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Post by hazelireland on Jun 30, 2009 11:31:45 GMT
At least partially relevant, good progress.
No, I did not say anything about occams razor being used to eliminate the plausibility of the supernatural. I am starting to wish I could receive a euro for each time you put words in my mouth. Take your words out of my mouth, I have enough of my own.
No, what I said is that occams razor is not, as people think it is, saying that "the simplest answer is the right one". This is a common error.
What it says is that if you have an explanation for something that works, one need not add on extra assumptions or entities to that explanation. I said no more and no less than this.
An example is morality. People claim you need a god for morality, but there are several workable systems that go without this assumption. Another example is Laplace, when asked why there was no god in his Solar System model he replied that he had found no need for that assumption.
So no, I never said occams razor erodes the plausibility of the supernatural. Try again.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 6, 2009 11:23:32 GMT
Indeed alaisdir, and there is a reason why there is "somehow" a link between science, philosophy and religion. Science seeks to explain the natural world and philosophy to explain the workings of our mind within it. Religion was both of these things too. That is a good definition of science, a narrow definition of philosophy and no definition of religion at all. At least not of anything I recognise as Judaeo-Christianity outside a couple of mad-cap cults, some of which trade under the name 'Catholic' (the latter usually regard people like MichaelG, Hibernicus and me as sell-outs to modernism). It is not science at all, outside those who claim it is, and how a philosophy fails is open to discussion. Many secularist philosophies have already failed. You may imagine that there is a 'default' philosophy, but we are still far away from the last word being said on that topic. This is based only on how you interpret the conversation between science and religion. To see how scientists may happily embrace religion, one need look no further than Professor William Reville in the Irish Times. I have known a number of scientists who have also been ministers of religion - I recall that the late Father Michael Casey, a Dominican, was professor of Chemistry in Maynooth for many years and continued to work as a research chemist in retirement, up until his death in the mid 90s, when he himself was in his 90s. Father Casey wasn't unique, but in regard to this discussion, he has some relevance as he questioned the methodology used in the attempt to carbon date the Shroud of Turin, which is one of those 'truth or superstition' questions. Don't regard the priest-scientist as a dead issue either - one of Richard Dawkins' most vocal critics is an Anglican Theologian Rev Alastair McGrath who has a doctorate in bio-chemistry as well as in theology. But few believers see the engagement between science and religion as a competition. It all depends on what your requirements are. This was only the reaction of a working astronomer to a cynical question by Napoleon. Observation of the skies or for that matter of the pecking preferences on domestic chicks normally doesn't involve meditations on a Supreme Being. The notion is more complex than that. Have you read Benedict XVI's controversial speech in Regensburg, which largely addressed this topic? First of all, life is more complex than a computer programme and there is no place for default mechanisms. Are you going to try to argue science is adequate to address moral questions? It is certainly true that many religious responses to grave moral problems are inadequate - and there is a whole thread here devoted to the inadequate reaction to one such problem by Catholic churchmen who ought to have known better. But then if you examine some of the experiences of attempts to create systems of rules arbitrarily, without reference to cultural norms which have grown up over decades or centuries, you will find that they tend to fail miserably. I am not saying that all these attempts are purely secular; many are religious and on foot of some new religious message or inspiration or God knows what. This brings me back to another reason why science is important to Christianity, as it has been since the time of the Apostles (not Darwin, nor the Enlightenment, but since the earliest days of the Church). There is a perception of a law in nature, not just in how the natural world works, but in how cultures, peoples and societies function and that there is a natural law and morality implicit in the cosmos aside from Divine revelation. Discussion and interpretation of this natural law is well outside the realm of the physical sciences, but are the place of social scientists (who don't have the luxury of having laboratories, though some behave as if it is ethical to experiment on living people), philosophers and students of jurisprudence. This discourse follows from physical science to some degree. Maybe it can be carried out without reference to religion - there are strong secular schools of natural law. The question is whether it is desirable to do so. In Social Policy - can you ignore the beliefs, practices, even prejudices and eccentricities of even a huge chunk of the people? This of course is well off the topic here, but it is where rigid science v religion arguments may lead, if the boundaries of science are not nailed down to begin with. What this thread seeks to address is phenomena like miracles, real or perceived, apparitions, manifestations not easily explained by science like the Shroud of Turin (even if a forgery, it leaves more questions than answers) or the blood of St Januarius in Naples, alleged possessions of people and places. Even if we didn't bring science into this, there would be no open and closed discussion about any of that. I don't personally discount the mystical side of religion, but I am no great fan of it either and my 'default' position is to disbelieve any of this until I am given really compelling reasons to believe. But I am not setting the agenda for the debate here - just trying to guide along certain lines.
