I am not in a good way, today but I want to give you something and I'm grumpy with a sore back and leg so I want it to be an outrageous thought crime so I will give you a lecture by one of my favorite heretics, the reasonable and well spoken and quite funny Rupert Sheldrake. I went to look for something from him because earlier this week an atheist-"skeptic" slammed him while being obviously and entirely ignorant of his career as a rather eminent scientist who has done some extremely important and beneficial work and who works in his look at topics on The Atheist-"Skeptic" Index of Prohibited Topics well within the accepted methods of science. In fact his work on both is well represented in peer-reviewed journals of science, something that most of the big names in atheism-"skepticism" can't have honestly said about them.
Here he is on "Anatheism" the phenomenon of people who go from being atheists to believing in God, something which he experienced. He makes a number of really interesting points in it. One of the more interesting to me [ at about 32:00 on the recording] is that contrary the common belief, on the basis of ignorance, a lot of theology is far more interesting than the current obsessions of academic philosophers. That has been my experience, the liberation theologians, who are entirely more practical than the trendy political theoreticians as well, but even more orthodox theologians. I've been reading more and more from theologians and find that a lot of them are entirely more rigorous thinkers and better scholars than the stars of atheism. Here's an non-theological example of that from David Bentley Hart, who Sheldrake mentions later in the lecture, his masterful take down of the materialist philosopher, Daniel Dennett.
I agree with you on the work of theologians, especially the good ones (like Niebuhr and Sobrino).
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by the review of Dennett, and as I read it I find myself asking: is someone like Dennett completely clueless about the sciences of sociology and anthropology? Pastors and Biblical scholars delve deeply into both disciplines to inform their own. Dennett, on the other hand (and following the lead of Dawkins, as the review point out) must makes shit up.
There really is a bright silver thread running from Dawkins to Dennett to the on-line idiots I know avoid like the plague. That's kind of curious, but it certainly says nothing for the value of "reason" as they preach it, or "education" as they proclaim it, since they are incapable of the former and clearly lacking in the latter.
It is as if he imagines that by imitating the outward forms of scientific method, and by applying an assortment of superficially empirical theories to nonempirical realities, and by tirelessly gathering information, and by asserting the validity of his methods with an incantatory repetitiveness, and by invoking invisible agencies such as memes, and by fiercely believing in the efficacy of all that he is doing, he can summon forth actual hard clinical results, as from the treasure houses of the gods.
ReplyDeleteThat, for example, is just wonderful.
Btw, at the Hunt link, you should click over and read "Roland on Free Will." In the end he gets to my still nascent but nagging dictate for neuroscience and the "proof" that we are just electrical impulses responding to stimuli.
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