The essays are comprised answers to ‘big questions’ from a variety of perspectives – theist, atheist and agnostic.  They make for interesting reading whatever your beliefs are.

Two of the ‘big questions‘ essays were of particular interest to . . . → Read More: ‘big question’ essays]]> Cheers to Bryson for directing me to an essay, which I discovered was one over several over at The John Templeton Foundation.

The essays are comprised answers to ‘big questions’ from a variety of perspectives – theist, atheist and agnostic.  They make for interesting reading whatever your beliefs are.

Two of the ‘big questions‘ essays were of particular interest to me: “Does the Universe Have a Purpose?” and “Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?“.

Some other bits which may be of interest to some readers include:

• “Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?“
• Debates between contributers to the Science/Belief essay (Christopher Hitchens v. Ken Miller; Jerome Groopman v. Michael Shermer; and Steven Pinker v. William D. Phillips).
• A Brief interview with (physicist/cosmologist) Paul Davies concerning multiverse theory
• assorted video content (look for it)

…for a friendly, respectful, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable conversation about life, god, the universe, morality and all the rest.

I’ve been blogging with atheists (among others!) for at least 2 years now (I first ‘met’ Ian and Ken over at Frank Ritchie’s blog on a provocative post he did back in June 07).  Blogging is an interesting phenomenon.  We put up words that we think are worth reading.  I started . . . → Read More: blamentations]]> Blamentations (pronounced: Blah-men-tay-shins; combining the words ‘blog’ and ‘lamentations’).

I’ve been blogging with atheists (among others!) for at least 2 years now (I first ‘met’ Ian and Ken over at Frank Ritchie’s blog on a provocative post he did back in June 07).  Blogging is an interesting phenomenon.  We put up words that we think are worth reading.  I started my very first blog as a way of keeping in touch with family back home in the U.S., and have had various blogs since then.  ‘By-default’ was a kind of ‘spiritual musings’ blog, which then changed title to ‘Fruitful Faith’, when I moved to wordpress.com.  Then I was able to get my own domain and have been here at fruitfulfaith.net.

More and more over the last couple years, I’ve been posting more and more posts related to science and faith issues, due (no doubt) to the on-going interaction with atheist bloggers.  I’ve seen this very much as a good thing, but often sense that it isn’t productive.  Every now and then, I wonder if I should just blog about Jesus, faith and following Him.  But then I consider the lack of helpful interaction there so often is between theist and atheist, and I think to myself (perhaps foolishly and/or arrogantly!?), “But Dale, you can help –in some small way– to make conversations more helpful and constructive, and less of a ranting shouting match.”

Now, I’ll just say that I reckon it’s a lot easier to see unproductive blogging when you’re not one of the bloggers involved.  I’m quite sure I’ve engaged in conversations where I wasn’t listening or communicating as clearly as I could.

To add to this, I’m busy.

I work.  I study.  I have a family that needs my time and attention (which I love giving to them!).  I’m in a band that practices and plays gigs (and is putting out an EP soon   ).  I’ve also joined the pastoral leadership track at Carey, so there’s that as well.  Plus we’re moving to a cheaper and more-well-suited-for-family-with-a-6-month-old kind of house (Glenfield) this month…

I don’t have to blog (in general), and I don’t have to blog with atheists (in particular).

But…

I honestly do think it’s a good and helpful thing.  Putting your thoughts into words and organising them helps you immensely to shape your thinking and learn to communicate (please disregard this rambling post as an example!).  And at times, there can even be somewhat fruitful interaction with atheists.

So in the interest of the most effective use of blogging-time that I have, I’m interested in arriving at a “theist+atheist blogging prolegomenon” (before-word or ‘foreword’) of sorts.  A kind of “discussion about how to discuss”.

Many/most of the interactions I see and/or take part in can be characterised by what I’d call “speaking past eachother”.  This can take the form of jargon or unsimplified technical terms, or just plain-old mockery and sarcasm.

(Note: if you find yourself calling another blogger names like ‘dork’, ‘stupid’ or ‘idiot’, then you need to chill and not blog for a month or so.  And dangit, it sure would be nice to see theist correcting theist and/or atheist correcting atheist when such language bubbles to the surface!)

