Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Sunday, February 11. 2007Re-Mystifing the WorldBob at One Cosmos says that science aspires to demystify the world, while religion aspires to remystify it. A couple of quotes:
and
Read the whole thing. I could quibble with Bob, and argue that he blends capacity for relationships with capacity for life of the spirit, etc., but I agree with his general direction - and with his attitude and his altitude. Life in abundance: it is Christ's promise. Image: William Blake's Ascension Trackbacks
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Something strange happens to the de-mystifiers--they lose their sense of humor. Sounds trivial but maybe it's everything but.
Buddy,
You are being demystified in absentia at the BC by Doug. 05:28:00 AM "trying to push people around with coarse and blunt language that is entirely disproportionate and inappropriate to its subject -- like an illiterate boob talking about Shakespeare." - In the instance, how true. But then, for millennia, truths have been recurring, which probably explains the human predisposition for "rediscovering" them in times of crisis. Atheists all. Fools.
Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Andrew Carnegie Isaac Asimov, Charles Darwin, Ben Franklin, Carl Sagan, Clarence Darrow Ayn Rand, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Rubenstein, Helen Keller Gene Roddenberry (Creator of Star Trek), Richard Dawkins, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Edward Gibbon, Emma Goldman, Thomas Huxley, H.L. Mencken, Thomas Paine, Margaret Sanger, Thomas Edison, Thomas Paine, Ambrose Bierce, Robert A. Heinlein, Charles Schultz, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Susan B. Anthony, Vincent Van Gogh, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Frank Zappa, Robert G. Ingersoll, Karl Popper, George Orwell, Irving Berlin, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney, Napoleon, James Joyce, Nehru, Dr. James Watson (DNA), Leo Tolstoy, John Stuart Mill, John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson. Gene Roddenberry - “We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing, all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes.” Frank Zappa - “Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.” Robert G. Ingersoll - “Hands that help are far better than lips that pray.” . Allen, ah, the bickering--maybe I'll come back over & join in again. BC, didn't we just 'do' C4 over there, tho? Not that anything ever 'takes' with der obersturmbahnfeurher.
My dear Miss Fanny,
I did not see you in God's house this morning. I trust you are well. Did anyone here say that atheists were fools. You did, ironically, without addressing the central dichotomy between materialism and spirituality. Furthermore, while some of the names are of famous haters of God and the church, many of them are far more complicated than your list would lead one to assume. Can you see into a person's heart? If someone were to read your collected writings and attempt to categorize you one way or another, would you feel that they could accurately do so? Or might there be some mysteries that you have kept to yourself, that only you and your Maker are familiar with? I do not believe that Thomas Jefferson was an atheist. He had many legitimate objections to the Church of England of his day. He could not understand the miracles of Jesus, and so he excised them from his Bible. That was his loss, but many other believers may likewise hold aspects of God at bay that are too threatening or too mysterious for them. That in no way disproves the power or mystery or mercy of God. And I doubt Jefferson would have appreciated your characterization of him as an atheist. Gene Rodenberry created amusing entertainment, but if you look to him for your theology or philosophy of life, you are more in need of God than you realize. Ditto for Frank Zappa. As for the Ingersoll quote, all the people I know who pray, use their hands tirelessly to help others. "And I doubt Jefferson would have appreciated your characterization of him as an atheist. "
He wouldn't have cared as he was an atheist. But then, as you say: "Can you see into a person's heart?" No. Nor into his mind. "If someone were to read your collected writings and attempt to categorize you one way or another, would you feel that they could accurately do so?" No. Not unless they referenced something I stated as fact or belief about myself. They could certainly surmise, however. "Gene Rodenberry created amusing entertainment, but if you look to him for your theology or philosophy of life, you are more in need of God than you realize. Ditto for Frank Zappa. As for the Ingersoll quote, all the people I know who pray, use their hands tirelessly to help others." I don't have a clue who Gene Roddenberry is. The list I used above is from a seminar on Jefferson and Madison I attended. All other lists I checked out (just now) had movie stars and celebrities. I don't care about them. I was much more interested in famous people who used their minds and hands tirelessly to help others and/or to explore our universe. "...you are more in need of God than you realize." Why do people say such things when they can't see into a person's heart? . . Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The third President of the United States (1801-1809) United States Flag • Continue with Alphabetically Sequenced Quotations Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone. -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, 11 January 1817, in Lester Cappon, ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters, (1959) p. 506, quoted from Jeremy Koselak, "The Exaltation of a Reasonable Deity: Thomas Jefferson’s Critique of Christianity" I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely (June 25, 1819), quoted from Dickinson W Adams, ed, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series (Princeton University Press, 1983; note that attributions saying "Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University (June 25, 1819)" are incorrect, as that Ezra Stiles died in 1795) †† Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. -- Thomas Jefferson, considering three different explanations for why sea shells would be found at higher elevations than one should reasonably expect an ocean to have existed, in Notes on the State of Virginia †† What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong. -- Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Axiom, in a letter to John Adams, 11 January 1817, quoted from Lester Cappon, ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters (1959) p. 445 . Miss Fanny, so many of those people you named seem to have such great spirits--i almost think that their objection is with some caricature of the higher power. What do you think?
buddy larsen,
Good men may disagree. Good men may agree to disagree. Misrepresentation is another matter entirely. Just thought you ought to know. No one "does" C4 as well as C4. Allen--not 'do' as in 'imitate', but, 'do' as in dispute the ideas of.
'Misrepresent' hasn't bothered me since some communist started using my name, posting @ WSJ Opinion Journal. I complained then to Taranto, who quit publishing the guy--but that was some time ago, and I don't monitor it anymore. We're just glyphs anyway. Who cares--when it ain't pleasant to post on a comments section, I just don't do it. If you want to see the opposite philosophy, check out habu's link (below in a few threads) to that The Scotsman's site. He damn near started a war--and with our only ally, LOL. I think he may have got a couple of them thinking again, tho--so, all to the good, in the end. Besides, I use my real name, and as I've oft mentioned, live out in the country nearest the towns of Dripping Springs, Blanco, and Johnson City, Texas. Anybody can find me, just ask around in any of the three towns. I can be easily located, couldn't hide now even if I wanted to--if any nom-de-plumes from the anonymous-sphere want to come discuss their beefs in a way that really counts.
Allen,
If you'd enjoy some debate with members of the Scottish Socialist Party just go to The Scotsman. they usually post under the international news area. Here was my experience prior to know they were all socialists...a bit of good go. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=186532007#new Miss Fanny,
A good many people on your list were not atheists, but rather Agnostic theists. There is a very large difference. Several other's were in a group of admirers of Pascal's Wager. BTW can you tell me the Prime Moving Force of the Universe? Everyone knows that the Prime Moving Force of the Universe is Maggie's Farm, located as it is in the center of the universe, and sending its truth out to the end (?) of the... whatever this big thing is. A dream? A soul-intoxication? A God-produced acid trip?
Science is what justifies, and necessitates, religion, and natural spiritual strivings. ha ha... Bird Dog. You're right. :)
Let me answer the other questions.... Miss Fanny, so many of those people you named seem to have such great spirits--i almost think that their objection is with some caricature of the higher power. What do you think? #7 buddy larsen on 2007-02-11 12:11 Buddy, I think you're right. I think many objected to religion but had no problem with the spirituality and transcendence of God. I have to say I am that way. Have you ever read "Beyond Belief" by Elaine Pagels? It is the story of Thomas. Jesus told Thomas that he carried the 'spirit' of God in him and that was all he (Thomas) needed. Thomas did not make it as one of the pillars of the four gospels, needless to say. I mentioned this above in response to Abigail's comment, but this quotation works better for your response: "Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable. ...but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods where they get off, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity I think Lewis struggled with atheism and belief realizing that neither is a choice or an act of will but rather what one knows and how one thinks. That changes throughout our lives, and makes his last sentence more trenchant - especially considering the state of secularism vs. belief in today's world and the state of scientific discoveries encroaching on centuries-old belief systems. . "A good many people on your list were not atheists, but rather Agnostic theists. There is a very large difference.
