Scientists were forced to admit this week that their attempt to destroy the universe had failed. Boffins at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in Switzerland turned on the device last week to international excitement. However, on Friday it was shut down after a rattling sound was reported as coming from within one of the meson cannons. Dr Hun-Lum Kim, on secondment from the North Korean Nuclear Research Facility, explained that it looked like one of the quark accelerators used to drive atoms at twice the speed of light had come loose. “It is very frustrating,” he said, “ we have got so close to a functioning doomsday machine and then this happened.” Blaming budget constraints and sloppy workmanship, he added “I knew it was a mistake to source the fission magnetrons from Iran but obviously most the technology is completely illegal in the West and you just have to get it from where you can.”
Sources close to the project reacting angrily to the suggestion that trying to destroy the universe was “irresponsible” or “playing God.” “Science is merely the disinterested search for knowledge,” a source insisted. “Knowing whether it is possible to create black hole big enough to swallow all reality is vital to testing the validity of string theory. Clearly, we would not want the technology to fall into the hands of dictators or Republicans but that is unlikely to happen because we’ll all be dead anyway.”
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Visions of Jesus and other spirits: were Resurrection appearances hallucinations?
Comparative religion is a tricky business, apologetically speaking. Pointing out cross-cultural similarities (or differences) between belief systems can be both an aide and a detriment to making the case for Christ. Take the Resurrection appearances, for example: many apologists argue for their uniqueness by pointing to their collective nature (i.e. Jesus appeared to many people at once) and the tangible effects of those appearances. In a recent post on his blog, N.T. Wrong attempts to provide comparative historical evidence, not for collective hallucinations per se, but for individual dreams/visions which subsequently mutated into reports of collective visions, and concludes that "The most plausible explanation for the accounts of the sightings of Jesus, therefore, is that they derive from individual vision reports, which over time have been transformed into reports of mass sightings of Jesus."
There are problems with Wrong's case stemming from the fact that all the examples of mass visions which he gives are dreams, experienced at night rather than during the waking hours by groups of awake, alert people. Furthermore, he acknowledges that some of the Resurrection appearances begin with a group of people (i.e. the three women who came to Jesus' grave) rather than an individual (Mark's resurrection account has an individual sighting, that of Mary Magdalene, tagged on to an original group vision account). He refers to Mark's account as visionary even though Mark does not present it as such on the basis of some similarities to other vision stories: the women were grieving which is known to produce hallucinations (so-called grief-induced visions), and it was in the early hours of the morning, the 'liminal' hours which are associated with visions (so this wouldn't apply to Luke's story of an encounter with the risen Lord by two disciples at around dusk). This seems pretty flimsy evidence upon which to pronounce the Markan account a vision story, especially given the distinctive nature of the Christian resurrection claim. As Robin Fox points out, "In the pagan world, visions of a person soon after death were not uncommon...Christians, however, advanced the extreme claim that the object of their visions had risen physically from the dead...These [resurrection] stories were very explicit and had no pagan counterpart." (Pagans and Christians, pp.377-378)
But suppose he is right that there is, or could be in theory, comparative evidence for phenomena similar to resurrection appearances. Would that be an apologetic weakness necessarily? Philip Wiebe's case for the Resurrection in Visions of Jesus is dependent upon there being such evidence. We should recall the oft-repeated caution not to prejudge the evidential value of vision accounts simply because they are visionary. Just because people have had visionary experiences doesn't mean they are not veridical. Of course there is the problem then of determining whether vision stories from other religious traditions are veridical. I think there is a case to be made that at least some of them are, although of course their source and meaning is open to question. The point is that each apologetic strategy (emphasizing uniqueness, emphasizing continuity) has its pros and cons. But perhaps they can be brought together to emphasize the strengths and downplay the weaknesses of each. The argument about the Resurrection is far from over.
