{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4569", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4569, "subject": "Information, etc", "messages": 6, "voices": 5, "first": "2006-04-18T16:56:57+00:00", "last": "2006-04-18T22:04:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<14350612.1145379417645.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hound.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2006-04-18T16:56:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 4/12/06, Chris wrote:\nThere is a general problem with saying that the Christian *faith* is \"based\non\" miracles. Basically if you know, by whatever means, that the event is\npossible, then it doesn't require faith at all. In its ideal form, faith\nwould admit that the event was rationally impossible, and believe in it\nanyway." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 4/12/06, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think this is more-or-less true; the loophole in it is, \"with God all\nthings are possible.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wasn't going interject on this thread and now that it is 6 days later\nI shouldn't. But I haven't been able to get this back and forth off my\nmind. It so perfectly encapsulates the divide between modern seculars'\nview of Faith as opposed to that of modern observants and virtually all\npre-Enlightenment Westerners. It is always amazing that the two world-\nviews are so often seemingly unaware of each other. This IS actually\napplicable to Wolfe in that it is still not clear to me where Wolfe stands\nin this bifurcation.\n\nFor modern seculars Faith is practically antonymous to Reason.\nIn Faith, we place all those things that Reason denies, but which we\nrequire as humans. Reason says we are the product of natural forces\nwithin a closed system. But most can't live like that so they take a\n\"leap of faith\", a jump into darkness, that there is a divine Creator\nwho made us in his image, (temporarily, if they are enlightened)\nsuspending their knowledge of what Reason tells them. Reason says\nthat Love and Altruism are a natural phenomenon of evolution,\na trick of sorts by our brains and glands, that gave the genes of our\nancestors the upper hand over those of competitors. But when we\nlook in the face of our beloved we cannot as human beings accept\nthinking of them that way: we would not give up our lives for our\ngenes. So we take the leap again and declare that Love is transcendent.\n\nOn the other hand, the modern observants (lets use seven-day\nCreationist Christians as our guinea pigs here) see materialist\nseculars as merely followers of an alternate (idolatrist) religion.\nThey believe Genesis, and seculars believe what some science\njournalist they've never met wrote in Discover Magazine or said\non Nova on PBS. The faith of observants is founded on their\nobserved experience: they trust the integrity of the Person that\nhas so influenced their lives, and therefore believe what they\nthink he has told them. (\"Faith is the substance of things\nhoped for, the evidence of things not seen\" Hebrews 11:1)\n\nThis division was mapped (literally) by Evangelical apologist\nFrances Schaeffer in \"The God Who Is There\" and \"Escape" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From Reason\". Quoting Alfred North Whitehead's assertion that\n*modern* science" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "could not have arisen without the world-view established by\nJudeo-Christian theology, he predicted that science as-we-know-it\nwill end when we all follow this tact to its logical conclusion\nthat Reason itself (founded on the premise that human\nobservation is valid) is itself unreasonable.\n\nJ" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370604181045o1868864eubbdc663ca307fc58@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2006-04-18T17:45:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": "<14350612.1145379417645.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hound.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/18/06, James Wynn wrote:\n...I haven't been able to get this back and forth off my mind.\nIt so perfectly encapsulates the divide between modern\nseculars' view of Faith as opposed to that of modern\nobservants and virtually all pre-Enlightenment Westerners." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I found your post interesting and compelling, except\nfor one thing: if my \"back and forth\" with Christ \"perfectly\nencapsulates\" this divide, then I ought to find myself in one\nor the other of these two positions:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For modern seculars Faith is practically antonymous to Reason." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the other hand, the modern observants ... see materialist\nseculars as merely followers of an alternate (idolatrist) religion." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yet, I do not. I do see secularism as a belief-system, but to call\nit a \"religion\" is to abuse both words (\"secular\" and \"religion\").