Just found an essay I love--it's on the Templeton Foundation's website, posted in a series of responses to the question, "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" Steven Pinker's is spot-on, I think, and I'd like to hear anyone else's take.
Adam, Pinker's essay (as is any of his writing I've come across) is effective, wonderfully sensible, and to the point. I particularly like his distillation (here and elsewhere) of morality into the golden rule, as this helps explain from where religion comes. However, Pinker seems to be weakest when describing a conception of the soul (inner-experience.) This subjective experience is certainly something that makes impartial scientific evaluation challenging, and this seems to have been the same point Brooks makes in his NYTimes Op-Ed. The concept of the mind or some inner-self and it's relation to something transcendental is what I have a hard time letting go of in my own explorations of Deism. Great finds on that Templeton.org site you came across. Thanks for sharing! There are a number of other great thoughts from great thinkers worth perusal on that site, including the posted discussions between many of the authors. The one caustic one between Christopher Hitchens and the Brown Univ. biologist is really interesting (and amusing.)
Get ready here comes a stream of consciousness and a blatant misuse of ellipses…I like what this David Brooks is saying…it’s a nice summary of what I have thought about religion for a long time… I don’t believe in the bible I believe in God… but I believe in God in the way Rog talks about it…a type of a something else…. a something bigger…. unsayable … universe… energy type of a thing… I mean when it comes down to it we are all just energy … I mean we came from star dust basically… I think if you wholeheartedly and literally believe in the bible you limit yourself to manmade ideas and the social construction of the idea of God … particularly the rich white guy version of God…but on the same token if you wholeheartedly believe that every experience, emotion, thought etc. can be explained away by science and a function or malfunction of the brain … you also limit yourself…. I think there is a happy medium … and you will find me sitting right smack dab in that medium…. I think the neurologist’s Stroke of Insight is simply the idea of being present and silencing the voice in your head that causes you to lose the present…. It took a stroke to quiet that part of her brain, but I think we can all and we have from time to time accomplished this… I think it is a good way of riding on the train of life…I mean you don’t abandon plans or have no goals but you don’t approach life from the perspective of “once I do this or accomplish that THEN I will be happy” nor from the view of “if only that hadn’t happened THEN I’d be okay”… nor do you put all your eggs in one basket and define yourself in your roles in life (neurologist, wife, woman, sister, whatever they may be)….again a happy medium between the linear thinking and the open thinking… as for the Pinker article … yep golden rule… but I agree with Rog I think he’s weak on explaining the inner-experience… again I just fall back on sure we can argue that to our benefit “scientific and scholarly understanding has increased exponentially; and belief in God has waned”… BUT I say belief in what “God”…I think to our benefit we are, from science and scholarly understanding, breaking out of the idea of God that has been impressed upon on by institutions … but let’s not go to the other extreme and snuff out the idea of some form of God or whatever label you want to give it… I suppose, and Adam I am sure you can argue this “feeling” comes from a life of Christian upbringing… but I think it’s pretty bold to think we CAN explain all of life … not that we shouldn’t try… I mean YEY science and all that jazz, great things have come from it… but let’s not get too cocky and be too proud of our measly little human brains and think that we can and DO know it all…
Hey, Kells: I like your spin on the neuorologist's presentation, that really it boils down to trying to silence parts of our minds that pull us too far out of the present. I'll buy that.
Some questions--if your definition of "God" is basically the Force from Star Wars, don't you feel it's problematic to still call this Force "God"? Because those three letters mean something more concrete in our language, both connotatively and denotatively (the OED, for instance, doesn't have any usage for "god" as referring to a vague, nebulous force or power). Don't you need to use another word if you don't believe in an autonomous individual with supernatural powers responsible for the creation of life as we know it?
Also, why can't we get "cocky and be proud of our measly little human brains and think that we can and DO know it all…"? I agree that we "don't" know it all, but not that we can't or that even if we can't we shouldn't try. I also don't think our brains are measly--think of the amazingly smart people we've had. Some people choose to squander them, perhaps (sometimes because they believe they shouldn't question certain things or look certain places), but I'd say the human brain is frakkin' stellar. Thoughts? (Also, this reminds me on an Emo Phillips joke: "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.")
"I like your spin on the neuorologist's presentation, that really it boils down to trying to silence parts of our minds that pull us too far out of the present. I'll buy that."
I'll send you a bill ; )
I'll give you that the definition of God and my using the word God is a clash in meaning and maybe I should use another word... but I was just working with what I had... I am open to calling it force, or whatever else.... but basically that can be said for lots of terms in the English language... use love for example... we have ONE word... Italian has many terms for love and its variations...
As far as my measly brain comment... my words were too harsh… and I think I did originally say I am not saying that we shouldn’t try to figure it all out…. We absolutely should… I just … well I think we will never figure it ALL out … and that is not to bash the many great minds out there… I am just saying I think we have limits… even collectively ...
