« The Gestalt Primary | Main | Kaus And Affairs »
October 14, 2007
There Is So Much For Us Of Little Faith
Lee Siegel (yeah, that guy!) writes an LA Times op-ed attacking atheism:
When our anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith by demanding that our beliefs be underpinned by science, statistics and cold logic, they are, in effect, attacking our right to believe in unseen, unprovable things at all. Their assault on religious faith amounts to an attack on the human imagination.
Belief and imagination are two very different states of mind, and the norms that apply to them differ dramatically. To say that belief ought to be based on evidence isn't to say that imagination should be based on evidence. As an atheist, I'm often happy to imagine that God exists (for example, when reading myths, daydreaming, or considering a philosophical argument). I just don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe in God. Lovers of the imagination have nothing to fear from atheism, since atheists are fine with you imagining whatever you want.
The same confusion appears to be at work here:
You don't have to be a religious person to cherish the idea of faith in the absurd. When artists have an unverifiable, unprovable inspiration, and then seek to convey it in words or images, they take a leap of faith every bit as vertiginous as that of the religious person.
This is a rather odd way to describe the artistic process. Being struck with an amazing idea that one wants to put into words or sounds or images is a very different state of mind than believing without evidence. I don't have a worked-out theory of what artistic inspiration comes to, but I'd think that imagining the awesomeness of your future creation is a much bigger part of it than belief is. (Of course, it's possible that someone who wrote at such length about taking care of his imaginary cat is confused about the nature of imagination and belief.)
Siegel continues:
The leap of faith is really a very ordinary operation. We take it every time we fall in love, expect kindness from someone, impulsively sacrifice some little piece of our self-interest. After all, you cannot prove the existence of truth, beauty, goodness and decency...
These things either aren't matters of belief, or are things for which we believe with good evidence. Falling in love with someone is a matter of having one's emotions and desires attach to your beloved, not forming a belief. (When we talk about 'true love', we mean love that's genuine, not love that correctly describes reality in the way that a true statement or a true belief does.) Expecting kindness is a genuine belief -- namely, a belief that others will be kind -- but it's usually based on evidence. That humans have a degree of sympathy and kindness is an empirically verifiable part of human nature, and we often have good evidence for believing that others will be kind to us in the right circumstances. Sacrificing some of our self-interest, like falling in love, isn't a matter of false belief. It's a matter of having the kinds of emotions and desires that motivate altruistic behavior.
Contra Siegel, the existence of truth, beauty, goodness, and decency are easily established. Open any well-researched book of mathematics or the sciences, and you'll find plenty of true statements right there in front of you. Read about Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or anyone who strove to avert human suffering and help people live better lives, and you'll find evidence for the existence of goodness and decency. And in a world with sunsets and mountains and so many lovely women, my senses are given ample evidence for the existence of beauty.
I don't know for sure what motivates the view that all the best things that exist are located far beyond our ability to have knowledge based on evidence, and that faith the only way to encounter them. But I'm struck by how prevalent it is, when so many wonderful things require no faith at all.
October 14, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Holy crap -- is he saying that if we don't *actually* believe that an invisible bearded guy determines our fates that we can't imagine, read, or write any impossible things?
Posted by: El Cid | Oct 14, 2007 6:53:26 PM
Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Being a philosopher, when I read stuff like this, I don't know how crazy it seems to normal people.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Oct 14, 2007 7:01:31 PM
If blowing goats is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Leave Mickey Kaus Alone!!!!
Posted by: Ann Coulter | Oct 14, 2007 7:47:44 PM
Is this because our Office of Atheist Initiatives or our many atheist television and radio shows have been demanding that they prove the science behind their beliefs before going to Sunday school? Or is it because our houses of atheism found on many street corners in towns around rural America have signs that demand such proof? Oh I know, its the several national leaders of Atheism that are often found visiting the White House or on the nightly news that have been demanding this proof... yeah that's it.
Posted by: Fr33d0m | Oct 14, 2007 8:22:30 PM
Shorter Ezra:
*Belief* is belief that something is *true*. Not so, imagination.
Posted by: sherifffruitfly | Oct 14, 2007 8:34:53 PM
My cats love me yet don't believe in god. Does this make them disingenuous?
Posted by: spinoza | Oct 14, 2007 8:35:47 PM
Flying. Spaghetti. Monster.