\nAnd I certainly do not see Faith as \"antonymouc to Reason\":\ncomplementary, rather. We are required to apply Reason to all\nthings; we are required to apply Faith (whether in God, or in\nLuck, or in the perversity of the inanimate, or...) to make up the\ndeficit in those situations where Reason cannot help us but a\ndecision is required.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.\n -- St Teresa of Avila\nhttp://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer" } ] }, { "message_id": "<17529691.1145384349202.JavaMail.root@elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2006-04-18T18:19:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370604181045o1868864eubbdc663ca307fc58@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 4/18/06, James Wynn wrote:\n...I haven't been able to get this back and forth off my mind.\nIt so perfectly encapsulates the divide between modern\nseculars' view of Faith as opposed to that of modern\nobservants and virtually all pre-Enlightenment Westerners." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes replied\nH'mmm. I found your post interesting and compelling, except\nfor one thing: if my \"back and forth\" with Christ \"perfectly\nencapsulates\" this divide, then I ought to find myself in one\nor the other of these two positions:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l,\nI assure you I did not intend to assign teams for anyone,\nlet alone you. Actually, (although I didn't say so) I chose\nseven-day Creationist Christians as an archetype (which\nI was fairly certain did not include you) deliberately to draw\na starker line. It was the discussion that I thought\nencapsulated the division, not the entire world-view and\npersonal syntax of the particular participants (which I\ncannot know). In fact, you prefaced your response with the\nassertion that you fundamentally agreed with Chris, but then\nwent on to write several paragrahs on what you disagreed with.\nPerhaps by focusing on that disagreement I have created a\nmagnified illusion of your particular differences with Chris.\nThat illusion was inadvertant.\n\nNevertheless, this division comes to my mind a lot when\nreading Wolfe as I cannot always be sure of whether a discete\n\"soul\" exists in his stories rather than merely a repeated pattern\nand in what way the Increate/Outsider is injecting Himself in His\ncreation. In other words, I cannot be sure of where Wolfe stands\non the reality of materialism and spirituality. I doubt that he is in\nevery way \"traditional\" or \"orthodox\" (whether one means, by\nthat word, \"Catholic\" or merely \"Augustinian\".)\n\nJ" } ] }, { "message_id": "<68211BE0-5544-4E64-B3B8-8739B5FC5687@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew King", "address": "automatthew at gmail.com" }, "date": "2006-04-18T19:32:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": "<14350612.1145379417645.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hound.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 18, 2006, at 9:56 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nThis division was mapped (literally) by Evangelical apologist\nFrances Schaeffer in \"The God Who Is There\" and \"Escape\nFrom Reason\". Quoting Alfred North Whitehead's assertion that\n*modern* science\ncould not have arisen without the world-view established by\nJudeo-Christian theology, he predicted that science as-we-know-it\nwill end when we all follow this tact to its logical conclusion\nthat Reason itself (founded on the premise that human\nobservation is valid) is itself unreasonable." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As Karl Popper tells it, David Hume had already reached this \nconclusion way back in the eighteenth century. Hume, in trying to \njustify inductive reasoning, proved it to be logically invalid. As \nHume believed not only science, but everyday knowledge to be based on \ninduction, he was forced to conclude that all knowledge is \nunjustifiable and logically invalid.\n\nEpistemology since then has tended to either ignore this or glorify it." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-04-18T20:31:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": "<14350612.1145379417645.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hound.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For modern seculars Faith is practically antonymous to Reason.