11.23.09
The inverted creationism of physicists/cosmologists
Darwin made it clear once again that—as Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas and Eckhart had already pointed out—we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the “God beyond God.” The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry. Religion is not an exact science but a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational and which cannot easily be put into words. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder, which is, perhaps, not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences—and has helped me to appreciate —when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection.
But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled? All the major traditions insist that the faithful meditate on the ubiquitous suffering that is an inescapable part of life; because, if we do not acknowledge this uncomfortable fact, the compassion that lies at the heart of faith is impossible. The almost unbearable spectacle of the myriad species passing painfully into oblivion is not unlike some classic Buddhist meditations on the First Noble Truth (“Existence is suffering”), the indispensable prerequisite for the transcendent enlightenment that some call Nirvana—and others call God.
This rubbish from Armstrong is suspicious: Armstrong seems to have made a strategic choice to defend monotheism even though she doesn’t really believe in anything. Her remarks on mythos and logos are especially suspect, in suggesting that this ‘mythos’ routine is her own stance on the question of divinity.
Why not, pray tell, adopt a mythos and logos approach to Darwinism? Nope, we don’t do things that way, and in this case the mythos/logos hype becomes transparent.
Darwin did NOT make it clear that divinity is not a divine personality. His theory is false, can’t explain evolution, can’t explain life, and says nothing at all about the origin of the universe.
The question of suffering is a tough one, but only for Christians. Schopenhauer addressed the question with a perspective that would be non-Darwinian. Armstrong brings in Buddhism and the first noble truth. These buddhists were theists.
I cannot see, although I am not a theist, why atheists get so upset over creationism (apart from finding it false!): in good Kantian fashion the antithesis they embrace is as suspect.
The irony here is that the Big Bang looks to some now like a ‘relative transformation’, not an absolute beginning. Frankly, although I would not waste time defending the thesis, the universe looks like a string theory tinkertoy and almost a kind of macro-technology. It is probably false, but certainly thinkably defensible as a floating question for the future that an agent of ‘will’ inconceivable to us is involved in these cosmic productions.
For heaven’s sake, in a mere ten years, Google has produced computation environments at the level of the petabyte able to answer queries from a whole planet simultaneously.
I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about ‘cosmic entities’, if any exist, that could mimic divinities.
That said, I don’t believe a word of it, but merely as a dialectical exercise try to critique deadpan Spinozism as useless alternative.
Beware of such statements, of course, it is certainly not a belief on my part, but the point is that dogmatic anti-creationism forgets that physics creates its own kind of inverted creationism. Why should that be some absolute, in a world of Kantian exposes of the all these mind games.
As Kant made clear, this is the stage at which transcendental idealism becomes your own option. The question of space and time begin to impinge on the neuroscience of mind, and mind on a reality that transcends space and time.
James said,
November 26, 2009 at 3:43 pm
It’s amazing that a third-rate thinker such as Karen Armstrong is getting this amount of air time. I’ve never read anyone who can just spew out bad idea after bad idea. Amazing…she makes Dawkins and Friends look like geniuses.
Inverted creationism | Kant’s Challenge said,
December 4, 2009 at 1:19 pm
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