In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, it works on so many levels. Here are a few:
- Theological: Yeah of course the Supreme Being (SB) is not going to worry too much about the atheists, right -- they had their chance and made their choice. But what about the pets!? How is it that the SB doesn't care as much about the sufferings of the other beings He/She/It has created as their owners do? Or even as much as the carefully screened ethical atheists do, who after all are volunteering to look after them at their own expense for the rest of the lives left them after the Almighty has forsaken them?
- Ethical: Okay, forget about God's own ethics -- we could just say the ways of the Lord are mysterious and let it go. But what about those who are willing to abandon not just their pets but their pets' caregivers to whatever fate is left after they get theirs? Doesn't that smack a bit of the old "I'm all right, Jack" morality -- I got mine, too bad about you? Yet, these are supposed to be the good people, aren't they? And, of course, from the other side, what about those atheists who are supposedly ethical enough to be trusted to look after a stranger's pets, but who are willing participants in what they must believe to be a kind of scam, taking advantage of gullible, and perhaps theologically confused believers?
- Psychological: Quite apart from the ethics as such, what would be going on in the minds of people, on either side, able to hold such complicated, conflicting views on divine justice, ethical behavior, pragmatic considerations, etc. Compartmentalization? Screening-out? Simple-mindedness? Complexity? "Negative capability"?
- Economic: So the believer pays a one time fee for some peace of mind; the company gets a revenue stream that depends on finding new believers/suckers at least until the market is saturated; but what do the atheists get, and when? And what happens to the business after the Rapture?
- Weird: "[Please note: we can now offer rescue services for horses, camels, llamas and donkeys in NH,VT, ID and MT ]"
Ah, it dost tease us out of thought....
Do you have convincing arguments to prove your atheistic-materialism, morf? What do you make of all the recent talk of physicists in regard to parallel and/or possible worlds? While I am a skeptic and agnostic (not the same as atheistic), I would not be so bold to deny Mind, and say only atheistic-materialism holds. Ergo, if separate dimensions did exist, one might be something like Heaven. Or Hell. Or even purgatory, and other religious concepts--tho I imagine a rational Deity would probably demand that atheists, at least the scummy nihilistic greedy Aynnie Rand sort, keep their poodles in the Inferno.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you make of all the recent talk of physicists in regard to parallel and/or possible worlds?
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that physicists are talking about them they're physical -- i.e., material.
While I am a skeptic and agnostic (not the same as atheistic), I would not be so bold to deny Mind, and say only atheistic-materialism holds.
I would.
Ergo, if separate dimensions did exist, one might be something like Heaven.
Sure, and if you can "ergo" Heaven, why not "ergo" Santa Claus's North Pole? Never-never Land? Oz?
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ReplyDeleteAre numbers/equations or even sentences physical, morfmeat, as like a tree or chair or mountain is? I don't think you quite understand what materialism implies.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, all of your endless harangues against leftists, or anyone who you don't like--nature doesn't care. Nature would per yr assumption have caused it, and everything. So you don't really make any decisions at all but merely respond to bio-chemical impulses--the morf-bot. Finally...do you think, say, the Sun--milky way...distant galaxies...arose ex nihilo as it were? One might at least ponder a Creator (not necessarily strictly judeo-christian)
Re: ideas (numbers, etc.) -- they occur in the mind, which is to say brain, which means that, yes, in that sense they're physical. I.e., they don't exist in, or imply, any ideal realm.
ReplyDeleteRe: bio-chemical impulses and what they imply about decisions -- see this post from a while back that, among other things, suggests that determinism is compatible with free will.
Re: the sun, etc. arising "ex nihilo" -- see Stephen Hawking's (one of your physicists) remarks a short while ago.
Re: pondering a Creator -- careful, J, or you'll turn into a Mormon!
they occur in the mind, which is to say brain, which means that, yes, in that sense they're physical. I.e., they don't exist in, or imply, any ideal realm.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that will prove to be the case, but the cog-sci people have hardly begun to map out cognitive functions with any degree of accuracy. They say something like "mathematics/language appears to happen near this cortical area, etc." But they couldn't show you an integral somehow embedded in the neurology....
pondering a Creator -- careful, J, or you'll turn into a Mormon!
Brahma wields quite a bit more power than the Angel Moroni does, m. It's about one's choice of metaphors...in a sense
I don't exactly dismiss Hawkings' points, and don't claim to be an astrophysicist, but note how he hedges---well "the laws of science could be called God, but not a personal God", etc. Who or what created the gravitational constant as well?? Newton for one agreed with theologians, and the ancients, Aristotle et al that a Primum Mobile seemed...necessary. Either way lil Stevie wasn't there--and scientific theories, even the best, regarding extremely ancient events involve some...or a great deal of probability.
Who or what created the gravitational constant as well??
ReplyDeleteIt was always there? It appeared, along with everything else, ex nihilo?
If those don't satisfy you, then the next question is, who or what created the creator??
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ReplyDeleteKant's thinking on these matters is deserving of some respect (ie, Kant's Antinomies, today on Oprah!), and might be said to be somewhat skeptical--and perhaps slightly therapeutic--but not outright rejection ala Dawkins, corporate Tory atheist du jour. And the so-called "infinite regress" argument doesn't solve anything. Indeed, the old clerics posited an eternal Being. Feeling bored once, He swatted his hands and brought the physical universe into existence (chuckle, but that's not far from most monotheistic orthodoxy).
ReplyDeleteIm being facetious but the point is: assuming the Big Bang is the correct model (Einstein and others did not think so), then....some people will probably engage in theological speculation, whether a Dawkins approves or not. Any Entity who can create stars would be a pretty serious Being. Furthermore, Dawkins, Hitchens et al ignore, shall we say, the anthropological view of religion as well. It's not just --does a Supreme Being exist, true or false--but like what is Notre Dame, or Bach's music, or death, for that matter.
Furthermore, Dawkins, Hitchens et al ignore, shall we say, the anthropological view of religion as well. It's not just --does a Supreme Being exist, true or false--but like what is Notre Dame, or Bach's music, or death, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteThere I largely agree. I'm not one of the militant atheists; I simply don't think the notion of "god" is helpful in an empirical or scientific sense. But there are other senses, including the aesthetic, in which it no doubt can and does play an important role....