies may be proven effective, but so are tax cuts for the wealthy. As counterintuitive and ideologically obscene as it seem to some, the effectiveness of the game strategy is clear: people spend their money. Give them more and they will spend more. Spent money nets tax revenue (puts people to work and keeps the wheels turning, too).
Yet someone like Obama will argue that he is for capital gains taxes. And he would imose the tax even if it slows the economy and even if it resulted in less tax revenue. I’d say go figure, but the guy has millions of enthusiastic supporters.
Guys like Obama, or even the most reasoned politicians, must never be allowed to monkey with certain things. Inalienable God-given rights are off the table. But there is no way man-made moral strategies can be kept off the table.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will then be for sale.
Mr. Adams – I offered actual evidence about man-made strategies convincing people. Police strikes are one. Steven Pinker has pointed out that the murder rate in England has dropped by 4000% since the 1300′s. Are you claiming that England is more religious now than in the 14th century?
I’d also like to point out that the “inalienable” rights listed in the Declaration of Independence (which is not actually referenced in the Constitution) – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – are routinely removed in the courts today when someone’s convicted of a crime. (Well, except for the last one – anyone can “pursue” happiness no matter the circumstances, though the DoI doesn’t make any guarantees about getting it.) The DoI makes no mention of, say, the rights listed in the Bill of Rights, and we rely a lot more on those for our legal theory.
Of course people will argue about strategies. People argue about all kinds of things. But strategies are amenable to examination in and experimentation in this world. To a large extent, that’s what our states are for – they allow different rules to apply to different areas, and good ideas found in one state may be incorporated into other states. People argue about different paradigms in science, different economic theories, and so forth. But in those areas, people actually think that evidence has some say in the outcome. Science does progress and learn more with that attitude – even the dismal science. I think people with a bias toward evidence instead of revelation would do all right over the long run.
As to how I “would pry faith from billions and convert them to the power of man-made moral strategies” – gradually, over time, by talking and arguing and pointing out evidence like the above. I don’t expect it to happen overnight. But it’s interesting to look at recent social history. In the 1920′s, lynching was common. By the 1950′s, the Armed forces were being integrated. By the 1960′s, the civil rights movement had gotten into full swing. By today, it seems like people in their 20′s and below don’t even have problems with interracial relationships.
Religion’s trending downward in the Western world – certainly the organized and doctrinaire type. Evolutionarily speaking, a niche is opening up, and has been for a while. I think people, particularly the younger generation, will be more open to the idea. (Just to forestall any cheap shots from the peanut gallery – I’m not talking about indoctrination, just education. Teaching physics isn’t brainwashing, and all I and others are asking is competition in the marketplace of ideas.)
Mr. Ingles, thanks for answering.
Your plan, if I may, over the course of time is to:
Step 1 – Deny inalienable rights to everyone – not just criminals, who by law (our society’s and God’s)have forfeited one or more of them.
Step 2 – Make the formerly inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness amenable to examination and experimentation.
Step 3 – Present scientific evidence over time to prove it is (likely) foolish and superstitious to believe in God.
Step 4 – Exploit the “niche” opening up by filling it with properly “educated” children.
Sounds like a plan.
Next question: What will be the benefit? And if you get the chance, would freedom of religion still exist and would people of faith be allowed to serve in responsible leadership/management/cabinet positions or on the judiciary?
I can see things getting to the point where people of faith would be seen as either uneducated or superstitious, either of which might disqualify them from any authority position.
I know Marx said, “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required… .(which I suspect you agree with more than disagree) but the transitional period will present challenges. Just wondering what your thoughts are.
Mr. Adams – I’m afraid you’ve got the arrow of causality wrong again. I don’t plan on forbidding or abolishing religion. Freedom of religion is a good thing, because it’s part of overall freedom of thought. Freedom is, in essence, the right to be wrong. Let me quote one of my own web pages here: “Within very broad limits (basically
concerned with public safety) I think people should be able to teach any damn fool thing in a private school. If they are wrong, their kids will suffer for it, but who knows, they might once in a while be onto something, as opposed to on something.” “I actually oppose mandatory vaccination, because I’m basically Libertarian-ish. I figure people, even Dr. Brehany, should have the right to make stupid decisions, even for their kids. But I have the right to call those decisions stupid, and reprehensible.”
I don’t want another Terror. Both atheists and theists can be tolerant get-along types, and both can also be intolerant dogmatic tyrants. It’s being dogmatic that’s the real danger (something I’ve also mentioned before, see the last two sections). I think people should be tolerant and free (again, within very broad limits) to believe and propound just about any idea.
That being said, I’m doing some research into my own state’s laws. The case I linked to in comment #20 (of the 11-year-old girl who died in Wisconsin of treatable diabetes because her parents don’t believe in doctors and used only ‘spiritual’ treatment) bothered me a great deal. I don’t mind if an adult refuses medical treatment, and I’m quite in favor of parents making medical decisions for their kids. But when the parents’ decisions demonstrably lead to death, where medical treatment would, effectively certainly, have preserved the child’s life… I think parents should suffer legal consequences for that. Wisconsin’s laws may or may not protect these parents, but I want to make sure Michigan’s laws don’t.
So you’ve got several of the steps wrong, and others out of order. It’s more like:
1) Work to encourage people to think clearly and demand evidence for their beliefs.
