BioLogos is beginning another multi-part series apparently devoted to criticizing me and my views that science and faith are in irreconcilable conflict. But this time I have a partner in crime, the estimable Eric MacDonald, atheist and ex-Anglican priest.
And so we have the first of what will be another interminably tedious BioLogos production, “One World: Science and Christianity in Respectful Dialogue, Part I: A Response to Alexander, Coyne, and MacDonald.” The piece was written by one Loren Wilkinson, a professor at Regent College who is funded by the Templeton Foundation to help “Christian ministers involve science and scientists more thoroughly in their preaching, teaching, and worship.”
Denis Alexander, as you may recall, is the dude who wrote that BioLogos white paper on how to reconcile science with Adam and Eve. He takes a few knocks from Wilkinson for proposing weird solutions, but the bulk of Wilkinson’s criticisms are directed at MacDonald, me, and anti-accommodationism.
Unless you have an industrial-sized roll of Tums at hand, don’t bother with more than a few paragraphs of the BioLogos piece. You get the tenor right at the beginning, where Wilkinson says the “warfare” model is wrong because:
. . .it obscures the recognition that science at its core, is a religious activity, in the deepest and most literal sense of “re-ligious”—that which links. Religion and science both come from the uniquely human passion to see the diverse pieces of our experience as one supple and coherent body of knowledge: thus its connection with a word like “ligament”, the tissue which holds the skeleton together. There is no science without scientists, and scientists are always and only humans, probing and coming to know an inexhaustibly mysterious cosmos by means of their own passions, beliefs, hunches and theories.
Oy gewalt! I almost stopped reading right there, but steeled myself and read to the end, for the same reason that people crane their necks at a car wreck. You’ll be amused at the other two reasons why Wilkinson considers the “warfare model” wrong. They involve science having deep Judeo-Christian roots and his claim that there is only one kind of knowledge in the world.
I am so tired of refuting BioLogo’s lame arguments for a the existence of only a single “magisterium” that combines science and faith. But Eric MacDonald, with his lovely new website Choice in Dying, saved me a ton of work by demolishing Wilkinson in a piece called “Pouring oil on troubled waters.”
There are simply not two kinds of knowledge, only one. There is, so far as we can know with assurance, no religious knowledge, and emotion and authority, while they may effectively control what people will think and feel, cannot provide knowledge. Science, however, and forms of critical thought which are related to science, do provide knowledge, always partial, provisional, and revisable, which nevertheless comprise conclusions that we can hold with some assurance, even though they might eventually be taken up into larger and more inclusive theories. Science, of course, is not without emotion. It does not happen unless people are devoted to finding out the truth about our experience of the world, and so it involves personal commitment, and all the emotional entanglements that that entails. Wilkinson’s idea that science without religion would be lifeless, emotionless, devoid of commitment, hope or expectation, is simply falsified by the work that scientists do. And there is no reason to envision science in this way.
How lovely to have Eric an an ally! He can pwn the faithful as only an ex-priest can, and his muscular prose blows away the tiresome and evasive apologetics of the BioLogos crowd. Really, I don’t know how they can publish that stuff with a straight face.
“science at its core, is a religious activity, in the deepest and most literal sense of “re-ligious”
I think that line sounds best if you do it in a Kent Hovind voice.
I also love the “science will be lifeless without religion” claim – however, the truth is that science would be worthless if it *did * have religion. We’d be back to the geocentric model of the solar system and the ancient Greek epicycles. Arguments would consist of “Master Aristotle said so” countered with “Oh, but his teacher, Master Plato, said otherwise!” It would be just like discussions based on biblical texts – “the New Testament trumps the Old, it’s god’s latest teachings” vs. “Jesus was not the messiah; we must adhere to the teachings of Abraham and the commandments given to Moses”.
I nearly stopped reading after The “re-ligious” comment. Yeah, let’s break a word down into it’s component parts so we can redefine it in a way that nobody uses it! If he can do that, then I can say that when I’m engaged in a recreational activity that I am actually *re-creating* – I’m making the universe…again!
