DOCSLIB.ORG

After Darwin and Einstein: Is Belief in a Personal God Still Possible?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
After Darwin and Einstein: Is Belief in a Personal God Still Possible? The Fordham Center On Religion and Culture www.fordham.edu/ReligCulture 1 After Darwin and Einstein: Is Belief in a Personal God Still Possible? Fordham Center on Religion and Culture Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus 113 West 60th Street, New York, New York Tuesday, November 6, 2007 6-8 pm Moderator PETER STEINFELS Co-director, Fordham Center on Religion and Culture Presenter JOHN H AUGHT Georgetown University, Author of God After Darwin Speakers B RIAN DAVIES Fordham University, Author of The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil JOHN H ORGAN Stevens Institute of Technology Author of Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border between Science and Spirituality PETER STEINFELS: Welcome to this evening’s Headline Forum, “After Darwin and Einstein: Is Belief in a Personal God Still Possible?” I am Peter Steinfels, Co-Director, with Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, which is the sponsor of tonight’s forum. There is a lot more information about the center and its activities, some of it available in flyers on the table near where you entered the auditorium, and, of course, on our Web site, which is www.fordham.edu/religculture. As always, we urge you to sign up for our email and snail-mail lists, so you can receive announcements of our events and activities. We are extremely pleased, as in the past, to see so many of you here for a Center event. The topic, of course, is a compelling one: the challenge that the view of the cosmos emerging from natural science poses to longstanding understandings of God. It is a profound challenge that our culture has perhaps intuited, but simultaneously skirted as it has become The Fordham Center On Religion and Culture www.fordham.edu/ReligCulture 2 bogged down in First Amendment court battles about creationism and intelligent design. Before moving directly to the introductions of this evening’s speakers, I want to mention a few things. First, I think all of us would like this auditorium to be a cell phone-free zone for the duration of the program. So please check your phones and related devices to make sure that they are turned off. I was recently at a lecture, in the middle of which a cell phone went off and the speaker had the wit to say, “If that is Judith Giuliani, please tell her I’ll call back later.” [Laughter] Second, the final portion of this evening’s program will be devoted to questions from the audience. We will follow our usual procedure. I think index cards and pencils were placed on the chairs where you are sitting. Please write your questions out and then raise your hand with the index card, so that our stalwart student assistants can gather them and bring them forward. Feel free to write out your questions and pass them at any point in the evening’s presentations and discussion. Please make your questions as brief and to-the-point as possible. And we don’t discourage legibility in any way. We are delighted this evening to have as the main speaker John F. Haught, who would be found on any list of leading thinkers exploring the relationship between science and contemporary religion. Dr. Haught is Senior Fellow in Science and Religion at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. He was Chair and Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown from 1970 to 2005. A specialist in systematic theology, he has a particular interest in science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion. He is the author of many books and articles, both scholarly and popular. Some of these, like Is Nature Enough?: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science, the book Deeper than Darwin, another book, God After Darwin, another, 101 Questions on God and Evolution are on sale outside the auditorium. His most recent book is Christianity and Science, and his next one, to be published next year, is God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Following Dr. Haught’s presentation, there will be short responses from John Horgan and Brian Davies. Brian Davies is a Professor of Philosophy here at Fordham and the author of numerous books on the philosophy of religion and the thought of Thomas Aquinas. His most recent one is The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil. He has been the editor of at least fifty books, some on The Fordham Center On Religion and Culture www.fordham.edu/ReligCulture 3 philosophy and Thomism, many in a series on outstanding Christian thinkers, others in another series on great medieval thinkers, and also that includes four volumes of posthumously collected essays by the outstanding theologian and fellow Dominican, Herbert McCabe. Father Davies’ chapters in various books and scholarly articles, his newspaper columns and book reviews number by my count well over 100. They may even reach 200, but I suspect that he has lost count. John Horgan is a science writer and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. A former staff member at Scientific American, he has written for The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, New Scientist, and many other publications — work that has garnered him repeated awards. He is the author of Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border between Science and Spirituality. Before that, he stirred much discussion with a book, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Science in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. Not surprisingly, he has spoken and