2) Work to encourage universal scientific literacy. So far as I’m concerned, exposure to the actual data is a good thing. I mean, creationists who start working in the petroleum industry either leave the field or stop being creationists.
3) Watch as religious thought generally declines in prevalence and people start asking for justifications for claims that people make. “How do you know that? How have you tested that?”
One of the benefits will be fewer kids dying from treatable illnesses because their parents are deranged. I think a (more) rational electorate (humans are still going to be irrational, we’re humans after all) will do a lot better in terms of policy decisions. A habit of skepticism is a good thing in general. As Carl Sagan put it: “If we teach everybody… habits of skeptical thought, they will probably not restrict their skepticism to UFOs… Maybe they’ll start asking awkward questions about economic, or social, or political, or religious institutions. Perhaps they’ll challenge the opinions of those in power. Then where would we be?”
I don’t see religion as the primary enemy, really. I see magical thinking, credulousness, and intellectual laziness as the real problems. Address the underlying disease and the symptoms will resolve themselves.
Once this sort of thing takes hold more broadly… of course theists will still be eligible for office and positions of authority. But I think they’ll find it harder to be elected when people more clearly recognize that people like Rev. Wright and McCain’s John Hagee are, well, nutballs on a par with the flat-Earthers.
They might even find it as hard to get elected as atheists do now.
On another note, I pointed out two things – first, that the ‘inalienable’ rights are, and historically have been, in fact ‘alienable’ under the appropriate and legitimate circumstances. And second, that those rights discussed in the DoI are not actually foundational to our government as practiced. The Bill of Rights is far more important. And critical thinking there is important – it was an allegedly thoroughly-religious President who declared that U.S. citizens could be stripped of those rights without a trial, no? Sounds like you need to bring the DoI to Bush’s attention.
Mr. Ingles,
Dragged back to conversation, I am.
The Euthyphro “dilemma” is nothing more than empty rhetoric, I’m surprised you bother with it. But for your edification, here’s why it’s tangential:
1. The ED names piety as the chief virtue. But in Christianity, obedience is. The ED is an inappropriate criticism of Christian morality, which values obedience to God’s will, not piety. The idea of “the pious and the holy” being equated with what the Christian God loves is a bait-and-switch.
2. The ED relies upon a false assumption. The equation of “pious” with “what all the gods love” is arbitrary.
3. The section regarding disagreement between gods regarding the pious and impious does not apply to Christianity, which is monotheistic.
4) The ED is built upon the principle that one cannot logically define “the pious and holy” in a circular manner, since that would not be a definition but rather a tautology. All that we need to do to avoid the tautology and destroy the dilemma is to show that there is that “loved by the gods” is not necessarily “the pious.”
The ability to construct a tautological trap is perhaps interesting on an intellectual level, but proves nothing, particulary in the realm of morality. And this is why I have no patience for your diversions. All you are doing is throwing dust into the air to avoid giving straight answers, and I will have no more of it.
Mr. Ingles,
Until now your arguments have been worthy, but at this point I am starting to sympathize more than a little with Mountain Man and his complaints about your diversions.
Addressing the question of inalienable rights by repeatedly arguing that criminals lose theirs when they break the law is relevant how?
I don’t think your argument that the self evident truth that we are endowed by God with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is “not foundational to our government in practice” will fly either, but please make it rather than just stating it as fact.
You did mention that it was not written into the Constitution or Bill of Rights, but since it is God’s law, inalienable and self evident, I’m not sure how or why you would expect to see it residing among man’s fully alienable laws, in documents themselves that can be legally changed (alienable) through the proper process.
Self-evident and untouchable laws from God are not written by men, they can only be recognized/acknowledged by men, as was done eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which by the way, is our foundational document. We fought and died for independence — the independence expressed in that foundational document and its self-evident truths.
Once we won that independence, once we died in sufficient numbers, we could go about the technical business of establishing laws and liberty guarantees via other documents. Put simply, declaring our independence through that founding document, and winning that independence, is the reason there is a Constitution and Bill of Rights. Not foundational? I don’t think so.
On to “not practiced.”
The inalienable, self evident truths/rights (which are the foundation of that foundational document) are not practiced, you say? Prove it. So far the only proof you have offered of them not being practiced is in your example of them being denied criminals and suspected criminals.
You simply will have to do better than that. What you are prposing would have profound impacts on every citizen. In light of that, focusing any real attention on criminals is a diversion. Let’s try to talk about people who without a doubt have not forfeited their rights through lawless actions or threat of same.
Mountain Man – I was struck by something familiar in your presentation, and I looked up Vox Day’s “The Irrational Atheist” – your wording is awfully close to that of the list on page 295 (appendix B). Seems like you two are working from the same playbook.
Speaking of not giving straight answers, neither you nor Day address the Dilemma as it is understood today. The link I gave in comment #50 above introduces that in its second paragraph. But I pointed it out way, way back in the article that was posted here: “The extension to morality should be obvious. It is, of course, generally held that God approves of moral behavior. But the question now becomes, is moral behavior approved by God because it’s inherently good and deserving of approval? Or is it simply the case that whatever God just happens to approve of becomes, by that very fact, moral and good?”
It’s difficult to believe that you weren’t aware of this, especially since you commented on that article. In essence, it seems you be you (and Day) that’s performing the bait-and-switch. Atheists are quite often accused of only addressing weak forms of theistic arguments; theists can, however, act in complementary fashion.