Posted by: db | Oct 14, 2007 8:37:37 PM
Deeply pathetic. Religion needs better defenders than this---not having faith is anti-imagination? I'd think that it would be crippling to think that everything you imagine is real. For instance, most monogamous relationships wouldn't last a week due to faith-based cheating.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Oct 14, 2007 8:39:51 PM
According to the Necrominon, chanting "Lee Siegel" in front of a mirror will summon the Flying Spaghetti Monster and cause Him to molest any evil atheists who might interrupt one's self adulation.
Posted by: George Tenet Fangirl | Oct 14, 2007 8:41:40 PM
"I honestly feel sorry for the guy," said neighbor Michael Eddy, 54, a born-again Christian. "To live in this world not believing in a higher power, doubting that Christ died for our sins—that's such a sad, cynical way to live. I don't know how he gets through his day."
Coworker Donald Cobb, who spends roughly 20 percent of his annual income on telephone psychics and tarot-card readings, similarly extended his compassion for Schaffner.
"Craig is a really great guy," Cobb said. "It's just too bad he's chosen to cut himself off from the world of the paranormal, restricting himself to the limited universe of what can be seen and heard and verified through empirical evidence."
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27594
Posted by: mdy | Oct 14, 2007 8:42:36 PM
Lee Siegel is God.
Posted by: porgy tirebiter | Oct 14, 2007 8:47:57 PM
I hear that goatsuckers describe their passion in terms that are almost religious.
Posted by: bleat my little 7th level of suburbia bleat | Oct 14, 2007 8:49:20 PM
I wonder how Lee would react if he ever hung out at a typical science fiction convention. Not only are sf fans, readers, writers and artists among the most imaginative people anywhere, they are also, as a group, the least religiously inclined people I've ever been around.
Posted by: popomo | Oct 14, 2007 8:54:39 PM
It's actually the same bad argument that C.S. Lewis uses in Miracles. He sets up as the only alternative to religious belief a world of strict deterministic mechanics, then goes about to prove that the mere existence of mind refutes that world. Ergo God exists by two falls out of three.
In Lewis's defense, he made this argument around 1947, before quantum indeterminacy and cybernetics had filterred much into everyday thought.
Lee Siegel's only excuse, it seems, is that he listens only to himself.
Posted by: pbg | Oct 14, 2007 9:07:32 PM
Yeah, damn anti-religionists attacking my right to believe in the faery realm, unicorns, banshees and Santa.
And why are they constantly assaulting my faith with their television shows, teevee stations, publishing houses ... and don't get me started on their damn "atheist halls" on every street corner - with the meeting schedules posted in every local paper. Yeah, the atheists have been pushing their undesired agenda on us people of imagination for too long!
Posted by: Robert D2 | Oct 14, 2007 9:08:26 PM
Attacks on one's imagination are the intellectual equivalent of attacks on patriotism - certainly the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I have had my imagination questioned many times when trying to explain simple things like why Steorn's claims of a free energy device are nonsense. The whole point of the attack is to throw you off balance and make you defend yourself, and take your eye off the ball, which is the pure fantasyland most such attackers inhabit.
Posted by: winner | Oct 14, 2007 9:11:27 PM
neil...
you expressed your feelings on this subject very beautifully.
lee siegel says, "the attack on religious faith amounts to an attack on the human imagination."
the way religious faith is often practiced, is actually the attack on human imagination.
in this culture, it seems that the attack on the atheist now amounts to an attack on the human imagination, in terms of science and free thought.
soon,atheists may be accused of threatening our homeland security.
...too much conscience, constraint and conventionality can inhibit and wither the creative process, destroy dreams and the freedom to act on them.
organized religion can actually become a tyranny of the spirit.
its dogma and doctrine can be so rigid and demanding, that we can lose touch with our own imaginal and unconscious way of experiencing the world.
that seems to me, to be the real danger for a society.
i think true spirituality and imagination often begins where religion ends.
...as you say, neil, a world that can be perceived without G-d still can be experienced with beauty and mystery and even a theorem.
Posted by: jacqueline | Oct 14, 2007 9:26:03 PM
Here's a thought experiment for Siegel: name the 5 "religionists" in all time who were as imaginative as my top five scientists from the 20th century: Einstein, Hawking, Heisenberg, Feynman and Curie...
