Re: [asa] Interesting review of "The Selfish Gene"

I didn't mean to make light of the spiritual situation the reviewer is in.
Extended depression and desperation are serious things not to be wished on
anyone. I am simply struck by his recognition that materialistic nature is "not
enough" to meet his perceived need. That, in my opinion, puts him a significant
spiritual step ahead of those who don't perceive their own need -- or even those
who may think of themselves as Christian in term of publically assenting to the
"correct set of doctrines" but then proceed to pursue the things of the world to
meet all their needs as if Christ didn't matter but as fire-insurance for the
after-life.

I'm struck by the fervent faiths of people like Lewis who emerged as adults from
such despair and atheism to shake the world with their newfound faith. It's
like they faced their demons of despair early on. Those of us who grew up
immersed in Christian circles and thought are assured by others that we
shouldn't take such a blessing lightly (and rightly so). But I think we're much
more prone to the shakeups felt by the reviewer if we latched easily onto a
childhood faith and never had much exposure to the "other side".

--merv

Quoting Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>:

> On 8/16/06, mrb22667@kansas.net <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
> >
> > What this reviewer writes is actually full of hope, I think! He states
> > that
> > Dawkins' arguments have rendered a God superfluous ... and accounts for
> > the
> > nature of life all too well... And the the reviewer goes on to lament
> > the
> > obvious shortcomings of such a point of view: that it apparently does
> > NOT
> > account for the nature of life in any sense that he wants to call "well".
>
>
> I guess I empathised more with the despair than the hope; for example the
> fact that reading the book seems to have completely arrested any spiritual
> development of the reviewer, leading to years of depression, and the
> desperate wish that he could "unread" the book. The hope expressed at the
> end sounds pretty desperate to me; namely that there IS a "God-shaped hole"
> in all of us, but he doesn't know if a God exists to fill such a hole, only
> that science can't fill it. [Looking at it pessimistically, or as devil's
> advocate, it could be said that the "God shaped hole" is just an unfortunate
> consequence of the evolutionary process that gave us superior brains - after
> all evolution has no foresight and couldn't have foreseen this defect that
> would naturally occur ...]
>
> All the best,
> Iain
>

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Received on Wed Aug 16 12:42:33 2006