Big Think

Roger Hunt commented on Re: Re: Is there a possibility of a creator? on February 3, 2008, 1:00 PM

I have a desire to believe in God. I really want to. How can so many people in the world believe it to be true? And yet, there is not one good argument to believe in God. In response to atheists, religious believers take one of two routes: (1) belief is relative (you believe what you want to believe, or what you think is true) (2) they respond with obscurantist jibberish.(1) Religion does not support relativism concerning ultimate reality. Either you believe in a God, whatever the conditions of that reality, or you do not. Religion may be relativistic about jurisprudence (Jesus reflects this position) but it is not about absolute reality. So to argue against the atheist, that everyone must decide for themselves is internally inconsistent.(2) The other response to atheists takes the form of obscurantism. "Right now in this dispensation only His essence we see." Of course, I can look in the dictionary for a definition of these words, and maybe I can build some bridge of meaning between them. Heck, I might even agree with the statement. However, the language is so obscure and requires so much interpretation, that it loses its content. Therefore, it is not a response guided by argument or explanation, but an calculated message with intention of confusing the reader into believing there is something so complex, deep, and elegant that it must be true. This method (perfected by Hegel) carries with it intellectual dishonesty and is probably the result of the ulterior motives of its writer. If you intend to have a discussion, please address the arguments with a clear and precise response, rather than a miscellaneous diatribe. "We do not simply exist to exist. There is a God, a Grand Designer, a Supreme Being."How does this follow?

Roger Hunt commented on What is the role of Philosophy in the 21st Century? on January 31, 2008, 9:59 AM

Some interesting thoughts. The basic responses seem to be (1)'philosophy is useless' (2)'philosophy is an entertaining past time' (3)'Philosophy has run its course' and (4)'we still need philosophy'.First off, the Philosophy Department at Universities are virtually non-existent. Oxford incorporated its philosophy department into it Political department, most phil depts are part of history or religion departments; U Canterbury is subsuming philosophy under the politics and communication department. Whatever benefits we may find in philosophy, universities are losing that vision, and perhaps rightly so. General philosophical problems can be talked about in terms of other disciplines. Consciousness - neuroscience and cognitive science (though there is probably sufficient disagreement that philosophers could have something interesting to say); God - well theology is not a field anymore as post modernism and literary theory is making the only interesting theoretical contributions; free will - a subject of evolutionary psychology; aesthetics and ethics - evolutionary psychology is taking over; language, though that is a quasi-philosophical problem as direct study of it as a phenomenon rather than an instrument is recent and is studied in linguistic and psychology departments. Cosmology (the origin of the universe and the character of reality) - philosophy has developed a system for dealing with this: physics. Theoretical physics is philosophy , and just like philosophy there are two basic camps, rationalists (mathematical physics) and empiricists (astronomy). Just as Kant blended Descartes and Lockes so too is mathematical physics and astronomy blended today. History of philosophical thought is all that is left. This does not mean the history of philosophy, historians are trained to handle that field. History of philosophical thought gives students the ability to understand the ideas of the ancient and recent philosophers in terms of their arguments and disputes as genuine, rather than a product of their time when other methods of investigation were unknown. For example, understanding Locke's criticism of Descartes as a genuine argument, rather than simply being able to identify the general dispute and arguments. Hmm...ok. What I mean is this: being able to imagine oneself into the position of Locke desperately trying to understand Descartes, failing, then coming to the conclusion that Descartes is wrong and subsequently taking a new approach to the same basic problems. Philosophy may become a discipline of imaginative reconstruction, rather than a discipline of theorizing for the sake of answering questions. Along with this skill, philosophy becomes the area in a University where the most general (though in depth) practice of studying ideas takes place. So, in biology you may study a little Darwin, but you basically focus on training yourself to take cultures and reconstruct DNA strands. Part of your education as a biologist is to goto the philosophy department and learn the foundations of your field. Only someone trained in philosophy - someone who has imagined herself into Darwin's situation - will be able to give the biology student an education which will benefit him as a biologist. Philosophy becomes the preservation of human thinking, rather than a commenter on or forger of new fields. Therefore, philosophers still require training in philosophy; furthermore philosophy departments need to exist and be filled with trained philosophers.