"An Unbeautiful Mind"

I came across a wonderful article yesterday in the August 5th edition of The New Republic magazine titled, “An Unbeautiful Mind,” by Simon Blackburn. You can read this article (I suspect for at least a while) at:

tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020805 … burn080502

This is a review of two books. The books were written by the theist-scientist; Sir John Polkinghorne. While I’d still be an atheist had I never read Blackburn, having done so makes being an atheist all the more pleasurable. I especially liked the ending of this review:

“[i]”…When schism erupts and heretics get things wrong, or when agnostics and atheists (such as myself) lock God out, chaps such as Sir John give us a sherry and a biscuit on the lawn, rather than burning, stoning, and crucifying, as their ill-bred cousins love to do.

And yet I did end Polkinghorne’s books, with their supreme contempt for philosophical reasoning and historical thinking, in despair about humanity’s desperate self-deceptions and vanities and illusions. Everything will be all right in the end, we are washed in the blood of the lamb, we are blessed, and above all God is on our side. Who could dissent? Fantasy beats reason every time. People believe what they want to believe…"[/i]

BTW, Simon Blackburn is one of my favorite contemporary philosophers. Besides the fact that he writes with wit, charm, and humor; this man makes sense to me! You can find more of Blackburn’s wit (His equally wonderful and biting review of Umberto Eco’s Kant and the Platypus for example) at:

unc.edu/~sblackbu/

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did,
Michael

I have to agree that it was a really lovely article.
This is my analysis and conclusion of it:

I’m not an Atheist, neither am I a full fledged Christian
but I do believe that there are so many other wonderful aspects to eligion.

Let’s be down to earth for a sec. Alright. I think it’s just human nature for us to force people into what we believe, and Christianity alone cannot be blamed for doing that.
For example. If a car passed by both of us at high speed and we both say the car, I believe it’s green, you say it’s Blue; I’m gonna try to convince you that the car is green and if in the end , you still stick to blue, We’re both gonna think of each other as color blind and ignorant.

It’s the same with religion. We all believe in different things and try to force our beliefs down someone else’s throat and if they still don’t accept our views, they’ll be seen as not having ‘seen the light’.
To us, there is no room for an almagamation of views because we believe certain things cannote be dismissed.

One thing I disliked about the article (seems as if the author is Baised{believes in Hume’s view}) is that it points fingers at Christianity yet fails to sufficiently falsify it.

I have to go, I’ll continue later.

Hey Natty Batty,

Thanks for the good words.

Western religion provided the resources for an unprecedented outpouring of sacred music and majestic cathedral building projects. In fact, my favorite tune at this moment is Aria #47 from J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. I’ve been walking around for some weeks now singing,

“Erbarme dich, mein Gott,
Und meiner Zahren willen;
Schaue hier, Herz und Auge
Weint vor dir bitterlich
Erbarme dich.”

Strange behavior for a devout atheist, eh? Well, I wish Bach had composed strictly for the love of his Anna Magdelana, or for the joys of mathematics, etc… Anything would be better than all the weepiness and begging for mercy we find in his Cantatas. Of course Bach had to feed his Kindern, and it was the hand that signed his paycheck that wanted all that weepy, begging. In fact, the music he wrote for Anna Magdelana was no less wonderful than his sacred compositions. This isn’t to deny that Bach wasn’t moved by his religion, but I suspect J.S. Bach would have composed beautifully even if Brittney Spears had been signing his paycheck.

I’ve no doubt that some goodness has been derived from man’s most irrational beliefs (though I can’t think of any at the moment). I’ve equally little doubt that man would have saved himself a heap of suffering had he managed to stumble upon secular humanism directly, instead of via the circuitous route of mysticism.

One criticism heard repeatedly is that rational philosophy and science have deprived us from a sense of the magnificent. In his book, Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan eloquently wrote of this:

…science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The universe is much bigger than our oun prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be greater than we dreamed?’ Instead they say, 'No! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."

Not atypically, I used to often stand under the stars and marvel at their vastness. However, since I learned that our universe extends millions of times beyond the remotest star we can see, I don’t much stand in awe under the night stars these days. The 3,000 or so visible stars are only our parochial neighbors. I feel more wonder these days looking in a mirror to find an eye looking back at itself. The eye that perceives itself is far more cause for wonder than a galaxy of stellar nuclear furnaces. This inward gaze has rekindled my interest in philosophy.

Natsili, I don’t think an atheist has to falsify any religion. Instead, the onus is upon religion to prove its extraordinary claims to rational men. If I told you that my right arm was made of cheese only whenever no one else looked at it, the burden would not be upon you to prove me wrong.

In another sense, I wonder if it matters that we ever “get it right.” I wonder how much our knowing the “truth” would change our lives. Children would be continue to be born and old men would continue to die just the same as before we knew the truth. The difference might be in what we did between those two occurances. If we should find the truth, it obviously would render useless our search for the truth. Life might seem less an advanture than a chore. A joke isn’t a joke if you already know the punch-line. It seems strange to think that I might prefer a life searching for the truth rather than already possessing the truth; but this appears to be my sentiment. The moment I solve a problem in mathematics I quickly search for another one. As soon as I have the answer, the problem ceases to interest me. Well, luckily, I don’t think we’re in danger of finding the “truth” just yet.

Again, thanks Natsili, I look forward to reading the continuation of your reply.

Michael

Blah, Blah, Blah…It really doesn’t matter what anyone says except God. Forget all the secular books. What does the Word of God tell you about the human condition and what Jesus did for us? Unbelief does not mean God does not exist - only that you don’t believe it. So, what’s new about that? Denial of our sin nature and our hatred of God is not going to change His love for us. However, there are consequences to our choices. We are free to make them and we do every day. We were created with a perfect purpose, but we decided to believe a lie and turn from God’s love and goodness. Now look at the mess we are in just because we said, “we don’t want you in our lives, God!” Well, there you go. Be careful what you ask for. An unbeautiful mind is one that is corrupted by sin = selfishness, greed, lust, thievery and dishonestly, just to name a few. Then our only way out, which is to recognize our estate and turn to Jesus for salvation, we in our arrogance shake our fists as if we are OK and we can figure it all out ourselves. I know I am not adequate on my own, therefore, I have made my choice.

Blah, Blah, Blah …