Any more questions?
Posted by: z adura | Oct 14, 2007 9:26:34 PM
Oh, like you would know anything about art, a young whipper-snapper like you.
Now stop arguing with your elders, or I'll tell your mommy on you!
Posted by: sprezzatura | Oct 14, 2007 9:30:58 PM
And by the way, Lee Siegel is bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life!
Uh -- I mean -- who I've never met.
Posted by: sprezzatura | Oct 14, 2007 9:33:29 PM
So...is Siegel implicitly arguing for the validity of promulgating an inquisition against anyone who questions the goodness of the works of imagination he likes?
Posted by: Karl Steel | Oct 14, 2007 9:55:35 PM
That's some imagination you've got there, sprezz.
Posted by: sherifffruitfly | Oct 14, 2007 9:56:59 PM
name the 5 "religionists" in all time who were as imaginative as my top five scientists from the 20th century: Einstein, Hawking, Heisenberg, Feynman and Curie
This brings up a point I wanted to touch upon: knowledge of the world as it is expands imagination, rather than contracting it. JRR Tolkein was a world-renowned expert on language when he wrote his books, for instance.
This isn't even a question of "imagination vs empricism" but a question of "imagination grounded in knowledge vs imagination grounded in nothing". The former gets you "Lord of the Rings"; the latter gets you a schizoprenic on the street corner mumbling about the Pope spying on him.
Posted by: Notorious P.A.T. | Oct 14, 2007 9:59:05 PM
Fromm deals with this when he discusses the difference between rational and irrational faith.
As for someone thinking that imagination is the same as belief - well, they need God, because God help them for being such a shit-for-brains.
Posted by: Nim | Oct 14, 2007 10:03:29 PM
Siegel whines of an alleged attack on the "right" to believe in things lacking in believable evidence for their existence. No anti-religionist I know of and no prominently published critic of religion in North America in English advocates stripping anybody's right to do so. The issue is whether belief in evidence-less hypotheses merits intellectual respect as opposed to legal or physical respect.
There are methods of defending religion - even intellectually - without engaging in frantic, compulsive wankery while typing.
Posted by: Bruce | Oct 14, 2007 10:17:35 PM
Does Lee Siegel believe that Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus? If he says no, then he'd be attacking "imagination," according to his logic.
Posted by: Eric Jaffa | Oct 14, 2007 10:21:33 PM
Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Ezra Klein will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.
Posted by: sprezzatura | Oct 14, 2007 10:23:18 PM
Maya! God I love her.
Posted by: MikeB | Oct 14, 2007 10:34:38 PM
And to think, there's no one in his chain of editors who thought to tell him - no, this is just an attack on your special brand of dumbassery.
Posted by: MB | Oct 14, 2007 10:35:04 PM
Aigh. Non-mandatory atheism is not, and never has been, any threat to a true believer. How could it be? True belief does not require the outside verification of other people.
It is however a threat to those who both need that verification and to systems of religion that don't like independent thought.
In other words, if meeting, talking to, or hearing about an atheist shakes your faith...what kind of faith did you have in the first place? Maybe you should go talk to your deity of choice if you're having trouble; even more simple, maybe you should trust this deity you supposedly believe in to handle the atheists. Unless your deity's just a jerk, and then you're screwed anyway.
Posted by: emjaybee | Oct 14, 2007 10:47:58 PM
Its not that politics & religion are uncomfortable topics, but the tendency of one to bleed into the other.
Posted by: Monty | Oct 14, 2007 10:53:57 PM
This is interesting. I was at church this morning, and the reverend was talking about Creation with the kids during the intergenerational message, and he said how amazing it was that God created the earth just for us, out of all the universe, it was the only place where life existed.
I leaned over to my friend sitting next to me and said "what a small God these fundamentalists believe in, that they can't imagine either that all life may not look or live like us, or that the universe itself might be teeming with life."
(I sing in a mainstream Protestant church that has been taken over by a stealth fundie preacher - before they hired him, he did not reveal his ignorance, but now we see it every week).
Posted by: maurinsky | Oct 14, 2007 11:06:59 PM
The silliest sentence I've read all year:
"When our anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith by demanding that our beliefs be underpinned by science, statistics and cold logic, they are, in effect, attacking our right to believe in unseen, unprovable things at all."
