"[Rodney] Stark, [author of The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,] a professor of social sciences at Baylor University, is
absolutely correct in his rare identification that a commitment to
reason was the fundamental cause of the spectacular progress achieved in
the West and nowhere else. But he is profoundly mistaken in ascribing
the basis of that commitment to Christianity." The Objective Standard
Ayn Rand, when asked by Playboy Magazine, "Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?", answered
"Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief
unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions
of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it
is the negation of reason."
In ascribing the victory of reason to that which is inimical to reason is ludicrous. Even Thomas Aquinas, the most rational of Christian theologians, was led to some irrational conclusions as a result of his faith.
Some heroic thinkers have tried to reconcile them. "[John] Locke emphasizes the
reasonableness of faith to such an extent that a religious doctrine’s
irrationality—conflict with itself or with known facts—is a sign that
it is unsound." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This alone would seem to indicate that reason wins out where faith is irrational; and where faith is rational, it must be reason, not faith, even when it involves matters traditionally ascribed to religion.
When there are Muslims in America who have publicly spoken out against Jihad, why was Ingrid Mattson chosen for this interfaith prayer service?
Today, Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will deliver a prayer at the National Prayer Service, invited by President Obama. It is sufficiently problematic that ISNA, the organization of which Ingrid Mattson is president, was designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial (which produced guilty verdicts on 108 counts). Mattson’s words and views beg the question: When there are Muslims in America who have publicly spoken out against Jihad, against shariah law, and against ISNA, why was Ingrid Mattson chosen for this interfaith prayer service?
In her own words:
"[C]onsider the role of American Muslims in the [specific] context of world events following the terrorist attacks of September 11th. I will acknowledge that since Muslim leadership must be responsive to events, this question cannot be answered completely in isolation of specific circumstances. The appropriate response will necessarily depend on the nature of the threat. At the same time, I will stress that any truly appropriate response must be firmly rooted in faith. [ ] People of faith have a certain kind of solidarity with others of their faith community that transcends the basic rights and duties of citizenship."
She did not author this in an article titled "Stopping Our Muslim Extremist Brothers." Instead, it was titled Stopping Oppression: an Islamic Obligation. Guess what "oppression" she meant.
In a reasoned "translation" of Mattson's words: the "role" of American Muslims must be judged in a "context" of events that happened after 9/11; cannot be judged "in isolation of specific circumstances; and must be rooted in faith with other Muslims, a faith that takes no note of the rights and duties of being Americans first. Instead, American Muslims "role" must be in solidarity with others of their "faith community."
Forget that American Jews, Catholics, Coptics, Hindus, atheists, Southern Babtists and others came together in a solidarity that specifically transcended their own congregational communities. Instead, they came together in the brotherhood and spirit that comes with having our rights and citizenship guaranteed.
"The true values of America are those which we decide to embrace as our own [because] the American Constitution, like foundational religious texts, can be read in many different ways."
Again, to translate: Muslims can pick and choose which American values to call "true" and then may decided to embrace only those, because they can read anything into the Constitution they wish.
She is wrong when she says the Constitution can be read in many different ways. There are only two ways: Originalism, and non-Originalism which covers everything the Founding Fathers wrote were not the intentions of that document and does not cover most of the things they wrote were the specific intentions of that document. Justifications for following non-Originalism are usually for the purposes of pragmatism, which obviously would serve the Muslim community as it picked-and-chose only the parts of the law they found served the ideas of Sharia, of Shura, of takaful insurance, or of anything else associated with Islam; but specifically nothing that does not serve Allah.
Mattson denies the existence of terrorist cells in the United States: "There's a prejudgment, a collective judgment of Muslims, and a suspicion that well 'you may appear nice, but we know there are sleeper cells of Americans,' which of course is not true. There aren't any sleeper cells.[emphasis added]
Mattson defends Wahhabism. All unbelievers (i.e. Muslims who do not accept the teachings of 'Abd ul-Wahhab, as well as Christians, &c.) were to be put to death. Immediate entrance into Paradise was promised to his soldiers who fell in battle, and it is said that each soldier was provided with a written order from Wahhab to the gate-keeper of heaven to admit him forthwith.Wahhabi
"This is not a sect. It is the name of a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and rigid interpretation that had acquired over the centuries. It really was analogous to the European protestant reformation." Center for Security Policy (Research Brief)
Forget that shura is cultural practices and sharia is a rigid and merciless practice of Muslim justice.
When there are Muslims in America who have publicly spoken out against Jihad, against shariah law, and against ISNA, why was Ingrid Mattson chosen for this interfaith prayer service?
Bill Wilson is responsible for writing the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," referred to as the Big Book. AA is a spiritual program, and a "God program," meaning it depends upon what AA terms a "higher power" to relieve the alcoholic of his/her need to get drunk.
