James Mahaffy wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I really should not take a break from grading - ah the joy of the
> end of the semester. But Terry's post on cranks and bizarre talks and
> papers got my to thinking again that some of my core beliefs would
> appear "foolish to the outside world." After all, I am a biologist who
> believes in a virgin birth and other miracles that do NOT fit the way
> the world generally operates. And I even believe that death was
> reversed when our Lord rose.
>
> I suspect CS Lewis would say that a God who is a real God and
> not your image of a God, would work in ways humans can not comprehend.
> Yet as I think about, except for the testament of early Christians and
> the Holy Spirit witness to me, there is no easy way to distinguish my
> beliefs from the chap that believe in pyramid power (an early ASA
> meeting). If there were, we could persuade any rational being of the
> correctness of our beliefs.
>
> Comments anyone?
For a start, pseudoscience can't be defined just as pursuit of ideas
which are bizarre relative to commone sense. In fact, some of the classic
works of pseudoscience are those which oppose modern theories like
relativity and quantum theory because they _aren't_ common sense: De
Bothezat's _Back to Newton_ is typical of the genre. No physicist who takes
vacuum polarization or black holes seriously could criticize an amateur just
for espousing bizarre ideas.
Orthodox Christianity is not common sense religion - & _en passant_,
the central reason for that is not the resurrection (which plenty of
religions have some approximation to) but a crucified God: The line "God
himself lies dead" (_Gott selbst liegt tot_) in Rist's hymn is so offensive
that most hymnals either leave out that verse or fudge the translation. As
with pseudoscience, it is generally the heterodox who pursue common sense
theology - or better, they are heterodox because they pursue common sense
theology.
Lewis' comments in Chapter 11, ("Christianity and 'Religion'") of
_Miracles_ are helpful here. He suggests, to summarize, that the Christian
understanding of God has the same relation to a common sense unitarianism as
the quantum theory of the atom does to a naive billiard ball picture.
"You must not expect Schroedinger to be as plausible as Democritus; he knows
too much. You must not expect St. Athanasius to be as plausible as Mr.
Bernard Shaw; he also knows too much."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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