To take your list in order:
1. Obedience is, indeed, a chief virtue of Christian morality, perhaps the chief one. But that does not justify why obedience to God should be highly valued. Is there something inherently good about obedience to God, or is it just in our interest to do what the Most Powerful Being wants? As I said in that paper, “A logical corollary of this idea is that, for example, the people in France and Poland who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers did have the right principle in mind. Their mistake was picking the wrong bully to submit to.” Is the only difference between God and an S.S. officer that God is more powerful?
2. The Greek term translated into English as ‘pious’ has connotations not present in the English term, but that’s not so important, since the modern form of the Dilemma doesn’t involve that term. This point is not relevant to the argument I’ve made.
3. This also is irrelevant, and indeed I noted this in my original article in footnote 9.
4. This, again, is very reminiscent of a sentence on page 296 of Day’s book. By focusing only on piety, and not “good” as all modern philosophical discussion of the Dilemma actually does, Day sidesteps the actual point of the argument. What we’ve (or at least I’ve) been talking about is whether “the good” (or “the moral”) is defined in circular terms, not ‘piety’. The basic form of the Dilemma was expressed by Plato, with some of the ramifications, but it’s been developed a bit further since then.
Raymond Ingles:
“As Carl Sagan put it: ‘If we teach everybody… habits of skeptical thought, they will probably not restrict their skepticism to UFOs… Maybe they’ll start asking awkward questions about economic, or social, or political, or religious institutions. Perhaps they’ll challenge the opinions of those in power. Then where would we be?’”
They already are; that’s why there is a proliferation of ridiculous conspiracy theories:
“The secularist who chides religious believers for having faith in what the Church teaches will also tell them, in the very next breath and with no sense of irony, to shut up and trust the experts where scientific matters are concerned. That there are philosophers and theologians who can present powerful and sophisticated justifications of religious belief is taken to be no defense of the average believer – he ought to ‘think for himself,’ says the secularist. And yet while the average secularist couldn’t give you an interesting explanation or defense of quantum mechanics, relativity theory, or evolution if his life depended on it, the fact that there are experts who can do so is taken by him to justify his own faith in their findings. As the philosopher Christopher Martin has noted, the real difference between medieval and modern people is not that the former believe in the need for authority and the latter don’t – in fact both medievals and moderns believe in it and act accordingly – but rather that the former admitted that they believed in it, while the latter pretend they don’t.”
You might be interested in the rest http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=092006B.
Mr. Adams – Can I assume that we’re in agreement, or at least mutual understanding, about 85% of what I wrote in comment 57? I don’t have to fret about being accused of wanting to set up a rationalist dictatorship? Your only worries are about what I wrote in the very last paragraph? I’ll assume so, since that’s the only part you addressed in your response.
My point about ‘inalienable’ rights being ‘alienated’ is that ‘inalienable’ is not the right term to use. If they were truly inalienable, then they couldn’t be lost or removed. I don’t think I’m being pedantic, here – clarity of thought and expression matter. They are “fundamental” rights, “critical” rights, “vital” rights, but they can be lost. Circumstances do make a difference.
People who have demonstrated that they misuse their rights can have their rights removed. (Criminals.) People who we have strong reason to believe will or may misuse their rights can have their rights removed as well. (Children, the mentally ill.) We do this as a practical matter, and ideally as little as possible.
But you’re asking about people who aren’t criminals, or children, or mentally ill. You worry that, without religion, there will be nothing to protect their rights. There have been problems in the past, though – slavery, the Alien and Sedition acts, the internment of citizens of Japanese descent in WWII, the anti-communist scares and the civil rights abuses of the 1950′s and 60′s, and now the current push for broad, warrantless surveillance and stripping of Constitutional rights based on pure accusation. All of these things happened despite the alleged ‘inalienability’ of these rights, despite the religiosity of people in power. In some cases, directly because of their religiosity.
You’re worried that a lack of religion will lead to abuses and violations of rights. I’ve been trying to point out that I’ve not seen any evidence that religion has actually prevented much in the way of abuses. People often claim that atheists simply must be rampaging psychopaths, but actual studies find very minimal differences, if any, in the actual behavior of atheists and theists. How, exactly, do you know that a shift from theistic to practical bases for morality will have ‘profound’ effects, and how do you know that are they all positive or negative?
Sedonaman – the final period on your link got incorporated into the link itself, and I get an error trying to load it directly from your comment. I had to edit the URL to remove the trailing “.” to get to the article itself. Computers are very literal beasts, I’m afraid.
There actually is a difference between accepting theological pronouncements and scientific ones. As Carl Sagan put it in “The Demon-Haunted World”: So how is a shamanistic or theological or New Age doctrine different from quantum mechanics? The answer is that even if we cannot understand it, we can verify that it works… the predictions of quantum mechanics are strikingly, and to high accuracy, confirmed.
The GPS system depends on Relativity every single minute of every day. If it didn’t take relativistic effects into account it’d be thousands of miles off in a matter of days. And the GPS system works. That’s something anyone can confirm. Apart from a few deranged parents that I’ve alluded to before, the first place nearly anyone with a medical problem turns to these days is modern medicine. Sagan puts it this way: We can pray over the cholera victim, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hour… We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of chlozapine…
Skepticism doesn’t mean doubting everything, all the time. It means asking how we know what we know, and to how many decimal places.
