Charting the history of science
A little oversimplified, don't you think? In any event, even in college I knew better than to identify the Middle Ages with the Dark Ages, although plausibly there was a dark period during the early Middle Ages. Of course, the university system in Europe started during the Middle Ages, hardly a sign of overwhelming darkness.
Scientific anti-realism and science-bashing
According to anti-realists in the philosophy of science.
... a theory should never be regarded as truth...Proponents believe that science is full of theories that are proved incorrect, and that the majority of theories ultimately are rejected or refined. Great theories, such as Newton’s laws, have been proved incorrect.
That sounds like science-bashing to me, doesn't it? But, do scientists take umbrage? No,
This is the attitude of most scientists; they try to ignore the debate and let the philosophers decide the fine details about the nature of reality!
Nice of them to leave us philosophers with some work to do.
Actually, if you were a complete scientific anti-realist, the whole creation-evolution issue wouldn't even arise.
... a theory should never be regarded as truth...Proponents believe that science is full of theories that are proved incorrect, and that the majority of theories ultimately are rejected or refined. Great theories, such as Newton’s laws, have been proved incorrect.
That sounds like science-bashing to me, doesn't it? But, do scientists take umbrage? No,
This is the attitude of most scientists; they try to ignore the debate and let the philosophers decide the fine details about the nature of reality!
Nice of them to leave us philosophers with some work to do.
Actually, if you were a complete scientific anti-realist, the whole creation-evolution issue wouldn't even arise.
Engraved on God's Palms
I have two grown children. Though it now seems like a blur, I sometimes think about their early months of life. Everyone knows people who have such good babies. They don’t cry much, they just seem so happy. They sleep at night. I know those kinds of babies exist, but I didn’t have them. My firstborn, Sarah cried for the first 6 months of her life. She would be fed, dry, and seemingly have all her needs met…yet she would cry and cry and cry. After a while, I cried too. The only way to settle her down was to walk her. I walked and walked and walked. I felt like I would never sleep ever again or eat another meal in peace. Yet as my daughter, I wanted to do everything in my power to take care of her and let her know how much I cared about her.
In our reading from Isaiah, we see God as a loving, caring, providing parent. I have to admit that Isaiah is probably my favorite Old Testament prophet. His writings are full of such wonderful imagery. Sometimes we think that the God portrayed in the Old Testament is so different from what we see in Jesus in the New Testament—an angry vengeful God versus a God of love. What do you hear in these few verses? Do you hear anger, contempt, or frustration on the part of God?
Isaiah’s audience was in exile in Babylon, more than 500 miles from home. They were far from their homeland of Judah, far from the temple in Jerusalem, the place where God’s presence was thought to dwell.
Isaiah was not addressing the generation that was sent into exile because of their rebellion against God. The people he was talking to were two full generations later. For them, Babylon was home and Jerusalem a place that was only in their imaginations. God had put their ancestors into a very long time out.
Isaiah describes their situation as that of prisoners in the darkness who were suffering. We hear their pain in these words, “…The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me (v 14). Have you ever felt like that? Have you wondered about where God was in your darkest hour? I have. I think we’ve all had times like this where the pain and anguish are so deep that you wonder if you’ll ever live through it.
We hear a lot of voices when times are tough, as did those in exile. There were obstacles to be overcome. How would God return them to their ancient homeland? There were armies and kings and rulers in their way. They were in exile, but God uses whoever God wants to use to accomplish God’s purposes. God exiled his people through the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and God set them free through the Persian King Cyrus. With the promise of being set free, the Jewish people had a dilemma.
Despite the call to sing for joy, the people felt forgotten. They were in exile not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally. Even though God cared for them, they felt forsaken.
Are there times in your life when you feel forsaken or forgotten? What do we experience as individuals, as a community, as a church? Are we exiled from one another because of relationships that are broken? Maybe we were not the cause of the break, but only suffer because of it.
When my brother died, my niece was 10 years old. With his death, family relationships died as well. I wondered if this break would ever be healed. I kept wondering, could I have done anything different that would have changed the actions of my sister-in-law? It took a while for me to let go. God did what I could not do. Just before Christmas, I was contacted by my niece whom I had not seen or spoken with in 16 years. Last week, while on vacation, we had a family reunion which included that niece. God cares about us and feels our pain. When God chooses, God can restore the broken pieces of our lives in ways we could never imagine.
To bring this point home, Isaiah uses mothering imagery about the nature of God. I know we have mothers here in this congregation. Could you forget your nursing child? Can you be indifferent to your children even when they have wandered? When they are all grown up, they’re still our children. We cannot seem to turn off our emotions of love and concern for them. If we feel this way, how do you think God feels about us? God says, “Even [if] these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (v. 15).
God holds us close. We are inscribed on his hands. The Hebrew word for inscribed is the same word used for digging out a grave, for scratching or marking in a stone tablet. We’re not just written in ink on God’s hands. We are carved into the palms of the One who will never forget or forsake us.
As I was preparing for this morning, I kept hearing this song by David Haas running through my mind. I’d like to share it with you:
You Are Mine
I will come to you in the silence
I will lift you from all your fear
You will hear My voice
I claim you as My choice
Be still, and know I am near
I will lift you from all your fear
You will hear My voice
I claim you as My choice
Be still, and know I am near
I am hope for all who are hopeless
I am eyes for all who long to see
In the shadows of the night,
I will be your light
Come and rest in Me
I am eyes for all who long to see
In the shadows of the night,
I will be your light
Come and rest in Me
I am strength for all the despairing
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free
And all will know My name
I am the Word that leads all to freedom
I am the peace the world cannot give
I will call your name, embracing all your pain
Stand up, now, walk, and live
Chorus:
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free
And all will know My name
I am the Word that leads all to freedom
I am the peace the world cannot give
I will call your name, embracing all your pain
Stand up, now, walk, and live
Chorus:
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine.
Amen.
Google Images
On the Objectivity of Science
I think Bob's point has to be modified in certain ways, in that I think that science has the means to eventually correct its biases and mistakes over time. It is a human enterprise, subject to peer pressures and what not, but eventually it has the ability to snap out of its biases. Take, for example, the behaviorist phenomenon in psychology. I remember when I was an undergraduate that the entire psychology department at ASU was one big rat lab. Eventually this broke down, and now this period of the history of psychology is made fun of. But you would have been made fun of in those days if you thought behaviorism wasn't the wave of the future. Sometimes science gets out of a rut simply because the major figures keeping it in that rut die off.
In short, I would say that science has ways of moving in the direction of objectivity, but the wheels of the science gods may move more slowly than most people realize. Hence a strong apparent consensus in the scientific community may represent nothing more than a passing phase, not a guarantee that science has reached genuine certainty.
