Richard Dawkins was on BBC 5 Live recently talking about his latest book and he said something that struck me as rather odd. Paraphrasing (because the BBC's podcasts disappear after a week) he mused that there may be super beings out there in the universe indistinguishable from gods, who are the end products of a long period of evolution on their home worlds. He said something similar on Fresh Air two years ago. And although he thinks it unlikely Dawkins speculates that life here on Earth may have begun because one of these superbeings got the ball rolling with an initial seeding....
Now Dawkins says that he doesn't believe in God because he thinks that God has to be infinite, and has to exist prior to the Big Bang, but he is, apparently, willing to believe in a finite god who is the end product of evolution. This doesn't seem an enormous distinction to me. Let's say a god-like being did kick off evolution on this planet and he or she has been watching us closely for the last 4 billion years (those first three billion must have dragged). Wouldn't it make sense then to worship and pray to this entity in the hope that we could benefit from the entity's largess? If sufficiently advanced couldn't this entity do just about anything including preserving our mind states and transmuting these mind states into another form after our deaths? Dawkins consistently mocks the efficacy of prayer and the belief in resurrection, but these are the logical outcomes of what he's saying here. Furthermore in a universe of 10 000 billion suns with billions of Earth like worlds that's been knocking around now for at least 13 billion years doesn't it seem more likely than not that these god-like beings have evolved somewhere and indeed are out there right now? Wouldn't prayer and worship seem like sensible, precautionary steps in dealing with these potentially terrifying entities? And what exactly does Dawkins's atheism mean if he is prepared to believe in gods, but not an infinite God? In the strict sense of the word Dawkins is not an atheist, he's an agnostic. Theism is the belief in at least one god, atheism is the certain belief that there are no gods.
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Hold on a minute, you may be saying to yourself, can the world's most famous atheist really not be an atheist at all? Uhm, yeah, I think so. I also think that if you believe in evolution by natural selection (and the evidence is overwhelming folks) and if you believe that the universe is 13.5 billion years old (again lots of evidence) then strict atheism (belief in no gods or god-like entities) is not very logical. Somewhere, somewhen they must have evolved.
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And don't even get me started on Dawkins's colleague, Professor Nick Bostrom and his theory that none of this is real to begin with and that we are all very probably living in a computer simulation controlled by god-like beings from the future.
50 comments:
I think you are making two separate points here:
1. Definitionally Dawkins is not am "atheist" as we all understand the word.
2. Dawkins seems to be pinning his entire career on the notion that all Christians etc. want their god to be an infinite God existing a priori to the universe. But that's only Dawkins's straw man description of their concept of god. Their "god" and his "god" might in fact be completely compatible.
By the way, that Nick Bostrom thing reads like total gibberish to me, I'm sorry.
Anon
I dont think the Nick Bostrom argument is gibberish. I'm not sure that I buy it but I think its well reasoned.
I think you're right about Dawkins though. If you're welling to believe in god-like aliens, what's so crazy about Christians etc. who think that that there's an invisible god watching us?
Let's say a god-like being did kick off evolution on this planet and he or she has been watching us closely for the last 4 billion years (those first three billion must have dragged). Wouldn't it make sense then to worship and pray to this entity in the hope that we could benefit from the entity's largess?
/Heavy irony
More compelling is the theory is that God is a teenager, creating it all in a seven day obsessional burst (when did he eat or sleep?) then buggering off.
Come tidy your room? Yes.
Worship? No
Anne
That'll fill me with trepidation about the afterlife:
Me: What is this terrible music?
God: This is cool.
Me: Jesus, this music sucks, there's no melody, the riffs are bad, you cant understand the lyrics...
Jesus: Did someone mention my name?
Me: No, no, I was just saying that this music is rubbish. Ok, Lily Allen's cute, but Lady Gaga? Get real guys. Have you ever heard Zep in their prime?
God: Funnily enough we've got John Bonham right here and he loves Lady Gaga.
Me: I dont believe it.
John Bonham (with fake smile): it's true, God's musical choices are all brilliant.
Me: Oh man, eternity is going to go very slowly.
God: Let me put on the new Britney dance mix.
I was wondering when that post was going to get on to Nick Bostrom.
The real question, I suppose, is what are we supposed to be doing in this simulation? What does the great simulator of the future want out of this game? Are the roles entirely scripted, or are there opportunities for choice anywhere?
Regardless of the truth of the matter, it seems as good a way to think about one's life as any.