Raymond Ingles:
“There actually is a difference between accepting theological pronouncements and scientific ones. … We can pray over the cholera victim, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hour… We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of chlozapine… Skepticism doesn’t mean doubting everything, all the time. It means asking how we know what we know, and to how many decimal places.”
I disagree that there is a difference. I’m not sure I have much faith in “Sagan the Pagan.” He might be an expert in astronomy, but he passed himself off as a climatologist as well. He never said what his qualifications were WRT climate. Now he’s a medical expert? Give me a break! Even if he were, you would be putting faith (yes, faith) in his prescription for a patient because you yourself had never gone through the proof that the prescription works. This is why authority is so important. If your wife were schizophrenic, would you go to the lab and perform the experiments yourself on other patients first, or would you accept a doctor’s authority on faith? Just saying the results can be re-confirmed in a lab is insufficient. How do you really know the experiments would be re-conducted correctly, or at all? You would take the doctor’s word on faith.
“Skepticism doesn’t mean doubting everything, all the time.”
I’m not sure you read Professor Feser’s article; for, as he observes, the “default position” with too many people today is to challenge any and all authority, and solely for the sake of defiance. My secretary’s son, an engineer, couldn’t get a job because he defied every potential employer’s authority to require him to get a haircut and shave. The police riddled his body with bullets after he shot up the local unemployment office, killing six including a police officer I knew. There was also the case of the man who had a bumper sticker that read, “Challenge Authority” and who became shocked, shocked I tell you, when his own kid challenged his authority.
There is also a problem on the other side. Too often, students who ask for proof of the latest liberal intellectual dogma are condemned as “Nazis!” (or worse, “Christians!”) for being “insensitive” to the plight of some minority group or other, or being attached to traditional ways of life.
Having said all this, I have no problem asking how a particular proof was arrived at, and an honest teacher shouldn’t have a problem providing it.
If you are genuinely interested in proofs, particularly how do we really know anything, I recommend The Science Before Science by physicist Anthony Rizzi. IMHO, he’s infinitely better than Carl Sagan, who was mainly entertainment, and poor at that.
Summarizing Vox Day’s comments was all I needed to do, since he cogently states that which would take me a lot more time to assemble. And frankly, this minimal effort was warranted, given the continuing silly little tangents and focus on minutae.
Mountain Man – a cogent reply to one question shouldn’t be too hard. Is the only [moral] difference between God and an S.S. officer that God is more powerful?
Sedonaman – if you’re aware of any studies demonstrating a similar or better effectiveness of prayer than tetracycline for cholera, I’m open to reading them. I’m reasonably sure that Sagan was onto something with that One. There are a few different ways people use the term ‘faith’. The colloquial meaning is ‘trust’ – which can be justified by experience and investigation. (C. S. Lewis defined faith that way, BTW.) That’s different from the way it’s used by many religions, ‘strong belief regardless of evidence’.
I assert that trust in medicine and science in general is not based on belief without evidence. I can’t name a single person in my family who hasn’t benefited – often in a life-saving way – from modern medicine. My mother-in-law has open-heart surgery scheduled for Monday. Are you going to tell me that the confidence – not absolute confidence, but confidence – that she’ll survive having her chest pried open, and indeed will, in a few months, be better off than she is now, is unfounded?
Does the existence of people who are either too credulous, or too doubtful, imply that there isn’t a possible balance to be struck between the two?
Not even close to 85 percent. Sorry.
1. I agree with you on teaching thinking skills and science.
2. While kids die when misguided parents deny them medical attention they need based on religious beliefs, it is not a problem of any significance when measured against the population, and it certainly isn’t an argument for educating religion out of everyone, anymore than banning law abiding citizens from owning guns is the answer to gun crime.
3. I would not teach children that they demand evidence to back all of their beliefs – at least not your definition of evidence. Some things are experienced in such a way as to establish their truth. Love is a powerful and profound thing that is difficult to explain and prove, yet ask someone if they can prove it exists and they are likely to say they already have – many times over.
If you told me you loved your wife, for example, what would I be accomplishing if I demanded that you deliver me a scraping of tissue or a mathematical formula to prove it, and when you could not, I attempted to convince you that without that evidence you have nothing to base your belief upon?
4. I do not agree that religious faith is the product of laziness or credulousness, though of course it could be in some cases. Lots of people are not sincere about one thing or another.
5. As for inalienable, God-given rights as a self-evident truth, all I can do is remind you that I referenced them in pointing out that they are the basis of our independence and liberty in the U.S., which is why it is no small matter when someone like yourself suggests we need not respect those truths as ratified in the Declaration of Independence.
As stated in the Declaration, those “truths” were our given reason for declaring independence. They also are the reason we fought and died.
I take the position of our founders that we are endowed with these rights at birth without conditions.
As to whether a criminal is free to forfeit these rights if he chooses, the answer is clearly “yes.”
All he has to do is fail in his duty to God and/or fellow man/society. At that time the government, formed to effect the safety and happiness of its citizens, applies the law.
I keep trying to explain this in the hope that you can make the distinction between a person bringing about his own undoing through criminal action and an innocent, law-abiding person who has chosen to keep and respect his God-given rights rather than trade them for loot, or perhaps another’s life.
But you are being pedantic.
Your recommendation that we abolish or happily watch disolve the concept of certain inalienable, God-given rights undermines our liberty. It does not mean that we must lose our liberty, but it provides the means for it – and without force.