In many places in the Big Book we read specifically that other things than God can be considered a higher power. The use of the AA group itself with people you come to rely on, friends, and other people with whom you can discuss your problems, are often suggested as a higher power. A man can think of his wife and children, and use them as his "higher power" because of the very real possibility that if he goes on another binge, or gets arrested one more time while drunk, he could lose them.
Anytime one of us who is alcoholic goes to a meeting and says anything like, "When I fought with my son over something stupid, I knew I had to get to a meeting"; or "I realized I was letting myself become hungry, angry, lonely, tired--I knew I had to get to a meeting," we are then using the group and our time there, away from the "outside world", as our higher power, to recoup a bit of our spirituality.
But in the end, AA members are expected, not by any membership requirement, but through the incessant urging of Wilson to "accept" that the higher power he expects us to discover is God. (Accepting God is not a requirement because there is only one membership requirement: the desire to stop drinking. But the constant urging to accept God has made many people see AA as a multi-denominational religious cult.)
"We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God." [emphasis added] The Big Book page 46
Naturalism, to Wilson, was unnatural. Naturalism was prejudicial. "To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face." For Wilson, his own prejudice made him believe that "to continue as he is [as an atheist or agnostic] means disaster, especially if he an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. page 44
An alcoholic of the hopeless variety can only be hopeless because he does not accept God; to accept God means he isn't hopeless. "There Is A Solution" touts the previous chapter's title, and that way is through God. "This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer." p 17
The expectancy is that eventually all AA members will have "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the power of God as we understood him"; and it expected to come sooner than later; turning over one's will is the third of twelve "steps". AA dogma, gathered up from the first few years of attempting to find the steps and the means to make them work, was that you could not get to Step Four without "doing" steps one, two and three first. (Step Two is admitting that only "a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"; Step One is "admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.")
But Bill Wilson was an extremely prejudicial and biased man. Do you notice in that quote from page 46 how he deftly turned "a power greater than ourselves" into God Himself, without even the pretext of qualifying "God" with "as we understood him"?
The phrase "as we understood (or understand) him" is always italicized in the Steps, in an effort to be inclusive of all religions. But Wilson had to be talked into accepting that phrase, and then only grudgingly. Yet whenever he wrote of his own experience and how it ought to be used by others, God stood alone and every member was expected by Wilson to "graduate" from using the group or other people or a hope as his/her higher power, to using God Himself--who in Wilson's mind stood alone without need of "understanding." After all, he wrote, "it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God." How could He be a God of anyone's understanding when Wilson admits that it was impossible for "any of us" (the original members) to understand Him?
Naturalism, which is necessarily an atheistic doctrine, and agnosticism, were, to Wilson, biases which the new members had to let go of.
"We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results..." [emphasis added] page 46
Page 46 is in the chapter of the Big Book entitled "We Agnostics." Wilson was never an agnostic, and he wrote no chapter for atheists, though he mentions them there. He speaks to the agnostics as though he had once been there himself, putting his brotherly arm around them in words, comforting them in the knowledge that things will be alright if they just let go and let God.
He writes in the first paragraph that "you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience can conquer." Many naturalists and others don't believe in the "spirit" because they have always been told it is linked to God, and God is what they are trying to discard by using an epistemology that admits of nothing supernatural. But this is not a problem for all naturalists.
The Deists were theistic naturalists. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
In Metaphysical Naturalism (MN) the spirit, the soul, is a naturally occurring non-supernatural physiologicalphenomenon of the fact of being human. When someone says he could not do something or was compelled to do something because his "conscience was being affected," it is the naturally occurring physiologically emotive phenomenon we perceive as our soul, that he is referring to.
MN understands existence to be natural and only natural, with nothing supernatural existing within existence. And of course, there is no existence outside of existence. Not even a God can be outside existence, though many believe a God could.
God could not--not without causing an irreparable contradiction within human language. If you believe in God and believe, as did America's Deist Founders, that it was God who gave us Reason in order to be able to solve our own problems without His intereference or help, then such a God would not also have allowed us to conceive acceptable contradictions; they break all the rules of the logic of linquistics. Allow one, you must allow them all. Then "nothing" will be "something," "yes" will be "no", and Reason will be worthless. We will return to the growling animalistic expressions of Man before he gained language, because without Reason language has no expression.
Boethius told us to join faith to reason, "insofar as is possible." Thomas Aquinas and others did that, and the juxtaposition led us to the scientific and then to the industrial revolutions. But at the same time, it did not banish faith by elevating Reason, and the Founders were forced to conceive a nation with a Constitution which assumed the separation of church and state. The assumption was common, was therefore not included in the Constitution in those words, and that common assumption allowed the Supreme Court to declare it a de facto part of the Constitution. The Deists would say it was Reason that dictated the Constitution.
Yet, Wilson tells us we must abandon Reason, for the blindness that comes with "accepting a power greater than ourselves" in the realm of the spirit while upholding Reason in the realm of all other things.
"Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and atheists [There he goes again!] chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word... Rather vain of us, wasn't it?" page 49
But Thomas Paine, in "The Age of Reason", wrote: "The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. [ ] I know, by positive conclusion resulting from [my] search, that there is a power superior to all [ ] things, and that power is God."
Paine was one of the most outspoken Deists, even fleeing to France for his life because his devotion to God would not allow him to have faith in anything but a Reasonable God, and no organized religion is Reasonable to a Deist.
"The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists," wrote Paine, "accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud."[emphasis added]
"If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago," Wilson wrote. [p. 44/45] Yet, isn't that what blind acceptance of a higher power is--a supposed better "code of morals" or "a better philosophy of life"?
Actually, Wilson must have realized they were not the same, or he would have said so. Instead he said, "We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, but the needed power wasn't there.
"Lack of power, that was our dilemma," he wrote, instead.
Their lack of power was from the desire to turn a wish into reality, without the "mere code of morals" or the "better philosophy." Philosophy is nothing without epistemology. Faith in God is the epistemology of disavowing Reason; faith is the only thing that Wilson serves up.
"Besides a seeming inablility to accept much on faith," Wilson wrote, about the problem of human intelligence as the last word, "we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinancy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. [ ] This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. [ ! ]
"Some of us had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of faith. [ ] We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far. But somehow we couldn't step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning on Reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support.[ ]
"Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason. So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time! [ ! ]
"[A religious doubter] recounts that he fell out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by the conviction of the Presence of God. He had stepped from bridge to shore. [ ]
"His alcoholic problem was taken away."
I sit here and copy and paste and write these things, in order to tell the reader that I had my own spiritual experience, and my "alcoholic problem was taken away."
But my spiritual experience was not what faith would have me believe it to be; it is what Reason tells me it was.
The mind is the most powerful force in human life. My experience was one of a comgination of mind and that natural phenomenon, the human soul, because they are irrevocably connected even in death; the soul follows the mind into the grave. If I could bottle my experience and release it in a room with someone who was looking for God, he would claim his experience that came from my bottle was God, and then try to convince me of it.
Humility seems to be the greatest virtue in AA. It is mentioned specifically on nine pages of the Big Book and those mentions carry various descriptions of how it works and why it works and why we need it. There are many more references to humility in the other AA "approved literature," such as the "Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions". Honesty is mentioned on twelve pages, but we all know a man cannot be humble if he is not first honest.
Men whose humility does not extend to allowing the possibility that an atheist such as myself can have a spiritual experience and become sober by it, despite "the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON;" wrote Paine, "and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself."
Bill Wilson believed in the elevation of faith over Reason. Rather vain of him, wasn't it, to despise the "choisest gift of God to man," Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and this contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions;" wrote Paine, "he prays dictatorially; [ ] he follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou knowest not so well as I."
Wilson's prayers were like that: "Relieve me of the bondage of self," goes his Third Step Prayer, "that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power..."
The strictest adherence to Reason is the act of binding one's self to one's self; altruism was conceived as the act of giving one's self completely over to God, without asking for such things as the removal of one's difficulties: one took what God met out. And what kind of humility is it to ask God to remove one's difficulties, then turn and call that "victory over them"?
"It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How, then, is it that those people pretend to reject reason?" Paine
The rejection of Reason was not all Wilson's. It was, and is, endemic of the kind of organization that AA is. The co-founder of AA, "Dr. Bob," wrote in his own chapter of the Big Book, that atheists, agnostics, and skeptics have a form of "intellectual pride which keeps [them] from accepting what is in this book, [and] I feelsorry for you."
[emphasis added]
He also ended his chapter saying, "Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!"
Rather prejudiced of him, wouldn't you say?
Note: I get my 3 year token in January. That spiritual experience that I had in my soul didn't put the fear of God in me; it put in me the fear of being drunk--and of dying that way or of killing someone else. That is a stronger deterrent, apparently, than God who I do not accept as an existant. But I am grateful to have found an AA community in which my outspoken atheism is not rejected. I am fully accepted by my home group and other groups, and I currently hold two "service positions" with my home group.
AA works if you find the higher power of your understanding. Mine, "the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind," is Reason. I trust I will never use any other weapon, a weapon which leads me to the positive conclusion that it is a power superior to all things available to man including the irrational prejudice of belief in God.
Happy New Year to all my readers, to all sober members of AA, and to all those who have not found the means to conquer their alcoholism. Don't let your prejudices against Alcoholics Anonymous keep you from using it to find serenity in sobriety. Accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can, and may you all have the wisdom, as I am grateful myself to have had, to know the difference between them.
Why are People Driven to Ask Atheists About Revelations?
