[extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God

[john-c-wright at sff.net]

Giulio Prisco quips: 
> John, if finding (having been found by) God will help you write more books as
good as > the Golden Age, I am all for God:-)
 
Thank you, sir, but I can only promise to write, not to be inspired. If my work
did not displease you, the praise is due, not to the author of the book, but to
the Great Author who created both the world and the writer who depicts the world. 

> Seriously, your words quoted below are quite intriguing. Perhaps you
>care to elaborate, not everyone here is a "fundamentalist atheist" you
>know.

I am unfortunately a prolix man. If you ask me a specific question, perhaps I
can answer without endangering the patience of other subscribers on this list.
If the question is too delicate for public airing, I can write to you privately. 

Mr. Broderick, quite rightly, answers my question with a question: 

>I have to ask at once: what does 
>an honest and rational man do when he has a UFO abduction experience, 
>complete with rectal probing? (Let us suppose that Whitley Strieber can be 
>believed when he makes this claim, that he has not simply concocted it.) 

To this list he adds a number of things to which a skeptical man will not
normally assent: Psychic spoon bending, fairies being photographed, N-rays. 

The honest man speaks the truth, with humility, to any one who will hear. But
perhaps the question should have been instead what the honest judge should do
when he hears a believable witness tell an unbelievable story. 

A healthy dose of skepticism is perfectly natural in such cases. Extraordinary
claims require extraordinary proofs. 

Myself, were I convinced of the sobriety and good faith of the witness, my first
question would be whether he claimed the results were repeatable. I would invite
someone who can bend spoons with his brainwaves to do so in front of James Randi
(AKA The Amazing Randi of the committee for the scientific investigation of
claims of the paranormal) after Randi checked his sleeves and pockets for the
apparatus stage magicians use to do the spoon-bending trick. Likewise, I might
palm the aluminium prism allegedly being used to refract the N-Rays to see if
the observers would get the same results. 

Keep in mind that certain things on the list are claimed to be non-repeatable.
UFO's do not land, nor do the fairies dance, at human command. In such cases,
assuming the claim is not disqualified for some other reason (such as that the
fairies are obviously paper cutouts wearing current styles), we have no choice
but to fall back on authority. 
If there were fairies, or UFO, it is safe to assume that reports of them would
be relatively constant across all lands and ages: and I mean reports meant to be
taken in earnest, not in stories meant to amuse. That stories appear in every
land and age, not even skeptics doubt. 

Here we immediately notice a sharp divide between the items on the list and the
question of theism. 

The authority for belief in God, or, at least, in some sort of supernatural
reality is overwhelming. There is no race of men that does not worship, does not
bury its dead, does not embrace sober claims of miracles. Even materialists burn
or bury their dead with signs of respect they have no rational reason to show to
the inanimate meat occupying the space where their loved ones once breathed. An
irrational sense that there is more to life than mere matter is ubiquitous. 

Aristotle and Plato and Epictetus were monotheists, as were Aquinas, Hobbes,
Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Descartes, and even good old Thomas Paine. Whatever
one may say about these men, they had first-rate intellects, they understood
(and in one case, formulated) the laws of logic, and skeptical thinking was not
alien to their natures. Atheists were and are in an astonishing minority on
these issues. 

Such authority does not compel belief: far from it! It does, however, dispel the
implication that religion is merely a crackpot fad like theosophy, Ufology or
table-tipping. (Indeed, the rise of crackpot fads may be linked to the decline
of religion in the West as an ordinary part of life. The hunger for spiritual
things affects most of mankind; and if not fed on food, they feast on shadows). 

Such authority certainly dispels the proud idea that only children and silly old
women believe such things. The highest exemplars of our race, men famed for
wisdom and justice, found the belief sufficiently sound to rest upon it. 

If belief in the supernatural were merely a crackpot fad, it would not be
universal. The belief, right or wrong, is indeed universal. Therefore it is not
a crackpot fad.  

I am not making an argument from authority, nor, indeed, any argument in favor
of faith at all. My faith was visited upon my by the Holy Spirit; it was poured
into me like fine wine into an empty tin cup. I do not believe reason the proper
tool to use to decide these matters; nay, I do not believe that they are
"decided" at all. 

Now, you may ask: is the experiment repeatable?  If I went to the same hospital
as John C. Wright and lay in the same bed, would the same miracles, visitations,
and religious experiences appear before me? 

Well, that is a strange question, for it is based on a strange assumption. It is
like asking whether, had you been kneeling in front of my beloved as I was when
I asked her to marry me, she would have chosen you for her bridegroom instead of
me. Marriage is not a matter open to experiment. The results, in one sense, are
not repeatable. 

You are, of course, free to find a comely maiden to kneel before, and court her
with flowers and poetry and offer her a ring. There is a way in which these
things are done.  So, the results are not repeatable, but they can be
reproduced, if you take my meaning. Only a Benedict refuses to believe, despite
the ample evidence, that marriage is what it claims to be. (Allusion alert: I
mean Shakespeare's Benedict, not Zelazny's).

Now, as I say, the experiment is not repeatable, but, like proposing to a bride,
there is a way in which these things are done. As in marriage, in this case
also, it is customary to start on one’s knees.