debated with prominent scientists and writers at MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Dartmouth, McGill, the University of Amsterdam, and dozens of other institutions. With a local clergyman and friend, the Reverend Frank Geer, he also wrote a brief, powerful reflection, Where Was God on September 11?, which I happen to have written about in The New York Times. Each of these interlocutors will make a ten-minute or less response to Professor Haught, and then all three will engage in conversation about tonight’s topic. Please now welcome Professor John Haught. JOHN HAUGHT: Thank you, Peter, for that very generous introduction. Once again I want to thank you and Peggy Steinfels for the wonderful work you are doing. I want to congratulate Fordham University for establishing this terrific Center on Religion and Culture. It is indeed quite an honor to be here with you. I thank all of you for being here as well. Peter introduced me as a theologian. Some of you might be wondering, what is a theologian? My definition of a theologian is someone who doesn’t make much money, but at least he knows why. [Laughter] I should also add that for many, many years, I tried instead to become a philosopher. But cheerfulness kept breaking in. [Laughter] So I had to become a theologian. You know, theologians can get by with things that philosophers cannot. [Slide] Of course, after Darwin and Einstein, certainly it’s possible to believe in a personal God. But is it possible to do so honestly, with intellectual integrity, in an age of science? The Fordham Center On Religion and Culture www.fordham.edu/ReligCulture 4 [Slide] Einstein thinks not. Albert Einstein maintains that the main source of the present-day conflicts between religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God. Why? Because the existence of a personal God would interrupt the closed, impersonal continuum of physical causes and effects that constitutes nature, in Einstein’s picture of things. Einstein thinks of nature as deterministic, as not able to be interrupted by anything nonphysical. The laws of science apply absolutely in this realm. [Slide] So if there were a personal God, this would be a responsive God, a God who can answer prayers. This would be a God who would violate the laws of nature. Any sort of divine action would have the effect of interrupting the closed causal continuum that we refer to as “nature.” So I suppose that prayer is not possible in an Einsteinian universe. I think that Einstein would probably agree with Ambrose Bierce’s definition of prayer, namely, “To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.” [Laughter] [Slide] This is as close as I could come to finding Einstein in a posture of prayer. As I just said, Einstein has no room for prayer in his vision of things, and he thinks that the key, then, to resolving the conflict of science and religion is for us to abandon the idea of a personal God. He would say this to me, as a religious teacher, a theologian: “In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of personal God.” [Slide] Einstein’s thought here is representative of a wider worldview that is sometimes known as “scientific naturalism.” Scientific naturalism is the belief that nature is all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be, to use the words of Carl Sagan, the first words in his TV series, Cosmos. Scientific naturalism maintains that the scientific method is the only reliable road to a right understanding of nature and that materialism, the belief that everything is ultimately physical, is the most intelligible worldview. Therefore, there can be no life after death, since there is no spiritual principle in humans, no soul, no possibility of immortality, and that the idea of a personal God, it follows, is also an illusory projection of wishful thinking onto the universe.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Findlay's Rational Mysticism: an Introduction. by Sanford L. Drob
    Findlay's Rational Mysticism: An Introduction. By Sanford L. Drob J.N. Findlay is primarily known for his groundbreaking work on Hegel ( Hegel: A Re- examination , 1958), as the translator of Husserl’s Logical Investigations , for his essays on the puzzles engendered by time, and for his early efforts (later repudiated) to disprove the existence of God. He is also the author of a series of original works on major figures in the history of philosophy, including Meinong, Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein. It is, however, Findlay’s original philosophical writings that may well prove to be his greatest philosophical legacy. Findlay presented his modern version of Neoplatonism, his unique understanding of the objects of religious experience and the Absolute, his axiological ethics, and phenomenology of the “value firmament” in four works, all published between 1961 and 1970: Values and Intentions (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961); The Discipline of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); The Transcendence of the Cave (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966); and Ascent to the Absolute . (London: George Allen & Unwin 1970). It is most unfortunate that each of these volumes are currently out of print. They are, apart from their philosophical value great poetic works that embody the striving of the human spirit towards, and even beyond, its highest possibilities and ideals. In this brief, essay I can only touch upon a small segment of Findlay’s thought, his philosophical theology, which reaches its zenith in The Transcendence of the Cave, and which can perhaps best be summarized with one of his own his terms, “rational mysticism”.
