Philosophy and Literature Blog

I was for several years a member of an anabaptist church.  They were among the most gentle, peaceful people I have ever known.   They were pacifists,opposed violence and abuse in all of its forms.  They attempted to live by a supremely compassionate interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.  I found the close cooperation and support among the members a model, in some respects, of community.  However, as I came to understand the way they taught and educated their children, many of them home schooled, some of them sent their children to specifically Christian schools, I became alarmed by patterns I saw emerging.  The children were often taught by adults who were not educated themselves, they taught them falsehoods about evolution, history, and virtually nothing about science.  Some of the children, mostly the girls, went to college, but avoided confronting the obvious falsehoods they were taught.  They boys mostly did not go to college, but ...

I've read about 200 pages of The God Delusion.  It is well-written and easy to follow.  The only real bump in the road is his admission that physics is in need of a little work to provide a more convincing argument against design than is provided by Natural Selection.  In the end I think Dawkins is successful in his overall argument.  There is simply no good response to the response that God would require more of an explanation than the universe itself. One thing I took away from the book is his reaction to the 'problem of evil'.  He seems unconcerned about it logically, since it can be solved by postulating enemy gods or seeing evil as the result of human free-will.  The point of the argument for most monotheists is that God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-good.  The problem of evil certainly deals a blow to such a God.  Most religious people I know end up uncomfortable with the problem of evil.  It convinces many people that there ...

Here's the opening sentence of The God Delusion, Chapter 2: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (pg.51)   I hate to say it to my believing friends, but I've read the Old Testament, done some studying of it, and this isn't far off... Comments?

     I have still been reading Power by Bertrand Russell and ran into a section that I wondered whether people thought were descriptive of the War on Terror.  He is describing the leader and the situations that are best for the maintenance of power.  He writes: "The best situation is one in which there is a danger sufficiently serious to make men feel brave in combating it, but not so terrifying as to make fear predominate -- such a situation, for example, as the outbreak of war against an enemy who is thought formidable but not invincible.  A skilful orator, when he wishes to stimulate warlike feeling, produces in his audience two layers of belief:  a superficial layer, in which the power of the enemy is magnified so as to make great courage seem necessary, and a deeper layer, in which there is a firm  conviction of victory.  Both are embodied in such a slogan as 'right will prevail over might'. "The kind of mob that the orator will ...

"When the personal god begins his reign, rebellion assumes its most resolutely ferocious aspect and pronounces a definite no...From this point of view, the New Testament can be considered an attempte to answer, in advance, every Cain in the world, by painting a figure of God in softer colors and by creating an intercessor between God and Man.  Christ came to solve two major problems, evil and death, which are precisely the problems that preoccupy the rebel.  His solution consisted, first, in experiencing them.  The man-god suffers, too -- with patience.  Evil and death can no longer be entrirely imputed to Him since He suffers and dies."(pg.32) Christ justifies ways to Man by suffering them Himself.  But then God has to justify His was to Man and to Himself in the form of Christ.  Does this mean that God has so little control over suffering that He must suffer Himself?  But then there is an apocolyptic hope for the end of suffering, but what about th...

I am currently reading the somewhat unpopular, POWER, by Bertrand Russell, at the same time that I'm reading The Rebel, by Camus.  The two could hardly be more different.  Where Russell emphasizes the universal desire for power, Camus emphasizes the Absurd, and a metaphysical rebellion against the human condition.  Power is a very easy read, Camus, is tough and slow.  The rebel tries to go beneath the merely political and to what he thinks of as a universal response to the absurd.  For Russell, rebels are only those who see themselves as competent to take power; those who don't think they're competent don't take the lead.  Their whole starting point is different.  I have to say I can adopt both positions here.  I will try to figure out how which point of view is mine, if I can choose.  Russell's has a cleanliness to it that makes it very appealing, but Camus tries to go deeper into the human condition. The temptation is to stay with Ru...

"If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong.  We are free to stoke the crematory fires or devote ourselves to the care of lepers.  Evil and virtue are mere chance and caprice."pg. 5.