Q&A: God, Science, and Sanity (1)

Themes: Apologetics

So, I was on the ABC TV show Q&A last night. You can download the podcast here (copy the link into iTunes or whatever).

I’ve been chatting about the experience with various people over the past few days and thought I might try to set out a couple of reflections here. But first, some background…

How I got there…
A lady from my Bible Study at St Tom’s sent an email to the pastor of our congregation noting that the Q&A was hosting Richard Dawkins on Monday night as part of his tour through Australia (he gave a sell-out presentation at the Opera House on the weekend). She suggested that a few people should see if they could get tickets to be part of the studio audience. I thought that sounded like fun, so I filled out the form here. On Friday I received an email from one of the producers of the programme telling me that I’d been selected to be part of the studio audience. The subject line of the email was: Tony Jones wants your Questions!
I felt a warm surge of love for the ABC and for all cardigan wearing, beret toting, goatee stroking members of the pinko-commie liberal media mafia. These are my people, Tony needs me!

Carol the Producer (a satisfyingly Marxist job description) told me I had until 1pm Monday to submit a question for consideration. If the question was selected, then I would have the opportunity to ask the question myself, Live On National TV!
Woot!

How I got to ask a question…

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Questions…

Themes: Apologetics

Call for submissions.
By some weird act of providence I’ve been invited to join the Q&A audience on Monday night. One of the panelists is Professor Richard Dawkins of whom you may have heard
I’ve also been invited to submit a question for Tony (aka The Thinking Women’s Crumpet according to Emma) to ask. I need to submit the question by midday Monday. So, I’m opening it up for suggestions. What should I ask? I’ll shout a coffee for the best suggestion…

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An important Clarification…

Themes: Apologetics

It has come to my attention that some people may have been misled into thinking that I was referring to lecturers at Moore Theological College when I began to lambast the Spawn of Socrates in my previous post…
All I can do is express my UTTER HORROR at such a suggestion. No one educated in those august halls could imagine any of the esteemed Doctors of Learning being so gauche.

And to anyone else who might be tempted to make such slanderous accusations, I say this: certain classroom incidents that may, perhaps, have appeared to provide some refuge for such beliefs are revealed upon closer inspection to be subtle and deeply ironic subversions of the received pedagogical tradition.

Furthermore, the example question given in the previous post regarding the Prophet Jeffaniah is, I’m reasonably sure, something I heard while visiting SMBC (Sydney Missionary Bible College) and is CERTAINLY NOT a question on the 2nd Year Old Testament Exam.
(Besides, everyone at Moore College knows that the Prophet Jeffaniah didn’t actually build a replica temple out of toothpicks. The work is really a late 2nd Century Jewish satire about Persian oral hygiene)

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Astro-Ignominy

Themes: Apologetics, Critique, The Future

I was having a coffee at Campos today with Emma and casually reading the paper over her shoulder. She was reading the Daily Telegraph (my glasses feel soiled from refracting light beams that have touched that Paper). Emma appears impervious to its evil muck. I noticed this ‘pearl’ from Jonathon Cainer, the Tele Astrologist:

‘Nothing is certain but death and taxes.’ So said American founding father, Benjamin Franklin. His politician’s soundbite still echoes through the centuries, but it omits another certainty: the movements of the planets. Astronomers can say, with confidence precisely where Venus or Mars will be this time next week or even on a given date in 3009. That’s why, for those who seek to foresee the future, the sky is so fascinating. Not everything up there, though, is predictable. Comets for example, can surprise everyone. With each day, it looks more likely that Comet Lulin will soon surprise us all.

Ah, the movements of the Spheres – Aristotle would be so proud. Us, dull sublunary lovers, bound to change and decay can only gaze wistfully at the perfection in motion of the heavenlies. At least we could, until Kepler worked out that the Planets were dancing around in a kind-of Oval shape. It turns out that the level of determination/certainty in the movements of the planets is precisely the same for that of any physical object. Not more or Less.
Which makes the whole business of fortune telling slightly bizzarre and contradictory, as can be seen from my particular horoscope:

‘All things bright and beautiful…’ So goes the popular old hymn. But of course, that’s not all the Good Lord (or Lady) made. The Devil, we are reliably informed by the good book, is a fallen angel. So who made him (or her)? It is all, we are told by those who consider themselves entitled to interpret such things, to do with ‘free will’. We all have it, but we don’t all use it. Currently, you feel as if you have a serious lack of choice. Whatever put you in this position, has also put, within your reach, an opportunity to get out of it.