In order to respect Christianity, I’d have to respect claims that Jesus was executed for revivifying a putrid corpse over the protests of the dearly departed’s family; that the moment of Jesus’s execution was accompanied by a massive zombie invasion of Jerusalem that went unnoticed by the several authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Pliny the Elder, and every other contemporary author; and that Jesus himself wandered Jerusalem for a month and a half with a gaping chest wound and ordered at least one of his thralls to fondle his intestines through said wound.
And…I’m sorry. I just can’t bring myself to respect such blindingly obvious pigshit nonsense.
Cheers,
b&
You don’t even need to put it into such blunt language to illustrate the point.
Look at the following interview with Dawkins where he describes the accepted christian view of why Jesus died on the cross. Dawkins keeps it incredible civil but the very fact that he says out loud the basic reasoning of the church, without a fawning acceptance that they are obviously admirable, results in him being accused of disrespect and mockery.
Watch the video from about the 4 minutes 18 seconds point.
Well, my point is that Christianity isn’t deserving of respect. I don’t respect it.
So why should I be respectful in my characterization of why I don’t respect it?
When young children believe fantasy stories are real, that’s cute. When they’ve got all their adult teeth and they still believe the fantasy stories, you start to worry a bit…but not too much because peer pressure in the form of ridicule will quickly solve the problem. A teenager who believes in Santa — not one who gets a kick out of Santa kitsch or who likes playing Santa for kids, but who literally thinks the guy lives at the North Pole and all the rest — is in for a rough ride, indeed.
Here we have the overwhelming majority of Americans literally believing in Zombie Santa. The situation is dire, and not much more than a rhetorical slap in the face with the rotting fish of their beliefs is likely to bring them to their senses.
Cheers,
b&
As can be seen in the Dawkins clip the major weapon that the religious try to use is the idea that we must “respect their beliefs”. Like you said that is simply impossible. Just admitting your honest opinion of the point in question (was Jesus, basically, a superhero) forces the religious to face up to the actual stories and admit out loud that they believe the sorts of things that no reasonable adult would ever believe in a non ‘faith’ context – and the sort of stories that even sound silly to religious people of a different faith.
Spot-on. Dawkins’ point was great – how is it “disrespectful” to state the beliefs of a religion, and then say you find those beliefs either unbelieveable or immoral? Sure, he was being a little cheeky in how he stated the beliefs, but he was essentially accurate. And he’s lambasted for it. Look, religious people, if hearing your own stories accurately paraphrased in someone else’s words makes you uncomfortable (something, I note, Christians never hesitate to do with Islam or other religions), maybe you should be asking why that is, rather than shooting the messenger.
Gosh, they didn’t seem to respect HIS views very much, did they?
I’m not sure I’d even say Dawkins’ remark was
“a little cheeky.” One can’t help but sound as if one is being flippant when summarizing the nonsense these people believe, no matter how earnestly. The stuff is just that crazy.
When the religious call for “respect,” they are calling for nothing less than total acquiesence, for the reasons you state. They don’t want a candid and forthright summary of their beliefs to endanger their ability to compartmentalize, or simply to ignore BS. They don’t want to have a conversation at all. I know seven-year-olds who are more capable of honest dialogue than the religiots in that clip.
Additionally, why on earth should we bend over backwards to meet their demands for “respect.” First off, that would be an impossible task, as described above. Second, we argue against their beliefs not just because we think they’re incorrect, but because that “incorrectness” entails such MASSIVE collateral damage, in myriad ways. Those beliefs are in no way deserving of the kid-glove treatment.
Agreed. They use fire, psychologically beating their inane ideas into children’s heads. Tit for tat.
Not to be a spelling Nazi or anything, but you dropped an “s” in the middle of that sentence….