4 comments:
Adam,
Pinker's essay (as is any of his writing I've come across) is effective, wonderfully sensible, and to the point. I particularly like his distillation (here and elsewhere) of morality into the golden rule, as this helps explain from where religion comes. However, Pinker seems to be weakest when describing a conception of the soul (inner-experience.) This subjective experience is certainly something that makes impartial scientific evaluation challenging, and this seems to have been the same point Brooks makes in his NYTimes Op-Ed. The concept of the mind or some inner-self and it's relation to something transcendental is what I have a hard time letting go of in my own explorations of Deism.
Great finds on that Templeton.org site you came across. Thanks for sharing! There are a number of other great thoughts from great thinkers worth perusal on that site, including the posted discussions between many of the authors. The one caustic one between Christopher Hitchens and the Brown Univ. biologist is really interesting (and amusing.)
Get ready here comes a stream of consciousness and a blatant misuse of ellipses…I like what this David Brooks is saying…it’s a nice summary of what I have thought about religion for a long time… I don’t believe in the bible I believe in God… but I believe in God in the way Rog talks about it…a type of a something else…. a something bigger…. unsayable … universe… energy type of a thing… I mean when it comes down to it we are all just energy … I mean we came from star dust basically… I think if you wholeheartedly and literally believe in the bible you limit yourself to manmade ideas and the social construction of the idea of God … particularly the rich white guy version of God…but on the same token if you wholeheartedly believe that every experience, emotion, thought etc. can be explained away by science and a function or malfunction of the brain … you also limit yourself…. I think there is a happy medium … and you will find me sitting right smack dab in that medium…. I think the neurologist’s Stroke of Insight is simply the idea of being present and silencing the voice in your head that causes you to lose the present…. It took a stroke to quiet that part of her brain, but I think we can all and we have from time to time accomplished this… I think it is a good way of riding on the train of life…I mean you don’t abandon plans or have no goals but you don’t approach life from the perspective of “once I do this or accomplish that THEN I will be happy” nor from the view of “if only that hadn’t happened THEN I’d be okay”… nor do you put all your eggs in one basket and define yourself in your roles in life (neurologist, wife, woman, sister, whatever they may be)….again a happy medium between the linear thinking and the open thinking… as for the Pinker article … yep golden rule… but I agree with Rog I think he’s weak on explaining the inner-experience… again I just fall back on sure we can argue that to our benefit “scientific and scholarly understanding has increased exponentially; and belief in God has waned”… BUT I say belief in what “God”…I think to our benefit we are, from science and scholarly understanding, breaking out of the idea of God that has been impressed upon on by institutions … but let’s not go to the other extreme and snuff out the idea of some form of God or whatever label you want to give it… I suppose, and Adam I am sure you can argue this “feeling” comes from a life of Christian upbringing… but I think it’s pretty bold to think we CAN explain all of life … not that we shouldn’t try… I mean YEY science and all that jazz, great things have come from it… but let’s not get too cocky and be too proud of our measly little human brains and think that we can and DO know it all…
Hey, Kells:
I like your spin on the neuorologist's presentation, that really it boils down to trying to silence parts of our minds that pull us too far out of the present. I'll buy that.
Some questions--if your definition of "God" is basically the Force from Star Wars, don't you feel it's problematic to still call this Force "God"? Because those three letters mean something more concrete in our language, both connotatively and denotatively (the OED, for instance, doesn't have any usage for "god" as referring to a vague, nebulous force or power). Don't you need to use another word if you don't believe in an autonomous individual with supernatural powers responsible for the creation of life as we know it?
Also, why can't we get "cocky and be proud of our measly little human brains and think that we can and DO know it all…"? I agree that we "don't" know it all, but not that we can't or that even if we can't we shouldn't try. I also don't think our brains are measly--think of the amazingly smart people we've had. Some people choose to squander them, perhaps (sometimes because they believe they shouldn't question certain things or look certain places), but I'd say the human brain is frakkin' stellar. Thoughts? (Also, this reminds me on an Emo Phillips joke: "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.")
"I like your spin on the neuorologist's presentation, that really it boils down to trying to silence parts of our minds that pull us too far out of the present. I'll buy that."
I'll send you a bill ; )
I'll give you that the definition of God and my using the word God is a clash in meaning and maybe I should use another word... but I was just working with what I had... I am open to calling it force, or whatever else.... but basically that can be said for lots of terms in the English language... use love for example... we have ONE word... Italian has many terms for love and its variations...
As far as my measly brain comment... my words were too harsh… and I think I did originally say I am not saying that we shouldn’t try to figure it all out…. We absolutely should… I just … well I think we will never figure it ALL out … and that is not to bash the many great minds out there… I am just saying I think we have limits… even collectively ...
back to work.... more later
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