I'm not saying Bob would deny this. I do think what you have to say that science, as a intersubjective human enterprise, moves in the direction of objectivity, though it never achieves complete objectivity.
In short, I would say that science has ways of moving in the direction of objectivity, but the wheels of the science gods may move more slowly than most people realize. Hence a strong apparent consensus in the scientific community may represent nothing more than a passing phase, not a guarantee that science has reached genuine certainty.
I'm not saying Bob would deny this. I do think what you have to say that science, as a intersubjective human enterprise, moves in the direction of objectivity, though it never achieves complete objectivity.
Bob Prokop on Science and Objectivity
Victor,
You, if anyone, are well aware that I am the very last person to admit there is anything like a real conflict between Science and Religion. That said, I am also very much opposed to some of the frankly absurd conclusions arrived at by various persons who have a less-than-professional expertise in BOTH fields. I'm thinking not only of scientifically-ignorant Young Earth Creationists, but also of those (primarily atheist) persons who claim an objectivity for Science that it in no way deserves.
With that in mind, I simply have to quote to you a passage from a remarkable book I have stumbled across: "Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science", by Jan Golinski, Cambridge University Press, 1998, page ix:
"There is nothing self-evident or inevitable about scientific claims that become established as "truths" in specific times and places. ... Scientific knowledge should be understood primarily as a human product, made with locally situated cultural and material resources, rather than simply the revelation of a pre-given order of nature."
Golinski argues that, while the "Facts" accrued by scientific research may deserve a modicum of trust and be granted a (strictly defined) degree of objectivity, the broader conclusions derived from such knowledge are inextricably part of the prevalent culture and existing power structures. He makes a convincing case.
This has HUGE implications for the OTF. It means that no atheist (or skeptic, or whatever) can claim to stand "outside" of anything, simply by incanting "scientific" tropes under the illusion (dare I say "delusion"?) that such information is inherently objective. The DATA may very well be so (and there are limits even to that), but whatever effects such raw information may have on KNOWLEDGE can never be so. The scientist (or layperson relying on scientific research) will forever be a product of his times, his culture, and his environment. No one is an outsider.
As a very specific illustration of this concept, allow me to draw your attention to a perfectly wonderful book, also by Cambridge University Press, by Maria Lane, "Geographies of Mars" (2011). The book concerns how astronomers understood Mars throughout history. You might be aware that around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries, it was widely believed, both by professional astronomers as well as by the public as a whole, that Mars was inhabited by a canal-building intelligent race. Here is what Ms. Lane has to say about that belief. It is well worth a careful read:
"The geopolitical moment in which the inhabited Mars narrative unfolded - dominated as it was by European imperialism and American expansionism - produced an intellectual and social climate in which the view of Mars as an arid, dying, irrigated world peopled by unfathomably advanced beings was really the only interpretation of Mars observations that could plausibly have been accepted by large numbers of Western scientists, writers, and audiences."
My point for bringing this up? Simply this - the widespread assertions by persons who make a habit of conjuring up "Science" (although they are most likely not themselves scientists) with the aim of confining religious thought to a supposed "God of the Gaps", and their claim that "History is on Our Side", are no less a product of the contemporary environment than the now discredited belief in intelligent life on Mars, and will someday be regarded with the same degree of amusement by future generations, who do not share our own particular cultural prejudices and blinders.
Bob
You, if anyone, are well aware that I am the very last person to admit there is anything like a real conflict between Science and Religion. That said, I am also very much opposed to some of the frankly absurd conclusions arrived at by various persons who have a less-than-professional expertise in BOTH fields. I'm thinking not only of scientifically-ignorant Young Earth Creationists, but also of those (primarily atheist) persons who claim an objectivity for Science that it in no way deserves.
With that in mind, I simply have to quote to you a passage from a remarkable book I have stumbled across: "Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science", by Jan Golinski, Cambridge University Press, 1998, page ix:
"There is nothing self-evident or inevitable about scientific claims that become established as "truths" in specific times and places. ... Scientific knowledge should be understood primarily as a human product, made with locally situated cultural and material resources, rather than simply the revelation of a pre-given order of nature."
Golinski argues that, while the "Facts" accrued by scientific research may deserve a modicum of trust and be granted a (strictly defined) degree of objectivity, the broader conclusions derived from such knowledge are inextricably part of the prevalent culture and existing power structures. He makes a convincing case.
This has HUGE implications for the OTF. It means that no atheist (or skeptic, or whatever) can claim to stand "outside" of anything, simply by incanting "scientific" tropes under the illusion (dare I say "delusion"?) that such information is inherently objective. The DATA may very well be so (and there are limits even to that), but whatever effects such raw information may have on KNOWLEDGE can never be so. The scientist (or layperson relying on scientific research) will forever be a product of his times, his culture, and his environment. No one is an outsider.
As a very specific illustration of this concept, allow me to draw your attention to a perfectly wonderful book, also by Cambridge University Press, by Maria Lane, "Geographies of Mars" (2011). The book concerns how astronomers understood Mars throughout history. You might be aware that around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries, it was widely believed, both by professional astronomers as well as by the public as a whole, that Mars was inhabited by a canal-building intelligent race. Here is what Ms. Lane has to say about that belief. It is well worth a careful read:
"The geopolitical moment in which the inhabited Mars narrative unfolded - dominated as it was by European imperialism and American expansionism - produced an intellectual and social climate in which the view of Mars as an arid, dying, irrigated world peopled by unfathomably advanced beings was really the only interpretation of Mars observations that could plausibly have been accepted by large numbers of Western scientists, writers, and audiences."
My point for bringing this up? Simply this - the widespread assertions by persons who make a habit of conjuring up "Science" (although they are most likely not themselves scientists) with the aim of confining religious thought to a supposed "God of the Gaps", and their claim that "History is on Our Side", are no less a product of the contemporary environment than the now discredited belief in intelligent life on Mars, and will someday be regarded with the same degree of amusement by future generations, who do not share our own particular cultural prejudices and blinders.
Bob
What it is to be persuaded by an argument
This is from my reply to Keith Parsons in essay "Some Supernatural Reasons Why My Critics are Wrong" (a title that was given to my essay by someone else), in Philosophia Christi (Volume 5, no. 1, 2003).