    [Show full text]
  • Ken Wilber As a Spiritual Innovator. Studies in Integral Theory
    ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS UNIVERSITATIS ANNALES B 526 JP Jakonen KEN WILBER AS A SPIRITUAL INNOVATOR Studies in Integral Theory JP Jakonen Painosalama Oy, Turku, Finland 2020 Finland Turku, Oy, Painosalama ISBN 978-951-29-8251-6 (PRINT) – ISBN 978-951-29-8252-3 (PDF) TURUN YLIOPISTON JULKAISUJA ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS ISSN 0082-6987(Print) SARJA – SER. B OSA – TOM. 526 | HUMANIORA | TURKU 2020 ISSN 2343-3191 (Online) KEN WILBER AS A SPIRITUAL INNOVATOR Studies in Integral Theory JP Jakonen TURUN YLIOPISTON JULKAISUJA – ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS SARJA – SER. B OSA – TOM. 526 | HUMANIORA | TURKU 2020 University of Turku Faculty of Humanities School of History, Culture and Arts Studies Department of Study of Religion Doctoral Programme in History, Culture and Arts Studies (Juno) Supervised by Senior Lecturer Matti Kamppinen Adjunct Professor Ruth Illman University of Turku Åbo Akademi Reviewed by Professor Esa Saarinen University Lecturer Teuvo Laitila Aalto University University of Eastern Finland Opponent Professor Esa Saarinen Aalto University The originality of this publication has been checked in accordance with the University of Turku quality assurance system using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. Cover photo and carving © Corey deVos Copyright © JP Jakonen, University of Turku ISBN 978-951-29-8251-6 (PRINT) ISBN 978-951-29-8252-3 (PDF) ISSN 0082-6987(Print) ISSN 2343-3191 (Online) Painosalama Oy, Turku, Finland 2020 UNIVERSITY OF TURKU Faculty of Humanities School of History, Culture and Arts Studies Department of Study of Religion JP JAKONEN: Ken Wilber as a spiritual innovator. Studies in Integral Theory. Doctoral Dissertation, 173 pp. Doctoral Programme in History, Culture and Arts Studies (Juno) December 2020 ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the American philosopher Ken Wilber (1949–) through the lens of spiritual innovatorship.
    [Show full text]
  • Intellectual Elitism and the Need for Faith in Maimonides and Aquinas
    INTELLECTUAL ELITISM AND THE NEED FOR FAITH Intellectual elitism and the need for faith in Maimonides and Aquinas Elitismo intelectual y la necesidad de la fe según Maimónides y Tomás de Aquino FRANCISCO ROMERO CARRASQUILLO Departamento de Humanidades Universidad Panamericana 45010 Zapopan, Jalisco (México) [email protected] Abstract: In his Commentary on Boethius’ De Resumen: En su Comentario al De Trinitate de Trinitate 3.1, Aquinas cites Maimonides as Boecio 3.1, Tomás de Aquino cita a Maimóni- giving fi ve reasons for the need for faith. Yet des, de quien afi rma que presenta cinco ra- interpreters tend to see Aquinas as “stand- zones a favor de la necesidad de la fe. Los in- ing Maimonides on his head”. In this paper, térpretes suelen ver a Tomás de Aquino como the author places Maimonides’ text (on the si “hubiera puesto a Maimónides de cabeza”. five reasons for concealing metaphysics) En el presente artículo se retoma el texto de within the context of his rational mysticism Maimónides (acerca de las cinco razones por and compares it to Aquinas’ own Christian las que la metafísica debe reservarse a los mystical thought in an attempt to show that doctos y ocultarse a las masas), y se sitúa en el in his own mind Aquinas is not misquoting, contexto de su misticismo racional. Compa- reversing, or doing violence to Maimonides’ rándolo con el pensamiento místico cristiano text; rather, Aquinas is completing Maimon- de Tomás de Aquino, se muestra cómo éste ides’ natural, rational mysticism with what he no está citando erróneamente, ni invirtiendo understands to be the supernatural perfec- ni violentando el texto de Maimónides; más tion of the theological virtue of faith.