What? Religious faith has a "mechanism"? Well then, let us examine it empirically.
And cliche police: logic is not cold. It is white hot. It is also unseen and unprovable, yet deeply true. And beautiful.
But chiefly, when a nonbeliever points at a believer and cries "non-empiricist!", he is not demanding, attacking, or otherwise insisting that that lovely person trade all human dignity and emotion for a meaningless existence of pointlessly whizzing atoms. He's just being a dick. But thanks for taking it so hard. It kind of validates his point.
Posted by: brent | Oct 14, 2007 11:20:08 PM
If Siegel wants to draw a parallel between religious belief and imaginary thinking, then hey -- more power to him! You're not gonna find this atheist disagreeing.
Posted by: Jake | Oct 14, 2007 11:48:17 PM
Well, this plays into my theory about why the fundies keep trying to ban "Harry Potter" and "The Wizard of Oz"--they really can't distinguish between imagination and belief.
To them, if I'm reading Harry Potter and enjoying it, I must believe that Hogwarts and Harry and Voldemort exist and are casting magic spells. I would say, then, that fundamentalist religionists are the ones who suffer from a lack of imagination--the ability to picture and think about things that don't exist, and to realize that they don't exist even as they're thought about.
Posted by: Lolly | Oct 14, 2007 11:57:06 PM
Oh, hi Sprezzatura!
I guess you're the best example of blurring the boundaries between imagination and belief! No wonder poor Lee is having trouble. Even when I was 6 I knew my imaginary friends were, well, imaginary. I didn't trot them out for other people to meet!
Posted by: Lolly | Oct 15, 2007 12:03:59 AM
maurinsky,
The faith of a "mainstream Protestant" isn't any more reliable a guide to the nature of God, if there is a God, than the faith of a fundamentalist.
Posted by: JasonR | Oct 15, 2007 12:27:07 AM
GOD
The irony in the tension that I see between "faith" and science is that scientists, essentially and as a group, are looking for God. The drive and passion of science is not to be shadowed by the fervor of spiritualism.
What is the unification theory if not a belief in The One?
As a senior member of society, I still mull this question. And as someone who can look around and see wonders as concrete as petrified wood or as ephemeral as a mayfly, I couldn't agree more with your closing paragraph.
Posted by: smike | Oct 15, 2007 12:32:21 AM
Why does this guy get an op-ed in the L.A. Times?
Posted by: steve EVfuture | Oct 15, 2007 12:55:22 AM
Good question steve EVfuture, good question.
I would imagine that a lying and deceptive hack like Siegel would have been bared from the good graces of the editorial world, alas, my imagination has failed me.
Therefore, I must be an aetheist!!!!!
And you all are being far to, what's the word I'm looking for, ummmm, errr, pretentious, maybe, in your denunciations of Speigel.
His argument is just plain stupid and absurd. The tip-off is the anti religionists crack. As anybody with half a brain could tell you, Religion and God are two utterly different beasts. You can believe in god and hate "religion" just as easily as emjoy the church and have no belief in god whatsoever. Lots of aetheistic Jews for instance who go to synagogue, I for one wanted to go join the Baptist Church by my house after seeing a vision of Bonnie Newman in a white sundress one Sunday, pretty sure god had nothing to do with it!!
Posted by: Duckman GR | Oct 15, 2007 1:38:37 AM
It is almost always a pathetic thing to watch any deist try to attack atheism. It is a lot like the proverbial toy dog nipping at your ankles. So, I guess Siegel shouldn't feel too badly, he's no more wankerific than any other god-botherer over the years who's tried to convince non-believers that we are soulless, empty, amoral, potentially genocidal and/or potentially pedophilic, oppressive, and otherwise a disgusting excuse for a human being... simply because we refuse to share in their delusions.
Posted by: r€nato | Oct 15, 2007 1:49:01 AM
Why does this guy get an op-ed in the L.A. Times?
whatever the reason is, it's the same reason why Jonah Goldberg regularly gets space there too. Affirmative action for dumb motherfuckers?
Posted by: r€nato | Oct 15, 2007 1:50:41 AM
I finally come to grips with what "faith" means by playing an online flash game.
Try Speedy Bubbles, the "strategy" version and setting the option to hard.