But think for a moment about what it is to be persuaded by an argument. If we are thinking in common-sense terms, we would have to say that what goes on when we are persuaded by Parsons's argument that Arizona State will not be in the BCS this year is that we consider the epistemic strength of the premises, the grounding relation between the premises and the conclusion, and then accept the conclusion as a result of considering the evidence presented in the argument. To be convinced by an argument is for the reasons presented in the argument to play a causal role in the production of the belief. If the argument is causally irrelevant to the belief, then we cannot say that the argument was persuasive. This can often be cashed out counterfactually: If I really am persuaded by Parsons's argument, then it cannot be the case that I am such a partisan of the Arizona Wildcats that I would think the worst of the Sun Devils' prospects even if the Sun Devils had a Heisman trophy candidate at quarterback, outstanding and experienced running backs and wide receivers, a rock-solid offensive line, and was returning everyone from what had been the stingiest defense in the Pac-10 the previous year.
On the one hand, the reasons have to persuade me in virtue of their being reasons. The logical force of the argument has to have a causal impact on belief. It has to make a difference as to whether I form the belief or fail to form the belief in question. And that, by the way, is bound to make a difference as to what I do with my body. I am going to behave differently if I think the Devils have a good chance to take the Pac-10 title than if I don't. And that is going to affect what the particles in the physical world do. But if the physical is causally closed, that means that the physical and only the physical can affect where the particles in the physical world go, and, the physical is defined as lacking, at the basic level of analysis, the central features of the mental. So the only way this kind of causal relation could possibly exist, would be if we could analyze the mental in physical terms as a kind of macro-state of the physical. Just as the word "planet" is absent from physical vocabulary, but a whole bunch of particle-states add up to there being a planet, perhaps "S's belief that P" can be added up from a set of physical states. But that seems to me to be just impossible. Add up the physical all you like, and you aren't going to get "S's belief that P." The physical leaves the mental indeterminate. Yet, if science is to be possible, is has to be determinate whether, for example, Einstein is plussing or quussing when he is adding numbers in the course of developing his theory.
So, I argue that you need mental causation for the possibility of science, but you can't get that without affirming what seems to be an implausible reductionism, that conflicts with the indeterminacy of the physical.
But think for a moment about what it is to be persuaded by an argument. If we are thinking in common-sense terms, we would have to say that what goes on when we are persuaded by Parsons's argument that Arizona State will not be in the BCS this year is that we consider the epistemic strength of the premises, the grounding relation between the premises and the conclusion, and then accept the conclusion as a result of considering the evidence presented in the argument. To be convinced by an argument is for the reasons presented in the argument to play a causal role in the production of the belief. If the argument is causally irrelevant to the belief, then we cannot say that the argument was persuasive. This can often be cashed out counterfactually: If I really am persuaded by Parsons's argument, then it cannot be the case that I am such a partisan of the Arizona Wildcats that I would think the worst of the Sun Devils' prospects even if the Sun Devils had a Heisman trophy candidate at quarterback, outstanding and experienced running backs and wide receivers, a rock-solid offensive line, and was returning everyone from what had been the stingiest defense in the Pac-10 the previous year.
On the one hand, the reasons have to persuade me in virtue of their being reasons. The logical force of the argument has to have a causal impact on belief. It has to make a difference as to whether I form the belief or fail to form the belief in question. And that, by the way, is bound to make a difference as to what I do with my body. I am going to behave differently if I think the Devils have a good chance to take the Pac-10 title than if I don't. And that is going to affect what the particles in the physical world do. But if the physical is causally closed, that means that the physical and only the physical can affect where the particles in the physical world go, and, the physical is defined as lacking, at the basic level of analysis, the central features of the mental. So the only way this kind of causal relation could possibly exist, would be if we could analyze the mental in physical terms as a kind of macro-state of the physical. Just as the word "planet" is absent from physical vocabulary, but a whole bunch of particle-states add up to there being a planet, perhaps "S's belief that P" can be added up from a set of physical states. But that seems to me to be just impossible. Add up the physical all you like, and you aren't going to get "S's belief that P." The physical leaves the mental indeterminate. Yet, if science is to be possible, is has to be determinate whether, for example, Einstein is plussing or quussing when he is adding numbers in the course of developing his theory.
So, I argue that you need mental causation for the possibility of science, but you can't get that without affirming what seems to be an implausible reductionism, that conflicts with the indeterminacy of the physical.
MORE IMPERIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM OBAMA
HERE AT THE ALEXANDRIA DAILY POOP, WE REFER TO THE CURRENT RESIDENT OF 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NORTHWEST AS "PRESIDENT" OBAMA. WE HAVE AMPLE JUSTIFICATION FOR THOSE QUOTE MARKS, AND "PRESIDENT" OBAMA GIVES FRESH JUSTIFICATION TO US DAILY. The latest shennanigan pulled by ol' Dumbo ears is particularly galling.
Obama, who swore an oath to uphold and execute the law, has announced that he will NOT uphold the "Defense of Marriage Act" because a lower court has declaared it unconstitutional. But his justification by the lower court's ruling evaporates in the face of the fact that, even though the so-called "Obamacare" law has been TWICE declared unconstitutional, he and his minions are proceeding apace with implementing the law.
Translation: I decide what laws will be enforced and I will ignore laws I can't veto.
House oversight committee, are you seeing this? Articles of Impeachment NOW, please; before Obama decides he can declare martial law and suspend the election he is sure to lose due to actions just like this one.
Obama, who swore an oath to uphold and execute the law, has announced that he will NOT uphold the "Defense of Marriage Act" because a lower court has declaared it unconstitutional. But his justification by the lower court's ruling evaporates in the face of the fact that, even though the so-called "Obamacare" law has been TWICE declared unconstitutional, he and his minions are proceeding apace with implementing the law.
Translation: I decide what laws will be enforced and I will ignore laws I can't veto.
House oversight committee, are you seeing this? Articles of Impeachment NOW, please; before Obama decides he can declare martial law and suspend the election he is sure to lose due to actions just like this one.
Christians are gaining in numbers, not atheists
I am redating this post.
According to this report from Inside Catholic.
HT: Bob Prokop
According to this report from Inside Catholic.
HT: Bob Prokop
The Courtier's Reply
What the New Atheists call the Courtier's Reply concerns the fact that the New Atheist attack on theistic belief is often made in ignorance of what the theist believes. The rebuttal to the reply is that atheists claim that God does not exist, and therefore detailed accounts of exactly what Christians or other theists believe about their God is irrelevant.
In the emperor case, then king is naked, and this can be discovered by looking, and what color the imaginary clothes are supposed to be is irrelevant.
