Atheism, Universal Negatives and Stuff

Have been reading friend Wildilocks' online stuff. Being an atheist (a nice one), she sometimes writes about that. Here's something I replied to one of hers...

The “knowing God can't exist” argument gets people sometimes, and people on both sides of the divide make mistakes in their thinking imo. eg I came across a slightly erroneous article not long ago where the writer says:

Sophomoric critics of atheism often charge that atheism is committed to proving the negative proposition "no gods exist" and, since allegedly no one can prove a negative, this shows that atheism is an absurd doctrine. The first thing to note is that it is often possible to prove negatives. Euclid proved that there is no highest prime number. I can prove that my bicycle is not in the basement by going downstairs, turning on the light, and looking around.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/misconceptions.html

But it's not “proving a negative” that is impossible. It's proving a UNIVERSAL negative that is impossible, and this is both good logic, and misunderstood by the writer in question.

For example, take the statement “no aliens have ever visited earth”. I don't personally believe aliens have visited planet earth – but I can't prove that, because I don't have all knowledge about all alleged visitations on earth at all times (universal knowledge). So if pressed, the best I can do is say “From what I know, I don't believe it likely that aliens have visited earth. But I might be wrong.”

In the same way, I cannot state – in a logical sense – “No gods exist”. If pressed, the best I can do is say “From what I know, I don't believe any gods exist. But I could be wrong.” So technically, it's correct to say only agnosticism is valid. (Epistemology is an interesting, but arcane subject.)

HOWEVER, most of us aren't entirely logical in every single thing we do/think. I think it's perfectly ok to say: “I can't prove there is no god, but I think the evidence is so overwhelming against her existence, that I call myself an atheist. So that atheism might be called the extreme end of agnosticism. I am thinking of Dawkins' chapter title “Why There Is Almost Certainly No God.”

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Here is the bestest article ever on atheists and christians being nice people to each other because they actually have things in common http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/godfuse.html

I also learned a new word: Transhumanism. Generally, the use of technology to expand human capabilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism and http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/index


listening to Helix - Afterglow (my new trance track i made - it's good!)

The Dawkins Disillusionment

Picked up Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion in Borders tonight. I was expecting not to enjoy it, as he has a reputation for being a rude, grumpy bigot in writing (the opinion of a number of atheists I know, ironically) , and the little I've read of his backs this up. EthicsDoctor who I picked up from the airport says he has a reputation for being nice in person.

Anyway, the first chapter was quite warm, welcoming and engaging and I thought "yay, maybe this will be different". So I turned to chapter 3 where he treats philosophical arguments for/against g0d. And he pooh poohed the cosmological argument in less than two pages! With virtually no argument, and weak argument at best.

I immediately lost respect for him. He might be a great scientist, but some basic research would tell him that the cosmological argument is currently very strong in philosophical circles. (Half my major was in philosophy for my second degree.) It wasn't when Dawkins was an undergraduate many decades ago, but it is now. To be fair, he spends a few more pages on the ontological argument, and quite a bit more on the teleological argument - I imagine because it has implications on his own field, of biology. But again, he seems ignorant of how strong the design argument is, and trots out the same lame old arguments that were dismissed twenty years ago.

I'm sure he would rightly be concerned if someone tried to present the evolutionary biology of 20, 30, 50 years ago as current.

I may be premature. Unfortunately i can't quote from the book as g0d hasn't blessed my with the money to purchase it ;) But at some point I will read the whole book, much as I read the Da Vinci Code, because it's trendy. I hope my small delve into it doesn't portend Dawkins' scholarship is as weak as Dan Brown's.


[Edit: Many of the reviews the The God Delusion I've just read online imply that i will be in for more unpleasantness after all, when I do get to read the full thing. One commentator said: "the proportion of insult, ridicule, mockery, spleen, and vitriol is astounding." Oh joy.]

listening to Opeth | Godhead's Lament (brilliant gutteral death metal fused with 70's prog rock)

I Would Like a Great Lake of Beer

I would like to have the men of Heaven
In my own house:
With vats of good cheer
laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
Their fame is so great.
I would like people
From every corner of Heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful
In their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus too
Here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
For the King of Kings,
I would like to be watching Heaven's family
Drinking it through all eternity.

Celtic poem from 10th century Ireland

Man, those Irish Celts, eh? Pity I don't like beer.


listening to Hard Hat | Eat Your Head (a track I'm creating)

How to Live Well

How do you behave when you know the conventional honours are dross? When you have come to believe with Marcus Aurelius that the opinion of future generations will be worth no more than the opinion of the current one? Is it possible to behave well then? Desirable to behave well then?

Thomas Harris, Hannibal, page 164

This is a variation on my long-pondered theme that if there is no ultimate source for ethics (most likely from g0d; there don't seem to be any other options) then there is no real right and wrong, and selfishness is the only rational ethic. I will write more on this one of these days, as so many people are under the illusion - from an unacknowledged theistic past - that people have real value and should be treated well. If we live in a naturalistic 'verse, people have no more value than mud.


listening to Camisra | Solid Ground

Sex, Angst, Repression and God

That's what the few people who know anything about him usually associate with the North African writer Augustine (354-430). A native of Algeria, he was a thinker who had an incredible impact on the Western world, but i suspect many today won't know much about him.

