{"id":92969,"date":"2021-10-10T00:01:56","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T06:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=92969"},"modified":"2021-10-15T22:18:24","modified_gmt":"2021-10-16T04:18:24","slug":"the-lovely-features-of-a-naturalistic-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/10\/the-lovely-features-of-a-naturalistic-universe.html","title":{"rendered":"The lovely features of a naturalistic universe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Philly<\/a>
Edward Hicks, \u201cNoah\u2019s Ark\u201d (1846), Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new item has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Book of Moses Essays #76: Noah (Moses 8) Was Noah\u2019s Ark Designed as a Floating Temple? (Moses 8:22\u201330; Genesis 6:5\u201322; chapters 7\u20138)<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sigh.\u00a0 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to call an individual or a group out for persistent and significant errors, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that the reasons for that calling out be given.\u00a0 Mercifully, the Neville-Neville Land<\/em> blog is doing almost all of the heavy lifting in that regard, so that I don\u2019t need to.\u00a0 Here, for example, is one recent instance:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStill more assertions without evidence from Jonathan Neville\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of you may have noticed my mentions here, from time to time, of several book manuscripts upon which I\u2019ve been fitfully working.\u00a0 They are far, far more central to my ambitions than are blog entries and even occasional columns.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t gotten much done on them over the past several months, but I hope to be able to concentrate on them a bit more in the not too distant future.\u00a0 (Basically, I retired in order to write.\u00a0 And, yes, to travel.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve actually been traveling quite a bit more since my retirement than I would prefer.\u00a0 There is a specific and very mundane reason for this, but it has interfered with my ability to focus.\u00a0 Alright in the short term, but not congruent with my long-term plan.)\u00a0 I also have a lot of reading to do, much though not all of it directly or indirectly related to my writing projects.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I noted in a blog entry the other day, I recently read Christian Smith\u2019s Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can\u2019t Deliver<\/em> (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2019).\u00a0 \u00a0Here are two more passages from it that are not directly related to its central argument but that I marked while reading the book.\u00a0 (I cannot read anything, not even a novel, without a pencil in hand or without some other marking mechanism readily available.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my most valued writing projects is a projected multi-volume argument for the rationality of theism, and specifically of Christian theism, and more specifically of the Latter-day Saint form of Christian theism.\u00a0 Among its principal \u201ctargets,\u201d accordingly, is what might be termed the \u201cnaturalistic worldview.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s important for me, therefore, to be able to define that naturalistic worldview with at least some degree of clarity and precision.\u00a0 So I found these two passages from Christian Smith of relevant interest:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A naturalistic universe is one that consists of energy and matter and other natural entities, such as vacuums, operating in a closed system in time and space, in which no transcendent, supernatural, divine being or superhuman power exists as a creator, sustainer, guide, or judge.\u00a0 Such a universe has come to exist by chance \u2014 not by design or providence but by purposeless natural forces and processes.\u00a0 There is no inherent, ultimate meaning or purpose.\u00a0 Any meaning or purpose that exists for humans in a naturalistic universe is constructed by and for humans themselves.\u00a0 When the natural forces of entropy eventually extinguish the human race \u2014 if some natural or humanmade disaster does not do so sooner \u2014 there will be no memory or meaning, just as none existed before human consciousness evolved.\u00a0<\/strong> (45-46)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recall the features of a naturalistic universe.\u00a0 There is no transcendent natural law or moral force, no divinity, no ultimate spiritual meaning or destiny that transcends human invention during the blip of cosmic time that we humans have occupied.\u00a0 Reality consists of various conglomerations of infinitesimally small particles pulled together by physical forces and processes of emergence that are in a continual state of flux.\u00a0 Matter and energy \u2014 atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, light, heat, gravity, radiation \u2014 exist.\u00a0 Everything in existence is working itself out by natural forces that are neither designed nor intended nor morally weighted.\u00a0 Everything simply is.\u00a0 Some forces and processes generate certain outcomes; others generate others.\u00a0 Complex substances have slowly evolved.\u00a0 Life has very improbably evolved.\u00a0 Conscious and self-conscious human beings have even more improbably evolved.<\/strong>\u00a0 (55)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I add to this a pair of forthright statements from a very vocal advocate of the naturalistic worldview.\u00a0 In his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul<\/em>, Sir Francis Crick (1916-2004; co-discoverer with James Watson of the double helix structure of DNA) declares\u00a0his thorough-going naturalism and reductionism very clearly:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A person\u2019s mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that \u2018You,\u2019 your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice might have phrased it: \u2018You\u2019re nothing but a pack of neurons.\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been holding my fire on this argument to a very considerable extent, as I want to save it for the books.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t want to wait too long, so I may eventually revise my strategy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just returned from the Utah Opera\u2019s production of The Barber of Seville<\/em> (1816), by Gioachino Rossini.<\/a>\u00a0 It was opening night \u2014 and not only opening night but the first return to live productions after many months of COVID-compelled closure.\u00a0 So we were required at entry to provide proof of our identity and proof of vaccination, and to wear masks while inside and during the performance.\u00a0 (Almost everybody complied; some, alas, did not.)\u00a0 I approve of the requirement.\u00a0 One way to encourage vaccinations is to reward those who have been vaccinated.\u00a0 This deals with the \u201cfree rider\u201d problem.\u00a0 And it helped us to feel pretty secure in the necessarily rather crowded conditions of the Capitol Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the broadest production of the Barber<\/em> that I\u2019ve ever seen.\u00a0 Slapstick at places, and with ludicrous costumes, including the phony music tutor \u201cDon Alonso,\u201d dressed as a California hippie from the late sixties, carrying a sitar (and attempting to play it like a guitar), and saying \u201cnamaste.\u201d\u00a0 Also a pair of disco-dancing nuns and a seductive, chain-smoking housekeeper (changed from the elderly governess of more conventional productions) and a strange fixation on roosters, including a psychedelic dream filled with dancing chickens.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it was amusing, and the audience loved it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 A new item has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 Book of Moses Essays #76: Noah (Moses 8) Was Noah\u2019s Ark Designed as a Floating Temple? (Moses 8:22\u201330; Genesis 6:5\u201322; chapters 7\u20138) \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25805,1014,25606,20851,20848,3454,255,14931,6117,6783,16589,401],"class_list":["post-92969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astonishing-hypothesis","tag-atheism","tag-christian-smith","tag-crick","tag-francis-crick","tag-jonathan-neville","tag-naturalism","tag-naturalistic","tag-neville","tag-neville-neville-land","tag-sir","tag-theism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe lovely features of a naturalistic universe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    ***   A new item has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Book of Moses Essays #76: Noah (Moses 8) Was 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