I haven't read Daniel Dennett's book "Breaking the Spell" yet, but after skimming through this large review by (Orthodox theologian) David Hart, I'm quite looking forward to fitting it in sometime. The capacity that learned men (and perhaps women, but it isn't so clear) have to laughingly dismiss their intellectual opponents seldom ceases to amuse/amaze me.
This is a work of art:
…
"The prose is rebarbative, moreover, and the book is unpleasantly shapeless: It labors to begin and then tediously meanders to an inconclusive conclusion. There is, as well, the utter tone-deafness evident in Dennett's attempts to describe how persons of faith speak or think, or what they have been taught, or how they react to challenges to their convictions. He even invents an antagonist for himself whom he christens Professor Faith, a sort of ventriloquist's doll that he compels to utter the sort of insipid bromides he imagines typical of the believer's native idiom.
In fact, Dennett expends a surprising amount of energy debating, cajoling, insulting, quoting, and taking umbrage at nonexistent persons. In the book's insufferably prolonged overture, he repeatedly tells his imaginary religious readers—in a tenderly hectoring tone, as if talking to small children or idiots—that they will probably not read his book to the end, that they may well think it immoral even to consider doing so, and that they are not courageous enough to entertain the doubts it will induce in them. Actually, there is nothing in the book that could possibly shake anyone's faith, and the only thing likely to dissuade religious readers from finishing it is its author's interminable proleptic effort to overcome their reluctance. But Dennett is convinced he is dealing with intransigent oafs, and his frustration at their inexplicably unbroken silence occasionally erupts into fury. “I for one am not in awe of your faith,” he fulminates at one juncture. “I am appalled by your arrogance, by your unreasonable certainty that you have all the answers.” And this demented apostrophe occurs on the fifty-first page of the book, at which point Dennett still has not commenced his argument in earnest."
…
In summary of the review, it appears that, as with a number of those in his camp, Dennett fails to engage with the substance of truth claims made by religions and; assuming this claim to be true; at best provides a nice book-length illustration of the genetic fallacy.
I may update this after I've found the book & read it. As there is a stack to digest, it may be a while.
Jan 9, 2010
Jan 8, 2010
everything?
well, if eric says it... (Everything You Wanted To Know About God (but were afraid to ask)).
I might purchase.
I might purchase.
which kind of witch and wherefore ought one to care?
Please note: I do not believe in old women flying on broomsticks or the like. I can’t be bothered writing a massive essay but a few short points might suffice to show I’m not obviously or laughably incorrect in the following matter. This is not a point of Christian doctrine, so don’t quote me as if it were somehow particularly important; it is just a concept that’s come up in the past and I briefly found more interesting than the book on political theory I’m attempting to get through.
A couple of years back I suggested that I believed in witches i.e. in their existence. This was not particularly well received. Apparently it’s ok, or not-too-bad to believe in God, Jesus and other putatively (according to various non-knowledgable* claimants) non-existent figures, but not witches. Yet, I still claim it is a relatively simple fact that people exist who are they themselves claim, witches. The various forms of Wicca and other neo-paganisms are obvious examples. If you wish you can suggest, laughing, that this means nothing; people can claim whatever they like (e.g. to be vampires) and it doesn’t mean that what they believe is real. Yet, every atheist of whom I am aware will accept that there are really “Christians” out there (myself being one), quite regardless of whether it is in fact correct that God exists, Jesus rose from the dead, etc. By a tiny bit of exploration and a simple analogy and, it would seem likely that there are also witches, druids, perhaps (though not so clearly) satanists and who knows what else. It seems that spiritual practices or labels like 'witch' or 'druid' are not about having special powers, rather about how people choose to act.
Is it, though, a fact that ‘witches’, whatever they are exist and practice something ‘mysterious’ or ‘spiritual’ beyond the occasional social outing and maybe a few tricks to impress initiates? I don’t know. In New Zealand it seems unlikely; but there is a whole lot of ‘unlikely’ spiritual stuff that I have good reason to believe has occurred. I suspect there is such a thing as a supernatural reality and that this isn’t restricted solely to God’s existence and direct action. How influential this may or may not be and whether any ‘action’ would be demonstrable as such or simply as charlatanism I am not aware, not having done any studies of it. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence from countries which aren’t thoroughly-secularised. If the atheistic materialism worldview is false, as the vast majority of earthlings believe, the claim loses some of its, for want of a better word, ‘disbelievability’. That's pretty much all I have to say on the topic.
It just struck me the obvious place to start should have been the "Wiktionary"
Incidentally, an article I skimmed on the subject from Wikipedia provided this pearl: “African Christians typically accept Christian dogma as do their counterparts in Latin America and Asia.” I would suppose that “Pakistani Muslims typically accept Muslim dogma”, “British atheists typically accept atheist dogma” and “Antarctic-ian Agnostics” would typically accept agnostic dogma as well. It's kind of a truism. Of course, I shouldn't expect greatness from a democratic encyclopaedia.