    [Show full text]
  • Mystical Experiences, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Real…
    MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES, NEUROSCIENCE, AND THE NATURE OF REALITY Jonathan Scott Miller A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2007 Committee: Marvin Belzer, Advisor Kenneth I. Pargament Graduate Faculty Representative Michael Bradie Sara Worley ii © 2007 Jonathan Miller All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Marvin Belzer, Advisor Research by neuroscientists has begun to clarify some of the types of brain activity associated with mystical experiences. Neuroscientists disagree about the implications of their research for mystics’ beliefs about the nature of reality, however. Persinger, Alper, and other scientific materialists believe that their research effectively disproves mystics’ interpretations of their experiences, while Newberg, Hood, and others believe that scientific models of mystical experiences leave room for God or some other transcendent reality. I argue that Persinger and Alper are correct in dismissing mystics’ interpretations of their experiences, but that they are incorrect in asserting mystical experiences are pathological or otherwise undesirable. iv To Betty, who knows from experience. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks are due to all the members of my committee, for their extreme patience, both when I was floundering about in search of a topic, and when my work had slowed to a trickle after an unexpected and prolonged illness. I feel especially fortunate at having been able to assemble a committee in which each of the members was truly indispensable. Thanks to Ken Pargament for his world-class expertise in the psychology of religion, to Mike Bradie and Sara Worley for their help with countless philosophical and stylistic issues, and to Marv Belzer, for inspiring the project in the first place, and for guiding me through the intellectual wilderness which I had recklessly entered! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I.
    [Show full text]
  • Tirosh-Samuelson on Bakan and Merkur and Weiss, 'Maimonides' Cure of Souls: Medieval Precursor of Psychoanalysis'
    H-Judaic Tirosh-Samuelson on Bakan and Merkur and Weiss, 'Maimonides' Cure of Souls: Medieval Precursor of Psychoanalysis' Review published on Thursday, April 21, 2011 David Bakan, Daniel Merkur, David S. Weiss. Maimonides' Cure of Souls: Medieval Precursor of Psychoanalysis. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. xviii + 183 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4384-2745-4. Reviewed by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Arizona State University) Published on H-Judaic (April, 2011) Commissioned by Jason Kalman Maimonides: A Precursor of Freud? This book is a genuine collaborative effort of three people, although their authorship differs. Mainly this book was authored by the late David Bakan, an influential psychoanalyst and student of psychology and religion, who devoted over two decades to the study of Maimonides’Guide of the Perplexed and Eight Chapters with his chavruta partner, David S. Weiss, a rabbi-psychologist in Toronto. In 2000 Bakan asked Daniel Merkur--a psychoanalyst in private practice who authored several books on comparative religion--to assemble his notes about Maimonides into a book manuscript. After the initial draft was prepared, Bakan asked Merkur to become his coauthor. In 2004 Bakan passed away and Merkur prepared a second draft of the book on the basis of notes and comments that have accumulated since the first draft was made. The second draft was read by Rabbi Weiss who offered many suggestions and also composed a few original passages that included views that Bakan had expressed to him orally during their meetings over the years. The design of the book, the editing, and the final formulation of the arguments are all done by Merkur but the approach to Maimonides is Bakan’s.
    [Show full text]
  • Kabbalah and Postmodernism
    Christianxiety Winter 2011 Issue #1 I n t h i s i s s u e Kabbalah and Psychotherapy Lithuanian Synagogues Poetic Ethics Table of Contents I. Poetic Becomings: A Sensing of the Good by Dr. Michael Anker II. Dr. Sanford Drob on Kabbalah, Psychotherapy, and Postmodern Philosophy III. Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania by Joyce Ellen Weinsten IV. Poetry by George J. Farrah http://christianxiety.wordpress.com Christianxiety Advisory Board: Dr. J Thomas Howe Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson Editor­in­Chief/Graphic Design: Michael Sapiro Letter from the Editor We live in strange times. Never before has intellectual life been so radically divorced from religious life. Up until only a few hundred years ago, the deep thinkers, even the radical thinkers, were religious thinkers. Yet, they were religious in a strange way. Often they were dubbed atheists, though they were not the kind of atheist we know today. Sometimes they were simply called mystics. They were theologians and philosophers. Regardless of labels, they were thinkers who radically challenged common notions of god. These thinkers had an overabundant passion for life. They had an anxiety for something that could not be contained within social constructs. They had zeal for the unknowable, and in that zeal there was a very fine line between atheist and mystic. Our current forms of religious engagement are historically entirely novel. Fundamentalism ( whether religious or atheistic) has soured our thought life. Never before have we related to his world so literally. The overwhelming mystery beckoning us beyond our surroundings, whether observed in nature or practiced in religious ritual, goes unrecognized.