In that game there is a descending wall of randomly colored balls that that you shoot a randomly colored ball at to knock out balls of the same color. If any part of the wall reaches the bottom you lose.
If you have cleared away most of the balls then it is mostly easy to keep the wall from growing too far down from the top. However as the wall is nears the bottom it becomes increasingly difficult to make shots that make serious damage or don't add to the problem.
The only way to get a good score in this game with "faith" - don't respond to threats before they become immanent but instead try to dig tunnels to the upper corners. To get a good score you have to have faith that a lucky configuration will show up so that one shot will take out 30 balls at once, and faith that a game will have many such opportunities.
This strategy does not necessarily give you a good mean score but it is the only way to get a great score. (My best is around 160,000)
This SpeedyBubbles faith seems to be evaluated much like religious faith. Even though you follow the faith the bad results you get along the line are not the fault of the faith, while the great results depend upon the faith.
Posted by: MonkeyBoy | Oct 15, 2007 2:01:29 AM
whatever you guys are smoking, I want some of MonkeyBoy's stash but none of Siegel's. He's got some bad shit there.
Posted by: r€nato | Oct 15, 2007 2:04:14 AM
When our anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith by demanding that our beliefs be underpinned by science, statistics and cold logic
Well, here's the giveaway right here: Siegel is threatened by my refusal to believe! I am oppressing him, not by trying to take away his right to believe 2 plus 2 is 5, but by pointing out that it's irrational to believe so!
Does Siegel feels oppressed by guys with bigger cocks than his, or those who drive much nicer autos?
Posted by: r€nato | Oct 15, 2007 2:07:17 AM
Actually, when you think about it,anyone who thinks that there has to be a "tension" between science, and empirical knowledge of the material world, and religion is one dumb sucker. They simply don't have anything to do with each other and inhabit different, if sometimes intersecting, realms. What, you can't walk and chew gum at the same time?
Posted by: Tao of Physics | Oct 15, 2007 2:17:55 AM
As an armchair philosopher with a decent ear for politics, I would say that this argument doesn't come off sounding at all "crazy" to people. It's a pretty effective political smear to peg atheists as unimaginative and robotic, and I think some of the technical aspects rebuttal here may actually reinforce it.
Posted by: Josh Koenig | Oct 15, 2007 2:38:54 AM
"In their contempt for any belief that cannot be scientifically or empirically proved, the anti-God books are attacking our inborn capacity to create value and meaning for ourselves."
I had no idea Dawkins was attacking my capacity to create anything. On the other hand, I was sure Hitchens was attempting to make my life miserable.
The opinion section of the LA Times is a tragedy.
Posted by: I enjoy the scare quotes around scientific | Oct 15, 2007 3:50:51 AM
We should invade the atheists' countries, kill their leaders and convert them to the invisible-cat religion!
Posted by: sprezzatura | Oct 15, 2007 4:23:14 AM
Questions of God and faith are ultimately a waste of time. It's something you can never know, and fighting over it is pointless. The problem here is that I doubt many atheists would be so belligerent if it weren't for the fact that Christians feel the need to force everyone else to pay homage to their god. They want to make everyone else participate in their rituals, or they claim they are being oppressed. They demand the right to try and convert people in our schools and in our government institutes, or they are being oppressed. They feel the need to ram their majority down everyone else's throats, and they have no respect for anyone else. It's hard to come away with any belief other than that Christianity is essentially the religion of assholes in this country.
Posted by: soullite | Oct 15, 2007 5:14:40 AM
Seigel has pretty much admitted that he imagined raping Uma Thurman when she was underage and he was her tutor. He's a sick fuck.
Posted by: Reality Man | Oct 15, 2007 6:18:38 AM
Ah excuse me but...
When anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith
But when did anyone "attack" the religious faith of these -ah - who ever they are???
Here they go again with an imagined war - what attack, when, by whom, the delusional people are making up shit again?
Posted by: Me_again | Oct 15, 2007 6:59:11 AM
"Here they go again with an imagined war
Hey, I'm all good with imagined wars- it's when ah, some people can't tell the difference between imagination and reality that we run into trouble. And not the kind that comes from having to duck too many flowers . . .
Posted by: Dan S. | Oct 15, 2007 7:08:03 AM
Ahhhh.. the Animal House defense!
Shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, ... isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!
-- Lee Siegel.