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There are problems with Wrong's case stemming from the fact that all the examples of mass visions which he gives are dreams, experienced at night rather than during the waking hours by groups of awake, alert people. Furthermore, he acknowledges that some of the Resurrection appearances begin with a group of people (i.e. the three women who came to Jesus' grave) rather than an individual (Mark's resurrection account has an individual sighting, that of Mary Magdalene, tagged on to an original group vision account). He refers to Mark's account as visionary even though Mark does not present it as such on the basis of some similarities to other vision stories: the women were grieving which is known to produce hallucinations (so-called grief-induced visions), and it was in the early hours of the morning, the 'liminal' hours which are associated with visions (so this wouldn't apply to Luke's story of an encounter with the risen Lord by two disciples at around dusk). This seems pretty flimsy evidence upon which to pronounce the Markan account a vision story, especially given the distinctive nature of the Christian resurrection claim. As Robin Fox points out, "In the pagan world, visions of a person soon after death were not uncommon...Christians, however, advanced the extreme claim that the object of their visions had risen physically from the dead...These [resurrection] stories were very explicit and had no pagan counterpart." (Pagans and Christians, pp.377-378)
But suppose he is right that there is, or could be in theory, comparative evidence for phenomena similar to resurrection appearances. Would that be an apologetic weakness necessarily? Philip Wiebe's case for the Resurrection in Visions of Jesus is dependent upon there being such evidence. We should recall the oft-repeated caution not to prejudge the evidential value of vision accounts simply because they are visionary. Just because people have had visionary experiences doesn't mean they are not veridical. Of course there is the problem then of determining whether vision stories from other religious traditions are veridical. I think there is a case to be made that at least some of them are, although of course their source and meaning is open to question. The point is that each apologetic strategy (emphasizing uniqueness, emphasizing continuity) has its pros and cons. But perhaps they can be brought together to emphasize the strengths and downplay the weaknesses of each. The argument about the Resurrection is far from over.
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Steven Weinberg recovers from Russell's Syndrome
Steven Weinberg has written a surprisingly good article in the New York Review of Books. It is in marked contrast to his much less successful review of the God Delusion in the Times Literary Supplement last year. For example, the new Weinberg admits he has no idea what effect al-Ghazali had on Islamic science while in his review of Dawkins’s book, he blamed him for completely destroying the Arabic scientific tradition. In his earlier piece, Weinberg wrote, “after al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries”, which is factually inaccurate as many, not least George Saliba, have pointed out. Likewise, Weinberg has abandoned the conflict hypothesis for the relationship between science and religion in favour of mere ‘tension’. Ironically, that is the same word I use in my own book, God’s Philosophers, although I refer to the tension as creative. One of the reasons why I use the word ‘creative’ is that the medieval condemnation of Aristotle’s naturalistic philosophy had a positive effect on the rise of science. Weinberg even acknowledges this point in his article. He also has a realistic attitude to science’s inability to answer many important questions. That isn’t to say that Weinberg has changed his mind about God. And he continues to make mistakes about several aspects of history (not least how Darwin lost his faith). But the improvement in both tone and argumentation is clear to see.
I want to take one point from Weinberg’s article. That in itself is a sign of progress because in his previous incarnation, his thinking wasn’t even worth engaging with. The point I want to raise is the question of authority, both moral and scientific. Weinberg thinks he can do without authority and explains that scientific authority is not absolute. This is true but, for most of us, it may as well be. In order to effectively criticise science one has to have a relevant PhD and access to peer-reviewed journals. In practice, even if we could understand the issues and do the maths (which most of us cannot), we cannot challenge scientific authority. Scientific authority is thus vested in a group of men (and a few women) that few of us have the slightest chance of ever joining. It is all very well for a Nobel Prize winner like Weinberg to laud this system, but then he is on the inside.
The thing is, I laud the system too. I want science in the hands of experts who have been properly trained and are backed up by a long tradition of similarly learned individuals. I’d like a similar level of expertise to be brought to bear on moral questions as well. Weinberg would appear to deny us this because only religion has provided such a framework. He realises that the removal of this authority on how to live one’s life creates a huge problem. The substitutes, such as Nazism and Communism, have, he acknowledges, been worse than the religion that they aimed to replace. Weinberg eloquently notes that, as atheists, “at best we live life on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.” The tragedy of being an open-minded atheist is the realisation that they need religion just they reject it.
Weinberg’s article also raises an interesting medical point. I had previously assumed that Russell’s Syndrome (whereby intelligent atheists turn stupid when they talk about religion) was incurable, but on the evidence of the NYRB article, Weinberg is well on the way to making a recovery. We should wish him well.