Cheers,
b&
The beginning of that show is awesome. Dawkins is sitting right next to a creationist politician, who responds to Dawkins by stuttering and squirming while the audience boos him. Great stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cxnZWeZXbo&t=3m26s
Good illustration. It eminently displays the religionistas usual special pleading.
But it also puts to me two things, one trivial and one fundamental.
The trivial first: “Richards Dawkins, evolutionary biologist”.
You know, theoretical physicists only mention their specialty such as relativity physicist or quantum physicist when it is appropriate. Why is it that nearly every theoretical biologist is “evolutionary biologist” in public? I think it would be much more useful to change the
perspective as grounded in basic theory than, say, pimping with movie and rock stars the accommodationist way.
The fundamental: Why is mythical “Jesus” still on the table? Even when people was only familiar with that Earth looks naively flat it was recognized, by sea farers and others, that it was rounded. And today we know by massive amount of data (and first hand accounts) that the later is a fact.
Similarly, even when people was only familiar with that nature looks naively goal directed it was recognized, by scientists and others, that it was following process. And today we know by massive amount of data (and first hand accounts) that the later is a fact.
The Earth is round and following process, something everyone should know and accept in an enlightened world. The “only” difference is that flat earth cults are marginalized while goal directed cults are not. Feh!
Jesus made zombies… sounds like a film is in there somewhere!
A Zombie Santa film you say? This comes close, and it’s EXCELLENT!
Finnish horror movie with Santa as the bad guy, 7.3/10 at IMDb.
Looks like a great film, it’s on the list.
Cool. Before the feature length version, they made two ~8min shorts which are available at the STORY tab at bottom center here:
http://www.rareexportsmovie.com/en
They differ somewhat from the movie, but will give you a good sense of where they’re coming from while you wait to see if they release it on DVD.
You know that blog where you see it on your RSS feeder and you go, “Oh, hooray, they’ve updated! Now I’m going to have something well-written and thought-provoking to digest!”? That’s Eric’s blog. I love it.
I second that!
He has also gotten me thinking a lot more about his main issue, Choice in Dying.
I have learned a lot so far in a subject that I had not previously considered.
Thank you Eric.
No, no, thank you! I’m so surprised that some people find what I write worth reading — but pleased too, of course!
It’s a dynamite blog, Eric.
If you’re surprised you’ve been ignoring all those people at my place who kept saying “I wish Eric would start his own blog because I want to read it”!
Fair enough, but even all those people surprised me! That’s what comes of being put down for a good part of a life time. Growing up like that has consequences.
Argh. Yes, it does.
Good onya, Eric! Well said!
Hooray for Eric! I’ve never read anything he’s written without feeling it was time well spent.
Wilkinson can only assert “ligament laxity” in regards to faith.
Also, while we’re at it, Eli Horowitz of Rust Belt Philosophy wrote some wonderfully irritated comments in response to the Loren Wilkinson piece. That’s worth reading too.
Second that.
“There is no science without scientists” – & no religion without the gullible.
How dare I be so mean to those god fearers?! I should have said, “No religion without the religionists”.
“re-ligous — that which links.” Even as a little kid, I had already picked up on the pattern of science unlinking things religion had linked. In an overly litteral sense, this also builds a case for not calling religion re-legion.
Um, aren’t religionistas the ones obsessed with “missing links”?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no science without scientists, and scientists are always and only humans, probing and coming to know an inexhaustibly mysterious cosmos by means of their own passions, beliefs, hunches and theories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very well put – there is no science without scientists – we all should remember this. So what religious folks tryint to say here? They say: “Look – you are a human and humans “believe”. “Believing” is a the modus operandi of the brain so this is why science and religion is the same”
This kind of argument is wrong.