If there’s anything at all that’s needed, it’s patience.  IF (and it’s a big if!) theist and atheist are to get anywhere in the conversations, they must realise that it won’t  happen quickly.

The first goal for me is to strive toward ‘mutual understanding’.

This is not ‘mutual agreement’.  This is not ‘winning’/'losing’.  It’s an agreement on the nature of the disagreement.  Only from here can a conversation really get anywhere.

This post is VERY rambling in nature.

I’m off to bed now, but two final thoughts about patience.

First, we have to be patient (and avoid sarcasm or name-calling or judging) about the use of words.  It is not engaging to simply write-off the way the other person is using a word.  If you don’t like the way someone is using a word, then ask them about it patiently.  Don’t assume they are trying to evade the issue or cloud a conversation with mystery.

Second, we have to be able to be patient most of all when we are most tempted to lose control and get frustrated.

Anyway, it’s getting late.  Just a few “blamentations” before bed.

This is widely accepted by people who should know: scholars in fields relevant to Genesis 1-3 (biblical scholars, ancient near east religion scholars, hebrew linguists, experts on ancient semetic . . . → Read More: on reading genesis 1-3]]> What Genesis 1-3 is not: a play-by-play, atom-by-atom historical and scientific account of creation.  The author/community which produced the text clearly had other things in mind than producing such a thing.*

This is widely accepted by people who should know: scholars in fields relevant to Genesis 1-3 (biblical scholars, ancient near east religion scholars, hebrew linguists, experts on ancient semetic poetry, etc. – see relevant examples in the Denver Seminary Old Testament bibliograpy – updated annually). Yael Klangwisan spoke on Genesis recently at a TANSA event at Laidlaw college, and a very informative PDF of her slideshow can be found here.

Unfortunately there are two kinds of people I know of that both tend to insist that Genesis 1-3 is intended as a ‘factual’ report of the exact, literal events of creation.  These two types of people are (who would have thunk it!?) young-earth Creationists (YEC’s)… and many (not all) atheists.

YEC’s are convinced that science supports their literal interpretation (see pretty much anything on this site)…

…and some atheists are convinced that this literal-and-only-literal-gosh-darnit interpretation has been replaced by science (see the opening statement of Richard Dawkins from his 2007 debate with John Lennox – and I’ll put a transcription of it as the first comment below).**

Meanwhile, there are those who are willing to listen to what Genesis is really trying to get across, and who refuse to use science to prove their religious or anti-religious views.

—

*Many/most/all? of the characters in the Bible, for example, would have been aware of the poetic and metaphorical nature of Genesis 1-3, though would naturally have had little/no reason to question whether or not it took 6 days for God to create the world, etc.  A prime example of just how much the literal-ness of this text does not matter in Jewish thought is the story of when Ray Vander Laan asked the world-class Jewish scholar, Jacob Neusner how long the days of creation were; to which the reply after a long pause was “I’ve never thought about that.”

** No… wait… Dawkins doesn’t only say that the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3 is replaced by science, he says that religious explanations in general are replaced by science…  Wow.

The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath & Daniel Dennett in Dialogue

It’s essentially a written copy of a 2007 conference including the McGrath/Dennett debate and the other papers presented – plus a few additional chapters and an introduction by the author/editor, Robert B. Stewart.

“The scientific enterprise is an active, seeking… an active seeking out of gaps in our knowledge… [a] seeking out of ignorance, so that we can work to plug that ignorance.  But religion teaches us to be satisfied . . . → Read More: religion impeding science?]]> In a 2007 debate with John Lennox (viewable here), Richard Dawkins vocalises his frustration that religion (in his view) ‘stuntifies’ true scientific understanding:

“The scientific enterprise is an active, seeking… an active seeking out of gaps in our knowledge… [a] seeking out of ignorance, so that we can work to plug that ignorance.  But religion teaches us to be satisfied with not really understanding.  Every time one of these difficult questions comes up, science says, ‘Right, let’s roll up our sleeves and work on it.’  Religion says, ‘Oh, god did it.’  ‘We don’t need to work on it, god did it. It’s as simple of that.’ …Religion stuntifies the impulse to understand, because religion gives a facile, easy, apparent explanation… and it prevents the further work on the problem.