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I want to take one point from Weinberg’s article. That in itself is a sign of progress because in his previous incarnation, his thinking wasn’t even worth engaging with. The point I want to raise is the question of authority, both moral and scientific. Weinberg thinks he can do without authority and explains that scientific authority is not absolute. This is true but, for most of us, it may as well be. In order to effectively criticise science one has to have a relevant PhD and access to peer-reviewed journals. In practice, even if we could understand the issues and do the maths (which most of us cannot), we cannot challenge scientific authority. Scientific authority is thus vested in a group of men (and a few women) that few of us have the slightest chance of ever joining. It is all very well for a Nobel Prize winner like Weinberg to laud this system, but then he is on the inside.
The thing is, I laud the system too. I want science in the hands of experts who have been properly trained and are backed up by a long tradition of similarly learned individuals. I’d like a similar level of expertise to be brought to bear on moral questions as well. Weinberg would appear to deny us this because only religion has provided such a framework. He realises that the removal of this authority on how to live one’s life creates a huge problem. The substitutes, such as Nazism and Communism, have, he acknowledges, been worse than the religion that they aimed to replace. Weinberg eloquently notes that, as atheists, “at best we live life on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.” The tragedy of being an open-minded atheist is the realisation that they need religion just they reject it.
Weinberg’s article also raises an interesting medical point. I had previously assumed that Russell’s Syndrome (whereby intelligent atheists turn stupid when they talk about religion) was incurable, but on the evidence of the NYRB article, Weinberg is well on the way to making a recovery. We should wish him well.
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Monday, September 22, 2008
Who are you calling irrational?
Damien Thompson is a conservative Catholic and a big fan of Pope Benedict XVI. He is also the author of Counterknowledge, a book that brutally debunks faith healing, pseudo-history and creationism. Thompson is a standing indictment of those who think being a committed Christian is the same thing as being gullible and irrational.
It gets worse for the Dawkinistas. Researchers at Baylor University, including Rodney Stark, have found that conservative Christians are less likely to be superstitious than non-believers.
So, it is conservative believers who are the least credulous while liberal Christians are as bad as non-believers. The rest of the report summary is pretty interesting too.
The Wall Street Journal gives us a practical example of this. Atheist comedian Bill Maher’s film Religulous is the latest ill-informed polemic against religion. Sadly, Maher himself is a fully paid up wing nut who rejects the germ theory of disease and vaccination. If he had had his way, polio would still be killing and disabling millions.
None of us are as rational as we like to believe. But it seems that atheists are even further from their self image than the rest of us.
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It gets worse for the Dawkinistas. Researchers at Baylor University, including Rodney Stark, have found that conservative Christians are less likely to be superstitious than non-believers.
The Baylor Survey found that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases
credulity, as measured by beliefs in such things as dreams, Bigfoot, UFOs,
haunted houses, communicating with the dead and astrology. Still, it
remains widely believed that religious people are especially credulous,
particularly those who identify themselves as Evangelicals, born again, Bible
believers and fundamentalists. However, the ISR researchers found that
conservative religious Americans are far less likely to believe in the occult
and paranormal than are other Americans, with self-identified theological
liberals and the irreligious far more likely than other Americans to
believe.
So, it is conservative believers who are the least credulous while liberal Christians are as bad as non-believers. The rest of the report summary is pretty interesting too.
The Wall Street Journal gives us a practical example of this. Atheist comedian Bill Maher’s film Religulous is the latest ill-informed polemic against religion. Sadly, Maher himself is a fully paid up wing nut who rejects the germ theory of disease and vaccination. If he had had his way, polio would still be killing and disabling millions.
None of us are as rational as we like to believe. But it seems that atheists are even further from their self image than the rest of us.
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Gullibility and Religious Belief
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting editorial today. It basically claims that studies have confirmed G. K. Chesterton's statement, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
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"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.Remember this the next time an atheist accuses Christians of being gullible simpletons who traffic in pseudo-science.
...
In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Case of Projection
Part of the whole "science vs. Christianity" metanarrative is that science has consistently shown that human beings aren't as significant as religion claims. Thus, Copernicus showed that the earth isn't at the center of the universe, astronomy has shown that we're a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, and Darwin showed that the human being is just an animal. Freud then appealed to this idea in order to validate his psychological theories, since they presumably showed that the human being is merely a sick animal.