After taking three holi-days of breaks from blogging, (I don't blog on Sunday,) and working exclusively on my brickfront retail operation Meta Candles and Gifts*, I would like to say that I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving weekend. Even the smallest turkey was too large for the two people in my home; I'm going to freeze one of the breasts, but we managed without too much difficulty to finish off the pumpkin pie! I know at Christmas I will be forced to eat what ever pie we decide on, and freeze half the Honeybaked Ham.
[*Click on one of the pretty images if you want to order online America's best-made candles or fabulous gift baskets! Hint: Join the Candle of the Month for a near-50% discount! Or contact me through that online site if you have questions about the products and services. Blatant capitalistic promotion is naturalistic, don't you think?]
I hada casual, workplace conversation with the owner of the brickfront, who deals in rare, unusual and expensive antiques. He is religious, and has talked about his work in the church as organist; he keeps a piano (for sale) in the antiques store and sometimes sits down to play it. But until yesterday he never brought up the subject of religion in any way that required an answer or reaction from me, except to listen.
Yesterday he asked if I "believed." I told him I did not. What came next is not unusual in such a situation; it has happened to me many times, so many over the course of four decades of discussing it that I try never to discuss it, because what I hear, and what I am forced to repeat, is simply too pedestrian, and lame at that, to allow myself to be forced into discussing my beliefs--because no one ever lets it go at what I answer.
I cannot recall one incident in all those many years when someone simply said, "Wow. I never would have guessed!" or "Each to his own," or anything that resembled the conversational equivalent of "I have no intention of impressing on you what I think is wrong in your way of thinking." That would be a blessing to hear.
Everyone has an opinion. Everyone wants to show what he/she thinks is the error of my logic. Or it goes the direction it went yesterday, when the antiques dealer brought up the subject we can call, "What if you're wrong?"
The "what if you're wrong" debate takes two forms. The first is about the idea that when we die we discover we were wrong, by discovering ourselves in the "afterworld." What will we do, then? we are asked.
The second form of the debate takes the position of, "What if something happens while you're fully alive to change your mind?" The implication here is that if we atheists were faced with some sort of revelation, either a revealedrevelation, or one of observation and logic resulting in a possible change of mind, would I be able and/or willing to change my mind? see Horvath and Revelationand On Revelations; Thomas Paine
Why do people need to know this? Why are they driven to inquire? Are they convinced we may say we would be "forced by the circumstances" to believe? Are they convinced, perhaps, that some argument on their part could makes us see the "error" of having a "closed mind"? Are they looking for an opportunity to make the case that "no one can be certain that no god exists"?
It seems my friend was of the mind that he could get me to admit that I could not be certain. I've been drawn in to this argument before, and I knew that it was he who did not have the "open" mind to listen objectively to me, and to objectively ask about my logic. People like him, who are otherwise fine as friends, would rather impress upon us the logic they believe will show we are the ones with "closed" minds.
And by the way, this is behavior in which I never engage, that is, trying to convince someone who doesn't want to listen to the logic of naturalism. It is improper etiquette--and rude.
I did not take the bait. I merely got up from my chair, walked to my computer, pulled up the Academy's "Strong" Position on Naturalism--which I then read to him. I thought that if I presented my argument in its written form, rather than trying to speak from the mind and heart--a situation where I knew he would not be able to resist interrupting me, repeatedly, to argue this point or that--that he would understand I had given the subject considerable scrutiny to publish it in a blog that is readable world-wide.
Instead of being objective, or at the least considerate of my well-thought out argument, his reaction surprised me.
"Do all those big words impress you?" he asked? Believe me when I tell you there was no sarcasm ringing in his words. He wasn't trying to be rude either, though of course it was one of the rudest things he could have thought to ask.
No, he wanted an objective answer: Was I impressed by the words?
I said no, of course not. I said I understood each and every word, that to me each of the words were not "big" words; they were the properly definitive words for the concept expressed by the word in that context. "Do not use two words when one will do," said Thomas Jefferson, though I must admit you must also take into account who will be doing the reading, and choose your words carefully for the purpose.
He was not someone who understood the words of the Academy's Position.
He told me about his cousin, his best friend, who for one of his university degrees was forced to read some difficult books with similarly "big," difficult-to-understand words, and how his cousin had read some of it out loud to him and tried to impress on him the meaning of what he was being forced to read. He had no more understood what his cousin was explaining than what I was explaining.
My friend had successfully changed the subject from my concrete, written logic (and his beliefs, for that matter,) to something else entirely: how he was not impressed by big words that meant nothing to him.
What it came down to for my friend was that he was not prepared to overcome my concrete logic with his faith. Faith, in the end, has no words, and that is the meaning of faith: that it is a matter of faulty epistemology that results in a metaphysical world-view that the supernatural must exist.
When confronted by logic that declares all things to be natural and that nothing is supernatural, this faulty epistemology is frustrated. It cannot make the leap from faith-based beliefs to objective, i.e., non-faith-based, arguments. It must stick to what it knows and that is implicit, unconscious knowlege that if a believer enters into the area of objective language, he will be forced to admit that his belief is not objective. That must be a very difficult thing to be forced to accept.
