Bird Dog linked to Steven Pinker's discussion of humanism, reason, and atheism. The word is leaking out that Pinker believes too much in genetics and quietly notices general differences among races. He thus can't afford to go off the reservation by making warm statements about theism or prayer. Not that I think such things are his main motivation, but they influence all of us to some extent. We don't like to break with our crowd, or open ourselves up for criticism unless we are quite sure.
There is not any absolutely compelling argument for God, and I believe this is intentional. Were He to be provable, as the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, it would likely not be good for us. Were he to rearrange the stars to spell out His Name in another language every night we would quickly adjust to it, find some ridiculous explanation for it, and not notice it. Still, it is fair to expect some evidence from a self-revealing God.
The scientific and technological advancement and widespread extension of rights we currently enjoy has occurred precisely once in history, in related places deeply informed by Christianity and Judaism. Pinker claims these improvements have occurred since the Middle Ages, but his own work shows that they begin to occur earlier. He wants to credit the Renaissance and especially the Enlightenment, but these come later. Wishing doesn't make it so. This does not prove that Christianity caused the improvements, or had anything to do with them. It might well be, as is currently believed, that the faith has been a hindrance to the march of progress. Still, it has only occurred once.
There is also this curious idea of goodness that he believes is independent of and even sometimes antithetical to theism...it does grow tiresome to keep writing "theism" when everyone knows the attack is on Christianity, and to a lesser extent, Judaism. We know what culture Pinker and the others come from. We allow them the pretense that they are having a more general philosophical discussion in order to not get bogged down in separate discussions. Yet we know, and it is part of what makes some of the attacks humorous... what is this goodness, and what is it founded on other than the preference of the powerful? Oh, you believe that some things actually are good, somehow? That we should not abuse women or steal from those weaker than us? Those are not merely useful for survival in some indirect way but are actual moral qualities? How quaint.
If you don't believe one ridiculous set of ideas about how the universe works and what it all means then you will be driven to believe another ridiculous set. Purported neutrality always smuggles in a theology of some sort.
9 comments:
Your example of the a^2 + b^2 = c^2 proof is illustrative in another way. I've noticed that often people (of the few who actually _listen_ to arguments--Screwtape was right) who run across arguments indicating the existence of God or of some moral fact they don't care for, will shift their premises to get out from under the unwelcome conclusion.
In plane geometry, a right triangle will satisfy the old equation, but if you say "well, maybe parallel lines _do_ meet", the equation won't hold anymore.
I drew that triangle and so it has to be a right triangle, and if the equation doesn't hold then maybe tabletop is really the surface of a sphere.
Stuart Schneiderman at Had Enough Therapy has posted several times on Pinker's new book.
Pinker knows better than to diss Islam. A guy could get killed for doing that.
i find that from. in the beginning to, let us reason together. to
Revelation 22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. When the world was and still is wondering who what where and when God said He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
i s till no one could say how , God does say
2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
"Were he to rearrange the stars to spell out His Name in another language every night we would quickly adjust to it, find some ridiculous explanation for it, and not notice it"
Poul Anderson wrote an SF story, A Chapter of Revelation, along those lines. I summarized and excerpted it in my post The Perfect Enemy:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6810.html
I never read it, but must have heard about it in the dim past.
The scientific and technological advancement and widespread extension of rights we currently enjoy has occurred precisely once in history, in related places deeply informed by Christianity and Judaism. Pinker claims these improvements have occurred since the Middle Ages, but his own work shows that they begin to occur earlier. He wants to credit the Renaissance and especially the Enlightenment, but these come later. Wishing doesn't make it so.
Such as Roger Bacon (1219-1292),a Franciscan friar, who was an early developer of the scientific method. Such as Copernicus, a Roman Catholic cleric and the nephew of a Bishop. My understanding of the rise of science in early modern Europe was that it was in part an attempt to better understand how the Supreme Being had ordered the universe. This philosophical underpinning of the scientific revolution came to us courteous of the Roman Catholic church, which preached that the Supreme Being had created an ordered universe- in contrast to the Muslim view, which was that Allah could do anything anytime. (Disclaimer: no Roman Catholic in my family tree for at least 400 years, as far as I can tell.So, no pro-RC bias on my part.)
Yup, it was going well before the Enlightenment. This is not the first time I have encountered those who believed all that started with the Enlightenment.
Another interesting religious twist to scientific and technological advancement is that the scientific and engineering advances in Great Britain from 1600-1900 came almost exclusively from Dissenters. (Anglicans, practically nil.)You know Dissenters, like those horrid Puritans. (Darlington- The Evolution of Man and Society.)
Another interesting angle is the impact of monasteries on practical technology development. The medieval monasteries were leaders in the application of waterpower.. Nice description from a 12th century abbott, here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=aZ0runvrq0AC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=waterpower+monasteries+beer+monks&source=bl&ots=mKYGZtT9so&sig=O1fDqE82SBedRst4m5GfI5xS0k4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizrY38ytbZAhUPmuAKHWfWC6wQ6AEIYDAI#v=onepage&q=waterpower%20monasteries%20beer%20monks&f=false
I have declared myself an agnostic because I cannot believe myself able to prove anything about a god with a capital g.
It is easy to disprove the godlings one could manipulate by prayer or sacrifice or other ritual action. The clearest Illustration of this was a Garfield cartoon. The cat was on a fence thinking, "If I am lying, may God strike with lightening..." The next panel showed a worried looking cat thinking, "the dog next door." There was a gap, with a lightening flash and the last panel showed a battered and singed dog. This isn't the way the world works. God is not a "cosmic bellhop"(This expression is from the book, Understanding Jewish Prayer.).
God, being in some sense, infinite is beyond my ability to understand. I don't understand the mathematical idea of infinity, despite being led thru it. I don't believe I could understand a proof or disproof of God; there's nothing I can grasp there.
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