Adrian, Dawkins could still be consistent if he believes not only that God must be omnipotent and exist prior to the Big Bang, but also that any other kind of creator beings do not intervene in what they have set in motion.
Besides, the presence of such creator beings, who are the end product of an evolutionary process, might solve the issue of how life on earth was created, but sets up a new question about who created the superbeings, or who seeded their evolution, and so on in an infinite regression.
There is neither a 'cause of all causes' indicated in Dawkins speculation, nor any sense that prayer to the superbeings would be efficacious, right?
Seana
I can think of 3 different life strategies depending on whether this is 1) a simulation 2) a godless universe 3) an Earth watched over by a benevolent Creator.
In 1) you should try and become famous or hang out with famous people; probably even infamy is ok, because you want the Sim makers to like your character
In 2) you can get away with anything as long as you're not caught
In 3) you should probably be good in case the Creator is not happy with you. Although why he lets Charles Manson and Bin Laden live so long and kills kids with leukemia is another question.
Girish
I'm sure Dawkins is consistent but is he an atheist? I dont think so, not if he believes in the possiblity of a finite god or god-like entity hovering over the Earth. Atheists deny the possibility of gods or God. I think the whole infinity thing isnt that important really, he thinks it is, but I just dont see why it matters. What if a god-like being learned how to create a baby universe whose destiny he or she could shape. He's the God for that entire Universe, right?
There's no chicken-egg worry if everyone accepts that the Big Bang happened because of some quantum flux in the nothingness 13.5 billion years ago.
Dawkins might even be a Gnostic: our universe is governed by a finite evil demiurge, not an infinite/good God.
Your strategy for the simulation assumes that we know the point of the game. And that it isn't advanced enough to follow our internal processes as well as our external ones.
For all we know, it was invented by fundamentalist Christians as a way of amusing themselves after the Rapture and the whole 'the last shall be first, blessed are the meek,' kind off strategy is really the way to win it.
Or it could be run by squirrels, who were monitoring our responses about them in your last post very, very carefully. Did I mention how adorable I think they are?
"Theism is the belief in at least one god, atheism is the certain belief that there are no gods."
Nitpick here, bud. Atheism means the absence of a belief in god(s). It does not necessarily mean one believes there are no gods, though that may be the case for most atheists. I think in the broadest sense of the word, it simply means lacking a belief in god.
As for Dawkins's god/godlike beings, I hear what you're saying. That may not make him an atheist, but I think his concept of god being a natural product of 14 billion years of evolution is still different than the typical understanding of God, who exists outside or beyond the Universe and is therefore not subject to it.
Either way, as you say, it doesn't explain why kids are afflicted with leukemia.
Seana
True, true, but I still think in the Sim its probably better to be famous. The bigger the character the more likely you'll keep the gamers attention. Brad Pitt's going to be fine.
Brian
I dont see that that makes a huge or important difference. Dawkins's gods/aliens are indistinguishable from what we commonly would know of as gods/God. One of them might even be Yahweh the god of the Bible. I think the whole idea that God has to exist prior to the Big Bang is a canard. Why should he or she? I think if a Christian were to say that the God they worship could also be the product of evolution elsewhere in the universe or in a different universe, Dawkins would be completely flummoxed.
If you look at these dictionary definitions you'll see that Dawkins really is a good bit closer to agnosticism. Nobody in any of these definitions talks about infinity or the Big Bang.
Phil K Dick's novel The Divine Invasion has some of these themes and if he'd lived I'm sure he would have been able to tackle this concept head on.
I still don't know about your sim strategy. Bigger target and all that. And I'm pretty sure Brad Pitt isn't even real. In any universe.
Or perhaps Dawkins senses that he might sell more books if he just hints, without ever conceding he is doing so, that there just might be something that some people might regard as something like god.
And yes, Dawkins is speaking at the Free Library in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
All kidding aside, I think my deepest belief is that no one actually does know their own secret heart, so we should exert ourselves in the direction of sympathy towards others, no matter what they say they espouse.
... no one actually does know their own secret heart ...
Uncertainty -- I'd call it radical uncertainty if that phrase didn't spring readily to my lips -- is part of what I think Karen Armstrong finds attractive about some of the oldest Indian scriptures and what A. Gottlieb Zornberg finds attractive in Rashi's view of the creation account in Genesis.
For reasons possibly related to this, I like the arguments in the Mishnah. Argument means uncertainty, and uncertainty these days is reassuring, I think.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I agree. I seem to find myself very comfortable with uncertainty, but not everybody is.
Seana,
I think that's hit the nail on the head. My problem with atheists is their certainty. They know there isn't a god or gods.