When men have the power to tell other men that there is nothing they may have in this world that is not awarded by men, they also are explaining that men have the power to giveth and taketh away as they please, to pick apart at those moral strategies of yours – amenable to experimentation as they are.
That is why certain basic, inalienable rights are the most important foundational guarantee of liberty in a civil society.
Also, I would ask you to reread some of your own writing. I can appreciate that you are trying to make your case, but to correct Mr. Jefferson by pointing out that he made a mistake and that “inalienable is not the right term to use?” It certainly is clear you do not embarrass easily, so I don’t mind asking if we are to believe you are better qualified to have written the Declaration of Independence?
And to base your position on the supposed contradiction of holding criminals accountable for their crimes? That’s just silly.
By your argument, King George’s best answer to the Declaration of Independence would have been something to the effect of, “Oh yeah, well as long as you all are locking up your murderers there is no such thing as an inalienable right, so you’re my bitches until I say otherwise.”
As for detaining terror suspects, particularly those suspected of planning large scale murders, reality dictates that the right to life of hundreds or thousands of potential victims be taken into consideration along with considering the liberty to be granted a single suspected terrorist. Government does have more than criminals and criminal suspects to protect, don’t you know?
Mr. Adams – I’m not sure that you actually do have a handle on my “definition of evidence”. It’s not like no one has ever brought up the idea that “you can’t prove love, either” to me before – even on this very site (see comments 213 and 221). Heck, you and I have even discussed similar topics before.
Religion isn’t solely due to credulousness and/or intellectual laziness. But (at least) the really virulent forms of it require such an environment to grow.
As to rights – fine, we’ll call them ‘only-self-alienable rights’. Except in times of war or emergency. Or whenever the President says so because of ‘energy’, if you believe some people (for some reasons why they’re wrong, see here.
I actually agree that a cavalier attitude to foundational rights is a big problem – and I can’t understand why more conservatives aren’t disgusted with our current president for that very reason – but that’s because of the demonstrably bad effects messing with them has. All of the examples I listed in comment 62 are pretty much universally regarded as huge mistakes today, aside from a few nutballs.
And yes, I’ll even grant that moral strategies can be tested and modified. Even in science, the most well-founded theories can be challenged by new evidence. But as I’ve pointed out to fbaginski before, even major scientific revolutions seldom end up changing the practical landscape much. NASA still uses basically Newtoniam mechanics to guide its space probes, with a few occasional pseudo-relativistic fudge factors, since a full relativistic treatment would be inconveniently complex. Similarly, we have a lot of history of governments to draw from, and principles like the rights you speak of rest on pretty firm empirical and practical grounds.
Actually, all the things we know should be, in principle at least, open to question, because people are fallible. I don’t have to claim to be Jefferson’s equal or superior – or even to fail to hold him in very high regard – to think that he did make some mistakes, even very serious ones. (Slaveholding, anyone?)
BTW, your ‘King George’ quote was actually the response of quite a few British. Samuel Johnson said of the revolting colonists, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.” (See, for more examples in the same vein, here.) He, too, spoke highly of religion… but it doesn’t seem to have led him to your conclusions.
Finally, it’s not the detaining of suspected terrorists that I find troubling. It’s indefinite detention, the suspension of habeas corpus, the arguing that they don’t even need to have a trial for such detainees, the torture without any trial, and so forth. These are the kinds of things that let the American colonists to revolt back then, actually… About the only thing they don’t argue they can do is force you to put up soldiers as boarders. At least, not yet.
Raymond Ingles:
I think you completely missed my point. In any event, can science explain the following?
1) E = m*c^2 written another way m = E / c^2. So where did the E come from?
2) How did the universe get to a state of reduced entropy?
sedonaman – I’m starting to get used to the sense of deja vu by now.
Mr. Ingles,
I’m not too interested in debating the issue of the president taking security measures at time of war, particularly when that war involves the targeting of U.S. citizens on our home soil.
About all I can say is I am sure the dilemma is gut-wrenching for a guy, particularly after the realities of 9/11. (We all recall what a horrible day that was, and we really don’t want to see a repeat?)
It has to be particularly tough when amidst gut turning, the guy’s head keeps reminding him that his primary job is to protect and defend the lives of our 300 million people. We elect leaders to make very, very tough decision, including ones that create conflict and debate and may run contrary to our system as practiced in times of peace.
It’s easy to get excited and outraged at the prospect of our rights being eroded, but I rely on history and common sense in times like these. I am sure when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, there are those who thought it was the end of times for America as a free society operating under the rule of law. I also understand that life is the liberty upon which all other liberties are predicated.
The better good, better safe than sorry, and other truisms come to mind, and in this case I don’t see them being used to justify anything more than life-saving goals. Conspiracy theorists and others may attribute them to evil intent.
As for the question of love, I hit your links. It is a lot trickier to parse than you would have us believe, and I think if you are objective, you will admit the difficulty it presents and its implications with respect to the concepts of faith, religion and God.
It appears you make a case for believing in something that “does not have measurable values” and state that there is no need for “utter certainty” to support all your beliefs.
But you go on to explain that since you have experienced a feeling of love, that feeling constitutes “good evidence,” as far as you are concerned.
I am willing to accept that you have the feeling, and since it appears to mirror the experiences of many, like you, I can accept that love is real.
But based on that, one also has to conclude that the devout also experience real love from God. I assume your argument would be that the source of the feeling is misplaced or in error, and I would agree that the feeling offers nothing conclusive about a source.