1. Yes, brain does operate in “believing” mode. “Beliefs” are the “shortcuts” that the brain uses to respond quickly to repetetive situations without going through the reasoning again and again; much like emotions are same kind of shortcuts facilitating even faster response in specific important circumstances that our animal anscestors experienced over many years ov evolution; So emotions are almost hard-wired and beliefs are more of a next layer but essentially of a similar analitical mechanism and based on the same physical machinery: electrical and chemical activity in the brain;
2. But then can the science be completely free of “believing”? The answer is not completely free but as free as it can possibly be _IF_ a scientists is aware of “believing mechanism” and develops the patterns of thinking that CONSTANTLY re-evaluate ALL his “beliefs” about EVERYTHING.
3. So do we actually have any of the scientists as per item 2? NO. People do not like complete and utmost UNCERTAINTY because while groing up people develop “EGO” or “personality” – a garbage can of bits and pieces that got into child’s brain because his parents, school, peers, etc DID NOT KNOW BETTER – “institutionalized ignorance”
4. Now ask yourself – am I real SCIENTIST? Am I even close? 🙂
5. If you are real scientist you will see that religious folks will always be there – with every new generation religion will have MANY followers. And what SCIENCE and real SCIENTISTS can expect with the passage of time over next 4.5 billion years until the SUN burns out? They can expect humans to multiply and continue extract every drop of existantial excess out of the planet – free enterprise at its best, eventually there be too many of us and then the BELIEF-MINIMUM SCIENCE done by scientists as defined in item 2 will lead mankind at large into new BLACK-BOX HEURISTIC GOVERNMENT that will be a mechanism behind human affairs. Once that happens religion will no longer exist on the planet because there will no longer be institutionalize ignorance but institutionalized science. Of course it is hard to predict what the words will mean then… 🙂
FINALLY,
Religionists’ claim that knowlege can be religious is utter nonsense – knowledge comes from doubt and suspension of basic “beliving mechanism” which scientists do more often but not all the time and religionist do seldom.
Not so. We can precisely quantify certainty in many cases.
You are in effect arguing for an inductionist theory of science put forward in the 19th century, preferred by religionistas. It is trivially inconsistent, induction on induction shows that it can never insure against reversal of knowledge. If you can’t know what is wrong you can’t know what is right, you don’t really know anything.
Science has moved on to other theories since those early days, testing being the main one today AFAIK.
Huh. The Sun will become a red giant in another ~ 5.5 Gy and then a white dwarf shortly after that. As a G star it will fuse helium after hydrogen but not fuse neon and so on, so that will be the rapid end of fusion. But as a white dwarf it will not “burn out” to a black dwarf for several billions of Gy.
I believe you mean “until Earth becomes inhabitable”. Which is believed to be another ~ 0.2 – 2 Gy until the Sun’s continuing heating during maturation will turn Earth into a runaway greenhouse.
D’oh! Dictionary suggestion *FAIL*, “inhabitable” = uninhabitable.
The only thing I strongly disagree with is the contention that there is only one kind of knowledge. That is surely not correct (which is not to suggest that there is therefore such a thing as religious knowledge). Since he puts the matter very well, I quote some words of Michael Trimble, professor of behavioral neurology at the University of London’s Institute of Neurology, the author of a very good book on the ‘cerebral basis of language, art, and belief,’ and no Biologos-like apologist for anything, there is often a ‘failure to make a distinction between knowing and knowing about. Propositional knowledge is universal, public; it is the language of science and philosophy and of systematizers… Experiential knowledge is unique, individual, and less easily expressed verbally. It is emotionally textured and, phenomenal… Much experiential knowledge is preverbal, emotive, evocative, personal, primitive, and private, but it is this knowledgethat seeks communication through many art forms.’
there should be a colon after ‘apologist for anything’.
That’s like what I was saying here the other day about experience – I think that was a BioLogos thread too. But I made it a matter of understanding, not knowledge. I think that’s a reasonable distinction. “Knowledge” that’s “unique, individual, and less easily expressed verbally” is not really “knowledge” but it can be understanding. I think the word “knowledge” should be reserved for public, sharable knowledge.