    [Show full text]
  • Theistic Panpsychic Naturalized Epistemology: the Scientific Philosophy of Africanity and Einsteinism
    Philosophical Papers and Reviews Vol. 1 (3), pp. 034-043 September, 2009 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/ppr © 2009 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Theistic panpsychic naturalized epistemology: the scientific philosophy of Africanity and einsteinism Maduabuchi Dukor Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected]. Accepted 14 July, 2009 The objective of this those is to postulate Theistic panpsychism as a version of naturalized epistemology it is a cognitive science of essences, substances and modes of physical world (phenomenon) and the a priori world (nuomena). The traditional epistemology is that with experiences in the form of impressions or sense data, we justify our claims to know objects such tables, or molecules etc. Theistic Panpsychic naturalized epistemology is concerned with external physical and metaphysical worlds of objective and subjective realities. Consistent with modernity and post- modernity, it is neither against the canon of reason nor intuition, nor experience but asserts that there are truths of non-empirical modalities. As an objective idealist, realist and panpsychist, the African Bantu sees God in every being and object manifesting as gods, spirits and forces. These forces, he understands and grapples with designators and predicates in explaining nature and medical and scientific puzzles. Similarly, considering the theory of relativity from epistemological standpoint, this paper establishes that Albert Einstein grappled with theistic panpsychism, and then to special theory of relativity and finally general theory of relativity. He explained the randomness and uncertainty of nature with notion of God and forces thereby confirming his theistic panpsychic disposition before his great scientific discovery’s namely E= mc2.
    [Show full text]
  • 42551305.Pdf
    A THEOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF INWARDNESS IN THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OF BRITISH QUAKERS By CAROLE ANNE HAMBY A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theology and Religion College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham October, 2015 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis examines Inwardness in the faith and practice of British Quakers. Inwardness is identified within the spiritual and mystical component of individual Friends’ experiences and discussed in terms of personal experiential knowing. Both academic and devotional discourses are used to clarify what is meant by ‘spiritual consciousness’, framed both within corporate, albeit mainly tacit, formulations of Inwardness, and expressed by leading exponents of Quakerism, at two different stages of the history of the Religious Society of Friends. The thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship in three ways: it identifies a distinct view of Quaker Inwardness in terms of process and state; it provides a new model of spiritual development through the Quaker worship practice; and it offers an explanation of spiritual maturity.
    [Show full text]
  • THE NATURE of 1-IRT.=TAN Myttivi TN the THOUGHT of BARON -VON HUGEL and GEORGE TYRRELL JOHN BERRY
    THE NATURE OF 1-IRT.=TAN MYTTIvI TN THE THOUGHT OF BARON -VON HUGEL AND GEORGE TYRRELL JOHN BERRY SUBMITTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Ph.D THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES JANUARY 1989 This thesis seeks to establish the place of Baron von aigel and George Tyrrell in the revival of interest in mysticism at the beginning of the present century. Though leading figures in the modernist movement in the Roman Catholic Church, their collaboration on the subject of mysticism was central to their friendship and work. They helped to retrieve the central concerns of mystical theology after a retreat from mysticism which had affected the Church since the condemnation of Quietism in 1699. Their account of Christian mysticism, which involved a critique of Buddhism, neo-Platonism and pantheism, rested on a world- affirming attitude to creation, a balance between divine transcendence and immanence and the articulation of a legitimate panentleism. It also involved a positive acceptance of the bodily-spiritual unity of human nature and ordinary experience as the locus of mystical encounter with God. Their account also emphasised the reality of direct contact between God and the individual, and the affective and cognitive dimensions of mystical experience. They asserted the centrality of mystical union as a dynamic communion of life, love and action which is the primary goal of the Christian life. They emphasised the necessity of contemplation, understood not as passive inaction, but as a profound energising of the soul. Asceticism, the embracing of suffering, self-discipline and a right ordering of human affection, was also judged indispensable.
