Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00913)

Hi Mark
Have been discussing Dawkins on another site, and have come to the conclusion that he is very wishy washy and argues against a personal god clothed in the deepest physics.  When the physics breaks down what is left is the belief in a personal god.  Although I have not read goodenoughs book, I am sure that he has twisted her theory and scapegoated it as another christian held belief.  Have you been to his sight?  The Supers and the Brights.  Very interesting. IMO He is just another Sagan, entreprenaureal scientist.
Cass

Mark Jaqua <proto37@yahoo.com> wrote:                                  Mini-Review, Pynchon, Dawkins
 
 I didn't completely read either of 
 these books.
 
 "Against the Day," Thomas Pynchon, 2006
 
 This is Pychon's first book in about 
 8 or 9 years. He's won some book awards, 
 and his last book, "Mason & Dixon" 
 was on the best-sellers list for a 
 time, as this one probably will be for 
 a few weeks.  Pynchon is an anomalie 
 among the "big" english writers - as no 
 one knows what he looks like, or where 
 he lives.  "Against the Day" is  900+ 
 pages of small print, and if anyone reads 
 it straight through looking for a message, 
 I'd have to place him in the "sucker" 
 category.  Its as if Pychon has been 
 accumulating all his extra ideas, characters, 
 anecdotes, and insights in a warehouse 
 for the last 40 years, and hauled them 
 out willy-nilly, in no particular order, 
 and piled them up into another book. It 
 not really a novel, but more a surrealistic 
 painting.  It will definitely wake you 
 up as a reader, and sort of send your 
 head reeling in wondering what it is all 
 about.  The book opens with a group of 
 young secret-service -types named the 
 "Chums of Chance," floating around in 
 a balloon, going to the Chicago World's 
 Fair in the 1890's, and gets crazier 
 from there.  I was wonder what Pychon's 
 title meant - "Against the Day," and 
 think possibly it is a private joke - 
 that he could get at least one more 
 big royalty check out of the public 
 - against the Day of his retirement.  
 If one can get it from the Library, 
 it is definely worth reading parts of, 
 but I wouldn't recommend buying it 
 unless one's rolling in the green stuff.
 ----------
 
 "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins, 2006
 
 This is on the best-sellers list 
 for non-fiction in the U.S., and Dawkin's 
 is an atheist and Scientist.  He is 
 really the old-style strictly materialistic, 
 lower manas type of atheist.  I didn't 
 see a spark of anything higher than the 
 logical-type mind in anything I read.  
 (Ingersoll, the grand-father of the atheists, 
 who was a freind of Blavatsky's, and who 
 she published an article or two of, 
 definitely had an under-current of 
 something higher in his humanitarianism.)  
 For instance, Dawkins gives four reasons 
 in support of "altruism" and they are 
 all biological reasons - passing on one's 
 genes, survival by mutual support, etc.  
 The religious or buddhic insight of 
 brotherhood at base, that we are all 
 linked as ONE, and undeserved suffering 
 of one is your suffering also - simply 
 eludes him.  His reasons are all lower-manas 
 based. (Brotherhood is something more 
 easily viewed from a distance, as we 
 all find out.) He does bring in a whole 
 array of proofs on the total irrationality 
 & endless strife caused by personal-god 
 worship, and dogmatic religion. ("...2/3rds 
 of the worlds evil is caused by religion, 
 the other 1/3 by human selfishness...." 
 says a teacher in the MLs.)  Dawkins also 
 brings in, in about ten places, an 
 emotional defense of homosexuality, and 
 one wonders what this has to do with the 
 whole issue, and why the emphasis.
 
 -----------------
 
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