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Post by hazelireland on Jul 6, 2009 14:49:51 GMT
alaisdir6 - I am well aware of Scientists embracing religion. I never suggested otherwise. I think you need to read what I said again. A steady erosion I called it, not a total preclusion of one by the other. You reply therefore sounds to me similar to saying "Environmental erosion of the land is disproved because look.... we still have land!!". I hope that analogy highlights what I mean.
I repeat my dialectical point again. There is no area of inquiry where once our best explanation was scientific for which our best explanation is now religious. The opposite however is true to say there are many areas where religion was our best answer and now science is. This is what I mean by religion being a failed science. It, like science, sought to find an explanation and it failed to do so in the end. It was our species first attempt to look at the world and explain where it comes from and how and why it works.
So no, trotting out examples of scientists who are religious, or even in fact priests, is of no consequence to the point I am actually making. Even if every scientist alive got ordained into the Catholic faith tomorrow this fact is still nothing to do with what I am actually trying to get accross here.
Nor it may be added did I even suggest Science can at this time answer moral questions. You seem to be attacking positions I never espoused now. No, I merely said that we are perfectly capable of doing so WITHOUT religion. There is nothing to say we need religion to do any of that. Nor, I might add, have you offered any reason to think we do require it.
I also see no reason to think there is a natural morality implicit in the universe. I understand very well how you might get this impression, but there is no reason being offered here to think it is so. Maybe you are aware of one that I am not??
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 29, 2009 11:00:49 GMT
A nice tribute to Fr. Stanley Jaki on the PERTINACIOUS PAPIST blogspot, reproduced from NEW OXFORD REVIEW. Discussion of his views on miracles posted below. I met Fr. Jaki once when he gave a lecture in Belfast and have read several of his books. Clearly he had a very powerful mind. Two caveats: as a speaker he tended to take too much for granted and not make enough allowances for his audience. (The lecture I attended was on the history of the exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis, and in referring to the views of the theologians he discussed he inadvertently gave the impression that he shared their view in the Mosaic authorship of Genesis 1; his book on the subject makes it clear he didn't.) Second, his awareness of the ways in which much history of science is shaped by aggressive materialist bias and the ways in which continental Catholicism has been repressed by organised anti-clericalism (he was of course a refugee from communism) led him to give somewhat more respect than they deserve to some of the dodgier spokesmen for the French Right - not that he shared their nastier aspects but that he overlooked these. pblosser.blogspot.com/2009/09/only-one-choice-to-fight.htmlEXTRACT Fr. Jaki speaks of Christ as the "greatest fact of history" and laments bitterly that some recent Catholic scholars write as if the narratives of His Nativity and Resurrection had "no strikingly factual character to them," though many with "at least the same intellectual credentials as the best of them" laid down their lives for the truth of those supposedly "mythical" events. Father demands to know "what remains of the Christian faith if it is no longer anchored in reverence for facts as demanded by Christ?" He grieves over "Aquikantian" theologians who fuse Aquinas and Kant, as well as over fog-making theologians like those called the "Concilium," who have a "bewitching influence" on teachers in seminaries. He finds an "almost farcical aspect" to the "tragic necessity" of the publication of a document such as Dominus Iesus, which "casts a dark light on what Vatican II unwittingly brought about." What would one think if the Royal Society were to issue a warning "that the multiplication table remains valid in spite of all advances in topology, non-linear equations, and chaos theories?" In several of his last books, Fr. Jaki defends the objective reality of miracles both from a philosophical and theological viewpoint. He does this in Miracles & Physics and in his Introduction to the 1994 edition of The Voyage to Lourdes, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Alexis Carrel's account of a miraculous cure he witnessed at Lourdes in 1902 of a woman dying of tubercular peritonitis. In addition, Fr. Jaki presents Newman as an "advocate of the reality of miracles," because the "reality of a supernatural dispensation" must result in "ever fresh" miracles throughout history. Doubtless, however, his most important