But might not love be a reliable sense, at least as reliable as our other senses? We may smell something we cannot see. We may or may not be able to identify that smell, depending on whether it resides in memory. But what if it is a smell we have never smelled? Do we discount it as imagination?
We trust in our sense, if we are sensible. And we admit that our mechanism is true, though our knowledge is lacking.
Now, I am sure it has not escaped you that I have just made a rational argument for atheism. I just wanted to try and get us to a point where we can agree that we can feel something real and powerful, like love, without knowing a lot about what it is objectively and scientifically.
Now we get to proof and evidence about that odor. Might one who feels God’s love read the Bible, use his knowledge of history and archeological evidence that establishes the truth of much of it, give weight to the testimony it contains and come to certain conclusions, which when combined whith their very real personal expierience of love amount to something at least as tangible as what you can assert about love?
And mind you, this example goes beyond the atheist’s experience, as at the point the one person detects an unidentifiable odor, the atheist says, “I don’t smell anything.” In other words, while you are able to use your feelings to prove your wife loves you, there is no equivalent feeling to assist you as you contemplate what I ask of you. If you can, please account for its abscense, pehaps even assigning it a value.
Also, imagine if you will an atheist who has never felt love. As an atheist who has felt love, how do you convince him that love is real? Point as you might to all the people who clearly exhibit the symptoms of it, he has no more faith in something he has no scientific proof of than he does a creator.
If you can do it without the examples of electric shocks and such, I would appreciate it. As was pointed out, it is difficult to determine whether it is love that causes someone to endure pain to protect another or sense of duty, moral principles, or other factors that could range from stubbornness to idocy. It also doesn’t account for someone with great capacity for love and a low tolerance for pain. And besides, I am sure your position on torture is that it produces little of value.
I agree that it’s a side issue, and I’ll agree to drop it henceforth, but since you brought up Lincoln, I’d like to point out this. It has a wonderful quote that I think many people on this site should reflect on. “Many loyal men deny this power to the President, and, however confident we may be that he possesses it, it is no imputation on the loyalty of the majority of the Court to presume that on this point they agree with their political school.” – Lincoln’s Attorney General, Edward Bates, advising not to bring a test case regarding habeas corpus before the Supreme Court. Would that more people today could wrap their heads around the notion of a ‘loyal opposition’.
Since all humans feel love – even autistic people (look up, e.g. Temple Grandin) – we won’t be able to run the experiment you propose until we meet some nonhumans – maybe aliens or robots or something. So you can imagine someone who doesn’t feel love and wouldn’t be convinced of the existence of it, but I’m afraid I don’t think that’s as likely as what I’ve proposed.
And the experience of “love from God” isn’t universal – at least, not when it’s interpreted so many different ways. So many other people are convinced that they’ve touched universal oneness, or Nirvana, or the spirits of the ancestors, or the Dreamtime, or whatever. Certainly religious feeling exists, but so do dreams, and I’ve already pointed out that that’s not evidence by itself for the existence of a ‘dream world’.
Feelings can point to realities, but they are not necessarily the apparent realities. E.g. sleep paralysis, which used to be interpreted in terms of demons or witches, and these days often as alien abduction. However, it appears to actually be a malfunction of the systems that prevent motion during dreams. I’ve never experienced sleep paralysis, but does that mean I’m being hasty in discounting the ‘demon’ hypothesis?
Mr. Ingles,
Thanks for passing on the Busch critcism. Your point is taken, but this being a discussion under the category of religion, faith, etc……
Feelings can “point to realities, but not necessarily the apparent realities?” I would remind you that God would not be apparent to an atheist?
Also, my questions stands. How would you explain to a an atheist who does not believe in love that love exists? I didn’t ask you to conduct the experiment, so your concern about finding a suitable subject, particularly a non-human one, isn’t a problem at all.
If it helps, I’ll ask the question this way: How would you convice Bill Maher love exists. Maher has stated in interviews and on television that he does not believe love exists, just animal desire and lust.
I once saw him become quite perturbed with Jay Leno when appearing as a guest. Somehow the conversation came around to romance. When Maher stated his belief on the subject, Leno argued that he believed in love and that he loved his wife.
Maher said something to the effect that anyone who believes in love is delusional. Leno countered that Maher was free to believe what he chooses and that, that was OK by Leno. He said something to the effect that not believing in love might work for Maher, but that it wasn’t for everybody.
Maher got very defensive and sour of face at what he clearly thought was Leno’s patronizing attitude. What made me think of Maher now is that his behavior resembled the responses I have seen from hard atheists who felt theists were patronizing and pitying them.
Maher’s response was the typical, “how dare you be so condescending. I am not missing anything, because what you are proposing I am missing, does not exist.”
Would you be able to make more of an argument than Leno, who simply said he believed in love because he loved his wife? Maher may not be the non-human you are looking for (or is he?), but he certainly seems to meet the criteria for a non-believer.
Mr. Adams – I can’t actually find any quotes of Bill Maher saying he doesn’t believe in love. I can find plenty saying he doesn’t believe in monogamy (and he mentions this on an interview with Larry King; is that what you’re referring to?) but that’s not at all the same thing as saying you don’t believe in love, period. (Indeed, it’s the ‘polyamorists’ who claim everyone else is limiting their love.) (I’m thoroughly monogamous, BTW.)
I think you may have misunderstood Maher, or misremember his points. I can’t actually find an example like you cite.