As my post ‘Atheism and explanatory monism‘ points out, this frustration results directly from the assumption that scientific explanations and religious explanations exist on the same (so to speak) explanatory plane/level.  In simple diagrammatic form, this is what this imagined explanatory conflict would look like:

(scientific explanations) ———> conflict! <——— (religious explanations)

How then, do/did esteemed scientists such as Ken Miller, Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne, Guy Consolmagno, Michael Faraday, Newton, Galileo, etc. (and the thousands of other scientists who happen to also be ‘religious’) manage to do both?

They do so because there is absolutely no reason to see any conflict (let alone direct, total, irreconcilable conflict!) between explanations of the scientific kind, and explanations of a religious kind.  John Haught, in his book Is Nature Enough: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science“, calls this “layered explanation”.  In simple diagrammatic form, this is what this looks like:

<<—(scientific explanations) ——————->>

<<——————– (religious explanations)—>>

So, rather than the religious ‘god did it’ being a ‘science stopper’, we can see that it can instead be more of an “I believe God did this – right, now let’s roll up our sleeves and find out how.”

Layered Explanation.

In the science/religion ‘debate’ (as if it needed to be a debate – which, as we shall see, is the whole point of . . . → Read More: atheism and explanatory monism]]> I’ve quite enjoyed reading through “Is Nature Enough: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science“, by John Haught.  One of the many points he articulates well is what he refers to as “layered explanation”.

Layered Explanation.

In the science/religion ‘debate’ (as if it needed to be a debate – which, as we shall see, is the whole point of this post), I think one of the most urgently needed concepts is that of “layered explanation”.  What is meant here is that there can be more than one layer/level/kind of explanation for a given phenomenon.

Here’s a quote from the book:

“Naturalists put too heavy a burden on evolutionary science whenever they turn it into ultimate explanation.  What I shall propose instead, as a way of giving a place to both science and religion is layered explanation.  By this I mean that everything in the universe is open to a plurality of layers of explanation.  The alternative to layered explanation, or to explanatory pluralism, is explanatory monism, an approach dear to the heart of most naturalists.” (p. 16 – italics in original)

Science: enemy or fount of all knowledge?

I think two kinds of people will benefit most from this: fundamentalist religious believers (who either a) make an enemy of science, or b) attempt to create a ‘better’ kind of science) and convinced philosophical naturalists (who generally both a) think religion ‘poisons everything’, and b) think science is the ultimate way to explain everything); they both happen to agree that religion and science are directly and totally incompatible (at least for some definitions of ‘religion’ and of ‘science’). One – religious fundamentalism – demonises science as anti-God, and the other – scientism (another kind of fundamentalism) heralds science as the ultimate key to any and all kinds of knowledge.

Fencing reality – fencing explanations

When a theist (of any kind) suggests to a science-heralding atheist that there are ‘limits’ to what science will ever be able to explain, he/she is sometimes sharply reprimanded for attempting to maliciously ‘ring-fence’ reality, with the obvious motivation of keeping some bits safe for theistic belief.  But the science-heralding atheist does his/her own kind of explanatory ‘ring-fencing’, when she/he restricts ultimate explanation to the tool of science.

Science – a powerful tool, but with limited uses

What I appreciate about John Haught is that he passionately and repeatedly affirms the need to encourage science to go as far as it possibly can in it’s scientific explanation of phenomena.  But there are modes of knowing which are sourced by methods other than methodological naturalism, such as the realm of ethics.