I've started reading Garry Wills' biography, Saint Augustine which I picked up in Wellington's Arty Bees secondhand bookstore.

One thing is certain, Augustine was an incredibly prolific writer. Wills writes that Augustine was an ever-developing thinker, unsatisfied with even his own formulations to the end of his life, so that those (like Calvin) who attempt to make a system from his writing at a particular period in his life do him an injustice.

Wills argues well that "The testimony" is a much better rendering of his well-known confessiones.

[In the fourth century] the penitential system of the church "confessional" did not exist... Augustine was not confessing like an Al Capone, or like a pious trafficker of later confessionals.

On Augustine's supposed sexual obssessions Wills writes

We must be on guard for such misreadings... [People] are convinced that Augustine was a libertine before his conversion, and was so obsessed with sex after his conversion that they place many unnamed sins to his account - though his actual sexual activity was not shocking by any standards but those of a saint. He lived with one woman for fifteen years "and with her alone, since I kept faith with her bed" (T 4.2). This kind of legal concubine was recognised in Roman law... Even the Church recognised the legitimacy of such a relationship (Council of Toledo 400, Canon 17).

Yet the expectation of sexual excess in Augustine's life leads people to add sexual scenes and themes to his story.

Nothing like a little truth to ruin our salaciousness, huh?

Peter Brown's bio seems to be the more critically acclaimed.

Nevertheless, the reviews of this short book acknowledge that it has good points, notably in Augustine's early life and his relationship with his concubine. I've just started it. We shall see what other interesting things come up.

cor inquietum "the unstable heart", drawing us ever onward. One of Augustine's themes. i like that.


listening to Argyle Park | Doomsayer

Desiderata

I thought this was originally written by Francis of Assisi, but don't really know. Either way, I've always liked it so will post it here.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Spong Sung Blue

At the beach, doing busy, stressful-type things like play poker, watch Sonboy kayak, lie on the beach and read while Sonboy boogie-boards, and drink wine. And of course, read.

I've been neglecting the books I brought in favour of John Spong's áutobiography 'Here I Stand'. If you haven't heard of him, he's America's most famous liberal bishop in the Episcopalian (Anglican) church.

It's interesting. I haven't read much of his other works, but now I guess I''ll have to, to put flesh on the ideas he proposes, and see if there's any backbone to them.

Spong is wonderfully open to ideas of social justice while seeming to be oblivious to the inherent classism of the Anglican style of doing things. He seems, to this quasi anarchist, to be overly comfortable with hierarchy and power. It's not surprising he's so political when his church is so full of rich folks trying to be good.

He writes quite openly of the rudeness of others, notably the 'fundamentalists' both within and without his church. Yet he makes rude comments about them. Perhaps that's the result of years of being insulted for his beliefs. Nevertheless, one wishes for more graciousness from one who supposedly preaches grace. He also has an unsettling certainty he is right that smacks of a liberal fundamentalism in its own right.

Still, Judeo-churchianity - as any human group - has always had flawed leaders from Moses through Paul, Augustine, Luther, Martin Luther King et al.

He has lots of worthwhile insights into leadership, and i liked his ideas of church leadership thinking through issues in public rather than trying to pretend they have all the answers from day one.

One thing I identified with:

In my typical left-brained way I retreated to my library. I must master my inner debates intellectually before I can master them emotionally.

This indicates to me that on Enneagram terms, he's a typical 5. A healthy 5 moves to the leadership of the 8, which also makes sense of Spong's life.

Again, one wonders what differentiates him from the Glen Benton's of this world when one reads his "twelve theses", in an appendix - Spong does insist they be read in the context of the book they come from, which I shall do in due time.

Nevertheless, the first two being (in my words):

1. There is no theistic God
2. Jesus, as expression of said God, never existed.

It's hard, in the light of those two, and the rest of his theses to see how, in any sense, he can be called "christian". He insists he loves the "church", which I can only guess means a kind of social club for people who want to do social justice and be nice to others. Why not ditch the ecclesiology and just join Rotary then?




If I don't get back to the 'puter beforehand, Merry New Year, all.

God Loses Out To Fame

From the Independent

[from research carried out through schools for National Kids' Day which was at the weekend.]



The children put God in tenth place of the best things in the world, the supreme being losing out to families, friends, pop music and watching films. He did, however, come first in the list of the most famous people, beating US President George W. Bush and Madonna into second and third place. Father Christmas is number five, with Jesus at number four.

Children may have relegated God for worldly pleasures but their parents haven't. Eight out of ten Britons believe that celebrating the birth of Christ is an integral part of Christmas, according to another poll.

And 90 per cent of those polled complained that Christmas has been too commercialised.

Nearly two thirds - 62 per cent - said that Christmas made them think about spiritual things, and 77 per cent said that Christmas made them think about what was important to them.

listening toBanco de Gaia | Coming Down the Mountain