The legitimacy of this response depends on what aspects of theism are relevant to the arguments Dawkins and company are making. It is a matter of what is relevant to the reasons for rejecting Christianity or theism. Admittedly, a lack of knowledge about the difference between Arianism and orthodox trinitarianism is probably not relevant. However, to make this kind of claim, one needs to know what sorts of arguments for theism have been advanced. For example, if you go around saying that you can refute any first cause argument by asking the question who made God, you have to take into account the fact that the causal principles defenders of cosmological arguments use normally don't require that anything and everything needs a cause. In the case of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the principle is "Whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence." In the case of the Thomistic argument from contingency, there is a distinction between contingent and necessary beings, and while contingent things need causes, necessary beings do not. So your defense of the claim that all cosmological arguments fail in this way will inevitable come across as ignorant to people who know something about how such arguments are supposed to work
If your claim is that the God of the Bible is morally deficient, then you have to have some understanding about how Scripture passages are interpreted and understood by theologically informed religious believers. You could make the case against God without bringing any of this up, but if it is part of your case against God, then you need to do your homework and understand what believers actually say about this.
If your argument is that religion conflicts with science, then you have to take seriously the kinds of attempts that are made to reconcile religion and science by people who have considered the question.
Hence, some aspects of theology are going to be relevant to the arguments you would be making, and others may not be.
In the emperor case, then king is naked, and this can be discovered by looking, and what color the imaginary clothes are supposed to be is irrelevant.
The legitimacy of this response depends on what aspects of theism are relevant to the arguments Dawkins and company are making. It is a matter of what is relevant to the reasons for rejecting Christianity or theism. Admittedly, a lack of knowledge about the difference between Arianism and orthodox trinitarianism is probably not relevant. However, to make this kind of claim, one needs to know what sorts of arguments for theism have been advanced. For example, if you go around saying that you can refute any first cause argument by asking the question who made God, you have to take into account the fact that the causal principles defenders of cosmological arguments use normally don't require that anything and everything needs a cause. In the case of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the principle is "Whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence." In the case of the Thomistic argument from contingency, there is a distinction between contingent and necessary beings, and while contingent things need causes, necessary beings do not. So your defense of the claim that all cosmological arguments fail in this way will inevitable come across as ignorant to people who know something about how such arguments are supposed to work
If your claim is that the God of the Bible is morally deficient, then you have to have some understanding about how Scripture passages are interpreted and understood by theologically informed religious believers. You could make the case against God without bringing any of this up, but if it is part of your case against God, then you need to do your homework and understand what believers actually say about this.
If your argument is that religion conflicts with science, then you have to take seriously the kinds of attempts that are made to reconcile religion and science by people who have considered the question.
Hence, some aspects of theology are going to be relevant to the arguments you would be making, and others may not be.
Some further comments by Feser
I think this part of his post needs to be underscored.
Don’t expect the scales to fall from their eyes anytime soon, though. It is hard enough for anyone to say “I was wrong.” But the New Atheist has to say much more than that. To admit his errors really amounts to saying “I am exactly the sort of person that I have loudly, publicly, and repeatedly denounced and ridiculed, and the hating of whom gives me my sense of identity and self-worth.” That requires a nearly superhuman degree of honesty and courage. So, while this or that New Atheist loudmouth might, like David, finally see himself for what he really is, I think we can expect the bulk of them to continue their spiral into intellectual and moral darkness. All in the name of reason and morality, of course.
Don’t expect the scales to fall from their eyes anytime soon, though. It is hard enough for anyone to say “I was wrong.” But the New Atheist has to say much more than that. To admit his errors really amounts to saying “I am exactly the sort of person that I have loudly, publicly, and repeatedly denounced and ridiculed, and the hating of whom gives me my sense of identity and self-worth.” That requires a nearly superhuman degree of honesty and courage. So, while this or that New Atheist loudmouth might, like David, finally see himself for what he really is, I think we can expect the bulk of them to continue their spiral into intellectual and moral darkness. All in the name of reason and morality, of course.
What does naturalism exclude?
What makes a philosophy naturalistic, or even physicalistic? We are inclined to think that traditional Christian theism is supernaturalist view, but what makes something supernatural? Unlike C. S. Lewis, I want my naturalist opponents to tell me what their naturalism excludes. Otherwise, I'm just going to argue that my Christian world-view is just a liberal form of naturalism.
The characteristics of the physical that interest me are the absence of certain critical elements from the basic level of physics: intentionality or aboutness, normativity, subjectivity or perspectivality, and purpose. Would you consider something to be naturalistic if the fundamental-level explanation for its activity were, say, teleological? If something is purposive at the basic level of analysis, could it be naturalistic in any meaningful sense. If yes, then what do we have to include in our explanation in order for us to say "OK, if that's in the basic-level explanation, it's not naturalistic anymore."
The characteristics of the physical that interest me are the absence of certain critical elements from the basic level of physics: intentionality or aboutness, normativity, subjectivity or perspectivality, and purpose. Would you consider something to be naturalistic if the fundamental-level explanation for its activity were, say, teleological? If something is purposive at the basic level of analysis, could it be naturalistic in any meaningful sense. If yes, then what do we have to include in our explanation in order for us to say "OK, if that's in the basic-level explanation, it's not naturalistic anymore."
CORRECTION
HERE AT THE ALEXANDRIA DAILY POOP, WE TRY TO BE FACTUAL EVEN WHEN BEING SATIRICAL. WHEN WE MAKE AN ERROR AND/OR AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER WE ADMIT IT AND TRY TO MAKE AMENDS.
Therefore we apologize to the adherents of National Socialism for comparing Obama's private political organization OFA to the Sturmabietlung of Adolf Hitler's NSDAP. For that matter we apologize to the memory of Adolf Hitler himself. Obama is certainly no Hitler. He ccouldn't hold a candle to Onkel Adolf when it comes to getting a nation back on its feet, as Hitler certainly did with Germany (at least until he screwed up and attacked Russia).
No, Obama is much more like another dictator, a THIRD-WORLD GOON NAMED FRANCOIS DUVALIER AKA "PAPA DOC", and his OFA is much more like the TonTons Macoutes. Hitler built Germany up. Obama's vision for this country is much more like Duvalier's vision for Haiti. Witness his wife telling everyone to eat healthy and then stuffing her fat ass with ribs the nexxt night. Everybody else needs to tighten their belt, etc; but the Obamas live like they just hit ten Lotto jackpots.
However, everything else we said in the last post stands. The OFA needs to be investigated, and the conduct or facilitation of illegal activity by the OFA should be ample grounds for Articles of Impeachment.
Therefore we apologize to the adherents of National Socialism for comparing Obama's private political organization OFA to the Sturmabietlung of Adolf Hitler's NSDAP. For that matter we apologize to the memory of Adolf Hitler himself. Obama is certainly no Hitler. He ccouldn't hold a candle to Onkel Adolf when it comes to getting a nation back on its feet, as Hitler certainly did with Germany (at least until he screwed up and attacked Russia).
