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THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

~ Science, logic, and ethics, from a Whiteheadian Pragmatist perspective (go figure)

THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

Tag Archives: Religion

God’s Name

28 Wednesday Jul 2021

Posted by Gary Herstein in COVID-19, Critical Thinking, General Philosophy, Logic, Religion

≈ 1 Comment

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COVID-19, Critical Thinking, Religion, Vaccines

I see yet another story bemoaning the death of a willfully stupid fool who not only denied the reality of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) but also declared that he would place himself “in God’s hands”, both to avoid catching the disease, and then survive it once caught. Well, God appears to have been too busy trying to wipe a grease stain off those hands to attend to this gentleman’s demands, because said individual got sick, suffered, and died gasping for air while intubated.

I’m going to step outside my usual zone of operation and address a few words at those staggeringly vain individuals who imagine it is their unique privilege to tell God what to do. Now, as a proper Whiteheadian, I do believe that the term “God” has minimal reference and conceptual content. Not even remotely enough to form the kind of center of meaning that one might go to church to celebrate. For that, one must move well beyond Whitehead and into the process theology that owes its source to Charles Hartshorne. Much of this latter, though not all by any means, is also rooted in various interpretations of Christianity. And while even this is beyond the scope of my primary interests, I’m actually going to address my remarks to the vastly more conservative field that tends to identify as evangelical or fundamentalist. (While there can be overlaps, the two groups are NOT the samei.) I’ll spare you any fatuous declarations as to either the reality of these people’s God, the truth of their concept(s), or the validity of the Bible. In fact, I’ll be taking these things as given. Rather, what I want to show is that a certain class of behavior that they publicize as evidence of their devout faith is, by their own standards, a gross and indefensible sin. It is not hard to show.

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You’re So Vain

25 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, God, Religion, Trump

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Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Religion

(Respects to Carly Simon. Minor amounts of “adult” language in the following.)

So, the story is making the rounds that Trump’s “spiritual advisor” (who knew that was a cabinet position?) is saying that Trump, “whether people like it or not, has been raised up by God.” She says this in the context of how the Bible says God “raises up kings,” apparently indifferent to, and unaware of, the pitifully uneducated irony of classifying Trump as a “king” (regardless of how much the fascist Trump would like that to be true.) She (and yes, it is a female televangelist) goes on to say that,

God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority. It is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down. When you fight against the plan of God, you are fighting against the hand of God.

This has been making the news rounds quite a bit of late; you can find one example (from which the previous quotes are taken) HERE.Me

It is easy enough to mock the infantile stupidity of this blathering numskull; indeed, such mockery is well deserved and as likely to have any positive effect as any effort at reasoned discussion. But the number of people who swallow – and then, in turn, spew – such fatuous twaddle is not so small as can be safely dismissed out of hand. I suspect some, possibly many, of my own family members fall into this category. So I want to point out a fact about these people’s own belief system, a fact that is based exclusively ON their belief system, and the sacred text known as “the” Bible. Because you see, the woman above, and so many others like her, are, by their own supposedly fervently held beliefs, doing is committing a sin: these people are so pathetically self-absorbed, they believe God is their string puppet to command; in so doing they are taking God’s name in vain. Continue reading →

Models and Interpretations

18 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, General Philosophy, Logic, Religion

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Critical Thinking, General Philosophy, Logic, Religion, Science

A number of years ago I got into a discussion with an acquaintance about what kind of symbol system tells us “the truth” about the world. This is not how my interlocutor expressed the problem; she simply insisted that mathematics gives us the truth. I tried many different approaches to get her to understand that what she was saying made absolutely no sense, because the first thing that must happen (once any collection of symbols is at hand) in order to talk about truth was that those symbols have to be interpreted, and such interpretation is not given in advance. Thus, I have a modest background in some advanced forms of mathematics (mainly formal logic, abstract algebra, and a touch of differential geometry), and I understand that simply having a bunch of squiggles in front of you is not enough to adjudicate whether those squiggles say anything at all, much less anything that is true. Meanings must be assigned to those squiggles such that they hang together to form some kind of model, and that model then must be associated with the world in some form such that the model can be interpreted as making claims about the world which then can be interpreted as to its truth content. And here, “world” can mean either the world of concrete experience or a purely abstract “world” which is itself something of a mathematical construct. Also, my choice of the term “truth content” rather than “truth value” is not an innocent one: I wish to leave open the possibility that truth evaluations can be more complex and multi-dimensional than the mere assignment of values.Three Mesas

It became very clear that while I understood my acquaintance’s position, she in no way understood mine. This was because while I was repeatedly able to paraphrase – that is, interpret – her argument, when asked to do the same for mine she was unable to do anything other than repeat her own position, which addressed none of the points I had made. In later years, she was known to crow a bit about how she “won” the argument. To be fair, in retrospect I realize that there were a number of ways I could have made my own position clearer, as it was burdened by a much greater degree of philosophical nuance than the position she was presenting. And I confess that I do not think quickly on my feet; indeed, I’ve only ever suggested that, given time, I can think thoroughly. (One of the reasons I went into philosophy is because a line like, “Herstein! If we don’t get this metaphysical principle out the door by end of business today, our competition is going to crucify us!” is not something one is ever likely to hear from one’s department head.) Continue reading →

End of Daze

09 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, Politics, Religion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Critical Thinking, Politics, Religion

So, apparently that eminent theologian and Master political strategist Michelle Bachman is declaring that the United States might be facing utter destruction from the Wrath of God for allowing gay marriages. There’s nothing especially news worthy about ignorant people spewing infantile nonsense. I don't want But Bachman was elected to Congress, and even had serious aspirations for the office of President. In order for this to have occurred, Bachman had to receive significant support from a wide range of the public – people who voted for her, people who volunteered for her, people who donated money to her various campaigns, and so on. How is it that so much support was so eagerly forthcoming so as to create Bachman’s political successes and nourish such high ambitions, especially given how disturbingly limited her cognitive faculties apparently are? Are Americans just stupid for buying in to such staggering infantilism? In particular, what is it about “end of days” cultism that it finds so much appeal to so many Americans? Continue reading →

Review: Murdoch on Metaphysics

05 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by Gary Herstein in Book Review, General Philosophy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Murdoch, Philosophy, Religion, Review

Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Published April 7th 2003 by Vintage (first published 1992)

(This review appears in other locations besides this blog.) This book is hands down the second most important work in metaphysics in the last 200 years. The 1st most important work is Whitehead’s “Process and Reality;” taken together, the “200” year frame is quite possibly overly conservative.

Murdoch does not present us with a metaphysical “theory.” Rather, she presents a comprehensive argument about the nature and purpose of metaphysical *inquiry*. It is impossible to overstate the significance of such a shift in emphasis.
Continue reading →

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