Stephen Law

It is sometimes tempting to appeal to mystery to get oneself out of intellectual hot water. Suppose a scientist offers a science-based criticism of Mary’s paranormal beliefs. In response Mary might say something like this: ‘Ah, but this is beyond the ability of science and reason to decide. You, Dr Scientist, are guilty of scientism, of assuming science can answer every question.’ Mary might follow this response up with a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet : ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.    Of course, most scientists admit they can’t explain everything. There probably are questions science cannot answer. Mary attempts to protect her beliefs by placing them in this category of beliefs science can’t touch. She draws a veil across reality and says, ‘You scientists can apply your methods this far, but no further.’ Behind the veil Mary might place angels, psychic powers, fairies, dead relatives, a...

What is it like to be a true believer? For many, it’s something like a perceptual experience – like just directly seeing that there’s an orange on the table in front of them, say. If you ask them why they believe, then of course they may give reasons and justifications of one sort or another. But even if such grounds for believing are provided, typically, not that much weight is placed on them. Such evidence, the theist may say, is not what really explains why they believe. They don’t infer that God exists from evidence. Rather, they “just know”. They directly experience God, perhaps in something like the way I just directly experience that orange on the table in front of me. To them, it is as obvious as that (perhaps even more obvious than that) that God is present. When they look at the world, it seems perfectly clear to them that it’s imbued with a divine presence. They may even find themselves baffled that you can’t sense this presence. So what's going on here? Giving re...

We have been discussing mystical experiences with Ibrahim Lawson (who defends a sort of Islamic mysticism) and others. Let's sum up a bit: I am sceptical about such experiences for many reasons including these three: (1) It seems to me we have good reason to expect people to report mystical experiences anyway , whether or not any mystical reality exists , because of what we know about human beings, including that: (i) they are prone to all sorts of weird experiences (on a scale ranging from fairly everyday moments of euphoria, etc. to full-blown schizophrenic hallucinations, delusions, etc.). (ii) that they are amazingly prone to the power of suggestion , which can shape what they experience. Why is it that the Romans experienced Zeus, the Norse experienced Thor, and Catholics Mary? Clearly, the power of suggestion is very much involved in shaping these experiences. And once we have acknowledged that, we surely have to take seriously the possibility that in many cases, they are wh...

Ibrahim has posted a poem to illustrate the mystical Islamic tradition that he admires. Ibrahim in italics. It's in response to my posting on intellectual black holes (which you should probably read first). My comments follow: IBRAHIM WRITES: I am posting the following as an example of a text from within the Islamic mystical tradition. The author is Muhammad ibn al-Habib, a Moroccan shaykh who died in 1972 (see Wikipedia). It offers a view onto a non-rationalist tradition, which is either nothing but fantasy and imagination (or simple insanity), or an internally coherent and viable worldview shared and practised by millions of adherents past and present – or both. Note the stanza which appears towards the end: “Strip yourselves of all knowledge and understanding”. This is a technique which is referred to in other mystical traditions: “Except that ye be as little children…” and “In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired; in pursuit of the Tao, every day something is ...

Here's Ibrahim's latest response to the immediately preceding post on religion and intellectual black holes. I think your piece on the ‘madness’ of mystical beliefs is very apposite and highlights the difference between us very well. I would add that the contributor who cites Lois Theroux’s work raises a similar point. I saw the program on white racists and the two girls being brought up to be pop stars singing racist songs who seemed to be quite comfortable with the abhorrent ideology their parents were imposing on them. This raises the quite valid question as to how a committed ‘non-‘, ‘anti-‘, ‘ir-‘ or supra-rationalist such as I may be can justify their own particular brand of ‘mythos’ as the only ‘true’ one having apparently denied any grounds on which this might be done. You suggest that these ‘mythoi’ may be cultural memes that evolve according to some sociological principle until such time as ‘rationalism’ emerges and puts a stop to the process by providing clearly obj...

[This is partly in response to some excellent comments on the preceding post: The Emperor's New Clothes . Commentators have suggested that appeals to God's mysteriousness and ineffability in order to deal with rational objections can be perfectly legitimate. Possibly, but read on...] Suppose I believe in an evil God. A supremely evil and powerful being. God is hate. Sometimes I even appear to sense this at some deep level of my being. The world seems to me infused with a ghastly, horrific pallor that reflects the infinitely depraved character of its maker (apparently, such horrific visions are not uncommon among some mentally deranged folk). So gripped am I by this vision of the world that I even write poetry about it in attempt to express what it seems to me I have glimpsed of the fundamental character of reality. You, of course, think I must be a borderline nutcase. You point out there’s a great deal of evidence against the existence of such an evil being. Why on earth would...