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| Rowan Williams the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury |
First of all, my pious intrigue started out at a Christian Cult in 1991, in the South of England. I was fresh and away from homely comforts, hence, open to learn about pro-creative ideologies and to experience them. No thought was to disbelieve whatsoever. Why should I, I trusted my elder's wisdom more than my own and my peers - within two months, I found incongruity. The moon faces weren't as friendly any longer, I was ostracised. It seemed overnight their mood changed drastically, alas, I was the same person, who'd done no evil. Moving onwards, I see the exact character trait (s) which has shackled humanity to this social-disease. I am one of the fortunate ones, I was saved... thanks to my quest for knowledge, (deciphering over the certainties of all forms). Without rule or social judgement, I morally joined the human resistance of the rational, (note: it doesn't formally exist); albeit, a talking-point for those who know me in real life - 'oh, you're part of the rational militia.' I often claim that the best means of getting to the truth; first of all you need 'Ultimate Questions' - in retrospect, the questions require greater thought than the answers.
The truth is out there
In March 2016, I read an article written by the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams - (he was Archbishop of Canterbury 2002 - 2012); in response to Bryan Magee's essay, 'Ultimate Questions,' published by 'Princetown University Press.' The publication marks Magee's 86th birthday... it denotes a lifetime as a Historian and Philosopher. Having read Williams's published reaction for a duration, I decided to write this monologue, a thought process into Rowan Williams's article: 'The truth is out there;' published in the 'New Statesman,' he was particularly feral towards Magee; worth noting the Philosopher is no polemicist, nor did he stick out an acid-tongue against those who believe in a Superior Being; (I refer to a 'Superior Being' because that's what deism implies wholeheartedly), why the essay, 'Ultimate Questions' per se, via title alone can be forgiven in not providing actual answers. It appears Williams has been misled; not the first time either. I hereby, defend Magee, for the sake of freedom of speech and intellectual prose.
To be fair to Williams, his title is accurate: 'The truth is out there' - it is... why it's not here. I'd say that by being locked on a speck of dust for a limited time-period doesn't bode well for getting answers, to be certain that a Superior Being exists, let a alone an omnipotent one - whence, to convey to a 'certainty;' is outlandishly precarious to put it mildly. But for those who are 'absolutely certain,' you're assured that anyone who refutes the idea of divine's hand cannot prove it either... for certain. The bone of contention I have is the mysteries of the cosmos are unexplainable yet the assureness of those who claim the truth is out there do so with 'absolute certainty;' done so without heed or intellectualism. This isn't a harsh critique et al: it's irrational to devote your time and belief-system to flawed doctrinations / prophecies that's known to be tampered with for centuries. I'm genuinely confused why it's intellectually acceptable. The 'believers' (I don't like using this terminology, but I do so because deism is all about divide) who're willing to debate with me have real issues with this; thus, to get discourse going... I attempt to build bridges by adapting to a personal 'journey of discovery,' a mode Evangelists can relate to... plus, it is less offensive for those who mistakenly think I'm attacking their 'personal Jesus,' this is an absurd misconception... it's impossible to vilify or attack the core essence of an entity so it flips over and changes at will through trepidation - funnily enough, reality is not a point-scoring pixilated game.
I'll explain... 'as I shift into un-chartered areas of deistic humanology, the greater the divide, and away from the concept of a creator I wade from. Personal invention is the core essence of an entity has nothing to do with a creator of everything, surprisingly I didn't expect this, I hoped somehow there was a tangible link.' This sort of phraseology is designed to show frailties - all religious types at a drop of a hat embrace the concept of human frailty. Williams may've shown mercy to Magee, if Magee was embracing 'mankind's sickness' instead of being a Philosopher - hereby Williams's prose at best may've had an iota of meaningful credibility - albeit, Philosophy and Religion are world's apart, to believe they're affiliated to the same cause, those who ascertain there is a cross-over point have little knowledge of the fundamental subjects. Again, if you judge I'm being harsh, may I refer you to Williams's initial question, he asks himself: "What's the difference between what we know and what we believe?" You probably can see the idiocy straightaway - tangibility is notably convincing. Nevertheless, Williams grabs circles and announces they're squares, you'd have thought he'd cover first base when he siphon towards the idea of relativity and quantum field theory, subjectively Stephen Hawking expertise whereby he blurts out a carefree comment: "we should know the mind of God." Williams's waspish response was... "Hawkings may have lived to regret using precisely this form of words, but we all know, more or less, what he mean't." What did he mean by 'may have lived to regret'? I question the council of what Williams encompasses, it reeks of supernaturalism that no mortal can possibly say for certain. I'll go further than that, there's an underlining waft of 'curse' discourse; not valid in our modern councils. Proof, that even today, the great and honest still are insulted by fabrications from hysterical Christians.