Hmm, here are three reasons why Jonathan Cainer is a turkey. [sadly, his being this particular species of turkey is contingent upon there being a whole posse of turkeys who take him seriously]

1. We either have Free Will, which would make telling the future from Celestial Bodies (other than my wife) seem like a deeply, wildly, and breathtakingly fraudulent activity.

2. We don’t have free will, and our level of causal determination would be precisely the same as that of the Planets, unless of course the Planets have free will…
Hey, maybe they just, kind of, like, going around in not-quite circles… who knows?
If we assume that the Planets don’t have free will, and neither do we, then it is still possible that there is a cause-effect relation between Planetary Behaviour and our own, but what direction does the relation flow?
As Robin Williams in The Fisher King demonstrates, this is no easy thing. Maybe our behaviour determines the movement of the Spheres? (perhaps if I concentrate hard enough I can break up clouds with my mind – you’d have to be nude to focus the psychic energies…)
3. Whatever weird and twisted cosmology could be formulated to prop up this chicanery, surely it gets grievously disturbed by the arrival of a UNEXPECTED COMET. To be fair, Comets really messed up Aristotle as well. A practice that pretends to predict the portentous from the regular motions of heavenly bodies takes a fair knock on the head when something shows up out-of-the-blue/black, and not only that, is heading in the wrong direction.
I love you Comet Lulin – you gloriously shiny, silver, turkey bullet.
Ahh, maybe I’m just old and grumpy…
after all, when I was your age Pluto was still a planet.

comet photo by Karzaman-Ahmad

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relative courage

Themes: Apologetics

“Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the spokesmen of Christian opinion. When I was a child, bishops expressed doubts about the Resurrection, and were called courageous. When I was a girl, G. K. Chesterton professed belief in the Resurrection, and was called whimsical. When I was at college, thoughtful people expressed belief in the Resurrection “in a spiritual sense”, and were called advanced; (any other kind of belief was called obsolete, and its professors were held to be simpleminded). When I was middle-aged, a number of lay persons, including some poets and writers of popular fiction, put forward rational arguments for the Resurrection, and were called courageous. Today, any lay apologist for Christianity… whose works are sold and read, is liable to be abused in no uncertain terms as a mountebank, a reactionary, a tool of the Inquisition, a spiritual snob, an intellectual bully, an escapist, an obstructionist, a psychopathic introvert, an insensitive extrovert, and an enemy of society. The charges are not always mutually compatible, but the common animus behind them is unmistakable, and its name is fear. Writers who attack these domineering Christians are called courageous.” (Dorothy L. Sayers, The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement, London, 1963, p. 69)

Well, at least in the last 45 years the pace of change has slowed down somewhat.

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The Christ Files

Themes: Apologetics

We just finished watching The Christ Files with people from Church.

Historian Dr John Dickson sets out to discover what we can know for certain about the life of one of history’s best known and most influential figures. In a captivating journey across the globe, Dr Dickson examines ancient documents and consults the world’s most respected historians and scholars. Beginning with the Gnostic Gospels, he criss-crosses continents on a search back through time for the historical sources that reveal the real Jesus— a search for The Christ Files. (source: www.thechristfiles.com.au)

It’s really good, and I have a high sensitivity towards cheesy Christian TV.

I have to confess that my overriding emotion while watching the programme was jealousy toward John Dickson – travelling all over the world and meeting the great and good of Biblical scholarship.

Emma and I are hoping to take a few copies of the DVD’s with us to South Africa.
If you haven’t watched it, do.
You can get a copy here.

I also discovered when I was watching the credits that my cousin, Dave Sheerman, did the music for the production.
(Hi Dave)

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