[MD] Is Quality Different from (Mother) Nature?

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Platt --



> Thanks for the quotes from Dinesh D'Souza, a genius among
> contemporary authors and commentators. I was especially struck
> by his pithy explanation of the difference between Christianity,
> Judaism and Islam.

The author has a fascinating biography.  He was born in India of Christian 
parents, came to the U.S. in 1978 through Rotary International, graduated 
Phi Beta Kappa in English from Dartmouth in 1983, served two years as editor 
for the Heritage Foundation's 'Policy Review', was a policy adviser in the 
Reagan White House, became a Fellow of both the American Enterprise 
Institute and the Hoover Institution, had relationships with Laura Ingraham 
and Ann Coulter before marrying Dixie Brubaker in 1992, and has published 
over a dozen highly readable books.

> At its core, philosophy is about assumptions. And, the philosophy
> that guides science is based, as D'Souza explains, on the
> assumption of an orderly world obeying laws discoverable by
> the human mind. How and why this order and such laws "emerged"
> are questions science is totally incapable of answering.
> Christianity, the MOQ and your Essence (among other doctrines)
> fill in the blanks.

The "assumption" that the universe and cognizant life did not invent 
themselves is a pretty safe bet.
It remains for philosophy, and particularly the branch called metaphysics, 
to come up with a plausible theory of creation.  It is my belief that we are 
not meant to know the precise "nature" of the primary source, as such 
knowledge would destroy our freedom as its autonomous agents.  That said, 
our effort to resolve the mystery is undoubtedly man's greatest challenge.

Thanks, Platt, and enjoy the remainder of your Thanksgiving weekend.

Best regards,
Ham

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

> On 28 Nov 2009 at 1:55, Ham Priday wrote:
>
>> Good evening, Mark --
>>
>> > I would drop the term Quality, except that is what this forum is
>> > about. To get around that I equate such a term to things like
>> > a prime essence. Others call it the Divine, or the Tao. All of it
>> > is trying to put into words and concepts into the presently ineffible.
>> >
>> > As you state, science cannot explain much about sensibility. I
>> > would add, yet. I find that there are many similarities between
>> > science and philosophy. They are both based on logic, cause and
>> > effect or if/then.  They both compile systems of mutually
>> > referencing definitions. The PhD is a doctorate in philosophy,
>> > even though much of it is science. Why do you think that is?
>> > Do you suppose that at its inception both were the same thing?
>>
>> I've been perusing Dinesh D'Souza's "What's so Great about Christianity",
>> which I don't expect will receive much enthusiasm here.  The title, of
>> course, is a direct attack on Dawkins' "God is not Great."  But D'Souza
>> makes a convincing case that Science developed from Christianity.  I'm 
>> not
>> sure I completely buy into this.  But let me quote some of his arguments:
>>
>> "Well, on the Christian side we have Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Brahe,
>> Descartes, Boyle, Newton, Leibniz, Gassendi, Pascal, Mersenne, Cuvier,
>> Harvey, Dalton, Farady, Hershel, Joule, Lyell, Lavoisier, Priestley, 
>> Kelvin,
>> Ohm, Ampere, Steno, Pasteur, Maxwell, Planck, Mendel and Lemaitre. 
>> Einstein
>> too was a believer in God as a kind of supreme mind or spirit discernible
>> through the complex and beautiful laws of nature.  So none of these folks
>> saw theism or Christianity as incompatible with science, as Richard 
>> Dawkins
>> and others would have it.  Dawkins is a decent popularizer of science but
>> compared to Kepler, Newton, and Einstein he is a Lilliputian.  So he 
>> works
>> very hard to make Einstein look like an atheist.  His proof is a complete
>> failure, but give the man credit for effort.  The deeper point to be made
>> here, however, is not merely that leading scientists over the centuries 
>> have
>> been Christian, but that science itself, in its assumption that the 
>> universe
>> is rational and obeys laws discoverable by the human mind, is based on
>> Christian precepts and cannot in fact be done without Christian
>> presuppositions."
>>         -- From an interview with Paul Kengor of FontPageMag.
>>
>> "Before religion as we understand the term, there was animism, which was
>> based on the idea of an enchanted universe.  Every river, every tree, and
>> every stone was thought to be populated by spirits.  The world was
>> mysterious, capricious, unpredictable, and uncontrollable.  Then came
>> various polytheistic religions, like those of the Babylonians, the
>> Egyptians, and the Greeks.  Each of these religions posited divine
>> beings--sometimes immortal, sometimes not--who involved themselves in the
>> daily workings of nature, creating storms and earthquakes, turning human
>> beings into stags, and so on.  Then appeared the great religions of the
>> East, Hinduism and Buddhism, followed by the three monotheistic 
>> religinons,
>> Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
>>
>> "Of these only one--Christianity--was from the beginning based on reason.
>> Judaism and Islam are primarily religions of law; there is a divione
>> lawgiver who issues edicts that are authoritative both for nature and for
>> human beings.  ...Christianity, by contrast, is not a religion of law but 
>> a
>> religion of creed.  Christianity has always been obsessed with doctrine,
>> which is thought to be a set of true beliefs about man's relationship to
>> God.
>>
>> "...My point is that thrology gives evidence of a high order of reason at
>> work, and one cannot, as many atheists do, dismiss these arguments as
>> unreasonable, even if you don't agree with them. Rather, they represent
>> powerful rational claims about the nature of reality.
>>
>> "...So it is with Aquinas and Anselm.  In proving God's existence  they 
>> at
>> no point appeal to supernatural revelation.  Theirs are arguments based 
>> on
>> reason alone. ...My point is that the kind of reasoning about God that we
>> see in Augustine, Aquinas and Anselm is typical of Christianity.  There 
>> is
>> little of this in any other religion.  And out of such reasoning, 
>> remarkably
>> enough, Science was born."  -- [D'Souza: 'What's So Great...', Chpt. 8,
>> Christianity and Reason]
>>
>> No wonder D'Souza's book is a best seller!
>>
>> > I think I get your value sensibility as a means for translating the 
>> > prime
>> > essence into something different. Kind of like a radio translating 
>> > waves
>> > into music. As always, while this can be described objectively, I have
>> > yet to come to something in your explanations which derives the
>> > personal aspect of such sensibility. This of course is an age old
>> > question which perhaps (at this time) still eludes objective 
>> > description.
>> > Perhaps our brains need to grow.
>> >
>> > There is no reason to believe that such knowledge is beyond the
>> > capability of science. It is simply not understood at this time in an
>> > objective way. Say one day we find a transmitter that is beaming
>> > souls to this planet. Anything is possible.
>>
>> On the contrary, I think Science has provided most of our working 
>> knowledge
>> of the world in an objective way.  The problem, however, is that 
>> objective
>> knowledge is empirical (experiential), and therefore cannot transcend
>> existence to posit ultimate reality.  Only Philosophy can do that.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ham.