Several other's were in a group of admirers of Pascal's Wager. BTW can you tell me the Prime Moving Force of the Universe? #12 Habu" Habu, I have no disagreement with what you say. I think any fears stating outright that they are atheist. It is a default mode to 'be' agnostic theists or merely agnostics and to wager in Pascal's Wager to support themselves if challenged. Non-believers, half-way believers are the minority, and depending on the times, many probably felt it better to pick anything than 'atheist'. Even now I can sense a derisive tone from some comments, and I have stated nothing about my beliefs. I wonder what how I would be received if I said, "I am an atheist." ? Z-prime. I looked up the moving force of the universe and I am much too retarded mathematically to grok any of it. I even took a class in quantum physics where most of the audience were members of an Ivy League university near me, and they didn't get it. I have to say it was pretty funny when we gathered around after the seminar to listen to the 'regular' physics professors talk and scratch their heads. String theory? Duh..... If you can explain it, could you number the sentences and use small words? I am that dumb. :) . Science is what justifies, and necessitates, religion, and natural spiritual strivings.
#13 bird dog Here is a neat quote by E.O. Wilson, Bird Dog, that talks of this: "For many the urge to believe in transcendental existence and immortality is overpowering. Transcendentalism, especially when reinforced by religious faith, is psychically full and rich; it feels somehow right. In comparison empiricism seems sterile and inadequate. That is why, even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart. Science has always defeated religious dogma point by point when the two have conflicted. But to no avail. In the United States there are fifteen million Southern Baptists, the largest denomination favoring literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, but only five thousand members of the American Humanist Association, the leading organization devoted to secular and deistic humanism… Science has taken us very far from the personal God who once presided over Western civilization. It has done little to satisfy our instinctual hunger…The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and empiricist world views? No, unfortunately, there is not…For centuries the writ of empiricism has been spreading into the ancient domain of transcendentalist belief, slowly at the start but quickening in the scientific age. The spirits our ancestors knew intimately first fled the rocks and trees, then the distant mountains. Now they are in the stars, where their final extinction is possible. But we cannot live without them. People need a sacred narrative… The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content and grandeur than all the religious cosmologies combined." Edward O. Wilson . Here is something that will torque your mind as it fascinates it. Try it.
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm (I hope it's still active. I haven't been there in a couple of years.) Miss Fanny,
Anyone who says "it is known to my God and myself alone" is not an atheist. The other quotes are inconclusive. The game was cool, but I'm hopelessly with Kierkegaard. What seminar did you attend on Jefferson and Madison? What there (other than your desire to believe that he was an atheist) so convinced you that Jefferson was an atheist? How long have you studied Jefferson? So far you have just thrown a bunch of quotes out that appear to have been googled. Note, in hazarding my own judgment of the man, I said that "I do not believe..." I did not say that I knew for sure. Nobody except Jefferson and God can be sure. I have studied his writings since childhood, and those of his biographers, and grew up in a family of historians where we learned not to take quotes out of context. I feel fairly sure that he was not an atheist, but it is only my opinion. Whence your certainty? You don't want anyone guessing what is in your heart, but you have no qualms about opining with assurance about what was in Jefferson's. Re: Rodenberry, when I quote people, I take care first to find out who they are. Re: Wilson. I studied with him, and tho he's a genius, and one of the best professors I ever had, I certainly wouldn't consider his opinions on religion definitive. As a Christian and a student of evolution, I saw no contradiction between science and religion. They inform each other. The more we learn about the material world the more we are reduced to awe before the handiwork of God. If you were an atheist I wouldn't deride you but I would pity you. Atheists are in a minority in this world, and an agonized, angry, sad minority. But you wrote that it's religion rather than God that you can't stomach. This is a fairly common sticking place for people who have been wounded