I have said here at some time or other that science is about finding natural explanations for natural phenomena. Oddly, as I was reading Richard's post, the first sign of an objection came when he described faith as a response to revelation. My own faith seems grounded in some sense of, as Wordsworth would have it, "A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused, ... A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, /And rolls through all things." This sense has been with me for as long as I can remember. So when I first read "Tintern Abbey," I felt I knew what Wordsworth was talking about. I feel this as well with much "official" revelation - though a good chunk of the Bible I find devoid of any intimation of it. I find a good deal of the Old Testament, in fact, repellent. I also find there is much that seems "revelatory" to me in the Tao te ching, the Upanishads, and the fragments of Heraclitus. So, for me, revelation is less something I respond to than something I find confirms an intensely personal experience, an intuition I have had for as long as I have been able to reflect.
This detail aside, I am fundamentally in agreement with what Richard says.
This detail aside, I am fundamentally in agreement with what Richard says.
Thanks for that, Frank. I've been a little too busy and stressed to reply cogently to a lot of the very sensible questions and comments in the discussions there, but hope to get around to them, and Part 2, at the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Richard's post (or the comments) (having seen from the title that faith comes into it). I avoid all this religion/spiritual stuff. It is all ashes to me - I've suffered too much. But Richard ususally argues in a muscular fashion when he writes an argument, so I'll take a look at the weekend - not Saturday which is already all spoken for, but possibly Sunday. By which time he may have written part 2. I predict that I'll stay out of it. Pain is kind of enough to too much, really, without all this analysis and online sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if that's a compliment or not, Maxine.
ReplyDelete