And attempting to accept, to argue, the position that naturalism and not supernaturalism is the "default position," [see The Big Question of Existence] of objective discurse, it may open a door to the other side of faith that he is not prepared to face. That door is precisely the fact that supernaturalism was the skeptical position for two thousand years, until the faulty Platonic epistemology of St. Augustine reversed the logic, making naturalism the skeptical position against supernaturalism.
But what, the frustrated believer would ask by taking Augustine's position, about the door that opens to faith, the door he would say we naturalists are keeping closed?
The answer is that Reason permanently closes that door, and the only way it can be opened is if Reason fails--if a person of Reason has what is defined as a "revelation" and his Reason cannot overcome the neuropathological or psychological causes.
The epistemology, the logic, of naturalism challenges the seemingly-convincing appeal of the cosmological, mechanical, and moral arguments for the existence of existence itself, and holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government. If someone who maintains this logic suddenly has a neuropathological or a psychological experience that causes him to abandon Reason for faith, or at the very least question his Reason in an episode of skeptical vulnerablility to faith, then he as abandonded what makes Man sui generis from all other creatures, and that is the faculty of Reason.
Faith is understandable. Our animal brains are succeptible to latching on to any argument that seems reasonable. When Man gained enough brain neuropathy to be able to add philosophy to his mental tools, it quickly became apparent--within a few hundreds of years--through the Atomists and others, that the universe was natural and that it had natural laws.
Natural laws do not admit of the existence of things which are not natural; it would be contradictory, and supernaturalism is by definition not natural. Supernaturalism is what man clung to before he discovered the discipline and science of philosophy.
There is no longer any Reason to continue thinking, as I'm certain many of our other animal relatives do, that a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightening, or the shaking of the earth, is anything beyond our understanding.
But the religiously faithful still ask "what if we naturalists are wrong, what if the supernatural exists and what if we find reason to regret our earthly logic when we die and meet our maker"?
If God exists, He will not ask us to regret using the Reason He blessed Mankind with; but He will pity the fool who believed that faith and the abandonment of Reason was what He blessed them with.
He would say that the pre-philosophical belief in the supernatural is not the default position, and therefore supernaturalism is contradictory to naturalism.
Of course, that being so, He would never exist in the first place, to tell us such a thing.
Yesterday and Monday I quoted the Catholic Encyclopedia (CE) on the subject of soul. Catholics insist the soul is given to man by "Supernatural Order, by God, for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny."
Today, that same quote can be used as a refutation of the denial that faith negates reason.
"Some have held that there can be no conflict between the two—that reason properly employed and faith properly understood will never produce contradictory or competing claims—whereas others have maintained that faith and reason can (or even must) be in genuine contention over certain propositions or methodologies." http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/faith-re.htm
"In the Old Testament, the Hebrew [word for faith] means essentially steadfastness, [ ] hence it comes to mean faithfulness, whether of God towards man or of man towards God. It would, however, be illogical to conclude that the word cannot, and does not, mean belief or faith in the Old Testament for it is clear that we cannot put trust in a person's promises without previously assenting to or believing in that person's claim to such confidence. Hence even if it could be proved that the Hebrew does not in itself contain the notion of belief, it must necessarily presuppose it." (CE) [italics added]
The 6th century theologian (and government leader) Boethius made the dictum, "Insofar as is possible, join faith to reason." This was because Christianity had been running almost entirely on faith, in the belief in miracles as the basis for their religion. The Virgin Birth and the Ressurection were the two upon which Christianity was built; but there were those from the Old Testament which could not be disbelieved, assented to as in confidence that revealed revelations deserved their faith.
He knew this unconditional faith could not last much longer. Joining them would seem to defy the notion that one negates the other. Modern Christianity is build on that dictum, in the attempt to separate reasoned theology from unsubstantiated faith.
"Logic became important in the Middle Ages because it provided the epistemological foundation of scholasticism: 'Through reason and the powerful tool of Aristotelian logic, men could resolve the seeming contradictions between faith and reason, Christian truth and Greek science, and attain insights into the nature of the world, of man and of God.' (Overfield 1984, p. ix)" http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/textcol/HAMILTO1.html
But the contrary is true; the unconditional faith, necessarily presupposing unsubstantiated belief, negates the substantiations made by reason. The attempt to join faith to reason is the attempt to short-circuit the faculty of mind that automatically identifies, ontologically, the material provided by man’s senses.
This automatic identification is not fool-proof-perfect. It is, after all, the result of non-omniscient thought. But to the degree that such thought bears the characteristics and integrity of non-contradictory logic, it is substantiated enough to be separable from faith.
Faith in supernatural deities and acts begins as assention to miracles and to the claims of the recipients of such miracles. As assention to these things faith is faith in the superiority of others begining with a God substantiated only by the word of others that miracles have occured.
