Posted on 07/16/2007 4:13:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Years ago I had a series of debates with the literary scholar Stanley Fish. Our topic was political correctness. I portrayed Fish as the grand deconstructor of Western civilization, and he fired back in There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech, several chapters of which are an answer to my arguments. As I got to know Fish, however, I recognized that although he defended some of the practices being promoted in the name of multiculturalism and diversity, he was not himself a politically correct thinker. We became friends, and in 1992 he and his wife attended my wedding.
Fish has of late been demonstrating his political incorrectness by writing critically of separation of church and state, and also by challenging leading atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christoher Hitchens. Indeed Fish uses his detailed knowledge of Milton as well as his famous skills of literary deconstruction to show the emptiness of the atheist arguments.
In his New York Times blog, Fish takes up the argument advanced by Dawkins and company that belief in God is a kind of evasion. According to this argument, we avoid the responsibilities of this life by putting our hopes in another life. Religion makes us do crazy things.
Fish takes as an example of the Harris-Hitchens-Dawkins critique the behavior of Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Christian becomes aware that he is carrying a huge burden on his back (Original Sin) and he wants to get rid of it. Another fellow named Evangelist tells him to "flee the wrath to come." Evangelist points Christian in the direction of a shining light. But Christian can't clearly see the light. Still, he begins to run in that direction. Bunyan describes his wife and children who "began to cry after him to return, but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying Life! Life! Eternal Life!"
For Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins, this is precisely the kind of crazy behavior that religion produces. Here is a man abandoning his duties and chasing after something he isn't even sure about. Fish writes, "I have imagined this criticism coming from outside the narrative, but in fact it is right there on the inside." Bunyan not only has Christian's wife and children imploring him to return, he also has Christian's friends struggling to make sense of his actions.
Fish comments, "What this shows is that the objections Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens make to religious thinking are themselves part of religious thinking. Rather than being swept under the rug of a seamless discourse, they are the very motor of that discourse." Citing the atheists' portrait of religion as unquestioning obedienece, Fish writes, "I know of no religious framework that offers such a complacement picture of the life of faith, a life that is always presented as a minefield of difficulties, obstacles and temptations that must be negotiated by a limited creature in the effort to become aligned with the Infinite."
Fish observes that while religious people over the centuries have dug deeply into the questions of life, along come our shallow atheists who present arguments as if they first thought of them, arguments that Christians have long examined with a seriousness and care that is missing in contemporary atheist discourse.
In a follow-up article, Fish deepens his inquiry by looking at the kind of evidence that atheists like Hawkins and Harris present for their “scientific” outlook. Harris, for example, writes that “there will probably come a time when we will achieve a detailed understanding of human happiness and of ethical judgments themselves at the level of the brain.” Fish asks, what is this confidence based on? Not, he notes, on a record of progress. Science today can no more explain ethics or human happiness than it could a thousand years ago.
Still, Harris says that scientific research hasn’t panned out because the research is in the early stage and few of the facts are in. Fish comments, “Of course one conclusion that could be drawn is that the research will not pan out because moral intuitions are not reducible to phyhsical processes. That may be why so few of the facts are in.”
Fish draws on examples from John Milton to make the point is that unbelief, no less than belief, is based on a perspective. If you assume that material reality is all there is, then you are only going to look for material explanations, and any explanations that are not material will be rejected out of hand. Fish’s objection is not so much that this is dogmatism but that it is dogmatism that refuses to recognize itself as such. At least religious people like Milton have long recognized that their core beliefs are derived from faith.
Fish concludes that “the arguments Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens mostly rely on are just not good arguments.” We can expect our unbelieving trio to react with their trademark scorn, but Fish has scored some telling points.
Did you notice that you didn't get any replies? Could it be that the fundamentalists are starting to wise up?
There was little experimental science before the Christian world. It’s not a coincidence in my view. It’s the natural consequence of believing in an unchanging God bounded by reason and non-contradiction, and a God that wishes us to use our talents for the good of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
You make some pretty sweeping judgments about God based on theories. My understanding is that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible theories. Isn't it just sophistry to use two seperate theories, that are mutually incompatible, and to argue regarding ultimate reality based upon them, depending on which helps you try to score a point?
It is one thing to use them scientifically for a bounded result in a particular context and another to generalize them beyond the universe itself to God who stands outside of the universe and is its creator. Can't you imagine a God that stands outside of your physical limitations and your lack of knowledge?
Be intellectually honest. Don't you see that this Heiseberg Uncertainty argument applied to God is bogus? If no, which is correct Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, and why? Can you provide mathmatical, publishable proof, or will you admit they do not jibe and so are incomplete theories in contradiction. Let me know when you've worked out the theory of everything and I'll calculate God along with you . . . though I do think it will take an awfully big blackboard.
I guess the point is that even though we don't know the big picture, we have a few of the puzzle pieces. We know for a certainty that these pieces of the puzzle fit in somewhere. complete understanding of the laws of the universe will incorporate these laws.
I mean, the whole point is that God is above our human understandings. Isn’t it?
Let me try another analogy ^_^ Much of what I do is beyond my dogs understanding. I must seem to be a God to him when I open the refrigerator door and out comes food. When I work on my airplane it must be totally beyond his comprehension. Yet, he does know that he can smell and hear better than I can. He can run faster than me and he knows that he has to be careful not to bite too hard when we play.
