In Anderson's The Long Way Home:
"...a rather cheerful, indulgent family life in a temple, where a crowd swaying and chanting its hymns to Father reminded [Langley] of an old-time camp meeting..." (CHAPTER SIX, p. 65)
"'...Father knows there's enough to do in our own system...'" (CHAPTER NINE, p. 92)
"Father" is an object of popular devotion and part of the language. Thus, monotheism has survived for another five millennia. In Anderson's Technic History, polytheism revives on the planet Kraken during the civilizational breakdown of the Long Night. Will these kinds of religion survive that long into the future? Yes, unless some other major changes happen.
There is an analysis of religion according to which:
(i) people personified and placated natural forces like weather and thunder that they could neither understand nor control (nature polytheism);
(ii) next, they personified social forces like war and justice that they could neither understand nor control (social polytheism) (although a social event like a war or an economic slump is a large number of human actions, it confronts each individual with the apparent externality and inevitability of a natural disaster like a flood or an earthquake);
(iii) next, they unified the personified external forces (monotheism);
(iv) next, beginning to understand and control external forces, they cease to personify them (atheism) (if your roof leaks, then you ask, "What caused the leak? Am I insured? Can I sue anyone?," not "Have I or my fathers sinned that this has happened to me?");
(v) however, many forces remain uncontrolled, many are not yet understood and people respond with different levels of understanding, therefore society remains divided between different kinds of believers and sceptics;
(vi) a possible future society is one in which all these forces are understood and controlled and scientific understanding is synthesized with contemplation of the totality.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I used to have Asimov's two books about the Bible, but I eventually became dissatisfied with them--mostly because I thought them too superficial. I wouldn't go to Asimov for in depth commentaries.
I think "animism" better describes what you wrote in point (i).
No matter how advanced science becomes my belief is science will never be able to answer the truly ultimate metaphysical questions--because such questions goes beyond what the material sciences can do. Biology, mathematics, chemistry, etc., can never answer questions such as "Is God real?" or "Is there another life after death?," etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But why ask such questions?
I used to think that physicists could not answer: "Why does anything exist instead of nothing?" But now that talk about quantum fluctuations and virtual particles in a vacuum.
Paul.
they talk about
Kaor, Paul!
Because that is what humans, all intelligent beings, do--and should do, seeking answers to the ultimate questions, questions the merely material sciences cannot answer. Even if that means finding answers some might not like.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes, of course. But where do we start? What are the ultimate questions? If there is no empirical evidence that an entity exists, then why ask whether it exists?
Paul.
An obvious ultimate question is: why does anything exist? but physicists are addressing that.
"...answers some might not like...," of course means that some disagree with you about God and you imply that their disagreement is based not on reasons but merely on their dislike.
Kaor, Paul!
What one of those ultimate questions, like it or not, will always be "Is God real, does He exist?" And, whether you agree with them or not, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, St, Thomas Aquinas, etc., have worked out arguments for believing God exists. That is at least an empirical fact, men of genius who would disagree with you in reasoned ways.
No, physicists can say nothing, as physicists, about such issues as God or whether there is a life after death. That is beyond their scope.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of the philosophers you list, only Aquinas defends Biblical monotheism and his five proofs, all variations on the same theme, are completely inadequate.
Every event is caused.
An infinite regress is impossible.
Therefore, there was a First Cause which all men call God.
Both premises need to be proved. There are uncaused events in quantum mechanics. If every event is caused by an earlier event, then an infinite regress is actual and there can have been no First Cause which in any case would be a past event, not an eternal person.
Paul.
They are not all variations on a single theme. The first three are cosmological. The fifth is teleological. The fourth, which I don't remember reading before but must have, is different and really does not connect its conclusion back to its premise.
Sean,
It is an empirical fact, like it or not, that men of genius disagree with me in reasoned ways. You seem to be trying to bolster your position as much as possible. It is also an empirical fact that other men of genius disagree with them totally and utterly. When all that has been said, it still remains necessary to consider the arguments on their merits whether or not we like or dislike them. In this case, all that we have to do is to logically analyse Aquinas's few terse propositions which are designed to reach his preconceived conclusion by the shortest route possible. While I was still at school, I saw the First Cause argument as completely inadequate and was trying to formulate a sounder cosmological argument from contingency but that was only because I had been educationally programmed to want to defend theism. When you no longer want to defend a preconceived conclusion, it becomes much harder to see any arguments towards that conclusion as conclusive.
I can formulate two ontological arguments in a single sentence but do not accept their premises.
Paul.
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