Agreed. My distinction has been between learning/learned, which is specific (contingent), and science/knowledge, which is generalized.
For example, evolution may learn a genome how to use a skeleton and legs to function in gravity, but it doesn’t know about gravity. There is no genetic information that can be extracted that tells you about curved space.
But how much you really understand (and master!) a topic by mere learning (as opposed to, say, participate in experiment and theory) is a discussion I feel best to leave to teachers and students…
In many ways I agree with Ophelia and Torbjorn, but defining knowledge as only that which is public and shareable seems to me to lead often to a devaluation of what Trimble calls experiential knowledge. German has a nice distinction between ‘wissen’ and ‘kennen’ that I wish we had in English.
And I want to second people’s praise of Eric’s blog. Eric writes beautifully, addresses some of the most important issues in our lives, and genuinely makes you think.
That is exactly how I (can) put it in swedish!
‘wissen’ = sw. “veta”, ‘kennen’ = sw. “kunna”. And we also happen to have ‘wissenshaft’ = sw. “vetenskap” = en. science, ‘zu kennen’ = sw. “kunskap” = en. knowledge, that takes the distinction further I believe.
I agree that experiential knowledge, as in “trial and error” or “trial and reward”, is wider and deeper than route learning, as in “aping” or “memorizing”. (To get back to the genome analogy and wrangle it further, perhaps the former is as selection/VGT, the later is as gene transfer/HGT; and as in real life in the later YMMV depending on, yes, context.)
But I believe that the qualification of “specific” data is appropriate, and that further qualification of that category is independent. Maybe that can be done along the lines I suggested here, simply looking at method?
I think highly of craftmanship, even if its fleeting cultural context brings the point out to the extent it smarts. Who cares for how to take a frigate around the world, modulo enthusiasts?
Maybe the value isn’t in what type of data it is, or how general it is? But how useful it is/was. Frigates were useful indeed. And today technology _and craftsmanship_ is “coevolutionary” with science!
But it doesn’t, because understanding is not of less value than knowledge.
No, of course it isn’t. The reason for my bringing up the matter is that this ‘experiential knowledge’ or ‘understanding’, is, as Trimble says, profoundly connected with the arts, and I have noticed, in the otherwise admirable work of Pinker, as well as in some of the comments on this and other blogs, a peculiar blindness where the arts are concerned, as in the suggestion (Pinker’s) that music is ‘as meaningless and self-indulgent as pornography or a taste for fatty food’ (McGilchrist’s summation) and in the assumption that the arts consist in the emotional manipulation of audiences, readers et al. and deal in ‘effects’.
Oh, boy. Pinker and would NOT get on. Some, in fact most music, are facile pieces of fluff, intended only to appeal to some peoples’ immediate and base urges and tastes. Some music could only be described as an intellectual monument. Whether or not you want to listen to it is irrelevant. The intellectual content is objectively there.
I like Pierre Bourdieu’s remark that music, far from being the most spiritual is in fact the most corporeal of arts (rather as John Milton said that poetry was ‘more simple, sensuous and passionate’ than rhetoric or philosophy), and I would say that truly great music – Beethoven’s piano sonata no 111, say, with its great, wandering, building adagio, or his string quartet, op 132, with its extraordinary slow movement (best played by the Busch quartet, or the extraordinary energy of the last movement of the Moonlight sonata – barely appeals, as one listens, to the intellect at all, but to very profound and primitive levels; analysing the music, of course, is a different matter (you can see all the intellectual work that went into creating this experience), and one of my great quarrels witrh modern interpreters like the rattle-trap Roger Norrington, who when he conducts a Beethoven symphony chooses a tempo and then plays everything strictly in that tempo without a hint of rubato, without a hint of mystery, of the inchoate and the chthonic, is that they are merely intellectual and shallow in their approach and do not enter imaginatively into the music. And this applies to much modern performance of earlier music, as well as to a fair bit of modern comntemporary music, which has become only an intellectual game.
