From: No name given (vampier@mac.com)
Date: Wed Feb 27 2002 - 11:30:46 MST
On Wednesday, February 27, 2002, at 12:46 PM, Richard Ridge wrote:
>> My point is that the statement "Evolution undermines any notion of the
>> inerrancy of the Bible; god has not created man" is flawed - to many,
>> God used evolution to create man.
>
> If one has evolution then god is relegated to being a bystander (just
> as the
> big bang deprives gods of any great role in the creation of the
> universe).
Deists exist today.
> As you say, a god could indeed be 'letting it run.' But then, what use
> is
> god under those conditions?
Why does god need a "use" to exist?
The useless things are the most powerful (as per the Tao Te Ching) - the
emptiness in the cup is "useless" - but without it, the cup could not be
made useful (by being filled with the liquid to be consumed).
> Instead of an interventionist god whose actions
> are those of a being gifted with omnipotence, this simply creates a god
> whose relation to reality is not much different from that if someone
> watching TV programmes - his only role is in pressing the 'on' switch.
> This
> is not a description of a deity, it's a description of an absentee
> landlord.
On the contrary - to extend your TV show example - God might have been
the director, producer, writer, editor, and so forth - and our
"existence" is part of a showing of God's creation. Yes, God only
pressed the "on" switch to get it to run this time, but there was a lot
of set-up involved (deciding on various fundamental constants of the
universe, for example).
>> I also take exception to the use of the word "moribund" there. Faith
>> has
>> a valid role for several reasons.
>
> The reason for the assertion, is that I am inclining more and more to
> something approaching Emile Durkheim's view of religion; "The general
> conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is that religion
> is
> something eminently social.
I won't argue that religion is social - but I allow for the possibility
that it is more than that.
> Religious representations are collective
> representations which express collective realities;
Yes.
> the rites are a manner
> of acting which take rise in the midst of assembled groups and which are
> destined to excite, maintain, or recreate certain mental states in these
> groups.
Yes.
> So if the categories are of religious origin, they ought to
> participate in this nature common to all religious facts; they should be
> social affairs and the product of collective thought."
Yes - although I'm without the context to inform me of what is meant by
"categories" in the above.
> Or, as Dr Johnson put it "To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of
> which the rewards are distant and which is animated only by Faith and
> Hope,
> will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and
> reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the
> salutary influence of example." (He was prescient - with the decline of
> the
> CofE as a part of society, so has religion declined)
I do not see the "dangerous" aspect of the above.
Religion is a coping strategy - most people need something like it -
some do not.
> As modern society has become more and more individualistic traditional
> religion has essentially been left high and dry; especially as ethics
> have
> become increasingly secularised.
I have yet to see well-reasoned, consistent, well-supported secular
ethics. They all wind up appealing to something unprovable.
At first I was inclined to believe, as Pinker does in "How the Mind
Works", that there is a fundamental distinction between what "is" and
what "ought". This so disturbed me. So I so fit to try to find a better
answer. And what I've found is the notion of these "fundamental desires"
as found in (according to Arnhart):
Human Universals, by Donald Brown 1991
Human Ethology, by Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1989 (should be two dots over
the a in the name)
and supported by
Anthopologists Carol and Melvin Ember (1993)
Sociologist Joseph Lopreato (1984)
Psychologist McClelland (1985)
Aristotle and various others in the religious and philosophical arenas
> Religion has been splintered between
> increasingly recidivist fundamentalists and liberals. The former are at
> least consistent - since they regard the babble as inerrant it
> provides a
> basis for all of their beliefs (in so far as that is possible for such a
> contradictory text*).
I concur.
> Conversely, the liberals engage in a pick and mix form
> of religion, where they essentially choose which parts of their 'faith'
> they
> wish to choose to believe in as a lifestyle accessory. All the benefits
> of
> atheism/agnosticism (i.e. not having to believe in unpleasant doctrines)
> with the added benefits of a comfort blanket.
I concur.
> *The fundamentalists have certainly little alternative other than to
> practise a'la carte religion too, but are, I suspect markedly less
> given to
> doing so and are probably less aware of it.
Quite true.
>> He cites a number of sources arguing for 20 universal traits
>> of human behavior. One of these is a natural desire to understand
>> things
>> through "supernatural revelation".
>
> Sounds like dubious pseudo-science to me. In anthropological terms, this
> might hold true for certain primitive societies where social cohesion
> and a
> tendency to anthropomorphise a threatening environment are likely to be
> paramount concerns, but I am inclined to be sceptical as to its current
> applicability.
I've give the sources he mentions above. Feel free to discredit or
follow up on them as you see fit.
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