Salon Article & Academic James Carse "Religion Is Poetry"

[SirPhilip]

I don't know how many here peruse Salon regularly, I imagine many as it's undeniably a sanctuary for reason, an almost adjacent to Randi's site on my browsing priority list that provides often far refreshing discussions than found here.

With that said, another very constructive academic dialogue (http://www.salon.com/books/atoms_eden/2008/07/21/james_carse/index.html) featuring James Carse.

[Robin]

I don't know how many here peruse Salon regularly, I imagine many as it's undeniably a sanctuary for reason, an almost adjacent to Randi's site on my browsing priority list that provides often far refreshing discussions than found here.

With that said, another very constructive academic dialogue (http://www.salon.com/books/atoms_eden/2008/07/21/james_carse/index.html) featuring James Carse.
Not very constructive, nor academically sound. Point 1:
The difference, though, is that I wouldn't call myself an atheist. To be an atheist is not to be stunned by the mystery of things or to walk around in wonder about the universe.
He is differentiating himself here from, among others, Dawkins. But nobody with even a slight familiarity with Dawkins could suggest he is not stunned by the mystery of things, or does not walk around in wonder about the universe.

I mean, for crying out loud, he wrote a whole book about just this subject. He has spoken of the feeling of awe when looking into an ant's brain throught a microsope.

He has quoted Einstein saying "To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man." and added that he, too, is religious in this sense.

Point 2
To be an atheist, you have to be very clear about what god you're not believing in.
What nonsense, the lack of clarity believers have about what God is supposed to be is one of the best reasons for being an atheist.

[SirPhilip]

Not very constructive, nor academically sound. Point 1: Depends whether your position is irrelevance or not. Academically, mythology and culture are regarded in a historical context. Religious traditions regard them as positive events, which contradict common experience from ancient times. It's not a new dilemma.

He is differentiating himself here from, among others, Dawkins. But nobody with even a slight familiarity with Dawkins could suggest he is not stunned by the mystery of things... He's stunned by logical symmetry in nature, as most naturalists are. I'm not, personally.

He has quoted Einstein saying..
He, like Einstein, was musing about what role magical thinking serves. When you solve logical problems using abstraction all day long, it's a strong curiosity given how one thing becomes clearer by understanding the opposite.

What nonsense, the lack of clarity believers have about what God is supposed to be is one of the best reasons for being an atheist. You mean sensible. Dawkins is a constructive and refreshing public educator, and regarding it as having absolutely no constructive value whatsoever and primitive thinking is an eminently sensible conclusion. He would be stunned however to discover that everything from primitive African art to Christian symbology depicts quasi natural phenomena.

[Soapy Sam]

He [Dawkins]*would be stunned however to discover that everything from primitive African art to Christian symbology depicts quasi natural phenomena.


Would you mind explaining that? I don't understand what's meant.

*(My edit)

[Foster Zygote]

Would you mind explaining that? I don't understand what's meant.

*(My edit)

That's pretty much SirPhilp's shtick. I think it's more about the rhythm and eccentric syntax than actual content. I had an acquaintance who used to talk like that when he was baked.

[Tom Morris]

Sounds like another dull, liberal piece of intellectual masturbation whereby the existence of religious studies departments in universities supposedly makes religion more true than it actually is or makes fundamentalists somehow less fundamentalist or something. As pointed out above, he is basically redefining atheism in some really silly ways to suit his particular argument, and presents a picture of atheism that is quite disconnected with reality.

And this bit is a bit problematic:
And then you have Soren Kierkegaard, under the influence of Hegel, who saw Jesus as "the absolute paradox," the eternal and the human combined in one historical moment, which is in fact unintelligible.

I'm not sure we can say that about Kierkegaard - it's not false, but it's misleading. Firstly, he was "under the influence of Hegel", but not to the point where is parroting Hegel (which is what the layman would understand from the article). Fragments and Postscript are a parody of Hegel. And we can't really be confident that the position that the Climacus authorship sets out is the same as Kierkegaard's. Kierkegaard's seems to be much more of an orthodox Christian position, and Climacus is a sort of Hegelian parody to get people to be able to see Kierkegaard's understanding of Christianity, as opposed to what he saw as a very shallow (and indeed Hegelian) version of Christianity that he saw in the Danish Lutheran Church.

[badnewsBH]

In the light skim I gave this, I gathered very little from the author that seemed insightful. On one hand, he seems to be redefining religion to suit his purpose in different paragraphs. On the other, he seems to be committing numerous logical fallacies (appeals to authority and popularity, I think, and possibly others) in an attempt to substantiate his position.

I think Tom hit the nail on the head. It seems as though the author is talking a lot, but not saying much.

[SirPhilip]

Would you mind explaining that? I don't understand what's meant.*(My edit) Religious symbology is not purely abstract, it is a confluence frequently of natural phenomena and stylism, with themes repeating over cultures and continents. It exists as an archeological curiosity for the most part.

[SirPhilip]

That's pretty much SirPhilp's shtick. I think it's more about the rhythm and eccentric syntax than actual content. I had an acquaintance who used to talk like that when he was baked. (Well, at least it's a guitarist critiquing instead of the bland variety of rebuttals...) Not so though. It's quite apparent in primitive and ancient cultures and just far more vague in execution today, it isn't a loose association.