In his 'Closing the books' post over at Crooked Timber, Daniel Davies writes that he has:
...a minor annual tradition (as in, I did it once) of beginning the year with a short list of arguments that I am no longer going to have. As I said when I produced the first such list, while not necessarily claiming to have the definitive truth on these subjects, my views
“Are no longer up for argument, pending absolutely spectacular new evidence. I’ve had a number of arguments on all of these points over the last year; I’ve heard all sides, and I’ve made up my mind. If anyone has an argument which they genuinely believe to be new, go ahead, but don’t expect much. Please note also that I am no longer interested in methodological debates over the merits of statistical studies which purport to prove the matter one way or another on any of these propositions.”
It’s basically a way of clearing the decks of old pointless arguments, leaving room for new pointless and bitter arguments (I hope to post next week a short list of things that I plan to argue about a heck of a lot more, being a list of tacit assumptions made by other people that I regard as highly questionable). If you want to have a last go on any of the short list below, now’s the time, but otherwise it is books closed, I’m afraid; I have made a reasonable donation to the Grice United Fund which ought to cover any genuinely deserving intellectual charity cases. So here’s the list – it’s actually shorter than previous years.
His list includes the following argument and comment:
God, non-existence and/or general perniciousness of as a vital matter for public debate. Moderate amounts of publicly financed god-bothering as an inevitable first step on the road to theocracy. Teaching of evolution to people who don’t want to learn it as a vital goal of public policy. [DISAGREE]
Entirely agree with Jamie here that a sensible man does not spend his precious and decidedly finite waking hours talking or thinking in any great depth about that in which he does not believe. The amount of time and energy poured into this bottomless pit by passionate, intelligent and liberal individuals who could be doing Avogadro’s number of more worthwhile things is enough to make me want to weep. I particularly won’t be reading or discussing any of the books on the subject unless and until I get hold of a series of the original and canonical texts by Oolon Colluphid.
When I read his post, I thought, 'Hmm, maybe that's a good idea.' There are so many things about which I (or anyone) could think. My brain being somehow more finite than most, perhaps I ought to limit that on which I spend my precious stock of brain cells. This might also help with the problem of so many worthy causes with which to sympathize, but so little resources to spread across those causes, that I blogged about in Earnestness Avoided. And so I decided to, like Mr. Davies, no longer consider arguments for/against the existence of god(s). There's no conclusive argument either way, as in, no knock-down undeniable proof against which all comers fail, and there isn't likely to be anytime soon. Sure, I and others might think that one conclusion is, to some extent or other, more likely than the other, but none is 200% fool proof (I know, I know, low hanging fruit). I've read and thought a bit about the subject, have arrived at a belief, and perhaps now it's time to put the subject on my personal backburner.
But I just can't stay away! And so I find myself with the following books on my nightstand:
- Reason for the Hope Within, edited by Michael J. Murray and
- Philosophers Without Gods, edited by Louise Antony.
I shouldn't, really I shouldn't, do this. I do so much better with my focus on fewer rather than more things, i.e., I probably don't have enough space on my radar to consider this now. And yet I forge ahead on an almost certainly doomed endeavor. I've started with the first book. I don't have much to say just yet, having finished only the first two chapters. I think I'll need to find support elsewhere for some claims in each contributor's chapter. I forget which of the two chapters referenced several things a Christian must or cannot accept (paraphrasing here, I don't have either book with me at the moment). Some things that a Christian must accept refer to the Christian god as depicted in the Bible. But why credit the Bible? Phrases like 'We learn from Scripture that....' and 'Scripture tells us that....' hold little weight for me since I don't believe that a Christian god guided the hand of men to write the Bible. I regard the Bible as a man-made product of the culture, politics, customs, prejudices, etc. at the time of its writing. Obviously, each contributor cannot address/justify every assertion they mention, however, I wouldn't mind hearing why one should credit the Bible with such authority. Just as it might seem obvious to a Christian reading this why the Bible is the authoritative document on Christianity ('Well, duh, bc it was written by God.'), it seems just as obvious to me that the Bible was written by many very human men. And by 'men' I mean 'men', i.e., the maleness of authorship is an important feature of the Bible.
So, yeah, we'll see what happens. I don't know what I expect to get out of this. I refer to this as an almost certainly doomed endeavor bc I won't get anything near the 200% answer noted above, that is, I don't expect to reach a conclusion very different from that which I've already reached. I do expect to gain a deeper understanding of the arguments on both sides and possibly a better idea of how they could all work (or not) together.
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