Just dont seem logical to me and goes against Godel and Heisenberg and everything the twentieth century has taught us. Its a nineteenth century idea.
Peter
I've said it before, but one of my favourite bits of Passover is the rabbis arguing over the interpretation of what it the whole is actually all about. Thats just brilliant. You dont get any Christmas carols wondering about the very nature of Christmas. Any religion where the dialectic is hardwired in sounds pretty good to me.
It's funny how the "new atheists" seem to be arguing against an old theism. I tend to like the way Judaism has expanded from its source materials better than the way Christianity has. But it certainly has its own fundamentalist branches. And on the other hand, I went to a discussion series with my Episcopalian friends a couple of years ago, and was excited to see some of the ways people were now thinking about doctrine, which is to say, non-doctrinally.
I've grown to like that part of Passover, too, though I must admit I have rarely if ever followed in the rabbis' footsteps and spent Passover arguing about what the rabbis said.
But that's an attractive picture, of these guys arguing until dawn.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Seana, I just looked up Clausewitz quotations to make sure I had one right for my next post (Yeah, it's the quotation you think, the famous one) when I found something else from him that may be pertinent to this discussion:
"Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating."
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I had to look up the famous Clauswitz quote, of course, because I am terrible at attribution. But yeah, I know the one you mean.
I wouldn't say I'm fascinated by uncertainty. I just think it's the medium in which we live.
I'll be surprised if Karen Armstrong starts quoting Clausewitz in her speeches.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/</a
I think you're probably right about that. But in what context are you going to use him?
A paraphrase.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Got it.
Adrian: Rabbits arguing? This a worry for me. How is it rabbits can argue? I can never eat another rabbit if this is true.
Dawkins doesn't want to be called atheist: he has said there's not a specific word for people who don't believe in fairies, shouldn't be one for those who don't believe in God. He's a bright , a definition which renders your point moot. SUPERnatural vs natural explanations.
Dawkins seems to be pinning his entire career on the notion that all Christians etc. want their god to be an infinite God existing a priori to the universe. But that's only Dawkins's straw man description of their concept of god.
No, it's a perfectly accurate description of the concept of God of the kind of Christians he has issues with. I'm sure if Religious People were to stop trying to enforce their moral views on the basis of a "natural law" which has supernatural foundations, most people wouldn't care one way or the other.
Marco
Anglicans, for example, dont seek to impose their world view or morality on anyone. I think Dawkins is on shaky philosophical territory. I agree with him about evolution on Earth but I dont think he's fully considered what this means in a vast and old universe. There are Christians who believe in a God/spiritual dimension to life but reject Genesis. Andrew Sullivan is one of those.
There is a word for people who don't believe in fairies, though.
Doomed.
I don't agree with Dawkins that referring to yourself as a bright sounds any less arrogant than saying "I am bright", with the added disadvantage that it sounds slightly inane. But it's certainly the kind of word that would catch on in Santa Cruz. I do believe we have a lot of brights around here, and they probably wouldn't be shy to tell you it.
I don't know how Dawkins talks about Christians, but there are certainly some bright atheists who do seem to lump them all together to do battle. I am not a Christian myself, but I have known a wide swath of them and I would certainly feel more comfortable with some of them than others.
I don't think the brights and I are really kindred spirits either. I don't generally agree with people who are so conclusive about what the world can and cannot consist of.
Seana
I've been wracking my brain to come up with a reason why the word "bright" (Dawkins thinks it will become as popular as gay someday) sounds weird. I cant put my finger on it, but I think you're right, it does sound kind of mad.
My favourite New Atheist is probably Christopher Hitchens. I think I could have a really nice conversation with him and I'd enjoy trying to keep up with his alcohol consumption.
Dawkins though is married to one of Dr Who's former assistants and I could go on about that with him for hours.
Hitchens is a bit too much of a provocateur for my taste. I think he needs to grow up a little. He's a tad too old for the whole naughty boy role.
On the other hand, he does seem to be good friends with Salman Rushdie, so maybe if he brought along Sir Rushdie, I could tolerate him for awhile.
Actually, I suppose he'd be entertaining on his own--but annoying.
Anglicans, for example, dont seek to impose their world view or morality on anyone.
Respectfully, are you fucking joking?
Tell it to homosexual men and women in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
Anglicans of the "Global South" have consistently campaigned for more repressive laws or to maintain Colonial sodomy laws, from Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados to Nigeria Uganda Cameroon Zimbabwe to Malaysia India and Fiji. Lone progressive voices have been reviled and insulted. Even Desmond Tutu has been attacked by other African Bishops for his support of homosexuals.