book in defense of miracles is God and the Sun at Fatima. In this work, Fr. Jaki collects all the eyewitness accounts that survive and shows that what happened on October 13, 1917, was an "essentially meteorological phenomenon, though still markedly miraculous." When the sun appeared through thin clouds and turned into a wheel of fire, the physical core of the phenomenon was, he conjectures, an air lens full of ice crystals refracting the sun's rays into various colors as the wheel descended and re-ascended along an elliptical path with small circles imposed on it. This is not to discount the miracle -- far from it. God often employs natural material when performing a miracle, greatly enhancing "its physical components and their interactions." This phenomenon was not observed in Fatima before or after. And besides, the miracle (which had been predicted by the child seers) re-energized the Portuguese Catholics and rescued their country from communism. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 17, 2009 18:47:16 GMT
This is as good a place as any to note a distressing experience I had recently. I was in a group of people discussing Marian apparitions when an Englishman who described himself as a Fatima devotee, making fun of the theory of evolution, claimed Barack Obama was the missing link. From a misplaced sense of politeness and a desire not to plunge the group into a row I didn't say what I thought of this abominable remark at the time, but I will say it now - this abominable display of contempt for fellow-human being who happen to be black is a disgrace, I am quite sure that (to quote another strand in this forum) it makes Our Lady very angry to see a pretended Marian devotee say such filth, and if Barack Obama were the brightest angel that fell from Heaven he ought to be judged on his actions, not his origins.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 19, 2010 12:05:27 GMT
Today's gospel is a warning against running after miraculous signs and neglecting the central revelation; bear in mind that Jesus is on our altars today as He was in Galilee then, so this applies to our generation as well as to theirs. The next verses [not reproduced here] about the evil spirit driven out who returns with seven worse than himself raises sad thoughts of contemporary Ireland.
Matthew 12: 39-42 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 19, 2010 13:15:36 GMT
In spite of the warning in today's Gospel I will definitely be tuning in to watch the RTE documentary on the self proclaimed mystic Joe Coleman tonight with an open mind. I would hazard a guess that Joe takes his faith a lot more seriously than his better educated detractors, anyway all will be revealed later tonight.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Aug 16, 2010 13:21:31 GMT
Seems to me this thread did not go in the direction originally intended.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 19, 2010 10:35:56 GMT
No, it got side-tracked.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 29, 2010 11:58:31 GMT
The argument I am currently having with Secusia on the Fatima thread might perhaps be better placed here. Essentially secusia thinks we should give more publicity to present-day ecclesiastical miracles as a means of promoting the faith, whereas I argue that they are ancillary to the faith and we should in general (not necessarily always - it depends on circumstances) follow the "discipline of the secret" in relation ot them - that is, we should be aware that people who are not acclimatised to the overall worldview of the Faith may be scandalised by them and see the, as examples of credulity. (The eighteenth and nineteenth-century debate over ecclesiastical miracles between Catholics and protestants is not an exact parallel since the Protestants acknowledged miracles as a theoretical possibility but claimed they had ceased with the apostolic age.)
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 7, 2010 11:22:31 GMT
I have been reading St. Paul's first letter to Timothy here, and this passage is very applicable to those excessively anxious for signs and wonders. (The Navarre Commentary says it may refer to Gnostics or to those who circulated the apocryphal stories about the Biblical patriarchs known as midrash. I know of people whose faith has been shaken or overthrown when they learned about the midrash genre, because they wonder how we can know that the Old testament texts are not from the same genre. The same IMHO applies to over-credulous circulation of apocryphal stories from saints' lives - authenticatedmiracles are another matter.)
3As I urged you upon my departure for (K)Macedonia, remain on at (L)Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to (M)teach strange doctrines,
4nor to pay attention to (N)myths and endless (O)genealogies, which give rise to mere (P)speculation rather than (Q)furthering the administration of God which is by faith.