For now I'll deal with the last link in this chain, and save the other links (as well as the chain taken as a whole) for other posts. Freud argued in The Future of an Illusion that people who believe in God were projecting a father figure onto the universe, motivated by a sense of helplessness. And, if religious beliefs are merely the result of psychological and sociological factors, then there's no point in asking whether or not they're true. This was considered by many to be proof from medical science that religion is bogus, in particular, Judaism and Christianity. The reason these two were singled out is because they most clearly define God as a father figure.
While Freud suggested that religion has a stabilizing effect on society as a whole, for the individual, belief in God should generally be treated as a psychological dysfunction. I say "generally" because psychological theories are never absolute; there are always exceptions which don't necessarily refute the theory. Nevertheless, Freudian psychologists have often held that treatment could only be considered successful once the patient has relinquished belief in God.
Of course, there were a few problems with this. Probably the most obvious is that it is a textbook example of a classic logical fallacy. The genetic fallacy is committed when you think that by explaining how a belief originates, you are thereby showing the belief to be false. But this is obviously not the case. If I was raised to believe that murder is bad, pointing this out does not show that murder is not bad.
The point here is that it's necessary to make a distinction between how we come to believe something and whether the object of that belief is true. Any belief has to be judged on its merits, not on the alleged psychological predispositions of its proponents. Freud's projection theory is guilty of reasoning in a way that has been recognized as sloppy thinking by virtually all the great intellects in human history.
Another problem with the projection theory is that Freud didn't have any actual evidence for it. As Os Guinness writes in The Long Journey Home, "the founder of psychoanalysis had astonishingly little experience either in probing the psychology of belief in God or in caring for patients who were religious." To his credit, Freud privately acknowledged that the projection theory was just his personal opinion.
But since Freud's time, plenty of evidence has been collected, and it shows the exact opposite of what Freud thought it would. Guinness writes "Religious life, in fact, has been demonstrated to go hand in hand with better physical health, greater psychological well-being, and a generally positive social influence." It doesn't show any evidence of being the psychological dysfunction Freud believed.
A final problem with the projection theory is that it's actually a better explanation of non-belief in God than belief. Paul Vitz, a psychologist at NYU demonstrates in his book The Faith of the Fatherless, that the most militant atheists had major father issues. He lists Nietzsche, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Ayn Rand, H. G. Wells, Stalin, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Freud himself among many others, stating "We find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case." Often, this connection was openly acknowledged by the atheist. There are, of course, exceptions to this, perhaps the most prominent being John Stuart Mill. But it certainly seems to be a valid psychological theory which explains a majority of cases.
Now, it needs to be stated as clearly as possible that this does not constitute an argument against atheism. Vitz recognizes this. To think it does would be to simply commit the genetic fallacy in the opposite direction. Atheism has to be judged on its intellectual merits, not on the home life of its advocates. Rather, the point of this is that the projection theory seems to be itself a projection. Those who had a problem with their fathers and projected this into a problem with God, then projected this projection itself onto those who don't have a problem with God. They tried to explain belief in God with the same categories that influenced their disbelief in God.
In other words, Freud committed another logical fallacy. The tu quoque fallacy is committed when you accuse your opponent of something that you're guilty of. "Tu quoque" is Latin for "Oh yeah? So are you! Nyaah!" This may make for good rhetoric, but, once again, it's sloppy thinking.
(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)
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Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
For now I'll deal with the last link in this chain, and save the other links (as well as the chain taken as a whole) for other posts. Freud argued in The Future of an Illusion that people who believe in God were projecting a father figure onto the universe, motivated by a sense of helplessness. And, if religious beliefs are merely the result of psychological and sociological factors, then there's no point in asking whether or not they're true. This was considered by many to be proof from medical science that religion is bogus, in particular, Judaism and Christianity. The reason these two were singled out is because they most clearly define God as a father figure.
While Freud suggested that religion has a stabilizing effect on society as a whole, for the individual, belief in God should generally be treated as a psychological dysfunction. I say "generally" because psychological theories are never absolute; there are always exceptions which don't necessarily refute the theory. Nevertheless, Freudian psychologists have often held that treatment could only be considered successful once the patient has relinquished belief in God.
Of course, there were a few problems with this. Probably the most obvious is that it is a textbook example of a classic logical fallacy. The genetic fallacy is committed when you think that by explaining how a belief originates, you are thereby showing the belief to be false. But this is obviously not the case. If I was raised to believe that murder is bad, pointing this out does not show that murder is not bad.