And they have many allies in the "First" World, who want the return to a less postmodern understanding of their Church.
Anglicanism is not just Rowan Williams amiably chatting with Philip Pullman, you know.
There are Christians who believe in a God/spiritual dimension to life but reject Genesis. Andrew Sullivan is one of those.
What does this even mean? The Catholic Church doesn't literally believe in Genesis, but still claims to possess universal truths about human nature.
Atheists, agnostics, brights don't feel threatened by progressive, humanistic understandings of religions like Unitarian Universalism or by individuals/theologians who approach these positions in the classic denominations. But they are not the majority - and the more identity is diluted, the more religions languish. Strict literalist churches which offer a strong framework with which to see reality thrive, while churches which lose their strong views, as in much of the West, tend to become irrelevant and their importance is increasingly confined to superficial cultural aspects.
There's a reason every other week the Pope has a sermon on the "bane of moral relativism"
I don't generally agree with people who are so conclusive about what the world can and cannot consist of
You live in a country whose official motto is "In God We Trust". Pretty conclusive, I would think.
Marco
I meant the Anglicans in England and Ireland who are a tolerant, apologetic, pro gay, pro multi faith, borderline agnostic bunch.
Hey dont get me started on the Catholics...
I kid. No I think religions that are based on a dodgy text have a lot of coherence problems, but those who grasp and wrestle with an incomplete knowledge of the world and embrace the uncertainties of life are quite attractive, at least to me.
The certainty of people like Ricky Gervais, Daniel Dannett, Christopher Hitchens, Dawkins etc. I find unsettling and peculiar. If the Age of Reason has taught us anything its that we are continually being surprised by Nature.
I meant the Anglicans in England and Ireland who are a tolerant, apologetic, pro gay, pro multi faith, borderline agnostic bunch.
Not entirely. The "conservatives" among them have said pretty dismal things.
Of course, if all of them were "borderline agnostic" atheists and religious people would happily get along without much fuss, like Pullman and Williams. Instead, Pullman's book - I don't remember which one of the trilogy - is the second most challenged book in America, according tho those who organize the banned books week.
but those who grasp and wrestle with an incomplete knowledge of the world and embrace the uncertainties of life are quite attractive, at least to me.
The main point of Dawkins is that religions behave like living organisms, by Dna transmission.
They evolve over time, but they still have to pass on their Dna.
"borderline agnostic" religions of uncertainty, doubt and personal research may be very attractive, but are ultimately sterile mutations. They may constantly resurface, but when they are predominant a religion loses much of its power to attract, and the number of people who identifies/believes in that religion -as opposed to maintaining some vestigial cultural traits with little relevance for practical life - shrinks considerably.
Of course I know wonderful Christians, and people that try to change their Church from the inside - but I still think that this model is correct.
And this consideration is for me independent from any kind of evaluation of religion, moral or otherwise.
Marco
I happen to think most religions will become like wishy washy Anglicans, it'll take hundreds of years but I think it will happen. Contra Rousseau, reason advances with every generation.
BTW my problem with the Pullman books is that they violate Ray Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder" rule. There's not going to be Calvinism or Jesus or Oxford University if everyone has a personal familiar and bears can talk. The Royal Shakespeare Company's performed audiobook version is wonderful though.
I do happen to live in the country with this official motto, but I didn't write it, Marco.
I also happen to live in Santa Cruz, where there are at least as many Hitchens and Dawkins fans as there are "In God We Trusters", judging by book sales.
Because some good friends are Episcopalians, the American version of the Anglican church for anyone reading who doesn't know this, I've heard a lot about the split between the conservative branch that does not approve of having chosen a gay archbishop and who don't want to alienate the African Anglicans and the branch that supports gay rights and is in fact pretty indistinguishable from any other liberal leftist group you can find. Santa Cruz, as you can imagine is a pretty freewheeling segment of the church, but there are conservative elements as well. I think it's pretty ridiculous to think of the church as one thing that you can argue with, even in a given community. It might have been the case once, but it certainly isn't now.
There is certainly a very healthy and loud fundamentalist strain in the U.S. I'm not saying it isn't significant and even scary. Definitely discouraging. I'm just saying its far from the only thing that's going on.
But I will agree, and my Episcopalian friends would agree that they are having a hard time gaining younger membership while more literalist churches with their claims to clear answers are not.