\nIn Faith, we place all those things that Reason denies, but which we\nrequire as humans. Reason says we are the product of natural forces\nwithin a closed system. But most can't live like that so they take a\n\"leap of faith\", a jump into darkness, that there is a divine Creator\nwho made us in his image, (temporarily, if they are enlightened)\nsuspending their knowledge of what Reason tells them. Reason says\nthat Love and Altruism are a natural phenomenon of evolution,\na trick of sorts by our brains and glands, that gave the genes of our\nancestors the upper hand over those of competitors. But when we\nlook in the face of our beloved we cannot as human beings accept\nthinking of them that way: we would not give up our lives for our\ngenes. So we take the leap again and declare that Love is transcendent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The problem you get into there is that when you explain love and altruism as \nevolutionary phenomena, you find that what is left of \"love\" and \"altruism\", \nlacking moral/normative dimension, no longer fits the description of the \noriginal terms. When you say that they're evolutionary tricks, you have not \nexplained love or altruism, you've claimed that they do not exist and gone \non to replace them with two homonymous terms. And there is a school of \ncourse that does this, but many other \"seculars\" who are not particularly \ninterested in \"faith\" don't accept this view. All that aside, I think that \nthe modern secular view is, like Dan'l said, that faith and reason are \ncomplementary. After all, you have to get your first principles from \nsomewhere, and Reason can't give them to you. Faith is one place you can \nstart from." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the other hand, the modern observants (lets use seven-day\nCreationist Christians as our guinea pigs here) see materialist\nseculars as merely followers of an alternate (idolatrist) religion.\nThey believe Genesis, and seculars believe what some science\njournalist they've never met wrote in Discover Magazine or said\non Nova on PBS. The faith of observants is founded on their\nobserved experience: they trust the integrity of the Person that\nhas so influenced their lives, and therefore believe what they\nthink he has told them. (\"Faith is the substance of things\nhoped for, the evidence of things not seen\" Hebrews 11:1)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's not my habit to make strong statements like this, but I'll go out on a \nlimb and say that while this view of faith is distinctly modern - in fact \nit's the one Kierkegaard railed against - it is only \"faith\" in a degenerate \nsense, and certainly captures little of the primordial meaning of the word. \nWhat you're describing is simply unreflective belief, which is a set that is \nnot co-extensive with faith." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "could not have arisen without the world-view established by\nJudeo-Christian theology, he predicted that science as-we-know-it\nwill end when we all follow this tact to its logical conclusion\nthat Reason itself (founded on the premise that human\nobservation is valid) is itself unreasonable.\n\nJ" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Matt's quote of Popper was interesting on this point, although Popper was \ncertainly putting a spin on Hume. You don't need Hume to know that inductive \nreasoning doesn't meet rationalist standards. Remember that rationalism \nlooks for truth that is *universal* and *necessary*. Inductive reason never \nclaimed to give us that. What Hume did was to place inductive reasoning in a \nmore central position. You could maybe say that Hume thus showed that all \nour knowledge was somehow uncertain, but it would be better I think to say \nthat he claimed that our *real* criteria for what we call \"certainty\" in the \ndaily course of our lives is not quite so strict as rationalists suppose. \nScience has come to grips with this quite easily - you won't find many \nscientists claiming the necessary, absolute truth of their theories. But \nthis can only be a gloss since Hume's move runs a little deeper than this.\n\nIn any event Reason does not become unreasonable by starting from a premise \nthat itself has no rational justification - if that were so, logic could \nnever have gotten off the ground even with the ancients. The same charge \ncould be levelled against the very first geometers and mathematicians, it's \nnot characteristic of the modern age." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2006-04-18T22:04:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Information, etc", "in_reply_to": "<17529691.1145384349202.JavaMail.root@elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 18 Apr 2006, James Wynn wrote:\n\nNevertheless, this division comes to my mind a lot when\nreading Wolfe as I cannot always be sure of whether a discete\n\"soul\" exists in his stories rather than merely a repeated pattern\nand in what way the Increate/Outsider is injecting Himself in His\ncreation. In other words, I cannot be sure of where Wolfe stands\non the reality of materialism and spirituality. I doubt that he is in\nevery way \"traditional\" or \"orthodox\" (whether one means, by\nthat word, \"Catholic\" or merely \"Augustinian\".)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think Wolfe has spent a lot of time on this, starting with meditating on\nimplications of the split-brain patients and of psychosurgery (where there\nare induced changes in what we would have previously regarded as\ncharacteristics of the soul), and continuing through all his\ntwinned-personality heroes, where there are hints about when a\nsingle-souled person has replaced a more traditional possession type\nsituations.\n\nDavid Duffy." } ] } ] }