You see, my problem is that I don’t think there is such a thing as a human who doesn’t believe in love. Even sociopaths believe in love – and find it a very useful tool. It seems like you’re asking for something much like a philosophical zombie – which I also don’t think can exist.
Mr. Ingles:
Maher is entertainment; that’s all. So is Rush Limbaugh, but at least Rush admitted it.
Mr. INgles,
Since you persist at dodging the question, I will have to ask yet another way.
Can you provide scientifc proof that love exists? Once you provide it, I will forward it to Bill Maher and the person who responded first to the following post: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=171738
For those who do not want to hit the link, it is a post by someone asking for proof that love exists. A poster responded:
“Love, like god, is a concept – a mental construct – invented by salient creatures in order to give some substance to a subjective feeling.”
By the way, Nick_A on that forum is not me. I did a search on Yahoo using the term “prove love scientifically” and it was the first hit. Isn’t life strange?
Anyway, if instead of running down another of your rabbit trails we can run to your Web site, you state that you believe love exists and that “measurable values” and “utter certainty” are not required for your belief.
I, and the fellow who posted on the forum (and based on my pitiful memory, Maher) are calling you out for believing in something that lacks measurables and say you are delusional believing in such a silly thing. As the poster pointed out, love, like God, is an invention of humans.
Tell us where we can stick my opinions/beliefs and why.
Mr. Adams – I was busy showing love for my wife on Saturday (our wedding anniversary) and several other ladies on Sunday (Mother’s Day, y’know) so I haven’t gotten back to you. First off, we’d better come to some agreement on what ‘love’ is before we can proceed. I define it as “a condition whereby the happiness of another becomes important or essential to one’s own”. Does that work for you? If I could demonstrate that people do experience this, would that be sufficient to demonstrate love?
Mr. Ingles,
I can’t define the essence of love, and I am not certain anyone has. Though I doubt it can logically be defined as caring, as you suggest (particularly the selfish brand you describe).
Caring about someone’s happiness as demonstrated by certain behavior would appear to be a symptom of love, or an act of love, if you will. But is it love itself?
In much writing the phrase “love and caring” is used together, making a distinction between the two, caring apparently being a result of love.
I doubt anyone can argue that caring exists.
But I seek scientific evidence that love exists, which also may tell us what it is.
Well, if you can’t define it, then I can go grab a bucket of sand and say, “Here you go, there’s some love. Have a nice day.” Can you prove I haven’t captured love in a bucket?
Apparently we’ve been talking about two different things. I probably can’t scientifically prove whatever you’re talking about – let’s call it “Love” – but I know I can demonstrate what I’ve been talking about, ‘love’.
If you’re not familiar with the terms, you should look up ‘eros’, ‘philia’, and ‘agape’ – the Greek language had a better handle on love than English does. I strongly suspect that when people use the phrase ‘love and caring’, the mean something like “eros and caring” or “philia and caring”, not “agape and caring”, which would be redundant.
Mr. Ingles,
My point was that love might be a difficult thing to prove, partly because it is difficult to define what it is. There are such a varied and complex range of emotions involved.
Despite all the writtings, inlcluding those provided by the ancient Greeks, it still is a matter of debate, much as God is debatable despite (or because of) all that is written.
We can love another human, but we also have the capacity to love God, so love can’t be defined only as only earthly, as you proposed.
Christians believe when we love our brothers on earth and demonstrate it through good, we are showing love of God. Philia thus also is agape.
Does love create certain feelings or are certain feelings love? We’ve got a chicken and egg here.
You seem to have discovered the egg through the personal experience of caring for another’s happiness, but where did the egg come from?
What is love sceintifically? And if we don’t know what it is scientifically, can we be sure it exists? The answer is yes, if you don’t rely on science to tell you everything.
Again, I am perfectly willing to accept your position that not all things require absoulte proof or measurables. I believe our feelings do count for something (and you appear to agree to some extent on your Web site).
I think you recognize the complexity of the love question, as you allow for lack of evidence while maintaining your belief in love based on personal experience.
Are you recognizing that science may have nothing much to say about love (or God)at this point? That is only a problem for a mind that insists that nothing is real or worth considering that can’t be discovered or explained scientifically. Clearly that is not you, based on your writing, so I ask you to consider what you already appear to intuit.
Fill the gaps in our knowledge with reason and probablities that come from valuing and respecting the accuracy of science.
Fill the gaps in our spiritual lives with faith that comes from valuing and respecting the accuracy of our feelings.
Of course this requires accepting that there is a spiritual life apart from science – a difficult thing to do for those who put all their “faith” in science and seek to unify mankind and answer all things through science by displacing the supernatural.
Feelings are subjective, I know, and they will lead us astray, but so does science. Respecting both leads to the realization that they compliment one another and are not mutually exclusive. (Most scientific discovery to this point is owed to scientists who either believed in, or at least did not exclude, God.)
I believe science and the spiritual are embodied in the concept of the Yin and Yang, and our notions of balance and harmony and the importance of those concepts as reflected in human experience through the ages.
To be sure there are lots of religions and different ways of recognizing and explaining these feelings, but that is another matter altogether (and it may not matter as much as we think). Even a scientific mind that allows for a supernatural may be doing enough to be “true.”
Ask me if God exists, and I have to answer that I have no idea. But if you ask me if I believe God exists, I have to answer, “of course I do.”