*I am assuming in the use of this term that 'knowledge' ought to be 'true' - and that (e.g.) Jesus does in fact exist. It follows that people who deny true statements as I claim that one to be are lacking in knowledge in the relevant field.
A couple of years back I suggested that I believed in witches i.e. in their existence. This was not particularly well received. Apparently it’s ok, or not-too-bad to believe in God, Jesus and other putatively (according to various non-knowledgable* claimants) non-existent figures, but not witches. Yet, I still claim it is a relatively simple fact that people exist who are they themselves claim, witches. The various forms of Wicca and other neo-paganisms are obvious examples. If you wish you can suggest, laughing, that this means nothing; people can claim whatever they like (e.g. to be vampires) and it doesn’t mean that what they believe is real. Yet, every atheist of whom I am aware will accept that there are really “Christians” out there (myself being one), quite regardless of whether it is in fact correct that God exists, Jesus rose from the dead, etc. By a tiny bit of exploration and a simple analogy and, it would seem likely that there are also witches, druids, perhaps (though not so clearly) satanists and who knows what else. It seems that spiritual practices or labels like 'witch' or 'druid' are not about having special powers, rather about how people choose to act.
Is it, though, a fact that ‘witches’, whatever they are exist and practice something ‘mysterious’ or ‘spiritual’ beyond the occasional social outing and maybe a few tricks to impress initiates? I don’t know. In New Zealand it seems unlikely; but there is a whole lot of ‘unlikely’ spiritual stuff that I have good reason to believe has occurred. I suspect there is such a thing as a supernatural reality and that this isn’t restricted solely to God’s existence and direct action. How influential this may or may not be and whether any ‘action’ would be demonstrable as such or simply as charlatanism I am not aware, not having done any studies of it. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence from countries which aren’t thoroughly-secularised. If the atheistic materialism worldview is false, as the vast majority of earthlings believe, the claim loses some of its, for want of a better word, ‘disbelievability’. That's pretty much all I have to say on the topic.
It just struck me the obvious place to start should have been the "Wiktionary"
Incidentally, an article I skimmed on the subject from Wikipedia provided this pearl: “African Christians typically accept Christian dogma as do their counterparts in Latin America and Asia.” I would suppose that “Pakistani Muslims typically accept Muslim dogma”, “British atheists typically accept atheist dogma” and “Antarctic-ian Agnostics” would typically accept agnostic dogma as well. It's kind of a truism. Of course, I shouldn't expect greatness from a democratic encyclopaedia.
*I am assuming in the use of this term that 'knowledge' ought to be 'true' - and that (e.g.) Jesus does in fact exist. It follows that people who deny true statements as I claim that one to be are lacking in knowledge in the relevant field.
Strange Systematization
Thanks Amazon - I didn't realise that Richard Dawkins was a Theologian/writer on theology until you informed me - let alone a Christian one!
And Daniel Dennett and Deepak Chopra what's more - that's one 'trinity' sure to mess up a Theology Department.
And Daniel Dennett and Deepak Chopra what's more - that's one 'trinity' sure to mess up a Theology Department.
Jan 6, 2010
just moving
Looking into in a recent crack-down on house-Churches in China, I found this phrase, uttered by a police officer over there a while back; surely one just has to laugh:
"We are not seizing anything. We are just moving things!"
Don't worry mate! I'm just moving your stuff.
"We are not seizing anything. We are just moving things!"
Don't worry mate! I'm just moving your stuff.
Jan 3, 2010
venturing into new fields of green
The whole point of this changed with the addition of the background including mushroom cloud (or is that a tree?) - mushroom clouds do, in any case, tend to change things.Hehe - my blog background is now coincident'ly green - how appropriate.
Jan 2, 2010
take over Xmas
...an interesting entry from a man identifying only as a ‘Canberra Anglican parish priest’. In the lead up to Christmas he had organised some community carols in his local shopping centre, but met some resistance. ‘To my great amusement,’ he wrote, ‘the manager of the centre objected, because she thinks the “[expletive] Christians want to take over Christmas.”...' From CPX
ah, Oxford ...
Prof Peter Harrison. There's more here; that which I've viewed seems ok.
Dawkins' case against God from CPX on Vimeo.
Jan 1, 2010
ethics for babies
I am grateful for having found these lectures. The ramblings below might be slightly less weird if you take a peek.
Babies, as, in God’s plan, the result of committed love-making, can be said, albeit with care, to be incarnations of love. Jesus is, according to God’s plan, also and yet more fundamentally “love incarnate”; contra the mocking local Anglican billboard (see NZ herald: St Matthews), not we believe in quite the same sense as we are; yet we see a similar pattern (and the existence of patterns rule out chance explanations; and in this case suggest a purpose worth considering.) God’s love is different to ours; it is less exclusive and still more personal; however let us note the pattern, reflect on the relationship between love and personhood; and perhaps even respond in trust.