No, Obama is much more like another dictator, a THIRD-WORLD GOON NAMED FRANCOIS DUVALIER AKA "PAPA DOC", and his OFA is much more like the TonTons Macoutes. Hitler built Germany up. Obama's vision for this country is much more like Duvalier's vision for Haiti. Witness his wife telling everyone to eat healthy and then stuffing her fat ass with ribs the nexxt night. Everybody else needs to tighten their belt, etc; but the Obamas live like they just hit ten Lotto jackpots.
However, everything else we said in the last post stands. The OFA needs to be investigated, and the conduct or facilitation of illegal activity by the OFA should be ample grounds for Articles of Impeachment.
DER STURMABTILUNGEN BATTALONNEN DER OBAMA
IN AN ALARMING AND REVOLTING DEVELOPMENT, IT HAS BEEN REVEALED THAT "PRESIDENT" BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS FIELDING A CORPS OF RABBLE-ROUSERS BEHOLDEN ONLY TO HIM TO "ORGANIZE" MASS PROTESTS AIMED AT INTIMIDATING PRIVATE CITIZENS AS WELL AS STATE, LOCAL, AND FEDERAL OFFICIALS.
This gang of thugs is called "Organizing for America". It was previously "Organizing for Obama" and was and remains answerable to him alone. It is separate from even the Democrat Party.
Currently, "OFA" is coordinating mass protests of changes to Wisconsin's government employees' benefits packages. OFA is also aiding and abeting the Wisconsin legislators who have gone into hiding in order to deny a quorum for the passage of the benefits changes.
Like the Corleone Family, Obama and OFA have "a lot of buffers". Chief among them is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU goons have committed crimes such as the beating of a black Conservative activist outside of a "Town Hall" TEA party protest last summer.
While it may not be illegal for a president to have a staff of "volunteers" do his bidding (so long as they carry no Federal authority nor recieve any Federal dollars), if anything they do or cause to be done is criminal in nature, since they answer to Obama, it comes to roost on him.
It is high time for the House Oversight Committee to form a sub-committee to investigate this group, its tactics, its financing, and its ties to the White House.
And if the President of the United States is found to be operating his own personal clutch of Storm Troopers, then it is time to draw up Articles of Impeachment.
The Obama Administration has been and continues to be a disgraceful catastrophe. The enemies of these United States are moving apace to try to take every advantage while this nincompoop screws up and interferes with America's ability to turn on some stopping power to their shennannigans. TEA Party Congress people, do your jobs. And Senator Rand Paul. It is time for you to start twisting some Democrat arms, reminding them of the 29 seats they stand to lose next year. If Obama is impeached in the House, it is your job to ensure his conviction in the Senate and his removal from office.
Get moving, people. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance
This gang of thugs is called "Organizing for America". It was previously "Organizing for Obama" and was and remains answerable to him alone. It is separate from even the Democrat Party.
Currently, "OFA" is coordinating mass protests of changes to Wisconsin's government employees' benefits packages. OFA is also aiding and abeting the Wisconsin legislators who have gone into hiding in order to deny a quorum for the passage of the benefits changes.
Like the Corleone Family, Obama and OFA have "a lot of buffers". Chief among them is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU goons have committed crimes such as the beating of a black Conservative activist outside of a "Town Hall" TEA party protest last summer.
While it may not be illegal for a president to have a staff of "volunteers" do his bidding (so long as they carry no Federal authority nor recieve any Federal dollars), if anything they do or cause to be done is criminal in nature, since they answer to Obama, it comes to roost on him.
It is high time for the House Oversight Committee to form a sub-committee to investigate this group, its tactics, its financing, and its ties to the White House.
And if the President of the United States is found to be operating his own personal clutch of Storm Troopers, then it is time to draw up Articles of Impeachment.
The Obama Administration has been and continues to be a disgraceful catastrophe. The enemies of these United States are moving apace to try to take every advantage while this nincompoop screws up and interferes with America's ability to turn on some stopping power to their shennannigans. TEA Party Congress people, do your jobs. And Senator Rand Paul. It is time for you to start twisting some Democrat arms, reminding them of the 29 seats they stand to lose next year. If Obama is impeached in the House, it is your job to ensure his conviction in the Senate and his removal from office.
Get moving, people. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance
The animal that destroys even itself
IT is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with its tail in its mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating its tail -- a degraded animal who destroys even himself.
Chesterton-'Orthodoxy.'
Chesterton-'Orthodoxy.'
Dinesh D'Souza on Atheism and the Science Card
I'm a little dubious about using the absence of any scientific argument in the billboard campaign for atheism as evidence for much of anything. But are atheists entitled to assume that science is on their side?
FIRST BLOOD IN WASHINGTON D.C.
SHOCK WAVES ROLLED THROUGH WASHINGTON THIS WEEK WHEN CONGRESSPERSONS SENT TO D.C. BY THE TEA PARTY DEFIED THEIR PARTY LEADERSHIP AND VOTED DOWN A CONTROVERSIAL "SECOND ENGINE" FOR THE JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER.
Although the Washington Post and other leftist news organs tried to spin it as a "Republican defeat", the truth is that what the Left has been saying as a mantra; that the TEA partiers will soon be lulled into "business as usual"; has been shown to be wishful thinking on their part. The TEA partiers OPENLY DEFIED the Republican leadership. "Business as usual" in Washington D.C. breathed its death rattle with the voting down of the spare engine.
True, to effect this result the TEA partiers had to vote with some leftist anti-defense types. The lefties however did not want to avoid wasting money, they merely wanted to save the money for their own wasteful pet projects. While they found allies in the TEA partiers on this vote, when time comes for them to put forward their own loony ideas for spending the money, the same TEA partiers will kick their asses.
Useful idiots, don't you know.
Don't let the leftist media spin effort fool you. Political Kabuki is over. The TEA party uses kung-fu, and kicks in the balls are entirely kosher.
"Game Changer"? We'll say. The tactics advocated by Saul Alinsky are about to be reflected back at the Left, as Perseus used his shield to reflect Medusa Gorgon's face. We hope these Lefties still enjoy being "stoned".
Although the Washington Post and other leftist news organs tried to spin it as a "Republican defeat", the truth is that what the Left has been saying as a mantra; that the TEA partiers will soon be lulled into "business as usual"; has been shown to be wishful thinking on their part. The TEA partiers OPENLY DEFIED the Republican leadership. "Business as usual" in Washington D.C. breathed its death rattle with the voting down of the spare engine.
True, to effect this result the TEA partiers had to vote with some leftist anti-defense types. The lefties however did not want to avoid wasting money, they merely wanted to save the money for their own wasteful pet projects. While they found allies in the TEA partiers on this vote, when time comes for them to put forward their own loony ideas for spending the money, the same TEA partiers will kick their asses.