by family traumas or an imperfect institution, and who prefer to trust only themselves. But the churches are full of people who used to feel as you do. Sooner or later, the survivor's toughness, the arrogance and self-sufficiency of spiritual youth give way to a humble acknowledgment that no man is an island, as Donne reminded us. That we need other sinners to hold us accountable and to encourage our spiritual growth. Get a bad mammogram result. Receive a heartbreaking diagnosis for one's child. Agonize over a loved one in a war zone. Name your affliction. You will not always be able to stand alone. But there is somewhere where you can find strength and courage to face all fears, all trials, all trouble. A place where people will pray for you when you cannot pray yourself. The Church's doors are always open. People kick against faith and throw tantrums at God and the faithful, sometimes the hardest when they feel God moving their stony hearts. God understands and can wait you out. Doubt is the testing ground of mature faith. Everyone goes thru it, sometimes repeatedly. It interests me how atheists and those who so insist "I do it myself!" simply cannot stop attacking the faithful. Why do they care that we believe? Why is the idea of God such a threat to them? If He doesn't exist, I wonder that you devote so much time to Him. Why is it so difficult for highly intelligent people who sense the presence of God to face their own sinfulness, to acknowledge that we all need others in the struggle to know and be faithful to God? The faithful do not waste their time seeking out battles with atheists. They come at us. To define oneself by what one does not believe in seems sterile, a choice to live in the shadows, to prefer an absence, emptiness, despair. This seems sad to us when we have a loving saviour, a God who has given us work to do in the real world, helping real people. We welcome all honest seekers, but we are not discouraged by angry arguments. We know the howls of the spiritual terrible twos to be a necessary but usually temporary stage that most pass through before beginning to grow spiritually. I hope that you find something you can believe in for yourself instead of needing to attack the corporate faith of others, or engaging in endless sterile debate about questions that are supposed to be lived. Religion is not a spectator sport. I hope also that you can find a church family where you can love and be loved, where people of different ages, classes, races, and every political stripe are united by a love of God and His holy Word, and the desire to reach out in love to a hurting world. Faith and a commitment to the gathered faithful in the church is not something to be decided by a tennis match of quotations. I wouldn't insult your intelligence by trying to convince you with a barrage of quotations. All I can do is to invite you to consider that folk saying that "Christianity isn't taught, it's caught." You don't like what I write, ignore it. Parents of teenagers aren't scared by people disliking or rejecting their values! Plenty of other good people here and all around you, more to your taste. will reach out to you, if you let them. Go read the Bible. God will bless you. Abigail,
Thank you for taking the time for the long response. I’ll try to keep my response short. First let me say my initial comment on this thread was in direct reference to the subject of the post. I have a grave dislike for the way this person presents himself, his made-up comprehension of the cosmos, and worse, the way he treats anyone who comments on his blog who asks questions that seek explanations of his work. He deletes them after his cult-like followers beat them to death. He lets the beating take place first before he summarily deletes them. This person is a psychiatrist who treats people, and who moves his cosmic understanding into politics? That’s what my list of atheists/fools was about. As I said, I did not dig the list of quotations off the Internet but pulled the quotation from a file of material I have from several classes. I suppose I could have gone into that list and culled the individuals I did not know of, but I did not. Jefferson does not capitalize ‘god’ in his quotation. I’ll not quibble about ‘proof’ that Jefferson was an atheist. I came to believe he was because I attend classes at UVA for fun, and in doing so was invited to attend the weekly secular humanist meetings because I expressed an interest in hearing from a variety of speakers, professors, ministers, physicists, etc. It’s great, and the attendees are mostly professors, professionals, or retired people like myself who are interested in a variety of topics. Because of our location, we have had several Jefferson/Madison scholars speak to the group. I have also taken several courses on early American history and many courses on the Abrahamic religions - to name just a few. One