Posted by: gypsy howell | Oct 15, 2007 7:49:14 AM
I just don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe in God.
I imagine you're focusing narrowly on a belief in the "Fundamentalist Christian God." But generally speaking "I believe in God" is not a verifiable statement. It has no meaning, because any time you try to define "belief" and "God," you leave out millions (if not billions) of people who would otherwise agree with the statement. You're telling them in effect "you don't believe in God because under my definition you don't qualify." The whole discussion is absurd.
Posted by: Halfdan | Oct 15, 2007 8:19:45 AM
Perhaps the whole debate could be better if there were actual definitions involved.
Unfortunately there aren't.
Posted by: evagrius | Oct 15, 2007 8:49:43 AM
"atheists are fine with you imagining whatever you want"
Really? Ever read Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris' defense(?) of atheism. Apparently its be defended by demonizing religions.
Posted by: Not Jenna Bush | Oct 15, 2007 9:04:20 AM
I'd find the Credo quia absurdum est. line more convincing if people had more diversity in the absurd things they chose to believe--like the infinite variety of other-worldly Hindu gods. As it is, everyone seems to be gravitating to Jehovah and Allah, i.e. the Coke and Pepsi of the spiritual world.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Oct 15, 2007 9:09:00 AM
Also, with everything that has happened to expand collective human imagination socially, technologically, philosophically and aesthetically, it seems odd that most are stuck imagining the same old thing our ancestors from millennia ago imagined.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Oct 15, 2007 9:14:49 AM
Here's what bugs me. That tripe from Siegel was so obviously wrong and easily refuted, you have to wonder A) Why did the LA Times publish something that bad and B) Is this the best the religious people can do?
I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. Why would the LAT print that? What is the point? What is the point of having a weak monologue on the existence of a god? Is the existence of a god suddenly one of the most pressing issues of the day? Were they lacking in space? Did a major advertiser threaten to pull out if they didn't print something supporting the existence of a god? It just doesn't make any sense.
And why would they print something so weak? Couldn't they find anything better than that to argue for the existence of a god? Why did it have to be an attack on people who don't believe in a god? Why not an argument in favor of some god's existence?
It really just doesn't make any sense at all.
Posted by: DBK | Oct 15, 2007 9:19:28 AM
Likewise, it's not so hard to establish definitions of "love" and "beauty" and "truth" that correspond to things you already believe in, regardless of whether they pass the same empirical test you're applying to "God."
Posted by: Halfdan | Oct 15, 2007 9:59:09 AM
I believe in music.
Posted by: Mac Davis | Oct 15, 2007 10:01:50 AM
When my son was very young he believed had an imaginary brother (named Louie) and an imaginary bull. We took Lopuie and the bull with us weverywhere. If we went to the movies I had to have two empty seats next to my son so that Louie and the bull had a place to sit. If we went to the store, I had to go to the back of the car and open the hatchback and get that damned bull out before we could go in the store, or my son would not go. It was really a lot of fun having a kid with so much imagination.
But he was 3 years old then, now he is 28. He is an athiest (or actually a druid) and he still has this wonderful imagination. He does know the difference between real and imaginary now, though. Mickey needs to get a real cat.
Posted by: APISHAPA | Oct 15, 2007 10:14:51 AM
When my son was very young he believed had an imaginary brother (named Louie) and an imaginary bull. We took Lopuie and the bull with us weverywhere. If we went to the movies I had to have two empty seats next to my son so that Louie and the bull had a place to sit. If we went to the store, I had to go to the back of the car and open the hatchback and get that damned bull out before we could go in the store, or my son would not go. It was really a lot of fun having a kid with so much imagination.
But he was 3 years old then, now he is 28. He is an athiest (or actually a druid) and he still has this wonderful imagination. He does know the difference between real and imaginary now, though. Mickey needs to get a real cat.
Posted by: APISHAPA | Oct 15, 2007 10:15:17 AM
Open any well-researched book of mathematics or the sciences, and you'll find plenty of true statements right there in front of you.
Um ... this scientist has to disagree with you here. Short silly-gism:
All science can, by definition, be falsified
In this great universe of ours, with its amazing variety of happenings, anything that can happen will happen
Therefore, all science will be falsified.