Useful idiots, don't you know.
Don't let the leftist media spin effort fool you. Political Kabuki is over. The TEA party uses kung-fu, and kicks in the balls are entirely kosher.
"Game Changer"? We'll say. The tactics advocated by Saul Alinsky are about to be reflected back at the Left, as Perseus used his shield to reflect Medusa Gorgon's face. We hope these Lefties still enjoy being "stoned".
Friday Five: Words
There is a dramatic and surprising venue for Spiritual Formation/Sunday School classes at my church: Each week a different person teaches about a "word" that expresses his/her passion or interest. The first week someone spoke about "hospitality" with abundant treats on her mother and grandmother's china arrayed on tables. Other words have been "connectivity," "Trinity," "money," and "dreams." No one knows which person will be teaching until the class convenes. I am teaching this Sunday and plan to talk about "stirrings."
For this Friday Five, please list five words that identify your passions, spirituality, and/or life. Describe as much or as little as you wish.
1. faithfulness--When I get discouraged, all I have to do is look back at God's continual faithfulness throughout my life and the lives of so many. This stirs up within me a desire to be a faithful servant of God.
2. passionate spirituality--If I cannot be passionate about my relationship with my Lord, then something is very wrong. Walking with God is far more than a job or vocation, it's my whole life.
3. love--Without this we are nothing. God's very motivation for sending Christ was love. I desire love to be my motivation for everything I do.
4. security--I struggle at times with insecurity. I cannot be secure in my own strength, but in God's. God is my strength and my security. When I acknowledge this then I am secure in who I am because of who God is.
5. grace--Regarding something I was worried about, my internship supervisor once told me, "Trust in the grace." That has stuck with me. It is God's grace that sustains us, that keeps us going. Thankfully there are people around us that operate out of grace-filled lives.
Faithfulness
ON THIS DAY...
...in 1546 Luther died in his birth town of Eisleben. In order that his opponents couldn't say he recanted, Luther was asked this final question: 'Doctor Martin, honored father, do you die in the faith in Christ and in the teachings that you have preached in his name?' Luther's answer and final word was 'Yes.'
Old Lutheran
May the same be true for each of us.
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C. S. Lewis's Meditation in a Toolshed
It is interesting to see how much this essay anticipates more recent discussions in the philosophy of mind.
HT: Steve Lovell
HT: Steve Lovell
Bultmann's blatant chronological snobbery
A redated post, prompted by Bob Prokop's charge of chronological snobbery against Doctor Logic. I am linking to the Wikipedia entry on the fallacy of Chronological snobbery.
It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.
Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth
Apparently Bultmann never visited a charismatic church. Those churches are not only filled with people who believe in demons and spirits, they consider them part of daily experience.
It reminds me of Al Plantinga's joke:
Pastor 1: Do you believe in infant baptism?
Pastor 2: Believe in it? I've seen it done.
This (1/22/10) is Lewis's critique of chronological snobbery, from Surprised by Joy.
Barfield never made me an Anthroposophist, but his counterattacks destroyed forever two elements in my ow thought. In the first place he made short work of what I have called my "chronological snobbery," the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date has is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also a "period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.
It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.
Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth
Apparently Bultmann never visited a charismatic church. Those churches are not only filled with people who believe in demons and spirits, they consider them part of daily experience.
It reminds me of Al Plantinga's joke:
Pastor 1: Do you believe in infant baptism?
Pastor 2: Believe in it? I've seen it done.
This (1/22/10) is Lewis's critique of chronological snobbery, from Surprised by Joy.
Barfield never made me an Anthroposophist, but his counterattacks destroyed forever two elements in my ow thought. In the first place he made short work of what I have called my "chronological snobbery," the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date has is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also a "period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WHOLE LOT OF DAYS MAKE.
I imagine that at least one of the three people who read this E-fishwrap wonder where the hell I have been for a month. Sorry to disappoint any lefties out there, but no, I have not been arrested. I knocked over a beer onto the keyboard of the laptop I was using and fried the guts of the machine. Fortunately the hard drive is okay, but I had to refurbish my other computer to accept the files and programs. Now that's done at a cost of $250; so here I am, patriot friends and leftist cocksuckers.
Speaking of leftist cocksuckers, I ran into one at the pub down the street about a week after I drowned my laptop. He had read my last post and told me I was "morally reprehesible" because I called the Tuscon shooter "a nice young man".
Now this is how the Lefties work, folks. They sort through a field of statements they cannot refute, take a few words completely out of context, and attack ad hominem. This is not news to me, and this time it backfired. Someone overheard, wanted to read the post, and told him he was full of shit. Lesson to the Lefties: Your crap won't work anymore. People are paying attention, they are noticing, and you are doomed.
I am glad to report that the Leftist/Brady Bunch effort to eke out at least a little victory for themselves via this tragedy are now looking like fools (again). The plan was to get the camel's nose under the gun-owner's tent by calling for a ban on "high capacity magazines". But even with intense research, all they could come up with was that since the end of the so-called "assault weapons ban"; Virginia police have seized "high-capacity magazines" at a greater percentage of crime scenes. There was NO indication that more folks have died because of the high-cap magazines, and obviously the magazines did not commit whatever crime they were seized at (which could have been something completely unrelated to firearms, such as a whorehouse). So, pooh. Rahm Emanuel must be livid, another crisis gone to waste....
FINALLY, there is the little matter of Hosni Mubarek's early semi-involuntary retirement. For right now I am withholding judgment. That's the Egyptians' problem. They better have more sense than to try to make it our problem. Because we will solve it for them, and maybe they won't like the way we do it.
Speaking of leftist cocksuckers, I ran into one at the pub down the street about a week after I drowned my laptop. He had read my last post and told me I was "morally reprehesible" because I called the Tuscon shooter "a nice young man".
Now this is how the Lefties work, folks. They sort through a field of statements they cannot refute, take a few words completely out of context, and attack ad hominem. This is not news to me, and this time it backfired. Someone overheard, wanted to read the post, and told him he was full of shit. Lesson to the Lefties: Your crap won't work anymore. People are paying attention, they are noticing, and you are doomed.
I am glad to report that the Leftist/Brady Bunch effort to eke out at least a little victory for themselves via this tragedy are now looking like fools (again). The plan was to get the camel's nose under the gun-owner's tent by calling for a ban on "high capacity magazines". But even with intense research, all they could come up with was that since the end of the so-called "assault weapons ban"; Virginia police have seized "high-capacity magazines" at a greater percentage of crime scenes. There was NO indication that more folks have died because of the high-cap magazines, and obviously the magazines did not commit whatever crime they were seized at (which could have been something completely unrelated to firearms, such as a whorehouse). So, pooh. Rahm Emanuel must be livid, another crisis gone to waste....