5But the goal of our (R)instruction is love (S)from a pure heart and a (T)good conscience and a sincere (U)faith.
6For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to (V)fruitless discussion,
7(W)wanting to be (X)teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 24, 2011 12:54:37 GMT
Here (via Mark Shea) is a Catholic News story about the process of investigating alleged Marian apparitions. The comparison of Laus and Medugorje strikes me as a bit odd - my understanding is tha though the Laus apparitions went on for over 50 years they took place at intervals of several years - not on a regular weekly basis as at Medjugorje! www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100252.htm
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 18, 2011 21:00:28 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 21, 2012 19:00:46 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on May 10, 2012 12:40:50 GMT
Mark Shea records that after a Catholic blogger spoofed the habit of certain historically-Catholic US colleges inviting pro-abortion and otherwise undesirable public figures by producing an imaginary description of such a college issuing an invitation to Satan, the apparitionist Spiritdaily website reported on it as if it was a genuine news story. Some people have no sense of humour, or discernment. (And somebody should warn the CATHOLIC VOICE before they reprint the story.) www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2012/05/spirit-dailys-credulity.html#commentsHere is the original spoof. Any resemblance to Jo O'Sullivan's claim on the ACP site (see the ACP thread) that it is wrong to kick manifest heretics out of the Church because "Catholic" means "universal" is entirely coincidental but very revealing: catholicphoenix.com/2012/05/05/jesuit-university-invites-satan-to-give-commencement-speech/EXTRACT In a move already denounced by Catholic bishops & other leading religious conservatives, St. Sincerus University, the nation’s 84th largest Catholic university, has invited Satan to deliver its commencement speech later this month. Also known as the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, &, more popularly, the Devil, Satan is a divisive figure among Catholics & other Christians. Several Catholic universities have upset religious conservatives in recent years by inviting controversial figures to deliver commencement speeches, as when the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s largest Catholic University, invited President Barack Obama, who supports a woman’s right to abortion, in 2009. The invitation to Satan by SSU president Fr. Thad Despereaux comes at a time when many Catholics are highly critical of the Obama administration’s attempts to reform health care, which some claim would force Catholic institutions to violate their Church’s teachings by providing contraceptives as part of their health insurance plans. Fr. Despereaux, in comments made to the Daily Sham, SSU’s student newspaper, said that having Satan on campus gives bold witness to a central Catholic principle that God can be found in all things. “The continuing politicization of the faith indicates just how important it is for us to build bridges,” Fr. Despereaux said. “Our whole mission as a university is to bring people together. Satan is badly misunderstood by many people, & we hope to show our graduates that stereotypes, & the hatred they engender, have no place on a Catholic campus. As Catholics we are to hate hate.” On-campus reactions at SSU have been favorable, as faculty & students alike have applauded the university’s open-mindedness in issuing the invitation. Dr. Sophia Greengrass, Director of the university’s Wiccan Institute, called the invitation a brave attempt to promote the university’s academic integrity in the face of “fascist attempts by the male hierarchy to impose its limited & limiting dogmas,” while Declan Spencer, a Religious Studies major studying the mythical underpinnings of religious language, said he hoped to meet Satan & thank him for his contributions to world culture. Some faculty, however, have questioned the wisdom of the invitation. “Satan doesn’t actually exist,” said Fr. Eddie Cheever, Professor of Early Christian Literature, “so it will be interesting to hear what he says. Or doesn’t say.” And Professor David Evans, known for his support of traditional Church teachings, said the invitation further reflects the administration’s attempts to distance itself from the Church. “It does make sense, given the administration’s recent policies,” he said, noting Fr. Despereaux’s endorsement of Phallic Fridays, in which students erect large phallic sculptures around the SSU chapel, cover them with latex, & ironically sing hymns to the fertility god Priapus, as well as the popular Religion-less Lent, instituted last year, in which Catholic students were urged to give up prayer & mass attendance during Lent. As of this afternoon, Satan has not publicly responded to the invitation, though Prof. Evans suggested that since he is already quite at home at SSU, there is little doubt that he will accept. END Please don't tell the ACP, as I'm sure they are looking for speakers for their next conference. I can see the sympathetic interview with Patsy McGarry in the IRISH TIMES already...
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