tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post526185329611437323..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: The apophatic theologianStephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-38062545757662144702012-07-23T07:02:30.471+00:002012-07-23T07:02:30.471+00:00AWESOME work. And amazing assortment of tools to w...AWESOME work. And amazing assortment of tools to work... Really great!!Cheap Diablo 3 itemshttp://www.vipdiablo3.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-90042460020690446242012-03-27T02:21:59.174+00:002012-03-27T02:21:59.174+00:00A lot of very serious and very authoritative philo...A lot of very serious and very authoritative philosophers WILL tell you that questions like "why is there something rather than nothing" are meaningless. It's interesting to hear you're not one of them, and I'd be very interested in hearing you reflect more carefully on the difference between your kind and those on the other side of the divide. But the first step is to discard the easy assumption on this point.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-15088292379512562512011-12-30T16:43:57.727+00:002011-12-30T16:43:57.727+00:003backlinks, blogs, blog commenting and ad posting ...3backlinks, blogs, blog commenting and ad posting site<br /><a href="http://m11.in" rel="nofollow">www.m11.in</a><br /><a href="http://classified.m11.in" rel="nofollow">www.classified.m11.in</a><br /><a href="http://classifieds.m11.in" rel="nofollow">www.classifieds.m11.in</a><br /><a href="http://blog.m11.in" rel="nofollow">www.blog.m11.in</a><br /><a href="http://backlinks.m11.in" rel="nofollow">www.backlinks.m11.in</a><br /><a href="http://m11in.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">www.m11in.blogspot.com/</a><br /><a href="http://noregclassified.co.cc/" rel="nofollow">www.noregclassified.co.cc/</a>blog.m11.inhttp://m11.innoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-85882248274704417112009-10-11T16:10:02.904+00:002009-10-11T16:10:02.904+00:00The apophatic approach doesn't mean a kind of ...The apophatic approach doesn't mean a kind of hiding behind the ineffable. It simply provides a humbling context to any discussion about meaning. My quarrel with Dawkins et al is that they confuse "descriptions" with "explanations". Science doesn't "explain" anything and religion shouldn't try to be scientific.<br /><br />There is, what we might call, The Vole View of Science. Sebastian Faulks’ disturbed and disturbing protagonist in his novel Engleby asserts that science cannot deliver what we really need – some sort of reason to get up in the morning, let alone a reason to be loving and thankful. <br />“Heisenberg and Bohr and Einstein strike me as being like gifted retriever dogs. Off they go, not just for an afternoon, but for ten years; they come back exhausted and triumphant and drop at your feet . . . a vole. It’s a remarkable thing in its way, a vole – intricate, beautiful really, marvelous. But does it . . . Does it help? Does it move the matter on?<br /> When you ask a question that you’d actually like to know the answer to – what was there before the Big Bang, for instance, or what lies beyond the expanding universe, why does life have this inbuilt absurdity, this non sequitur of death – they say that your question can’t be answered, because the terms in which you’ve put it are logically unsound. What you must do, you see, is ask vole questions. Vole is – as we have agreed – the answer; so it follows that your questions must therefore all be vole-related.” <br /><br />This vole view of science shouldn’t be disparaged. It produces some wonderful books like The Social Amoebae: the biology of cellular slime molds -- interesting non-controversial pieces of information which help us better understand our environment. Does it help? Does it move the matter on? It may, but how?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-51070162656296379832009-09-16T16:47:36.792+00:002009-09-16T16:47:36.792+00:00Surely Denys Turner is making the same mistake tha...Surely Denys Turner is making the same mistake that many generations of theists have made before, namely in supposing that atheism <i>requires</i> a denial of the existence of God. That is an illegitimate attempt to bring the argument into his court where (he thinks) he can deal with it.<br /><br />The reality is that atheists don't give a toss about notions of God and do not need to disprove them.<br /><br />Whereas that assumption is mistaken (or sly), then his view that atheists are characterized by a lack of curiosity and wonder (if indeed that is his view) is simply stupid.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-29954599946160918572009-09-16T14:23:15.414+00:002009-09-16T14:23:15.414+00:00I enjoyed this very much. My only suggestion is t...I enjoyed this very much. My only suggestion is that the very last sentence suddenly veers into a separate issue related to theism (the problem of evil). I think it would be more consistent and equally valid to point out that worship and gratitude are strangely decided, or assured, responses to something "necessarily unknowable."Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-89592833964310037872009-09-16T14:21:35.117+00:002009-09-16T14:21:35.117+00:00Using that definition ... I should worship string ...Using that definition ... I should worship string theory and Ed Witten is my Pope.The Atheist Missionaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07191035196328725888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-47017142613283216482009-09-16T14:18:54.328+00:002009-09-16T14:18:54.328+00:00I was listening to a Nova podcast this morning whi...I was listening to a Nova podcast this morning which featured a great lecture by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. While trying to emphasize how little we currently know about the universe, he said: "There are people who have to have the answer because they can't walk around in a state of ignorance". I thought to myself ... "and hence religion". <br /><br />There is no point in trying to debate with an apophatic. They are simply defining God as what they don't know and can't comprehend. How do you worship that?The Atheist Missionaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07191035196328725888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-70418491605480120522009-09-16T13:53:51.576+00:002009-09-16T13:53:51.576+00:00Geoff -
Re Karen Armstrong - the review by Eric ...Geoff - <br /><br />Re Karen Armstrong - the <a href="http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=420" rel="nofollow">review by Eric Macdonald</a> of her recent book was entertaining.<br /><br />I particularly liked<br /><br />"..there is something strange in the idea of an ineffability which is effed as being ineffable..."wombatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-10778433674595463312009-09-16T13:39:24.829+00:002009-09-16T13:39:24.829+00:00Hi Stephen,
I don't think you can fairly use...Hi Stephen, <br /><br />I don't think you can fairly use that last sentence - these apophatists would surely deny that their 'God' does cause suffering, so you're attacking a strawman by assigning those properties to it. <br /><br />I guess apophatism is the flipside of igtheism/ugtheism? <br /><br />GifGifordnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-71734390086960490592009-09-16T12:43:52.409+00:002009-09-16T12:43:52.409+00:00Of course, Dawkins isn't so much responding to...Of course, Dawkins isn't so much responding to the "sophisticated theologian" as much as he is pointing out his/her isolation from anything usually conceived of as religion proper.<br /><br />Would I be right in branding apophaticists as, at best, pantheists? They don't seem to even be deists to me. Yet, as Stephen points out, they wish to retain the worship aspects of a conventional God, all the while washing their hands of all knowledge of him!jeremyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353716090668341520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-50093226177243614582009-09-16T12:38:17.980+00:002009-09-16T12:38:17.980+00:00Yes, Dawkins' closing words in the "debat...Yes, Dawkins' closing words in the "debate" referenced by Geoff are worth quoting again:<br /><br />"<i>Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."<br /><br />Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.</i>"jeremyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353716090668341520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-34948903701766915882009-09-16T12:13:24.071+00:002009-09-16T12:13:24.071+00:00Who or whatever Turner's God is, we can be cer...Who or whatever Turner's God is, we can be certain it's not the God (or Gods) described by the writers of the Torah, Bible or Koran. Their God constantly intervenes miraculously in human affairs. He whispers in Abraham's ear that he should murder his son, clears the Red Sea, brings Jesus back from the dead, dictates specific dietary and dress instructions for the whole of humanity in early Arabic, etc.georgesdelatourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03548858896924613970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-37117623723538385762009-09-16T11:19:14.078+00:002009-09-16T11:19:14.078+00:00The recent pairing of articles by Karen Armstrong ...The recent pairing of articles by Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins in the Wall Street Journal are relevant to this discussion:<br /><br />http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html<br /><br />And, perhaps even more interesting is the response from Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who sees Armstrong as just another atheist...<br /><br />http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/mohler/11608516/<br /><br />Oops.Geoff Coupehttp://gcoupe.spaces.live.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-83243908493002731142009-09-16T10:22:05.484+00:002009-09-16T10:22:05.484+00:00Why do the apophatics not spend more energy railin...Why do the apophatics not spend more energy railing against the more obvious heresies of theists who insist on realist versions of God? After all, left unprovoked most atheists will not even mention God. Is this because apophatics are in fact a species of atheist? Ones who happen to like stained glass widows, organ music and the smell of incense but somehow wish to rationalize these desires.<br />They should be re-labeled clericist atheists perhaps.wombatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-57132883757570993612009-09-16T09:08:12.553+00:002009-09-16T09:08:12.553+00:00Thanks Brian - I am amused!Thanks Brian - I am amused!Stephen Lawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-28269834067677589682009-09-16T09:02:58.094+00:002009-09-16T09:02:58.094+00:00Jesus and mo have a handle on this:
http://www.je...Jesus and mo have a handle on this:<br /><br />http://www.jesusandmo.net/strips/2009-07-07.jpg<br /><br />http://www.jesusandmo.net/strips/2009-09-15.jpgBrianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12256953909644408214noreply@blogger.com