Socrates believed he had a daimon, or oracle, or inner guide whose good opinion was worth having; even Adam Smith described his 'permanent partner' as an assessment scrutineer. Williams would believe it to be of a Superior Being, so it could be the diablo? Even prophets didn't concur the difference, duly because the diablo could easily trick mortals and come in many disguises. Going by the comment 'may have lived to regret' in reference to the long suffering Hawking; perhaps a daimon was speaking at the time - a riddle without heed or humanity in mind. Naturally, if you think I'm being overtly scrutinising to an ex-Church Leader, I am not... all I am doing is trying to get to the truth, which is what Williams claims... because, the truth is out there. Why I found myself bewildered about Williams's true propositions statement: "True propositions are timelessly true; so in 1316, it was true that in 2016 David Cameron would be Prime Minister, but no one could have known that. In 2016, whatever is going to happen in 2116 is 'already' the subject of true propositions, but no one can know in 2016 what they are. Second, and more significantly, there are true propositions that are inaccessible to us because we constitutionally lack the equipment to know what makes them true." What takes the biscuit for me is that Williams then removes himself from the discourse he made and then states... "Magee's favourite comparison for this is the condition of someone with congenital blindness..." Magee basically summed up Williams's verbosity above in two words. No mortal is omnipotent, thus a divinity is... as stated in biblical text, so you'd have thought the messenger of 'divine intervention' which Williams claims to be via vocation... he'll have answers and know about the fate and prophecies that are laid before him in biblical script, equating to give Williams a definitive answer... because 'the truth is out there;' albeit, he blames his 'deism' equipment. On the other hand, Magee doesn't profess to know any answers, hence the essay: 'Ultimate Questions'... but you'd thought that a messenger of an omnipotent divinity via vocation could enlighten us mere mortals - unless of course his 'daimon' isn't omnipotent and there lies the major fault line.
Having said that, Williams contradistinctions are laid bare in another deranged comment; it's another feral quest to unhinge Magee's philosophy. He announces: "For Magee, religion, bracketed with the 'occult and supernatural', is an illegitimate and deceptive way of resolving problems for which we do not have the equipment to provide an answer. But frustratingly, he does not give any instances of what he means. It is true that the question... why is there anything rather than nothing? May be answered by the proposition that God willed to create the world." Obviously, Magee is questioning the intellectual prose of nothing... like asking the tooth-fairy to solve mankind's ills... I don't know about you, but it seems beyond churlish to conclude this is the answer... if anything it perversely lets Human-kind off. To base any assertions of credibility that's blatantly fictitious has a grotesque whiff of deception when the pious tools are denoted as a means to resolving real issues. For instance, I refer to the illusion that *all* believers are removed from *all* real life blame; furthermore, will be immune from danger and suffering... a renown pious statement that illustrates unintelligible content, let alone be a problem solver; over a duration of two thousand years... yet, there's zero evidence. In 'Psalm 53,' there's a parable that states: "The fool has said in his heart, there's no God." Religious apologeticists have incessantly recycled this misinterpretation - for me, it's a threat; plus, whom is the fool and what is God? What strikes me with a nefarious might, is the 'certainty' of the 'supernatural entity;' something Williams states also as being ill-equipped. Another parable factor is... 'fool' implies a non-believer, therefore when 'Psalm 53' was written there was societal skepticism, probably of the type who blame their equipment. Is Williams, referring to equipment being scientific prose? I'm none the wiser. Darwin feared that his first writings on natural selection would be the demise of his reputation, equivalent to 'confessing to a murder.' An absence of a first cause stroke grand design carried a burden like no other for Darwin. So the term: 'evolution' was dropped in his first publication of: 'The Origin of Species;' instead the term 'creation' was employed to douse down deism hysteria. As a rule hysteria tends to not be driven / derive by mindful intellect - the likes of Darwin and Magee knows this too well.
