From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 03:34:06 BST
Scott Roberts stated April 18th:
>The doctrine of transubstantiation does not declare
>that something that science can measure has been changed. If you are going
>to say that there is conflict because science cannot detect Christ in the
>bread and wine, then you would have to say that art and science are in
>conflict because science cannot detect the beauty of a painting.
Scott,
Firstly, I thought David B’s post was interesting especially with its
observation that the act of eating can be regarded as a metaphor for the
dissolution of the self. As David states, at a spiritual level the Mass is
similar to the peyote ritual described in LILA. The peyote buttons ‘are
seen as the flesh of mother earth in a way that is similar to the way the
communion wafer is seen as the flesh of the son of God. In both cases, one
snacks on the divine meat and is transformed by it.’ No doubt there are
also shades here of Owen Barfield’s notion of ‘participation’ where a
subject is (re-)integrated with a ‘Quality saturated’ natural world.
Secondly, as Ian G stated (in a kind of SOM type of way!), a person could
state something scientific about the inorganic properties of the art work
but this would be missing the point of both art and science. Moreover, the
assessment of the beauty of a painting is largely outside the remit of
science though the Golden Mean (a particular ratio which epitomises a
certain harmony) can point towards paintings which are beautiful and I
suppose a certain amount of scientific knowledge can also help the artistic
process as regarding mixing colours, perspective etc.
Thirdly, as far as transubstantiation is concerned, the priest in a Roman
Catholic Church after blessing the bread and wine, doesn’t qualify, for
instance, the statement “this bread is the body of Christ” with the words
“but only in the sense of a being a non-scientifically known substance”. He
simply states “this bread is the body of Christ”. It is publicly given as a
literal truth in the Catholic mass. As such, the doctrine of
transubstantiation does imply that something that chemistry can measure in
the bread has been changed and, in consequence, this is one clear example
where ‘science and contemporary, non-fundamentalist theism are in conflict.’
Similar to the gumption trap of conservative ideology, I think the attempt
to give organised religion an intellectual credibility it lacks only retards
evolution especially as an improved value system such as the MOQ could
successfully plug the vacuum that would occur if all these low quality value
systems disappeared tomorrow. (Otherwise, the world be left with just
atheists, communists and liberal relativists and we couldn’t allow that,
could we?)
Best wishes,
Anthony.
“I would like to suggest that the resulting idea… that science simply has
nothing to say about these ‘supernatural’ events because they are just too
different is way too convenient. It has the effect of making religious
immune to philosophical inspection, to intellectual scrutiny. It has a way
of putting up a wall for the purpose of protecting dogmas from criticism.
And this, my friends, is pure bullshit. It expresses a certain disrespect
for intellectual values, a wilful disregard for the facts of the matter and
otherwise shows a willingness to hide from the truth. This is a species of
bullshit - and I mean that in the philosophical sense of the word.” (David
Buchanan, April 24th 2005)
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