FINALLY, there is the little matter of Hosni Mubarek's early semi-involuntary retirement. For right now I am withholding judgment. That's the Egyptians' problem. They better have more sense than to try to make it our problem. Because we will solve it for them, and maybe they won't like the way we do it.
Relationships
I had the privilege of preaching at my internship site, Grace Lutheran Church in Petersburg, WV. The text was the gospel reading Matthew 5:21-37.
Relationships. They can be so wonderfully nurturing, so helpful to get us through difficult times in life. Whether they are friends or family. There are people that I’ve had as friends for years. We don’t see each other often, talk often, and yet when we’re together…we pick up right where we left off. They’re the kind of friends you can laugh and cry with.
I have one long time friend like that. Her name is Pat—she laughed with me and cried with me. When my Mom was dying and I was far away overseas, she visited her in the hospital when I couldn’t. Mom died 3 weeks before I returned to the States. Pat mourned with me. When I struggled with readjusting to life in the States, Pat walked with me. And we still pick up where we left off whenever we talk.
Other relationships aren’t as forgiving. It seems like one little thing, just one issue can start a big fight. No matter what you do or say after that, there is always tension between you. One thing seems to lead to another until the relationship is so broken, that you just give up.
There are many difficult and troubling things in today’s gospel passage. We have Jesus quoting the law’s requirements, and then interpreting them even more stringently than the scribes or Pharisees. The law teaches not to murder. Jesus said it’s wrong to be angry.
The law forbids adultery. Jesus teaches that even lustful thoughts about someone are wrong. It is an issue of the heart, which we cannot pluck out or cut off.
The law gives guidelines about divorce so that the wife wouldn’t be left out in the cold. Jesus forbids divorce altogether. Some of us have struggled especially with this issue. Some of us are victims of a divorce we never wanted.
The law forbids false oaths. Jesus says not to make an oath at all!
I’ve been a bit puzzled with this passage. Is Jesus being moralistic, just laying down a tougher law? Is that all God wants us to know is how to behave? Doesn’t that just sound like more law? Where is the grace?
It all boils down to relationships. Jesus died for all humanity. And he wants his people to be one, to show his love, to be a witness to the world, not in word alone, but in action. It’s about our relationship to God and one another.
I was visiting one of our members the other day. We talked together about how sometimes it’s the small things that really irritate us—the cashier at the grocery store that’s more interested in talking to her friend at the next register rather than acknowledging your presence. Something that particularly irritates me is getting cut off in traffic. Now it doesn’t happen as much here as in RI, but I do get ticked when it does happen. It’s the little things that can build up.
The heart of murder is anger. Over time that anger builds. We’ve all heard the expression, “If looks could kill.” Sometimes it’s written all over a person’s face. Anger is the source of murder. Murder is the symptom. Jesus is teaching about relationships in his kingdom—redeemed relationships and what they look like.
In the epistle reading today, Paul addressed the issue of relationships within the body of Christ at Corinth. There were factions. The body of Christ was broken and splintered. This breaks God’s heart.
Luther interpreted the commandments in much the way Jesus did. It’s a matter of going beyond what’s written to the heart of God’s desire. Concerning the 5th commandment prohibiting murder Luther wrote, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way, but help them in all their physical needs” (http://www.oldlutheran.com/page.php?page=confirmation&id=2). God’s desire is not just that we don’t kill, don’t get angry or hurt our neighbor, but that we help them.
How do we relate to our neighbors? Are we letting God’s love flow through us so that Christ’s body may be whole? Do others see this love in us? If a neighbor is sick, do we see if there’s any way we can help? Are we supportive to the neighbor who is a single mom?
Being in right relationship to our brothers and sisters even trumps our gifts to God. We heard that in last week’s Old Testament text. God was not impressed with the Israelite’s fasting and sacrifices—He wanted right relationships, the ending of oppression and injustice. When accused, Jesus says to QUICKLY come to terms with our accuser. Reconcile quickly.
If how we should relate to one another is the heart of the matter, then each of the examples Jesus lifts up, is more of the same.
Adultery, that’s certainly not a pleasant topic of conversation, but the Ten Commandments and Jesus address it. Adultery is symptomatic. The cause is lust according to Jesus. And there are so things in our world today that feed lust. It’s in our faces seemingly everywhere we look. How does one not look at another without lust when the stimulus for it is all around us? It all boils down to relationship—how we think about one another—how we treat one another. Luther puts it this way, “We are to fear and love God so that in matters of sex our words and conduct are pure and honorable, and husband and wife love and respect each other” (ibid.). Murder, adultery—it’s about relationship with God and then relationship with each other—being one of love and respect for each other.
Jesus goes on to deal with another issue, the matter of divorce. This is an issue many of us have struggled with. After being married for 21 years, my former husband no longer wanted to be married. I didn’t even believe in divorce. It didn’t seem possible that this could be happening to us. And we have these verses in Matthew and elsewhere about divorce. And yet, it wasn’t my fault that my marriage broke up. And I suspect I’m not the only one who has struggled with this issue. How do we hear these words? Where is the grace? Where in here is the gospel?
. One commentator suggests that the issue was that of divorcing in order to marry someone else. He writes, “[The] point is that divorce does not offer a legal loophole to justify adultery. That is, [Jesus’] strongest words are against those who initiate divorce as a means to get something else, sacrificing a spouse to satisfy one's desires or ambitions” (workingpreacher.org).
Jesus’ last issue is that of oaths. The law said not to swear falsely. Jesus said not to swear at all. People would swear by God, by someone’s life etc. to add emphasis to their words. Later on in Matthew Jesus gives a number of examples as he is rebuking the religious leaders of his day. Jesus’ point is to do what you say you’re going to do. Keeping our word is a way of respecting others, a way of being in right relationship with others. Doing what we say we’re going to do is a means of maintaining the unity of Christ’s body.
Luther’s spin on the commandment about false witness is, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend them, speak well of them, and explain their actions in the kindest way” (http://www.oldlutheran.com/page.php?page=confirmation&id=2). That’s so hard to do, especially for those of us on the cynical side, myself included. Can we ask God to help us see and understand them the way he does? Can we look at this neighbor through the lens of grace?
Jesus is talking about kingdom relationships—the kingdom that is to come and that which is here and now because of his death, burial, and resurrection. Take the Ten Commandments, for instance. The first group of commandments is about our relationship with God. The remaining commandments are about relationships with one another.