Concerning music: Steven Mithen makes a persuasive case in his 2004 volume, ‘The Singing Neanderthals’ that music and rhythm are foundational and crucial to the origin and development of compositional language. ‘Meaningless and self-indulgent’ indeed!
Certainly music should elicit a visceral reaction from the listener. I don’t think, however, this precludes any appeal directly to the intellect. A decent description of music is that it is an aural representation of logic. I feel that a good deal of the pleasure I derive from listening to great music is a result of experiencing this “incarnation” of logic. What part of me, if not my intellect, is appreciating this aspect of the music, as I listen? In fact, some of what I feel might even be respect and awe for the mind that was able to create something so logically solid and fulfilling, while still managing to be surprising and interesting.
“Musicians” who don’t understand the value and power of judicious rubato – like Glenn Gould, ugh – do not employ an intellectual approach, IMO. Any decent period-instrument performer (like Jacques van Oortmerssen) or enemble (like the Amsterdam Baroque) will use rubato. It is called for in all old treatises, from Quantz to C.P.E. Bach. On top of which, cosideration of the music itself should lead one to the conclusion that a metronomic performance would be of little aesthetic value. One needs to highlight strong beats, architectural goals, poingnant harmonies, etc w/ rubato or agogic.
No, you are right to say that the visceral appeal doesn’t preclude an appeal to the intellect, though I think you are on very shaky ground when you say that music is ‘an aural representation of logic’; certainly we can say, metaphorically, that a musical piece has ‘A logic’, by which we mean really that it coheres and there is a ‘rightness’ in its movement, as when Bach’s first prelude returns to the tonic after a plagal cadence; but this ‘rightness’ seems to me to be be not so much logical as dramatic. Because good and great music is so extraordinarily complex, I think we tend to get caught up in questions of ‘structure’ and ‘logic’, and forget that structure and (metaphorical!) logic subserve expression. There are also the ‘rules’ of harmony, which people get mesmerised by, but what makes a good or great composer is his or her inventiveness with harmony to create new kinds of expression – Scubert’s harmonies are very different from Schumann’s; and then there is Debussy, and Bartok: one cannot pretend that harmony, as an expressive resource, is a sort of higher mathematics. Regarding ‘tempo rubato’, there certainly was an attempt, which was part and parcel of Modernism (to which the interest in Early Music was connected)and its rejection of Romanticism, to deny it – my friend, the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson who was a great pianist in his time, wrote an interesting little book about this called ‘The Paderewski Paradox’. Latterly, though, the Early Music crowd at least have grown far less doctrinaire than they used to be in this regard and performances have vastly improved. Wholly agree with you about Gould!
Well, I’ll venture one more reply before calling it quits on this thread: “ya don’t have to go home, but ya can’t stay here…” 🙂
I think “logic” is a perfectly acceptable term for describing the processes a composer goes through to ensure that his or her piece coheres, and has “rightness” of (contrapuntal – whether surface or background) movement. And I don’t think the term has to be thought of as being used metaphorically.
Putting drama in a piece of music is a superficial concern – but I don’t use the term as a pejorative. It’s just that the music must work in the logical sense first. Drama is added rather like icing, except insofar as really magnificent logic can be dramatic in its own right (or I might say: it can impact the listener on its own!) Come to think of it, much of a piece’s drama can stem from the ways the composer has both flouted and satisfied our expectations, in this architectural/logical sense. A very simple example of this: a deceptive cadence. The tonic pitch is achieved; it’s simply accompanied by the “wrong” harmony. Drama stemming from superficial things like dynamics or tempo or touch or texture doesn’t seem to me to be very germane when discussing the merits or demerits of a particular piece. That’s not where the real craftsmanship of composition lies.
It seems to me that expressivity is all about highlighting, or communicating in an unambiguous way, the logic of the piece.
