My posting has slowed down a lot lately. Been doing two time-consuming new class preps, etc.
I’ve also been writing some editorials for my local newspaper which are (believe it or not) philosophy of religion themed. For now they’re searchable at the paper, and they’re archived on my friend Steve’s blog. (I’m “The Theist” there.) Steve always writes the opposing (atheistic) piece. One that got a rise out of people was this one (this time, there was no opposing view - just vehement letters to the editor days later).
But stay tuned, I’ve got some interesting Trinity posts brewing.
Comments 5
Hi Dale,
First, I congratulate you on writing for a paper, stepping outside the campus walls. Very cool!
Second, I read your post on the Dalai Lama (sp?). It seems right to me.
Here’s a quasi-objection: I recall vanInwagen writing that Genesis is false, but that it conveys to Christians an important truth, i.e. that God created the world, governs it according to his puporses, to have communion with his people. This was in response to the inerrantist, who argues that the Bible is literally true. He pointed out that the Genesis myth is useful if false, that if God wanted to convey the truth, then people would not understand it, so he chose a false myth to convey what is important rather than what is true. Of course, what is important is also what is true, but the details about creation in the Bible are false.
Anyway, suppose one responded that the DL was doing something similar, conveying an important truth by speaking falsehoods because the truth would not go down well, or likely be understood. If that’s right, the the charge of Bs-ing is wrong. So, one might think you also need to argue that the DL is not conveying the important truth through falsehoods for good reasons.
How does that sound?
Posted 11 Oct 2006 at 10:35 pm ¶Hi Christian,
I haven’t read that PVI essay - been meaning too though. If Genesis is to read non-literally, won’t it still be asserting truths, properly understood?
I’ll give the Dalai Lama this - he knows his audience perfectly - mostly secularists, but not vehement atheists - who (mostly or entirely) lack religion but aren’t too hostile to it in small doses - especially if it’s exotic. They make brief pilgrimages out to hear him for a few hours (or less), and he tells them some happy thoughts. They enjoy these, and then they can get back to thinking and living just as they were before, but with the idea that he and they are somehow contributing to the cause of world peace.
When you listen to 99% of his public statements, he sounds like a anti-realist about religion. He almost never says anything really distinctively Buddhist. However, in Jane Compson’s 1996 Religious Studies paper “The Dalai Lama and the world religions: a false friend?”, she argues that he’s neither a pluralist nor an anti-realist, but that his sort of carefree attitude about the fact of religious diversity actually follows from his Tibetan Buddhist beliefs. A part of that doctrine is the “doctrine of skilful means”, which basically authorizes a teacher to say inconsistent things to different students - just whatever it is which will help them to move towards Enlightenment. If Compton is right, even though many of his fans are anti-realists and/or pluralists about religion, he isn’t, though he sounds like it most of the time. They seem to paper over the issue by being super-impressed that he isn’t dogmatic.
My problem is that what he says is so often trivial or false, yet he’s literally a Nobel Prize winner. He does know he’s telling people what they want to hear (and nothing else), and I think he does enjoy the celebrity. But the main thing is that I don’t believe that what he says has any real power to change human nature (unlike the teachings of Jesus and his apostles), and until that changes, we’re not going to be able to avoid war in some cases, and violence of other kinds.
I believe that people eat up the watery gruel he’s serving because they’ve never really heard and understood a serious, deep, plausible diagnosis with what is wrong with human beings. We need more than good intentions and happy thoughts.
In any case, the DL may be intending to promote peace and Enlightenment, but I don’t think he’s even trying to promote *true* beliefs. He doesn’t think Enlightenment and peace require us to get true (Buddhist) beliefs any time soon. So I guess I have to stick with what seems obvious - that in most of his public statements he’s speaking without regard to truth or falsity.
Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 3:56 pm ¶Hey,
“I haven’t read that PVI essay - been meaning too though. If Genesis is to read non-literally, won’t it still be asserting truths, properly understood?”
Yes. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I only meant that read literally it’s false and that there true propositions it conveys that are important (for example, God is the creator), propositions that are conveyed by the false story that couldn’t be conveyed by a true story since the true story couldn’t be comprehended by most people.
“So I guess I have to stick with what seems obvious - that in most of his public statements he’s speaking without regard to truth or falsity.”
I agree. But don’t you think he believes that an appreciation of kindness and other stuff leads to enlightenment. Perhaps behind the BS there is a belief that he is conveying a message that is important even if he has no regard to the truth of what stories he tells to convey it? I wouldn’t be surprised even though I agree with what you say above and I doubt that one needs to tell falsehoods by BS-ing to convey the truth.
Posted 13 Oct 2006 at 2:49 am ¶Dale, the following article maybe of interest The Trinity & The Human Soul (I), by Jeffrey Waddington (posted 10/5/06).
Posted 13 Oct 2006 at 12:09 pm ¶Congrats on the DL piece. What a great critique of Oprah-styled spirituality, and one I can give to students in my worldview class. Interestingy, I was thinking of Frankfurt before I read your reference to him. As you know, in the book (booklet?) he makes the fascinating claim that bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than a lie. One might illumine the point with the claim that apathy, rather than hatred, is the opposite of love. The bullshitter is in essence not concerned with communicating truth or deliberate deception, but rather with achieving a particular effect in the audience and that ironically, places him (her) at greatest odds with truth. And the jolly Dalai certainly does that. But then so does James Dobson, and most politicians, and when we’re not careful, the rest of us as well.
Posted 16 Oct 2006 at 5:17 pm ¶Post a Comment