Speaking of coherence problems, did either of you or anyone else who happens to be reading here ever read Jack Miles, God: an Autobiography a few years back. He tries to put together a whole God out of Hebrew bible and shows how it fails. But he isn't doing it in a cynical or mocking spirit, and it's actually a great service to close readers of the scriptures to try and answer his challenges. I don't think it's a whole answer but its at least a thoughtful and respectful one. It isn't just dismissive of anyone who thinks differently.
I do happen to live in the country with this official motto, but I didn't write it, Marco.
Those who adopted apparently thought it would have represented every American. It's a reminder of how religions are respectful of other viewpoints when secularism isn't so strong, and of the reasons why many people become aggressive atheists.
I think it's pretty ridiculous to think of the church as one thing that you can argue with
If the pope says atheists are morally dubious (yes, he did) or Bishop X says homosexuals are sick/evil/perverted -in both cases from a position of power and influence - I'd consider everyone who belongs to their churches but doesn't strongly and publicly oppose those views as an accomplice. It's really pretty simple. If you choose to belong to a group you share responsability.
Personally, I am more impressed by the legal separation of church and state, besieged though it may currently be, than I am by a motto. I know it's important to some people to get rid of it, it just isn't that important to me.
Yes, our founders came up with the motto, yes they probably thought everyone who was anyone would agree, but there were a whole vast range of people who didn't even have the vote, so it's safe to say it didn't occur to them to consult everyone.
I'm not saying people aren't bound to protest injustice and discrimination proclaimed from on high within their own churches. I don't know that, having done that loudly and clearly, they then are honorbound to leave the institution. I'm sure it's different in different scenarios. I have friends who are Catholic women for instance, who think that the priesthood should be open to them. They struggle with it and you could say they could easily go and become a, say, Lutheran pastor. But they feel commited to fighting the patriarchy from within. Whose to say whether this is worth the battle? Certainly not me.
Anyway, I don't think the Episcopalians should be held accountable for the fundamentalists beliefs, either morally or doctrinally, though of course they do have a responsibility to make their own position clear.
Seana, Marco
one small correction: the founders came up with the unofficial motto e pluribus unum.
In God We Trust only appeared in 1958 in response to the spread of Godless communism.
I knew I should have done some fact checking, but I never learn. Did it really spoil the whole discussion for you to see us tossing around that error? Just curious.
I do know that God keeps getting added into things, like the pledge, despite our founders' intent. I keep coming across things like that, where the original intention, is much more radical but it gets smoothed and sentimentalized into something else. Mother's Day being a case in point, though it has nothing to do with God.
Just wanted to say that Santa Cruz after the storm is absolutely balmy and gorgeous, the light in the yard ain't half bad without that tree and the squirrels seem to be doing just fine. I'm glad I didn't get on the bus for Henderson last night after all.
the founders came up with the unofficial motto e pluribus unum
and Sturgeon came up with "e pluribus unicorn"
Whose to say whether this is worth the battle? Certainly not me.
I agree.
But they should develop a thicker skin and not be bothered by the Dawkins types - who ultimately goes after Creationists and the likes anyway, with a some exaggerations, but nothing particularly offensive, unless you don't like to be made fun of because you want to believe that men and Dinosaurs coexisted.
Here's a more nuanced view of Dawkins. See, he even likes to sing a Christmas carol now and then!
I have a good friend who is a catholic priest, and it's certainly not Dawkins that gives him headaches.
But enough with all that, let's talk really important things, like beers and ...
The Oktoberfest plan was a good one - though I would have had to dispose of his girlfriend and a couple of others - but this year, what with the fact that he had a lot of work and had already taken a lot of holidays , he had not planned to go.
I had thought of Plan B. It seemed simple and foolproof, though probably needed some adjustments (for example, I already have a beard).
But then, something terrible happened.
There was a charity concert a couple of weeks in a bar.
Now, this bar has some honest standard draught beers , but from time to time it experiments with some more fanciful stuff - only they never re-order it a second time.
They told me "there's a new dark stout, from a microbrewery in Genova, it's very good". So I tried it and said to myself "Wow! This is really gorgeous stuff,rich,tasty, strong, better than Guinness!"
So when he arrived I said " you must try this dark stout, it's gorgeous, rich, tasty, strong, better than Guinness" and he: "oh, no, I don't like Guinness, it's not for me".
Three liters or so afterwards I was still shattered.
It felt like our beermance was a product of the lack of variety in our wine-obsessed culture, and that we aren't really compatible after all.
He really only likes wheat beers.