The point here is that it's necessary to make a distinction between how we come to believe something and whether the object of that belief is true. Any belief has to be judged on its merits, not on the alleged psychological predispositions of its proponents. Freud's projection theory is guilty of reasoning in a way that has been recognized as sloppy thinking by virtually all the great intellects in human history.
Another problem with the projection theory is that Freud didn't have any actual evidence for it. As Os Guinness writes in The Long Journey Home, "the founder of psychoanalysis had astonishingly little experience either in probing the psychology of belief in God or in caring for patients who were religious." To his credit, Freud privately acknowledged that the projection theory was just his personal opinion.
But since Freud's time, plenty of evidence has been collected, and it shows the exact opposite of what Freud thought it would. Guinness writes "Religious life, in fact, has been demonstrated to go hand in hand with better physical health, greater psychological well-being, and a generally positive social influence." It doesn't show any evidence of being the psychological dysfunction Freud believed.
A final problem with the projection theory is that it's actually a better explanation of non-belief in God than belief. Paul Vitz, a psychologist at NYU demonstrates in his book The Faith of the Fatherless, that the most militant atheists had major father issues. He lists Nietzsche, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Ayn Rand, H. G. Wells, Stalin, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Freud himself among many others, stating "We find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case." Often, this connection was openly acknowledged by the atheist. There are, of course, exceptions to this, perhaps the most prominent being John Stuart Mill. But it certainly seems to be a valid psychological theory which explains a majority of cases.
Now, it needs to be stated as clearly as possible that this does not constitute an argument against atheism. Vitz recognizes this. To think it does would be to simply commit the genetic fallacy in the opposite direction. Atheism has to be judged on its intellectual merits, not on the home life of its advocates. Rather, the point of this is that the projection theory seems to be itself a projection. Those who had a problem with their fathers and projected this into a problem with God, then projected this projection itself onto those who don't have a problem with God. They tried to explain belief in God with the same categories that influenced their disbelief in God.
In other words, Freud committed another logical fallacy. The tu quoque fallacy is committed when you accuse your opponent of something that you're guilty of. "Tu quoque" is Latin for "Oh yeah? So are you! Nyaah!" This may make for good rhetoric, but, once again, it's sloppy thinking.
(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)
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Friday, September 19, 2008
Revising History
In general, ‘revisionist’ is an insult when one historian uses it of another. The reason for this is partly that most attempts to radically rewrite history are based on sloppy research and are ultimately wrong (taking David Rohl as a pretty good example). The other reason is that ‘revisionist’ has come to mean ‘right wing imperialist bastard’ (as typified by this Guardian article). This is because the historical consensus of today tends to be against the British Empire, the importance of kings in shaping events and European uniqueness in general. If you think that Western civilisation has, on balance, been a good thing and that the lives of peasants had little impact on the course of events, then you are a revisionist (as well as, I suppose, a right wing imperialist bastard). You might say that whether or not you are a revisionist is really just a historical accident. If you were writing thirty years earlier or later you could find yourself boringly mainstream.
Dawkinistas call my work on science in the Middle Ages revisionist (intended as an insult) because it upsets their view of history as a battle between superstition and reason. Finding that the medieval clerics were extremely rational and into logic like we are into celebrity gossip is to bigger shock than some Dawkinistas to handle.
So it was fun to see the boot briefly being pulled onto the other foot in the last few days. Marie Stopes is the founder of the main UK network of family planning clinics and she campaigned for abortion and birth control. Sadly for her fans, it appears the main reason she was in favour of the working classes having abortions was that she was not in favour of the working classes. Worse, she wrote poetry in praise of Hitler (at least in the mid-1930s) and had views on race and disability that one might euphemistically describe as politically incorrect. Given she is a heroine of the political left, all this historical baggage has turned into something of an embarrassment.
Thus, it is amusing to see the left deploying exactly the same arguments that conservative historians have used to defend Pius XII (aka Hitler’s Pope) and Cecil Rhodes (an arch-colonial adventurer) against the critics of Mrs Stopes. In her article in the Guardian, Kathryn Hughes says:
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Dawkinistas call my work on science in the Middle Ages revisionist (intended as an insult) because it upsets their view of history as a battle between superstition and reason. Finding that the medieval clerics were extremely rational and into logic like we are into celebrity gossip is to bigger shock than some Dawkinistas to handle.