thing is clear about Jefferson and that is he did not like organized religion. He and Madison struggled over this together and used the word ‘providence’ to supplant ‘god’. I trust that Jefferson disliked religion far more than the idea of god, but he clearly he was not a fervid believer. How long have I studied Jefferson? How does one answer that? I’ve known who he was since I was a child, and I am probably older than you, ... what do you call ‘studying’? I cannot answer that question. I grew up in a highly educated family that studied everything and anything that interested us, and I know, too, not to take quotations out of context. I added those four or five later to the thread when I found them in my files - just as they are. I put them on the thread to back up my belief that Jefferson was an atheist. That’s all. I can certainly offer you many more if you want. As far as using the other quoted material - sometimes people say things a lot better than I can. I also spoke about those quotations and did not leave them simply hanging as a response. I am jealous that you were under the tutelage of Edward Wilson. I admire him more than I can say. He appears through his writing to be extremely kind and sensitive to the issues of science and religion. I read a brief biography of him and came away more impressed than ever. You are lucky. The only famous scholars I’ve had the pleasure to meet were Larry Sabato and Lawrence Eagleburger when they spoke to the group. I have to say that seminar ended up a laugh session once the Q & A let loose. It was wonderful. “Atheists are in a minority in this world, and an agonized, angry, sad minority.” Another borrowed item: 1. Christianity: 2.1 billion 2. Islam: 1.3 billion 3. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion 4. Hinduism: 900 million 5. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million Far from a minority. As well, this sort of shows what I was trying to explain to Habu about atheists being lumped with agnostics....... I am sad to see you say that atheists are an agonized, angry, sad minority. How can anyone lump approximately 1.1 billion people into such a horrid category of humanity? How Christian is that? The rest of your response is bitter and patronizing, and I am sorry for that. I did not say I was an atheist. You do not know what is in my heart, nor do you know a thing about my life. You don’t know what my career was, you don’t know if I have children, you don’t know if I have suffered. You know nothing. How dare you say such things to me that demean me as if I am less than you? You pity me........ . A few quick responses, Miss Fanny, on my way to work:
You are right about the shrink that piece on mystification came from. It's an occupational hazard of his profession, to come to believe the idealization of the sick, hurting or confused who come looking for healing. I wouldn't bother with Maggie's Farm if the editors played God as that fellow does...Nevertheless, even an @#$$% can teach us something... You have written a lot about your life under other names, if I am not mistaken. And one can imagine a lot from your bitter, angry outbursts. Phoenix and Surefire have written in a tone similar to yours--if they are not you, perhaps you three could become friends? If they are you, my condolences on the loss of your father. Having lost 4 out of 5 of my family of origin in the last year, I know what it is to mourn and rage at the world. But you are touchy on the subject of anyone presuming to know what is in your heart. So I will not sympathize by saying that I know some of what you are going through. I did not demean you. I did not say that you were an atheist, I read what you wrote about your fears of derision if you said you were one. I do not despise atheists or consider them a "horrid" lot. While pity can include contempt, I meant none. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pity Knowing where you have been recently helps me understand some of your antipathy to organized religion. I spent many years visiting relatives near you (family business started there). I have been blessed where I am now by a church community so loving that they welcome even an opinionated walked wounded like myself and give me ways to help others. I am sorry that I have so offended you--although I was very angry at your labelling of Jefferson, I was wrong if I attacked you personally. Of course you have suffered. But you are not the only one. It isn't all about you, or me, thank God. I've been interested in Spinoza ever since long ago reading somewhere that he believed that the thought of God in the human mind is the manifestation of His existence.
My affinity later proving via later reading such condensed epigrams as his "Happiness is a virtue, not its reward". For a nice quick jolt of philosophy, search [ spinoza quotes ] --there are about 15 or 20 which are lodestone-like. |