Think Thank Thunk

The glory of God is man fully alive.                 St. Irenaeus

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Location: Aztec, New Mexico, United States

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Response to Skinner and Soul Level

Skinner

            First let me thank you for the response; I’m excited to have thoughtful comments to help me focus and to carry on an interesting discussion. My original hope in starting a blog was to carry on a dialog about things I was thinking or reading about. The blog has been up for some time, and based on comments, only family commented and not much discussion. As a result I lost interest for a time and then started to use the blog as a file repository for some of the stuff I was reading or thinking about. This is good!
            The primary point that D’Souza is making in Chapter one is that the world is rejecting the secular perspective. Whether that is good or bad is the subject of later chapters. Radical Hinduism seems like an oxymoron and so far at least hasn’t seemed like a good thing. Back to the point of the chapter – that secularism / materialism doesn’t have much draw. Certainly, religion of all varieties is growing with Christianity growing the fastest.
            In the words of David Quammen in The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, even in the USA, in spite of a couple of generations of biology classes in which mention of religion is frowned upon, most people “choose to understand the origin of our species as if Darwin had never lived.” The Gallup organization has been polling people since 1982 on the issue of evolution and creation. In 2004 when posed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time in the past 10,000 years or so” (Creationism), 45% agreed with that statement, 38% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed over millions of years from lower forms of life, but that God guided the process” (Theistic Evolution). A statement that Quammen says is “utterly inconsistent with what Darwin proposed”. Just 13% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed from other life forms without guidance by God”. The interesting thing is these numbers have not changed significantly in the 6 times they have conducted the poll since 1982. Again in the words of Quammen, an admirer and biographer of Darwin, approximately 87% of the American population does not believe the fundamental principle of Darwin that higher life forms evolve from lower life forms through blind materialistic processes. Darwin's Evolution doesn't appear to be believable to the majority of the population of the world.
            Communism or at least the socialistic versions seen in USSR and China, while not dead, is not doing well for a variety of reasons. Probably the main reason it has imploded is that it is inconsistent with the nature of man even though many aspects pure communism are a great idea and tried briefly in early Christianity. For communism to work well, the people must be fundamentally and almost exclusively good, generous, and kind people. Not much evidence of that.
            I guess it is important to define secularism a bit more precisely. Skinner is correct saying that historical secularism refers to separation of religion and government. However the term has morphed to include separation of religion and truth which expands the definition and somewhat merges it with Materialism – the idea that there is only one true thing – matter. I (and I think D’Souza) am using Secularism and Materialism somewhat interchangeably. Secularism as such goes beyond a form or philosophy of government, it is a philosophical world view that says we don’t need divine intervention or revelation to give meaning or direction in any area of life including government, biology, the ‘meaning of life’, etc, or any of the important questions humans ask. A pure secularist (whatever that is) would say that the only valid source of truth is science and no god is necessary; many of the current atheist authors are saying that religion is a liability and must be eradicated.
            I’m not sure I have ever heard anyone argue that murder, rape, and pillage have survival value in the way that Darwin used it.
            Darwinian theory is clear that we humans are here as a result of a purposeless, directionless, and meaningless process with no guarantee that humans are a good idea or a dead end and with some speculating that the world might be better off without us. (Chernobyl in its current form gives some indication that nature might do well with some well placed nukes to clear out the human population.) Purpose and meaning for our existence can’t come from a directionless process.
            I’m not sure what swarms of people have to do with the argument. Demographics seem to say that the secular materialistic countries of Europe and now America are not reproducing themselves; they are short of workers and it is causing problems for their economies and cultures. You might argue that is not a problem, there are swarms of people who want to fill the void, but that begs another question of why those people want to leave. I’m afraid that is an issue beyond the scope of this argument.
            I don’t think I understand the optical illusion and shaft arguments. The only point I was making is that hopeful people whose hope is based on truth or reality with survive better than hopeless people or hopeful people whose hope is based in fantasy.
            Again I don’t think I understand the ‘human history’ argument. All the countries named rose to power under religious (not necessarily good) people, they now seem to be declining in influence, stability, and prosperity relative to the rest of the world as a function of their move toward a secular and non-religious society. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the Roman philosophers, and our founding fathers all seem to agree that governments will fail if the moral discipline of religion is missing.

Soul Level Response (It’s late and I’m tired so I hope this makes sense when I read it tomorrow.

            I guess there is a difference between a story that entertains us and fundamental truths. There is general agreement that myths are built around at least a kernel of truth. If there is not at least some truth and we live our lives around a lie, I can’t see how good will come of it.
            “Religion is a good way to motivate society.” The question is why is “religion a great way to organized people and society”. Men like Plato and Aristotle while not so sure of the Olympian gods, were adamant about religious duties and some believe were tending to a supreme being – a first cause. Many of the founding fathers of our nation while themselves not professing to be whole-hearted religious men felt that our government could not function without the virtues espoused by religions men.
            In the first few chapters of this book, D’Souza is arguing that Atheism is losing the battle against Religion worldwide, mad as hell about it, confused about the stupidity of humans who don’t accept evolution as a fact, believe in science as the arbiter of truth, and that they are becoming aggressive about promulgating their belief.
            Taoism - There is a difference between a personal god and an impersonal something that is a first cause. I know little about Taoism, but it appears to me to be a system somewhat related to later Buddhism and still later Epicureanism where the goal is to purge oneself of desire. That might be a good idea when applied to warring or covetous neighbors but if applied to our business or children is likely to result in failure. In any case, again forgive my lack of knowledge of Taoism, but I think it has an understanding of origins that includes purpose and therefore at odds with evolutionary theory. Again based on the little I know, Taoists believe that something nurtured humans in the beginning but doesn’t care much about what happens to us now. I’d better leave Taoism at this point before my ignorance becomes more obvious.
            I’m not sure I understand the population argument unless you might be arguing that it would be a good thing if Secular / Materialists failed to reproduce themselves so as to leave room for people too ignorant to figure out how many kids they or their nations can afford. I’m not convinced that we know enough about overpopulation issues, but we sure know enough about starvation to do what we can. Unfortunately, even starvation is not a simple issue – witness Zimbabwe or Sudan.

            Well this has been fun, hope it continues, but I need to get some sleep.

5 Comments:

Blogger Soul Level said...

Sorry it's just family responding again. I'll stop if you'd rather.

My only question is related to this comment:

" Again I don’t think I understand the ‘human history’ argument. All the countries named rose to power under religious (not necessarily good) people, they now seem to be declining in influence, stability, and prosperity relative to the rest of the world as a function of their move toward a secular and non-religious society."

You have evidence that they are in decline, and not just a cycle. And...you have evidence that the decline is a result of a move away from religion?

Any comment on fundamental muslim societies in relation to the above assertion?

Ready for the next chapter?

2:36 PM  
Blogger complexspecificity said...

            Soul Level

            Don’t Stop.  My readership would drop by 50%.
            “Human History” – I maybe shouldn’t have said it the way I did. I did say ‘seems’ and it could easily be part of a cycle. Cause and effect is always difficult; there is a statistical correlation in that they are both happening at the same time; however that does not prove cause and effect. However, an argument could be postulated that many of the economic problems of Europe today could be attributed to the high cost of socialism and many of the current social problems could be traced to an inadequate workforce resulting in large scale immigration which further exacerbates the economic component of the social infrastructure.
            About the Muslim societies, they are obviously in the news all over the world and seem to be gaining influence as in the break-away republics of the USSR, but whether that is caused by greater Islamic identity, weakness of the USSR in the ‘90s, petroleum revenue would be difficult to say – impossible for me.

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