For example, science can offer ever-increasingly detailed accounts of the biological journey in which sperm, egg, placenta and foetus/baby have starring roles.  This kind of account is infinitely valuable (and I’m conscious that this statement is a non-scientific one!), and constitutes a powerful tool of knowledge to be used in many situations… but scientific accounts are unable to provide any guidance whatsoever concerning ethical questions such as: how to (or whether we even should!) reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion, or when/if a developing foetus can/cannot be ‘terminated’ (on which – just to ground this quickly and easily in reality – it has seriously been proposed by ethicist Peter Singer that ‘termination’ can ethically occur as late as 1 month after birth! – see Singerian principle #9 here).

As valuable as scientific explanations are, they remain (if I may use the strongest language that comes to mind) utterly impotent for the grounding of values from which ethical decisions are made.  However one does ground (or not ground!) the values for their ethical life, they are not using the knowledge arrived at via methodological naturalism, but rather some kind of tradition, philosophy/logic or life-value-system – which can broadly be called their ‘religion’.

Obama says everyone needs to work to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.

Before sharing my (hopefully wise) perspective on . . . → Read More: wisdom for a divisive issue]]> Obama’s recent statements on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, remind us all (like it or not) of the immensely divisive issue of abortion.  The article says…

Obama says everyone needs to work to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.

Before sharing my (hopefully wise) perspective on the issue, I’ll just say that I agree and disagree with the above quote.  Indeed, the need to work together to prevent (or at least reduce) unintended (perhaps a better term than ‘un-wanted’?) pregnancies is most certainly at least some ground that all can stand on together.  But the statement that we should ‘support women and families in the choices they make’ is too vague.  Not all choices are good, therefore not all choices should be ‘supported’.  For example, many did not ‘support’ the decision to go into Iraq (and whatever position you hold on that matter, the point still stands – uncritical ‘support’ for just any decision would be advised by no one).

As for a brief – and I think wise – perspective on the issue, consider this:

What is needed most urgently with this issue is respect and self-government.

Respect in that…

• Men who are raping or using women or simply leaving them alone and scared need a new-found respect for women.  Women are not sex objects.
• Men need to respect the potential life they could be causing.  Sex, while fun, should not be reduced to recreation only.
• Women who casually have unprotected sex (obviously rape does not apply here) need a new-found respect for their own bodies.  Stop letting men use you.
• Women and men both need a healthy respect for the life-creating power of sex.  It’s not a game to play with, nor a drug to be controlled by.

…and self-government (or ‘self control’) in that…

• Men and women need to self-govern their own body in general and their sexual desires in particular.  Laws and more government will not (nor could they) help people do this.

To any readers who potentially may have gone through an unwanted pregnancy and/or an abortion, the purpose here is not to condemn you or label you a killer.  Nobody plans to have an abortion or an unintended pregnancy, and your experience would be no different.

I don’t think we need a bunch of laws to change things.  I think we need wisdom.  Wisdom is simply to learn from our past, not to repeat it – to read life’s patterns well.  However, to learn from our past mistakes (and I continue to seek to learn from mine), we must at least acknowledge that there were actual mistakes made .

And by the way, all abortions happen because of a mistake – and most certainly not only the woman or only the man, but often (or always?) both.  The rapist makes the dehumanising mistake of failing to value the dignity of a human being – while (in at least some cases) some raped women have made the utterly tragic mistake of getting drunk at a party.  Those not emotionally or financially ‘ready’ make the unthinking mistake of having sex (‘protected’ or not) knowing what could – at least possibly – happen.   As a culture, we can also be to blame – making the devastating mistake of valuing so-called ‘sexual freedom’ (which often turns out to be not freedom of sexual expression, but slavery to sexual desire) above any notion whatsoever of – shock, horror – personal responsibility or – gasp – self control.

In summary, I don’t think laws (or much less Obama) can ‘fix’ this issue.  This issue will be fixed – person by person, family by family, community by community – by the learning and loving of wisdom (philosophy: philo[love] + sophia[wisdom]).  This wisdom – however hard for some to hear – will help infinitely more than passing some laws.

Will it continue to be a mass-consuming empire of greed?

Only time will tell.

Here is a thoughtful, timely and read-worthy critique by Brian Walsh entitled:

Barack Obama: A Post-Imperial Presidency?

And yes, the same question could’ve/should’ve been asked had McCain won the election…