In any event, I’m glad you share my low opinion of Gould. I know FAR too many people who call themselves “aesthetes” who can’t seem to hear the problems with his playing.
I suppose I should attempt some kind of citation. The writings of that Schenker fellow I mentioned a while ago are all about the “logic” of the tonal idiom. I didn’t try an explanation or summation here because even a summation would’ve had me going on for far too long.
Other idioms have their own logic as well. But as you may have guessed, I’m partial to tonality (I do have my reasons, but that would require another thread…)
‘Putting drama in a piece of music…’! But good music is not something that exists somehow independently of interesting movement, so that you can sort of add a bit of interesting movement as you might ice a cake, and interesting movement is inherently dramatic, so that when there is the return to the tonic in that prelude of Bach’s I spoke of, it is a wonderful dramatic event. I certainly do not mean drama to refer to a sort of easy theatricality… And without that sort of muscular life – the creation of interesting tensions and resolutions that Deryck Cooke spoke of so eloquently – music simply lacks interest…
Eric’s writing rocks, and I support Ophelia’s agenda to stamp out fashionable nonsense. I’m writing to echo Tim’s post from my own angle, which I can write as knowing that versus knowing how (maybe another way of saying propositional versus experiential).
I saw a television show with a chef making crêpes. The show’s hostess asked, “How do you know to not burn them?” The chef replied, “Make a hundred.” I laughed because my attention was following the hostess’s expectation to learn a rule, and the chef’s answer was purely experiential.
In The Matrix, Neo says, “I know Kung Fu,” and Morpheus replies, “Show me.” A test follows, which Neo passes. My question is — how would anyone phrase “I know Kung Fu” differently? Ophelia might have Neo say, “I understand Kung Fu” (avoiding the conflation of definitions in “know” above), but then the word “understand” could conflate with other definitions of “understand” (which would not be useful in fighting).
I’m curious — in German or Swedish, how should Neo say, “I know Kung Fu”?
“it obscures the recognition that science at its core, is a religious activity, …”
Sorry, that’s as far as I could get.
Poor punctuation aside, the appeal to the origins of the word ‘religion’ turned me right off.
(I know there’s a phrase for making an argument using a outdated definition of a word but I don’t recall it).
Mike.
Argument from paleoetymology?
Argumentum ad desperatio.
IMHO the BioIllogical folks have really stepped in it this time.
Arguing with Coyne is one thing; but bringing MacDonald into the fray?
As my friends in the military are fond of saying, that’s way above their pay grade.
To paraphrase Queen, MacDonald is dynamite with a laser beam.
“He takes a few knocks from Wilkinson for proposing weird solutions …”
Of course – everyone else is WRONG and has weird-ass beliefs, but Individual X knows The Truth – because god said so – and he really said so, unlike what everyone else claims.
As soon as any Christian says, “and then a miracle occurred,” which they all must at some point: The entire edifice is built on supposed “miracles,” then there is no longer a “Respectful Dialogue” between science and Christianity.
Claiming a miracle is disrespectiful of the very bases of science and all rational thought: Logic, reason, and evidence.
A respectful dialogue cannot begin on a lie.
It’s not merely that they’re saying “and then a miracle occurred.”
They’re saying “and then a miracle occurred which left behind no trace evidence of it having occurred, and no method by which it can be corroborated by an independent third party, as well as no credible third-party eyewitness reports of it actually having happened. Trust us, it was really a miracle.”
Feh.
Even that doesn’t do it justice.
The “miracle” is straight out of the grand finale to a cheesy low-budget zombie flick. And, despite the “miracle” being set smack-dab in the middle of the population center where we found the greatest cache of original documents from that entire period, nobody bothered to write a word of the “miracle” for generations.
Oh — and all those contemporary “miracles” that’re indistinguishable from the one in question, with equally-indistinguishable sets of “documentation”? Why, those are just silly superstitious pagans with their ridiculous myths that nobody takes seriously any more.
Bah. They deserve less respect than teenagers clapping their hands to save Tinkerbell.