"Faith and reason cannot be joined in the extreme because they are diametrically antithetical. No form of creationism can argue for faith without using the principles of deductive reasoning. Such reasoning can only go so far in explaining faith and the moral principle of God; then it comes up short because faith and reason can be joined only as far as is possible, and that possibility comes up short. The argument for faith always relies, in the end, on the belief in faith to explain faith." http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html
What is "the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny," if not a claim to some form of gaining knowledge that is above reason?
And what is this form of knowledge that is greater than reason, if not the antithesis of reason, i.e., of faith in the reality of omniscient, omnipotent intelligence, for the purpose of somehow being raised above reason, and this in order to submit one's self to the superiority of others.
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC. The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM, The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
Not one person on Earth needs formal training to make a judgment about the world he/she lives in, in the sense with which this article deals. We all make those kinds of "world-view" judgments everyday of our lives.
Theology, alike with physics, requires more formalized education with which to conclude such "world-views." As a matter of fact, physics accepts almost no "world-view" that is not its own, naturalistic and unassuming of a supernatural presence in the structure and origin of existence. Theology accepts almost no "world-view" that does not assume a creator’s existence; and theology also assumes the intelligibility of the universe solely on the basis of that creator’s existence.
Without the influence of religion, science seeks the intelligibility, the cosmos-from-chaos, through individual thinking and peer review; yet one man may uniquely stand against all his fellows in science and be correct yet shunned, until one day the world discovers he was correct, in which case the “Copernican effect”http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/jupiter_satellites.html alters forever the cosmology of the civilization which accepts the logic, i.e., the line of reasoning; or the scientist stands alone until the world beginning with his peers disproves his theories convincingly. Theology (proper) seeks to make cosmos-from chaos only from theories of the "faith-based" humanities, as opposed to physically or mathematically provable scientific concepts. Where no explanation of the cosmos results from such faith-based theorizing, religion joins reason to faith, "insofar as is possible" to do so, [Boethius] to create a dogma, a papal bull, or some other form of edict which is taken as policy and as gospel truth, until a proper theological explanation can be rendered. All theological explanations presume the existence of a creator.
The Copernican effect shook the foundations of the Roman Church. Dogma and papal edicts had to be radically changed because of the effect this naturalistic scientific idea had on doctrine. Scientific naturalism is epistemic and the logical metaphysical concomitant for most or many scientists is metaphysical naturalism, which is defined as denial of the existence of the supernatural, and thus of a creator.
Naturalism "holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing" through the cause-and-effect nature of the elements on the Periodic Table interracting with each other. No such effect as "gravity", for example, can exist without being "caused" by such elements interacting as they will by their own scientifically defined nature upon the same defined nature of other elements.
But epistemic naturalistic science does not presume or deny the existence of God. The epistemology of it naturally leads to the search for demonstrable proof, either empirical or mathematical. In the scientist's personal life, God may be a fact, and in fact for some scientists it is fact. But for purposes of peer review using proper standards of math or of physics, any theory or other demonstrable proof of science must be naturalistic in its epistemic foundations. Continued atIrreconciled Naturalism, Faith, and Populist Education
"In November, 2007, a small group of six citizens - two screenwriters, a physicist, a marine biologist, a philosopher and a science journalist - began working to restore science and innovation to America’s political dialogue. They called themselves Science Debate 2008, and they called for a presidential debate on science. The call tapped a wellspring of concern over the state of American science. Within weeks, more than 38,000 scientists, engineers, and other concerned Americans signed on, including nearly every major American science organization, dozens of Nobel laureates, elected officials and business leaders, and the presidents of over 100 major American universities. See who here. Among other things, these signers submitted over 3,400 questions they want the candidates for President to answer about science and the future of America. Beginning with these 3,400 questions, Science Debate 2008 worked with Scientists and Engineers for America, the AAAS, the National Academies, the Council on Competitiveness, and the other organizations listed to craft the top 14 questions the candidates should answer. These questions are broad enough to allow for wide variations in response, but they are specific enough to help guide the discussion toward many of the largest and most important unresolved challenges currently facing the United States."
"Three years after conducting a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple, the Rev. Janet Edwards was acquitted Thursday on charges of violating Scripture and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s constitution.
"A 2000 decision by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the denomination's highest court, held that clergy could conduct services blessing same-sex couples but could not present them as marriages and that the services should not resemble weddings.
"Although the charges against Edwards contended she "knowingly and willfully" performed a ceremony that was "contrary" to the PC(USA) constitution, Pollock of the regional PJC said the prosecution offered no evidence that Edwards violated Scripture when it listed eight biblical passages defied."
Can anyone answer this question: "Why would a religious order have a Judicial Commission to decide whether secular laws were broken?" If secular laws are broken, is it not the business of the secular admisistrators of law to bring action?