Science is never true in some grand sense of truth. That's the whole point. And that's why the scientism-crowd is no different than the Intelligent Design crowd. Both expect science to reach whatever Truth in which they believe. The IDers are just scientism-believers who would distort science so that it "reveals" their prior beliefs about divine intervention in creation.
Math is another story. If one is of a Platonic mindset, math does reveal truth. But that is if one already accepts some form of Objective Idealism. Nu? Mathematical statements are true in the same sense as a religious person accepts their beliefs as true if and only if one has a certain underlying belief in Objective Idealism.
Or as some wags have put it -- "mathematics is a religion ... and it is the only religion that can prove it's a religion".
Posted by: DAS | Oct 15, 2007 10:22:58 AM
Reality Man, just because Siegel's a tool doesn't mean he can't be slimed unfairly. His story about Uma Thurman was that she was a student who totally wanted him, and he regrets not giving in to her subtle come-ons. Now, back to the main point, I neither believe nor imagine that any young women would find a doofus of his magnitude attractive, but he certainly never said what you say he said.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go find someone else to defend, someone I don't find to be an utterly detestable piece of filth.
Posted by: borehole | Oct 15, 2007 12:03:45 PM
His story about Uma Thurman was that she was a student who totally wanted him, and he regrets not giving in to her subtle come-ons.
And he wants us to believe that atheists stole his imagination!
Posted by: George Tenet Fangirl | Oct 15, 2007 12:44:44 PM
I hope the hard core atheists and agnostics will chill on us believers who know that faith is "irrational", yet persist for our own subjective reasons, yet also can't stand Lee Siegel and also are not even remotely conservative.
You need a little irrationality in life ;)
Posted by: Buford P. Stinkleberry | Oct 15, 2007 1:18:15 PM
Amen, Brother Buford!
Posted by: DAS | Oct 15, 2007 2:15:27 PM
"It's actually the same bad argument that C.S. Lewis uses in Miracles. He sets up as the only alternative to religious belief a world of strict deterministic mechanics, then goes about to prove that the mere existence of mind refutes that world. Ergo God exists by two falls out of three."
pbg: The difference is that Lewis' bad arguments are well thought out and delivered honestly. Siegel on the other hand has all the intellectual integrity of... of...well of Lee Siegel.
Posted by: Buzzcook | Oct 15, 2007 2:30:51 PM
You're using "faith" and "belief" as if they are the same thing, which is common and popular these days, but a large part of scholarly theology defines them as two very different things. That's something I blogged about today, in a different context.
http://www.mahablog.com/2007/10/15/arrogance-in-action/
I'm no fan of Siegel, but his examples of faith are not as off the wall (academically speaking) as you might assume.
Posted by: Barbara O'Brien | Oct 15, 2007 3:28:12 PM
So... Using this fellow's logic, if I imagine that there's a tiger about to attack me, I'm supposed to grab a real gun and start shooting at it?
Posted by: Kelsey | Oct 15, 2007 3:54:08 PM
So... Using this fellow's logic, if I imagine that there's a tiger about to attack me, I'm supposed to grab a real gun and start shooting at it?
Posted by: Kelsey | Oct 15, 2007 3:54:59 PM
Kelsey, I think you've figured out how we got this war started in Iraq.
Posted by: William Bollinger | Oct 15, 2007 3:59:41 PM
Spoken like a true heterosexual - not that there's anything....
Posted by: Daphne Chyprious | Oct 15, 2007 5:38:50 PM
Barbara O'Brien, quoting Tillich on the meaning of faith:
Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. … Faith as ultimate concern is the act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. ……Faith is not an act of any of his rational functions, as it is not an act of the unconscious, but it is an act in which both the rational and the nonrational elements of his being are transcended.
And you seriously think that gibberish actually means something, do you?
Posted by: JasonR | Oct 15, 2007 8:45:06 PM
So this is how the thread ends, with "Paul Tillich is stoopid"? God that's sad.
Posted by: Halfdan | Oct 16, 2007 6:42:30 AM
Wait, you mean because I don't believe in god I can't write fiction?
What about the things I've already written, I wasn't religious when I wrote those, did I imagine them? But if I imagined writing fiction wouldn't that in its self be a form of creativity?
Oh no paradox!
-At this point the writer vanished in a puff of logic-
Posted by: AlterAlias | Oct 22, 2007 8:16:00 AM