We know enough now, to know that God cannot be omniscient. But that shouldn't really be a problem from Gods perspective. If he knows all, then eternity must be crushingly boring. On the other hand if God is like a Casino operator he knows that he will win at the end of the day and in this universe everyone can have freewill and bet against God and lose or bet with him and win.
I would much rather live in a universe with freewill and a God who played the odds. It looks like we live in that Universe ^_^
No! The uncertainty principle proves that we humans can't know everything. No one or no thing can know everything, that is the point ^_^ It not only makes the universe possible it makes it fun.
Proves? And what in the theory applies to God and why? See post 183.
“Isn’t it just sophistry to use two seperate theories, that are mutually incompatible, and to argue regarding ultimate reality based upon them, depending on which helps you try to score a point?”
Please note the last line in my profile. Sophistry is ALL we have in regards to the empirical, analitical, and dialectic thinking.
By the logic of disregarding one for another, then discussion cannot possibly lead to understanding, due to it not being direct observation on the part of all parties involved.
It really boils down to- What if Einstein was right? If he for a fact, is not, then what if Super-String Theory is wrong? Just because it’s newer, it does not make it “correcter” as well. Maybe a direct comparison IS the best way to break it apart.
Natural events have natural causes...
And Men can know them!
Also:
1 Corinthians 2:14
From Websters:
Main Entry: soph·ist·ry
Pronunciation: ‘sä-f&-strE
Function: noun
1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation
That is the meaning I used when I said “sophistry.”
By that, I mean that applying a scientific theory outside of the boundaries set by the theory itself is inappropriate. In this case a countervailing theory exists that is not compatible, under the current development of the theories. Two ways of seeing the world, two blind men groping at the elephant of reality. One holding a leg, one holding a tail.
Meanwhile Einstien had a good quote regarding:
“God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
I noticed above that LeGrande indicated that God would be bored if the universe were without chance occurences. I wonder if LeGrande is speaking of his belief in God or admitting the possibility of God.
Ping to 189, mentioned you and didn’t address it.
I am really curious to get a response to my post 183 from you. Think it’s a pretty good point.
We are so post-deconstructionist that everybody knows what it is.
My appologies, should have been “sophistry”.
The way we use logic these days, many people assume that the “smell test” is automatically incorrect. Sometimes a good ol’ discussion helps more towards understanding than all the graphs and witnesses combined.
Actually I have been trying to stick purely with QM. Non locality does seem to be a contradiction between QM and Relativity, but it appears that time and distance are relative and better understanding will probably clear up the differences. We just need another genius to come along and then we will all say that it was obvious ^_^
It is one thing to use them scientifically for a bounded result in a particular context and another to generalize them beyond the universe itself to God who stands outside of the universe and is its creator. Can't you imagine a God that stands outside of your physical limitations and your lack of knowledge?
Anything can be imagined, is that your point? I can imagine pink unicorns. Does my imagining make it so? You can imagine an all knowing being who intently watches your every move and knows your every thought. Does that make it so?
Be intellectually honest. Don't you see that this Heiseberg Uncertainty argument applied to God is bogus?
No. It is testable and predictive. God should be as good.
If no, which is correct Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, and why? Can you provide mathmatical, publishable proof, or will you admit they do not jibe and so are incomplete theories in contradiction.
I will certainly admit to the incompleteness but not the contradiction. If you can demonstrate the transmission of useful information at faster than the speed of light then I will admit the contradiction. If you look at it from the stand point of the wave/packet moving at the speed of light. the distance and time factors are resolved.
Let me know when you've worked out the theory of everything and I'll calculate God along with you . . . though I do think it will take an awfully big blackboard.
Why don't you just admit that God isn't absolutely Omniscient and the Universe will make a lot more sense ^_^ Freewill becomes possible, rebellion against God becomes possible, etc. God can still know with certainty the outcome, what will be new to him is the path.
String theory has no evidence to support or disprove it. It is a lot like God. Relativity on the other hand has a lot of evidence that supports it and no evidence that contradicts it. Einstein by the way, was one of the fathers of QM.
Evidence is the path to follow.
“Anything can be imagined, is that your point? I can imagine pink unicorns. Does my imagining make it so?”
In a “limitless possibilities” universe based upon uncertainty, yes. Anything that CAN exist, will. Of course, that gets into “alternate dimensions” and all that.
Evidence is the path to follow.
Otherwise, murder cases would be solved by finding someones belongings near the scene of a crime.
Guess he's never been in a real honest to goodness fight. When a fist hits your face you discover all sorts of truths and you either get real or get beat.
So they are incompatible, but you believe them both, and assume that someone will make them compatible.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is testable. God isn't (paraphrased)
But the Uncertainty Principle is incompatible with another testable theory, that of relativity. God is testable, of course, just on a personal level.
You still don't see the problem in applying incomplete, inconsistant theories to God and claiming that the theories limit God himself?
No. Only the blue ones talk.
You heretics who claim pink ones talk can't prove anything!
;-)
Sorry for being dense, but I don't follow you. Would you please elaborate?
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