Recently, however I've began to put things back in perspective. At least he doesn't drink cider .
Last monday, while I was in the very same bar, drinking some Denver Snake Dog Ipas arrived through a warp in the space-time continuum which I know they'll never re-order again, his girlfriend told me that, against my expectations, he often opens the Lese- und Arbeitsbuch book (entirely in German) I've lent him.
He handles it with utmost care, like it was The Necronomicon, reads some phrases and tries to make a few exercises - isn't it cute?
So anyway, I was thinking to make my first homebrew, but it seems very complicated. Could you tell me how you do it? Is it possible to try with smaller doses - I wouldn't want to end up with 100 lts of undrinkable beer.
Should I forsake all my dignity and go for a wheat beer?
Marco
The person you should ask about home brew is Brian O'Rourke. I dont know if I told you but my last homebrewing experience was a total disaster.
Back in January I was brewing up a chocolate porter which I had really high hopes for, but then it February we had those days where it went up to 45 degrees C and was probably much more in the shed. The whole tub was ruined.
Smaller is definitely better. I usually sterilize a small plastic storage box and brew in that, but my confidence has been shattered a bit.
Adrian, I thought you were going to give homebrewing another shot once it got cooler. What happened?
I'm fine with dropping the topic in favor of beer, and though that was a more nuanced view of Dawkins, I guess I still think that scientists aren't really qualified merely by reason of their scientific studies to pronounce a kind of final verdict on religion. The scientific method can only really comment on that which can be quantifiably measured, and that isn't everything. However any Christian who feels that their faith is threatened by the theory of evolution has a fairly impoverished faith. I would think the Holocaust would be a much harder thing to sustain faith after.
I've certainly argued with my Christian friends a lot about many things over the years, and I wouldn't say that I have really gotten any answers that satisfy me. But I also find much of the new atheism to be ignorant and reactionary, and knowing people who have thought just as deeply as they have about all these issues, I tend to find the rationalists just a tad simplistic. You're right that Dawkins and Hitchens are really targeting a more literalist interpretation of the Bible, etc., but the problem is that I find many otherwise well-informed secularists lumping all religious people under the same umbrella, and a pretty absurd umbrella at that. Theological thinking is actually a pretty rich philosophical vein, and I have a hard time with people just waving it away as nonsense. It should be pretty clear that none of us has more than a slippery grasp on the nature of reality.
Okay, back to beer. Marco, why are you so down on wheat beer?
guess I still think that scientists aren't really qualified merely by reason of their scientific studies to pronounce a kind of final verdict on religion.
The problem is that religious people nearly always feel qualified to express verdicts on things on the basis solely of their religion - or supposedly "logical" arguments based on their religion.
It's not just that wheat beers aren't my favorite beers, it's the tragic waste of all the diversity that beers can offer. It's beer racism.
Marco, if you were arguing for a sort of dominant religious view, I'd be arguing with you too.
The problem is that most of us--and I don't include you in this,but I do include myself--are very ill informed and rely on what authority tells us. In secular America, which stands across a great divide from most of religious America, what the scientists say--about anything--is received as a kind of new gospel. But science shouldn't pronounce on everything any more than religion should.
Being a very good scientist doesn't in itself make you wise. Of course, I'm not sure what does.
Maybe wheat beer.
Interesting article about religion
Scientology has a fierce competitor
Quoting myself from a while back:
I have a good friend who is a catholic priest, and it's certainly not Dawkins that gives him headaches.
He's still a priest, but has been suspended and will have to leave his community. He was one of the few remaining priests who took inspiration from Liberation Theology and similar currents.
A worker-priest, a voice for the poor and the oppressed, an unflinching campaigner for social justice and activism, the founder, among other things, of the social co-op in which I've worked in Florence. This and other things he helped to create were always open to everyone and strictly separated from the purely religious aspect -even if it was a motivation for many of those who participated - and they will continue, but the community which gathered around him, regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof, loses its heart.
His last mass will be next Sunday.
These are very sad times for a lot of people, myself included.
That is very sad, Marco. The Catholics I knew in college were big on Liberation Theology, so I'm sorry to hear it has fallen on hard times, at least in Italy.
I suppose my biggest gripe with religion as it seems to be mainly practiced is the degree to which it isn't open, and needs to solidify itself in order to define itself. The best part of religion for me is the expansive part, the part that seeks to understand and reconcile what is happening in our current reality with received wisdom. It seems to me that it should be a struggle.
Best wishes to your priestly friend. I hope he finds a new way to proceed.
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