Babies, as, in God’s plan, the result of committed love-making, can be said, albeit with care, to be incarnations of love. Jesus is, according to God’s plan, also and yet more fundamentally “love incarnate”; contra the mocking local Anglican billboard (see NZ herald: St Matthews), not we believe in quite the same sense as we are; yet we see a similar pattern (and the existence of patterns rule out chance explanations; and in this case suggest a purpose worth considering.) God’s love is different to ours; it is less exclusive and still more personal; however let us note the pattern, reflect on the relationship between love and personhood; and perhaps even respond in trust.
the levels of ok
This pic is a revision, as requested. That's a halo on the top.OK - so there are, it has occured to me, at least 5 levels of 'OK' (in the sense of 'acceptable'.) They form a kind of pyramid.
1) Things which are technically illegal but not extremely life-threatening. The base-most level of the structure.
2) Stuff which is not illegal. There is a general presumption in our laws, such that that which is not specifically prohibited is, ceteris paribus, allowed. This is either beneficial to society; in that it encourages the imaginative use of resources to maximise utility; or subtley harmful in shamelessly promoting the spread of stupidity.
3) Stuff which is socially acceptable ("accept'ble" in pic.) This very respectable stage is presumably a function of the kind of company one is in and how much alcohol has been consumed by said company recently.
4) Morally permissable. Whether morals are objective, subjective or some messy combo doesn't really matter. I'm assuming in building this that it's generally immoral to break the law; but this is a fancy kind of pyramid, with spiral staircases and such.
5) Morally admirable. This penthouse peaky thing, along with the previous level, is what philosophers fight about (in the unique way in which philosophers participate in their esoteric version of mortal combat.)
I see you ... Actually, I don't really.
Avatar - vaguely disappointing. Maybe it was due to a slight fuzziness from the wearing of contact lenses (or was that the 3D glasses?), but I don't quite get the AVATAR WAS AWESOME hype hanging so near-ubiquitously in the virtual air.
I guess the visuals were good, (though it seemed they tried rather hard most of the time to avoid having aliens and humans in the same shots) but I like my 5-star films to have plot in them and intelligence and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, it was mildly impressive; and I highly appreciated the way the team managed to shove their ideology down the world's throat (surely I'm allowed to anthropomorphise the world) - perhaps I should've taken notes. I can also envisage using some short clips from this heathen-friendly film as teaching points in modern church services or youth-directed christian education programmes. So I'm hardly a hater.
The ideology was in any case, rather interesting - it illustrated well a kind of modern neopagan scientism in what it promoted; but was far more clear in what it opposed i.e. the American military, unbridled capitalism, trashing of the environment etc. Yet I don't think Hollywood's new cause-célèbre-baby works. It could almost have been an anti-war film; if it wasn't for the obvious joy taken from whipping the Earth-soldiers' collective butts, complete with Hollywood explosions. It could have been pro-scientism; even keen to put a scientific slant on the Na'vi spiritual stuff - but the soldiers' offensive atheism was shown up as just that - and ultimately, there was clearly at least one mind behind Pandora's ecological balance, combined with a kind of dualistic view of persons. It could have been anti-Christian; I suppose the soldiers, like the real US military, could have easily had a religious gloss - but the film preferred to both be pro nature-worship (deification of nature) and to leave in a few church-friendly references that might help the DVD sales. ("Born twice", "hallelujah mountains", etc. Come on; "hallelujah mountains"?!) Oh - and I just discovered 'Avatar' means 'Incarnation' in Sanskrit. Cool.
It could have been a really good film; but somehow, it kinda failed.
I guess the visuals were good, (though it seemed they tried rather hard most of the time to avoid having aliens and humans in the same shots) but I like my 5-star films to have plot in them and intelligence and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, it was mildly impressive; and I highly appreciated the way the team managed to shove their ideology down the world's throat (surely I'm allowed to anthropomorphise the world) - perhaps I should've taken notes. I can also envisage using some short clips from this heathen-friendly film as teaching points in modern church services or youth-directed christian education programmes. So I'm hardly a hater.
The ideology was in any case, rather interesting - it illustrated well a kind of modern neopagan scientism in what it promoted; but was far more clear in what it opposed i.e. the American military, unbridled capitalism, trashing of the environment etc. Yet I don't think Hollywood's new cause-célèbre-baby works. It could almost have been an anti-war film; if it wasn't for the obvious joy taken from whipping the Earth-soldiers' collective butts, complete with Hollywood explosions. It could have been pro-scientism; even keen to put a scientific slant on the Na'vi spiritual stuff - but the soldiers' offensive atheism was shown up as just that - and ultimately, there was clearly at least one mind behind Pandora's ecological balance, combined with a kind of dualistic view of persons. It could have been anti-Christian; I suppose the soldiers, like the real US military, could have easily had a religious gloss - but the film preferred to both be pro nature-worship (deification of nature) and to leave in a few church-friendly references that might help the DVD sales. ("Born twice", "hallelujah mountains", etc. Come on; "hallelujah mountains"?!) Oh - and I just discovered 'Avatar' means 'Incarnation' in Sanskrit. Cool.It could have been a really good film; but somehow, it kinda failed.
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