Cheers,
b&
Loren Wilkinson is employing the typical ‘bait-n-switch’ of the apologetic mindset: take two very different interpretations of the same terms and use them interchangeably, thereby sliding the less plausible meaning into the place of the more plausible meaning, stealing credibility. Also known as the Fallacy of Equivocation.
For a simple example outside of religion, look at so-called ‘alternative medicine.” What is alternative medicine? Oh, it’s herbs and vitamins, it’s diet and exercise, it’s working with nature and taking your time with each patient so that you really listen to their entire health history. You know … all the things that science-based medicine doesn’t do. And oh yeah, it’s also homeopathy and using your hands to manipulate people’s energy systems.
Wait a minute. The first part of this explanation is already included just fine under “science-based medicine.” It’s not unique, it’s not an alternative. And that last part, that was snuck in there at the end — that part’s bunk. That’s the part that defines alt med.
And it doesn’t somehow catch a ride to credibility under the assumption that it’s part of a package deal.
Wilkinson looks like she’s playing the same trick. What is religion? Oh, it’s love and laughter; it’s passion, beliefs, and commitments; it’s investigating and having emotions and trying to unify your understanding of reality into a coherent whole. You know, all the things that atheists can’t do. And oh yeah, the universe was created by an all-pervasive Mind Force which communicates through special revelation and lets us know all about sin and Jesus, whom we accept on faith if we are wise.
Package deal.
No. It’s. Not. We see what you’re doing here. And we call shenanigans.
Science has Judaeo-Christian roots? Prau tell me how does one explain then the spectacular scientific advances made by pre-Christian Greece, and the ancient and medieval Arabs, Indians, Chinese and Persians?
Obviously Judaeo-Christian religion is one of scientific investigation, testing and revision. The fact that it only took them 1,700 years to get to the Enlightenment… well there was a problem with getting the grant approved…
The whole bogus concept of the “Judaeo-Christian” adjectival appellate is a very recent deliberately manufactured henotheistic fraud.
Yes, “Judeo-Christian” always sets my teeth on edge. Is Mel Gibson Judeo-Christian? Or the Pope when he says “[The Passion of the Christ]’s how it was”?
No doubt about (aboat?) it, Eric is good. His essays are well written and arguments solid. He usually has a sentence or two that make me want to shout “Bingo!” I rather liked this one …
“Wilkinson’s idea that science without religion would be lifeless, emotionless, devoid of commitment, hope or expectation, is simply falsified by the work that scientists do.”
I’ve worked with physicists for over thirty years, and to suggest that they lack human qualities, or culture, is simply laughable. They are usually kind and decent people too, as most christians would aspire to be, and they don’t ususally need any gods to justify that.
Another thing that rarely gets mentioned about science is the sense of fun that comes with the quest for understanding. Science is like sex: it has it’s purpose but that isn’t always why we do it. It certainly isn’t “lifeless, emotionless, devoid of commitment, hope or expectation.” People wouldn’t do it if it were.
Add another voice to the chorus of praise for Mr. MacDonald’s wonderful blog. Intelligent, sensitive, and comforting for those dealing with assisted dying–three cheers for another small space of sanity carved out of the howling mess that is the rest of the internet!
(If I could write such coherent, wonderful prose myself…*sigh*)
it obscures the recognition that science at its core, is a religious activity, in the deepest and most literal sense of “re-ligious”—that which links.
Lol, spoken like a true bibliolater. He might as well paint “ligious” on the wall and start praying to it. Except it can mean whatever he wants.
Re-ligion: The worship of words like they have deep immutable magicness, except they can mean whatever they want it to mean. Lol.
Regarding the ‘whitepaper,’ I don’t see how anyone but the pre-converted even gets past the second sentence?
“Theological truths revealed in Scripture
are eternal infallible truths, valid for the whole of humanity for all time,”
What a way to start a supposedly rational argument.