This God, who loved the world so much, loved us so much as to send Jesus to die, desires us to be in communion with him and with one another. We are being challenged by the gospel to see the world in a new way. Behind the seeming rules and regulations is God’s vision of a restored, redeemed humanity.
How can we practically live out this lifestyle Jesus sets before us? Do we have a God-sized vision for justice in this world that goes beyond our prejudices? Do we resist helping out at the food pantry because we think maybe those people deserve their lot in life?
Do we have a vision for reconciliation between friends, neighbors, enemies that can serve as a beacon of God’s love? Can we allow God to use us to help provide a hope and a future to those living on the fringes of society, the disenfranchised, the ostracized, the despairing?
It may mean changing our preconceived ideas about people, our self-righteous knowledge. It means following our Lord in laying down our lives for the people he laid his life down for. Can you imagine what such a world would be like—where we honor and treat each other as those blessed and beloved by God (David Lose)? To quote Louis Armstrong, “And I say to myself, what a wonderful world…”
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My Miracles and the Case for Theism
This was my first published paper, and I see that Common Sense Atheism has made it available online.
C. S. Lewis rejects idealism
A tutor must make things clear. Now the Absolute cannot be made clear. Do you mean Nobody-knows-what, or do you mean a superhuman mind and therefore (we may as well admit) a Person? After all, did Hegel and Bradley and all the rest of them ever do more than add mystifications to the simple, workable, theistic idealism of Berkeley? I thought not. And didn't Berkeley's "God" do all the same work as the Absolute, with the added advantage that we had at least some notion of what we meant by Him? I thought He did. So I was driven back into something like Berkeleyanism; but Berkeleyanism with a few top dressings of my own. I distinguished this philosophical "God" very sharply (or so I said) from "the God of popular religion." There was, I explained, no possibility of being in a personal relation with Him. For I thought He projected us as a dramatist projects his characters, and I could no more "meet" Him, than Hamlet could meet Shakespeare. I didn't call Him "God" either; I called Him "Spirit." One fights for one's remaining comforts.
Russell on Free Thought
Russell: The expression 'free thought' is often used as if it meant merely opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy. But this is only a symptom of free thought, frequent, but invariable. 'Free thought' means thinking freely — as freely, at least, as is possible for a human being. The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyrant of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker.
Are these the two things we need to be free of intellectually? Are there other things that we should think about being free from in order to be rational? Intellectual peer pressure, maybe?
Are these the two things we need to be free of intellectually? Are there other things that we should think about being free from in order to be rational? Intellectual peer pressure, maybe?
just plain snobbery
A redated post.
Shulamite made a comment about my reference to "just plain snobbery" as as reason why Lewis is not taken seriously amongst philosophers. It reminds me of when I was in my first year of teaching introductory philosophy at the University of Illinois. I informed my students that there were about 18 full-time teachers at the U of I, and as best as I could tell 17 of them were atheists. One student raised his hand and asked "Those atheist teachers, do they think of themselves as the supreme beings?" I didn't answer the way I should have, which would have been to say "well, not all of them."
Shulamite made a comment about my reference to "just plain snobbery" as as reason why Lewis is not taken seriously amongst philosophers. It reminds me of when I was in my first year of teaching introductory philosophy at the University of Illinois. I informed my students that there were about 18 full-time teachers at the U of I, and as best as I could tell 17 of them were atheists. One student raised his hand and asked "Those atheist teachers, do they think of themselves as the supreme beings?" I didn't answer the way I should have, which would have been to say "well, not all of them."
David Marshall on why Christianity passes the OTF, and Secular Humanism may fail
Something tells me, deep down in the pit of my stomach, the Loftus isn't going to buy this.
This Little Light
We had a service of Holy Communion yesterday at the Grant County Nursing Home. Pr. Cantu asked me to do the homily and this is what I shared with the residents.Have any of you ever experienced a power failure? You scramble around the house to get the candles, lanterns, and flashlights. It can be pretty scary. In the 1980s, I lived in Bethlehem in the Holy Land. Sometimes the electricity would go out. We didn’t always know how long it would be out for—20 minutes, a couple of hours or even days.
When it is pitch dark, even the smallest bit of flickering light from a candle can have an impact. I can think of numerous times when I cooked by candlelight, ate by candlelight, and did dishes by candlelight. We even read or played board games by candlelight. If enough candles are gathered together, you’d be surprised how much light they can give.
Jesus said, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:15-16, NLT).
God invites us into his light, so that we can be bearers of that light. Maybe we think our little light doesn’t make much difference. But if we put all of our little lights together, we have lots of light. That will drive the darkness away.
The other day I read a conversation that took place between a friend and Jesus. Close your eyes and let Jesus speak to you:
Into The Light
…You were created to share love, joy and laughter,
To be with others in happiness and sorrow,
To give certain gifts to the world,
and to see the gifts others have been given.
And I am working in and through you,
In order to bless creation and work good in the world,
Though sometimes it may be hard for you to see,
Or nearly inconceivable for you to believe…
In order to bless creation and work good in the world,
Though sometimes it may be hard for you to see,
Or nearly inconceivable for you to believe…
But do not be afraid, beloved child of mine,
Be gentle and see yourself as I see you…
Be gentle and see yourself as I see you…
I will work through the simplest of things -
In silence, in the words and faces of others,
In music and art, in prayer and in nature,
In struggles and celebrations, sadness and hope.
In silence, in the words and faces of others,
In music and art, in prayer and in nature,
In struggles and celebrations, sadness and hope.
To see what I am about, keep your heart open.
Listen to that still small voice that tugs,
Quietly and persistently at your innermost being,
Even though the world would try to drown it out.
Listen to that still small voice that tugs,
Quietly and persistently at your innermost being,
Even though the world would try to drown it out.
Revel in the ways in which I will surprise you,
And share with others what you have experienced
So that you might hear what I’m doing in them.
Trust one another and trust me.”
And share with others what you have experienced
So that you might hear what I’m doing in them.
Trust one another and trust me.”
You smile and stand there patiently,
Not rushing or hurrying me to an answer.
My heart aches and I know that all you say is true.
I open my mouth to speak, slowly uttering:
Not rushing or hurrying me to an answer.
My heart aches and I know that all you say is true.
I open my mouth to speak, slowly uttering:
“I just don’t know how to let go.
All I can do right now is sit with you.”
Your smile broadens – I almost cannot believe it.
“Yes, dear one, that is more than enough.”
All I can do right now is sit with you.”
Your smile broadens – I almost cannot believe it.
“Yes, dear one, that is more than enough.”
© 2010. Annabelle Peake. All rights reserved.
Afterwards, we sang “This Little Light of Mine.”
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