"The Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of the Pittsburgh Presbytery ruled unanimously 9-0 to clear the minister on the grounds that she could not have performed the ceremony since the church and state define marriage as between a man and a woman."
It was not just the Presbyterian Church's Constitution the Commission considered, but also the definition of marriage as presented by the state. Since the state does not define marriage as anything but between a man and a woman, the Rev. Edwards "could not have performed the ceremony." for continuation see Presbyterians Work on Removing Anti-Gay Agenda
The Looming Crisis over Free Speech
In a lecture today, October 6, 2008, "Dr. Eric Daniels examines the state of free speech in America and finds that it is under serious threat. From campus speech codes to anti-discrimination and harassment law, fromcampaign finance to commercial speech, Americans today enjoy less andless freedom in communicating their ideas. Today's colleges and universities have become a hotbed of censorship, producing generations of Americans who have accepted suppression of speech as the norm. Daniels argues that the emerging crisis is a result of the lack of aproper understanding of individual rights, especially property rights. Only by understanding the proper basis of rights can we act to secureour freedom of speech and to protect the rights that give rise to it. Where: 101 Morgan Hall, University of California, Berkeley. For more information on this lecture, please e-mail media@aynrand.org."
Note:
I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC
When discussing his use of symbolism, or rather the lack thereof, Ernest Hemingway once said of The Old Man and the Sea, “If I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.” David Barry david@vueweekly.com
On Art that is "Truer than True"
"It is a common experience to observe that a particular painting—for example, a still life of apples—makes its subject “more real than it is in reality.” The apples seem brighter and firmer, they seem to possess an almost self-assertive character, a kind of heightened reality which neither their real-life models nor any color photograph can match. Yet if one examines them closely, one sees that no real-life apple ever looked like that." “ Ayn Rand;
"Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On The Origin Of Species." For some, this anniversary celebrates the high point of human liberation from stultifying religion and superstition, our freedom from past theological "delusions". For others, it is more complicated. The leading atheist Richard Dawkins, speaking of this God delusion, as he calls it, offers a succinct summary of Darwin's theory. But things aren't so simple. Scattered among the world's top scientists are those who do believe in a conscious intention behind nature's processes. I think of people such as Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, and Professor Bill Phillips, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. The presence of such people poses awkward questions for the view that evolutionary theory and a sophisticated scientific brain lead inexorably towards atheism. There must be more to the so-called "science versus God" story than this." [italics added] John Lennoxhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/why-not-every-scientist-worships-at-darwins-feet/2008/08/17/1218911450452.html
Perhaps the answer to the problem that "there must be more," is that science is not necessarily the catylist that propells a person into atheism. There are evolutionary theists out there, people who have a "sophisticated scientific brain," yet who harbor supernatural conditions for whatever happened; and simply believe that what did happen is that it was God, but not as the word of Man as written in the Bible describes the word of God. Who knows what perverse reasons men may have had for telling lies about the revelations they had from God. Or perhaps it is simply that the revelations they had were not understood as God wished them to be understood--in the minds of those who believe, that is. And the evolutionary theists is a mind that has faith.
The other explanation is to remember that atheism existed long before the theory of evolution, even though Lucretious is supposed to have been the first expositor of that theory. Not every one knew of the things Lucretius said. His epic poem "On the Nature of Things" was not re-discovered for centuries after atomism lost its place as the "world view" to the world view of St. Augustine. Atheism can just as easily--and more rationally be explained--as a rejection of faith and an embracing of reason unmarred by any touch of supernaturalism.
Book offers a New Interpretation of Philosopher W.V. Quine's Views of Naturalism.
Paul A. Gregory, associate professor of philosophy at Washington and Lee, has written a book titled Quine's Naturalism: Language, Theory, and the Knowing Subject (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy), which offers a new interpretation of philosopher W.V. Quine's views of naturalism.According to Gregory, "Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the 20th century and a major impetus for the recent resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. His views, however, have not been well understood."To help in the understanding of Quine's views on language, knowledge and reality, Gregory offers new views and interpretations on Quine's naturalism, while at the same time defending it. Gregory says, "The naturalism/antinaturalism debate can be advanced only by acknowledging and critiquing the substantial theoretical commitments implicit in the traditional view." http://www.rockbridgeweekly.com/rw_article.php?ndx=11687
"There is a new atheism afoot in the marketplace of ideas,
and it presents a far more potent challenge to the Christian worldview than the atheism of former times, R. Albert Mohler argues in a new book.In “Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheism” (Crossway), Mohler engages the central arguments of four contemporary atheists, whom he calls “The Four Horseman of the Atheist Apocalypse:” Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett, author Sam Harris and pundit Christopher Hitchens.Mohler, who serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, chose Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens because “they are four figures who have especially come to embody the New Atheist movement.”