Is that an assault on logic and reason? Perhaps to the logic and reason of a new science threatened by the coexistence of the theological and the natural rather than accepting the balance the two can provide.
I will allow that it may just be that science, young as it is, has not explained away all our “magic” yet.
Will you allow that it may never? That it may one day, without all the measurables and proofs, conclude that magic is real, and that in that moment science and scientists do not by the laws of physics have to vanish into the air?
Science isn’t just a dream if magic is real. It just means that science isn’t everything scientists of the last 100 years insist it is, which is the point most of the religious faithful try to make.
There is no crisis of physics if there is a God, and it is too bad Sir Newton isn’t around to confirm that and explain why it is so.
Mr. Adams – if the topic is entirely undefined, if nobody can agree even on what they’re talking about, then I’d have to question how anyone could claim to be sure of anything much about it. Like I said, I have a definition of love that works for me, that I’m quite sure is demonstrable, and that helps distinguish it from things like lust or affection. And your implication that love is not a feeling seems to be, well, a minority opinion.
My problem with the idea of ‘magic’ is that it doesn’t buy you anything. If you assume something is incomprehensible, you’ll stop trying to understand it. It seems to be a kind of despair, a despair of ever comprehending something. I’m not a fan of despair, I’m basically a hopeful guy. I guess I can understand the temptation to give in to that – the author Spider Robinson put it well: “Hope costs. Once you concede that problems can be solved, you have to get up off your a**. Despair, by contrast, is cheap, self-powering, eliminates unwanted guilt, and requires – permits – no effort.” But I think it’s a mistake; so many things that were incomprehensible have turned out to be understandable. Indeed, those scientists who believed in God, when they reached a difficult point in their research, tended to stop and say, “Here God comes in to take over.” Later scientists decided to push a bit further, and figured something out, and when they hit a difficulty, stopped at some new place. Until the next scientist came along… http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/PerimeterOfIgnorance.php
Or perhaps another quote is even more appropriate: “The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable.” – Roger Zelazny
I recognize the unknown, of course. I don’t think that everything is explained. It may even be true, as you claim, that there are unexplainable things. But I can’t see how that would make a difference from a purely practical perspective. I don’t see how science could conclude that magic was real. All it could ever say is, “We don’t understand that… yet.”
It’s true that since we don’t know everything (at least not yet, and quite possibly not ever) we have to make do with the knowledge we do have, and make educated guesses and have opinions. (One last quote, from David Gerrold: “You are not entitled to an opinion. An opinion is what you have when you don’t have any facts. When you have the facts, you don’t need an opinion.”) But I’m in favor of educated guesses and informed opinion. I can’t see how embracing the idea of the ‘unknowable’ helps.
Mr.Ingles,
“Magic” is something that can be understood, but not like you would like.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you need to get laid – metaphycially speaking.
All you can understand about magic, for example, is the recognition of the validity of that side of you which experiences magic – something that is easier to do once you lose your spiritual virginity.
As any rookie zen student will tell you, your quest to “understand” the things you can’t see and touch (and to truly understand the things you can) is like trying to weigh a thought on a scale. But just because it can’t be done is no reason for despair.
I can appreciate that you are not likely to put much stock in zen, since it doesn’t put too much stock in science and cognitive thinking, and indeed points out that thinking is our barrier.
As a good westerner, I happen to value thinking very highly, but I also can appreciate that thinking and knowledge about the physical world is only half the equation, which is why I do not despair.
It is simple recognition that science and what it can know, is not everything there is. At best it can only be everything there is in its domain. (Even that is yet to be seen).
Try to disect, describe and measure the other domain, and examine questions like the true nature the things that reside there (love and God) and the shortcomings of the tools used to measure the physical world become obvious.
When this happens a person always has the opportunity to retrench or rethink. But in terms of understanding what I have been suggesting, neither is the proper choice, and rethinking is even worse.
There is no “extraordinary proof,” Mr. Ingles, because proof is a word, a concept, and a thing from the physical realm and has no authority.
That may be a crisis of faith for non-believers, but if you try, the rest is accessible to anyone.
It’s discovery does not mean the end of your science, but the beginning of harmony, where full appreciation of what science is and can do becomes possible.
Being aware of the spiritual/metaphysical domain is no more difficult to manage than having a home and work life, a day and a night. They compliment one another and provide a satisfaction and sense of well being.
I know, I have given myself up as a total loon, right? (It could be worse and I could attempt to describe a metaphysical experience).
Doesn’t matter, really. All I am doing is playing a bit in the physical world – playing with a guy who has found balance and happiness on the deck of a physical world, never realizing that the ship has a wheel and can be steered to a different destination.
You already know more science than the average person by far. I suspect you think far more than the averagle person (which I appreciate, as you have been thinkg about my points and exhanging with me).
I’d say you deserve a break. Perhaps a cruise in unchartered waters. You don’t have to move to any of the island stops you may make, just be aware those islands are there.
I am not trying to be condescending. I believe like any thinker you suffer the pain of what you don’t know and that you treat yourself by ever expanding your knowledge (laudable in many ways, but not a compete remedy).
But for a thinker, a small part of that pain is always due to what he doesn’t want to know.
Again, please do not take this the wrong way. If you think about it (and I know you will), my recommendations for exploring the spritual are no different than your recommendations that I familiarize myself with Greek terms for love or to follow your links to various facts, figurs and scientific writings.