    [Show full text]
  • Between Mysticism and Philosophical Rationality
    Comparative Philosophy Volume 12, No. 2 (2021): 32-57 Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014 / www.comparativephilosophy.org https://doi.org/10.31979/2151-6014(2021).120205 BETWEEN MYSITICISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITY: AL-GHAZĀLĪ ON THE REASONS OF THE HEART MARILIE COETSEE ABSTRACT: In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that his argument can also be extended to apply to Western scholarship on al-Ghazālī, whose sympathy for Sufism and apparent rejection of Greek philosophy has often earned him the reputation of being a champion of Islamic mysticism. I argue that al-Ghazālī transcends the dueling categories of ‘rationality’ and ‘mysticism’ that have been imposed on him by offering a conception of experiential knowledge that retains its roots in the ‘mystical’ Sufi tradition, even while also highlighting the rational merits of experientially-grounded modes of knowing. In particular, I argue that al-Ghazālī shows us how experiential knowledge is both important to providing motivation for rational action and also critical to underwriting persons’ genuine understanding of the evaluative properties of that which is known. Keywords: Al-Ghazālī, cognitive emotions, experiential knowledge, Ibn Sīnā, mysticism, Sufism In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has been used, both within and without the academy, as a tool to manage and marginalize the Orient.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Release for Rational Mysticism Published by Houghton Mifflin
    Press Release Rational Mysticism by John Horgan • About the Book • Ten Tough Questions Tackled by Rational Mysticism About the Book Can one be both a seeker and a skeptic, a mystic and a rationalist? For many, merely suggesting that there is some relationship between science and religion is cause for argument. Leave it to John Horgan, the award-winning science writer and author of the groundbreaking bestseller The End of Science, to investigate this underexplored and controversial territory. In his new book, Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality (Houghton Mifflin Company; January 22, 2003), Horgan chronicles the most advanced research into the mechanics and meaning of mystical experiences, seeking to narrow the gap between reason and mystical phenomena. To begin, he poses questions whose answers can come only from exploring science and spirituality together: How do trances, visions, prayer, and satori "work"? What can neuroscience, psychiatry, and other mind-related fields tell us about mystical states? Are there any risks in following the mystical path, whether by meditating or ingesting peyote? What is the link between mysticism, madness, and morality? What is the nature of the supreme mystical state sometimes called enlightenment? Can it provide genuine insights into why the universe exists and what its purpose and destiny might be? Can it tell us what happens to us when we die? What sort of truth can a rational mysticism give us, if any, and what sort of consolation? Horgan searches for the answers to these questions in a manner all his own, by profiling the leading intellectual adventurers who are charting the growing intersection between science and the spiritual.
    [Show full text]
  • Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small John Niemeyer Findlay Boston University
    Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The ocS iety for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 10-1983 Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small John Niemeyer Findlay Boston University Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, and the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Findlay, John Niemeyer, "Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small" (1983). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 113. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/113 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. VS / PS <·^?5 PLATO'S UNWRITTEN DIALECTIC OF THE ONE AND THE GREAT AND SMALL In the present paper I wish to deal with certain main points in the Unwritten Doctrines of Plato, which are detailed in the reports of Aristotle on these teachings, which reports must have been based on Aristotle's own memories and notes of what Plato actually said in the seminars or which he and many others attended, and which are further elucidated by the many ancient commentators on the writings of Aristotle, such as Alexander, Simplicius, Philoponus, and Syrianus, as well as by a most valuable anti-Platonic polemic of Sextus Empiricus in the Tenth Book of his treatise Against the Mathematicians.
    [Show full text]