Letters to the Editor
-
@mike sulzer
By and large I don't disagree. But I do think you are expressing an absolute faith in empiricism that is just that: faith. You BELIEVE there is every reason to expect that we'll find the Right neuron and the Wrong neuron. That is simply faith.
I would argue that as things stand the reductionist material theories have gone as far as they can. The HAVE broken down already. Obviously, for the time being. There are always higher, more encompassing models that arise as we evolve. I believe (yes, I have faith) that the universe, time/space, what-have-you is infinite. We humans are demonstrably finite. By their natures, the finite cannot fully take in the infinite.
Science, a finite venture (not an un-worthwhile one by any means!) repeatedly reaches its edge, creates an explanation for why we can't know it all and awaits the next, better theory which in turn reaches its edge, creates an explanation for why we can't know it all and awaits the next, better theory which in turn reaches its edge...
That is the historical record. To believe that some new model will "solve everything" is no more fool-hardy than believing that the Bible can solve everything. The unknown is inherently part of our existence, and will never be explained away--imho.
-
@jazztao
We could do a brain scan and see that the language center is active while we read it and type it, but the brain scan cannot tell whether what we are discussing is right or wrong anymore than it could show that we were discussing baseball or tapioca pudding rather than philosophy.
Language works as a form of communication, and therefore the information is in the brain. You cannot tell tapioca from baseball in a brain state now, but the information has to be stored in a consistent manner. If you can remember which one you discussed yesterday, it is in principle possible to read that from your brain. What is missing from any such analysis is this: why are you aware?
-
michael b:
well, for one:
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are."
- The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, St. Augustine.
"In "Guide for the Perplexed" Book III, Chapter 28, Maimonides explicitly draws a distinction between "true beliefs," which were beliefs about God which produced intellectual perfection, and "necessary beliefs," which were conducive to improving social order. Maimonides places anthropomorphic personification statements about God in the latter class. He uses as an example the notion that God becomes "angry" with people who do wrong. In the view of Maimonides (taken from Avicenna) God does not actually become angry with people, as God has no human passions; but it is important for them to believe God does, so that they desist from sinning."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides#True_beliefs_versus_necessary_beliefs
"Chapter two of the treatise on resurrection refers to those who believe that the world to come involves physically resurrected bodies. Maimonides refers to one with such beliefs as being an "utter fool" whose belief is "folly".
'If one of the multitude refuses to believe [that angels are incorporeal] and prefers to believe that angels have bodies and even that they eat, since it is written (Genesis 18:8) 'they ate', or that those who exist in the World to Come will also have bodies—we won't hold it against him or consider him a heretic, and we will not distance ourselves from him. May there not be many who profess this folly, and let us hope that he will go no farther than this in his folly and believe that the Creator is corporeal.'
...
While these two positions may be seen as in contradiction (non-corporeal eternal life, versus a bodily resurrection), Maimonides resolves them with a then unique solution: Maimonides believed that the resurrection was not permanent or general. In his view, God never violates the laws of nature. Rather, divine interaction is by way of angels, which Maimonides holds to be metaphors for the laws of nature, the principles by which the physical universe operates, or Platonic eternal forms. Thus, if a unique event actually occurs, even if it is perceived as a miracle, it is not a violation of the world's order."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides#Resurrection.2C_acquired_immortality.2C_and_the_afterlife
More current version of thoughtful theologian:
"1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination."
http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html