So it was fun to see the boot briefly being pulled onto the other foot in the last few days. Marie Stopes is the founder of the main UK network of family planning clinics and she campaigned for abortion and birth control. Sadly for her fans, it appears the main reason she was in favour of the working classes having abortions was that she was not in favour of the working classes. Worse, she wrote poetry in praise of Hitler (at least in the mid-1930s) and had views on race and disability that one might euphemistically describe as politically incorrect. Given she is a heroine of the political left, all this historical baggage has turned into something of an embarrassment.
Thus, it is amusing to see the left deploying exactly the same arguments that conservative historians have used to defend Pius XII (aka Hitler’s Pope) and Cecil Rhodes (an arch-colonial adventurer) against the critics of Mrs Stopes. In her article in the Guardian, Kathryn Hughes says:
What is new about this revisionism, however, is its poisonously self-righteous tone. It's as if we've started handing out gold stars to historical figures whose attitudes appear to chime with our own, while hissing everyone else off the stage. This is dangerous, because sooner or later some new bit of information will come along to disrupt those lovely moral certainties.Hear hear! Except this revisionism it isn’t new at all. It’s just pointing towards the left and, unsurprisingly, they don’t like it.
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Thursday, September 18, 2008
An American Parallel to Michael Reiss
The Michael Reiss issue in Great Britain has a parallel in American politics. Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice-presidential nominee, has been accused of wanting creationism taught in schools. Before she was elected governor of Alaska, she said in a debate that both evolution and Intelligent Design should be taught. The political left has seized upon this as a primary example of why she should not be the Vice-president. Just check out the headlines on a Google search of "Sarah Palin" and "creationism".
However, immediately after the debate in question, she was asked to clarify her comments. It turns out she was just saying there shouldn't be a blanket prohibition against discussing Intelligent Design if students bring it up. But she wouldn't want ID added to the curriculum. This is a much tamer claim -- essentially that the curiosity of students regarding controversial issues should not be squelched. But you wouldn't know it from the venom being brought to the issue.
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However, immediately after the debate in question, she was asked to clarify her comments. It turns out she was just saying there shouldn't be a blanket prohibition against discussing Intelligent Design if students bring it up. But she wouldn't want ID added to the curriculum. This is a much tamer claim -- essentially that the curiosity of students regarding controversial issues should not be squelched. But you wouldn't know it from the venom being brought to the issue.
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The Darwin Wars
The Guardian, the Times and the Telegraph all feature pieces this morning on the Michael Reiss debacle. All are highly critical of the Royal Societies response and the way in which Reiss’s comments were misrepresented by the media. This has been a PR disaster for the scientific community. Intelligent design now has claim to a legitimate martyr, despite the fact that Reiss himself is opposed to it. The response by Roberts and Kroto has been lamentable, forcing even Richard Dawkins to admit that the proceedings ‘come a little too close to a witch-hunt for my squeamish taste’. It seems that it doesn't matter what the makeup of your views actually are, you can be sacked for a soundbite. Worst of all, it seems that ID is creeping into Britain’s schools from the ground up. The social and ethnic fabric of the UK is set to change dramatically over the next 30 years and the science education is going to have to face up to the challenge of a diverse range of religious traditions; many of which are opposed to evolution. Frankly an accommodationist position has a more likely chance of success than achieving some kind of mass conversion to secular humanism. By the looks of it, the establishment is wholly inadequate for the task.
Anyone wanting to see a proper dialogue between Science and Religion without the usual name calling will have to go back to the 19th century. I heartily recommend the Darwin Correspondence project, a section of which chronicles the relationship between Asa Gray and Darwin as they deliberated over the theological implications of evolution. Theos has a piece in the Times showing Darwin’s troubled musings on religion demonstrating he was a far more complex thinker than his 21st century worshippers.
Those, like me, who quite enjoy the name calling, might enjoy this bad tempered cock fight between the excretable A.C Grayling and his opponent Steve Fuller. Embarrassingly I find myself on the side of A.C in this debate. However, judging from his remarks, he appears to have got all his knowledge of the history of science from Draper’s infamous and much debunked ‘History of the Conflict between religion and science’. The argument has now even spilled over into the new humanist blog.
Lastly, Turkey has banned Richard Dawkins and a Muslim cleric has claimed that Mickey Mouse is "one of Satan's soldiers" and makes everything it touches impure. I feel the same way about Tweety Bird.