"The New Atheism promotes the development of a purely secular society, Mohler argues, a secularism that views the death of all religions as the expected natural progression of Darwinian naturalism. “I believe what we see in the rise of the New Atheism is something of the endgame of secularism,” Mohler said. http://www.towersonline.net/story.php?grp=news&id=543
Why the Theists Have Reason to Dislike Reductionist Metaphysics-- And Why Both are Wrong
"Personally, I find great comfort in believing that the murderer who escapes justice in this life still faces it in the next. I have a reason to love my neighbor beyond what I hope to get out of it. I have a purpose that transcends the mere physical and chemical reactions that make up my bodily functions. So, yes, not only do I believe there is a creator, I WANT there to be one. Without a creator; without a metaphysical or transcendent reality we are nothing more than those same physical and chemical reactions. Everything that is must be and everything that happens must happen. Everything follows from cause to effect, which in turn becomes the cause of the next effect. Our lives are no more than one long chain of necessary and predictable chemical reaction; the output of each reaction becoming the catalyst for the next. Every particle moves according to known or knowable physical laws. If we could map the location, orientation, direction and speed of every particle we could predict with 100 percent accuracy everything that will ever happen as a natural consequence of everything that has already happened. There is no room for chance. No randomness. No free will. No “real” life at all." [italics added]Chris Bergmanhttp://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=109&SubSectionID=701&ArticleID=58772
And Another Reason Theism is Wrong-- Morality Cannot Exist Without God?
"This is a "popular level" version (i.e., written for normal people, [ ] of the sort of argument that C.S. Lewis urged in various books and essays: the phenomenon of morality provides reason for believing in God.
"Darwin’s account of the origins of human morality is at once elegant, ingenious, and, I shall argue, woefully inadequate. In particular, that account, on its standard interpretation, does not explain morality, but, rather, explains it away. We learn from Darwin not how there could be objective moral facts, but how we could have come to believe—-perhaps erroneously—-that there are. "Further, the naturalist, who does not believe that there is such a person as God, is in principle committed to Darwinism, including a Darwinian account of the basic contours of human moral psychology. I’ll use the term "evolutionary naturalism" to refer to this combination of naturalism and Darwinism. And so the naturalist is saddled with a view that explains morality away. Whatever reason we have for believing in moral facts is also a reason for thinking naturalism is false." TheCitizen.comhttp://www.thecitizen.com/~citizen0/node/30963
And Then We Have Morality Without God
"Why should an Atheist be moral, without a god to make him to do so? You may as well ask why he should use his head for something besides a mobile hat rack. Morality is a built-in condition of humanity; the moral tendency exists in just about everyone, barring psychopaths.
"The only difference between people is how they codify and rationalise this morality, and attempt to apply it in rational terms to the way they live. As well as being emotionally-led creatures, we're also afflicted, as a species, with a curiosity which would put cats to shame. This is what, in my opinion, ultimately leads to us assigning causes to things, whether through frustration at not knowing, as with Theism; or through reasoned and rational methods, as with science. It is also the foundation of reasoning and rationality; it's a great deal easier to find out how things work if you use a consistent system of thought, whether intentionally or not."
"David Brooks, the moderately conservative (Canadian-born) columnist and essayist of The New York Times, sounded absolutely smitten. Writing from China on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, he marvelled at the "mass conformity" of the event. The intricate performances, he said, were an expression of collectivism at its 21st century best, a precision-choreographed, high-tech vision "of a harmonious society," staged with thousands of performers, "in the context of China's miraculous growth." "The ceremony drew from China's long history," he enthused, "but surely the most striking features were the images of the Chinese performers moving as one - drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting in precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding."
"In the end, the defining factor here isn't individualism versus collectivism. We all work together and we all work alone. As an expression of voluntary choice, authentic collectivism occurs anywhere it is permitted - in an Israeli kibbutz, for example, or in an Amish community in Pennsylvania. The defining factor here is coercion.
"The relevant parable here was nicely recounted last year by author Hunter Lewis in his engaging little book, entitled Are the Rich Necessary? and subtitled Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values. Ancient Chinese annals, Mr. Lewis writes, record the controversial decision of a powerful emperor, Wudi (156-87 BC) to take a direct hand in running China's economy - by nationalizing key commodities (salt, iron and alcohol), by debasing the currency, by widespread expropriation of land. Although highly imprudent to do so, one of Wudi's advisers, the legendary historian Sima Qian, published an assessment of the emperor's statist economic policies. "What need is there for government directives?" Sima Qian wrote. "Each man has only to be left to utilize his own abilities and to exert his own strength to obtain what he wishes. Thus, when a commodity is very cheap, it invites a rise in price; when it is very expensive, it invites a reduction. When each person works away at his own occupation and delights in his own business, then - like water flowing downwards - goods will naturally flow forth ceaselessly day and night without having been summoned, and the people will produce commodities without having been asked. Does this not tally with reason? Is it not a natural result?" Report on Business.com Neil Reynoldshttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080829.RREYNOLDS29/TPStory/Business