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Anyone wanting to see a proper dialogue between Science and Religion without the usual name calling will have to go back to the 19th century. I heartily recommend the Darwin Correspondence project, a section of which chronicles the relationship between Asa Gray and Darwin as they deliberated over the theological implications of evolution. Theos has a piece in the Times showing Darwin’s troubled musings on religion demonstrating he was a far more complex thinker than his 21st century worshippers.
Those, like me, who quite enjoy the name calling, might enjoy this bad tempered cock fight between the excretable A.C Grayling and his opponent Steve Fuller. Embarrassingly I find myself on the side of A.C in this debate. However, judging from his remarks, he appears to have got all his knowledge of the history of science from Draper’s infamous and much debunked ‘History of the Conflict between religion and science’. The argument has now even spilled over into the new humanist blog.
Lastly, Turkey has banned Richard Dawkins and a Muslim cleric has claimed that Mickey Mouse is "one of Satan's soldiers" and makes everything it touches impure. I feel the same way about Tweety Bird.
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Some thoughts on Christianity and parapsychology
What should Christians think about parapsychology? The Bible itself is chock-full of stories of parapsychological happenings, including dream visions, summoning of the dead, etc. In certain liberal Christian circles it is not fashionable to take these stories seriously anymore, or to hold that such things might actually happen today. I think that parapsychology is very important to the Christian faith. Visions and paranormal happenings should be taken seriously as intimations of contact with a spirit realm (see Philip H. Wiebe's excellent books,Visions of Jesus and God and other spirits). It is also, however, worth reflecting on how a Christian view of parapsychology differs from certain other popular views in Western culture.
First of all, in the Judeo-Christian view human beings generally do not have the ability to 'see' into the spirit realm on their own. Such occurrences generally involve an initiative from the spirit world itself. In several accounts God is said to 'open the eyes' of a person so that they can see into the spirit world (see for example the story of Balaam and the angel, Numbers 22:31 and the story of Elisha's servant, 2 Kings 6:15-17). Joseph in Egypt is adamant that the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream "is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace" (Genesis 41:16). An implication of this is that the 'standard' arts of divination, magic, etc. are strongly frowned upon in the Hebrew Bible. There's no room for 'holy technicians', in Robert Alter's phrase, who can 'tap into' holy energies and use the Spirit of God for their own purposes. Even the prophets, who consistently reveal the Word of God, only do so as inspiration comes upon them.
Much parapsychological research today, however, centers around detecting alleged powers of the mind, which the holder can tap into at will. A Christian would expect this evidence to be ambiguous (as indeed it is), because of the above. A Christian would expect that paranormal happenings would be sporadic (because the initiative comes from 'the other side') and ambiguous (because not all persons are granted the grace to 'see' into the spirit world). Thus the findings of parapsychology, and skeptical critiques of them for that matter, are precisely what we should expect if theism is true. Evidence of paranormal powers in general (such as telekinesis, etc) would not necessarily count as evidence for the truth of theism.
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Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
First of all, in the Judeo-Christian view human beings generally do not have the ability to 'see' into the spirit realm on their own. Such occurrences generally involve an initiative from the spirit world itself. In several accounts God is said to 'open the eyes' of a person so that they can see into the spirit world (see for example the story of Balaam and the angel, Numbers 22:31 and the story of Elisha's servant, 2 Kings 6:15-17). Joseph in Egypt is adamant that the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream "is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace" (Genesis 41:16). An implication of this is that the 'standard' arts of divination, magic, etc. are strongly frowned upon in the Hebrew Bible. There's no room for 'holy technicians', in Robert Alter's phrase, who can 'tap into' holy energies and use the Spirit of God for their own purposes. Even the prophets, who consistently reveal the Word of God, only do so as inspiration comes upon them.
Much parapsychological research today, however, centers around detecting alleged powers of the mind, which the holder can tap into at will. A Christian would expect this evidence to be ambiguous (as indeed it is), because of the above. A Christian would expect that paranormal happenings would be sporadic (because the initiative comes from 'the other side') and ambiguous (because not all persons are granted the grace to 'see' into the spirit world). Thus the findings of parapsychology, and skeptical critiques of them for that matter, are precisely what we should expect if theism is true. Evidence of paranormal powers in general (such as telekinesis, etc) would not necessarily count as evidence for the truth of theism.
Discuss this post at the Quodlibeta Forum
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
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