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| Bryan Magee |
I'm grabbed by yet another Williams illusion that constant universe has a deep rooted belonging in theistic philosophy. Granted the cosmos concept is prevalent in doctrines because it's mystical, nebulous and vast, not unlike 'divinity' itself. But then state Magee is irritably defensive about the connection and furthermore link it to morality and that word again: 'certainty' and to then grab the key affiliation to 'knowledge;' is as chaotic as the 'big bang.' And this juggernaut of idiocies comes under the headline of 'The truth is out there.' The bee in the bonnet doesn't stop there either... Williams professes to alert his readership that Magee is robustly insistent that "we can feel sure about some things that we cannot 'know.'" Obviously, Williams doesn't allude to 'a gut feeling.' Indirectly, the discourse enters the realm of the conscious which *all* religions claims to be the vocal piece for supernaturalism. One of the clear-cut views of deism is that if non-believers extends their cerebral prose further you'll find that the irrational follow - I'll illustrate this actuality by what Williams said when Magee wrote... "we cannot provide justifications... in a way that precludes dissent." Williams blurts out; "And yet this is no reason for abandoning debate. This is the ordinary process by which human beings develop moral literacy," Magee, his vocation alone puts debate on a pedestal. Philosophers are the picture framers of literacy masterpieces... alas, as usual Williams's 'jump the gun' traits dismisses rational thinking - 'oh lets abandon the debate' is a default mechanism for theists. I actively look for this alarm call for help whenever I peruse theist's opinions, essays and books. Plus, you may have noticed that Williams used the term 'moral literacy,' ye-s, peculiar terminology, why? Because at the heart of moral literacy is that no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of piety or another being. Unless you've come down from the last precipitation you'll be aware that deistic indoctrination has a profound link to war - extinguishing people; if you announce it's mankind who does this not religion I'll refer you to the parable: 'Genesis 1.26 - 1.27;' "Then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness." For those who refer to the parable, it is aesthetics only, I point out the irrational clause - no omnipotent divinity simply creates the shell without having some knowledge what's in the shell. Having spoken to Evangelists for years, I can confirm they're more agreeable to modern, ancient crusades than the rest of us, they sign their belief-system to the embodiment of barbarism; there lies the flaw in the theist's moral literacy / compass, indeed, a cul de sac that only brings human disaster. Why we don't learn from our mistakes, thinking differs greatly to doing; hence to a theist, it's irrationally the same thing.
I wasn't surprised Rowan Williams believes that a 'Grammar of Assent' written in 1870 by John Henry Newman is the theist's ultimate answer, which Magee fails to align with, and for good reason. Williams states the 'philosophy of faith' is grotesquely underrated for the book is a bridge between 'high probability' and 'real assent' (in other words the acceptance of deistic propositions from a Superior Being). Since the first Swiss 'Guttenberg' publication of the bible in 1453, our so-called knowledge has expanded vastly, thanks to a number of voyages of discovery, why I suppose Newman's prose is non-compliant and decidedly impotent to realities. Not an unfair comment, duly because his belief-system enrolls to the view that nebulous is the plausible act of coming to valid decisions and that faith is a credible product alone for rational human activity - ye-s really... 'rational activation.' Probably a good time to mention that the deistic Tony Blair believed in Newman's vexatious spirit - it's why he invaded Iraq! He didn't concentrate on the available data, he chose to veto it, for he had 'faith;' and nefariously made that particular decision via Cardinal Newman's faith, prophecy - the result, opening up the social-disease en-masse.
Deism's un-mappable forces
My buoyant joviality reached a zenith when Williams informs his readership that Magee wrote: "the notion of inner oneness may possibly contain the key not only to morality but to the enigma of life itself." I refer to Magee's term... 'enigma' (life's paradox); this is not a term that encroaches on 'certainty' whatsoever of any shape or form, consider it philosophical prose, of the premise Magee is a philosopher. But Williams finds the quote too irresistible to pass by - "This sounds uncomfortably like an appeal to what he elsewhere calls the occult to the invisible and un-mappable forces." Evidence of a smirk beneath his white beard. In defence, Magee was illustrating the point, 'oneness' i.e. humanity as I would put it non-animalistic instincts has the potential to do remarkable discoveries, the statement doesn't imply he is putting all of his eggs in one book... so to speak. Otherwise, I'll be announcing to our civilization the 'International Bestseller' book by Christopher Hitchens; 'God Is Not Great' written a decade ago is worthy of 'moral majesty' and holds the key to eternal life, how delusional that'll be; albeit, my consciousness knows this is 'fraud' if I even wavered slightly to making a statement of grandiose certainty. By entity and vocational practices Williams has zero knowledge of what Magee mean't by enigma, because an individual's life profoundly differs especially a prominent Philosopher who doesn't simplify all prose to monotheism - derailed due to expressing a non-tangible perspective.
I conclude in this instance, though under inner protest - thus, I must conclude this particular monologue of the knowledge even for a dissident I concur this piece has become an essay. However, I'll leave you with Rowan Williams's end comment: "It is a pity that Magee's philosophical idiom leaves us with so little resource to address them with the kind of courage and sanity he would like to commend in other areas." Well, there was enough Magee 'Ultimate Question' resource evident to warrant a warped response whereby no answers or pious were Magee's purpose. What I found shocking is when Magee does embark on the nuclear weapon discourse and what good they could be used for; in Magee's case (deflecting an earth-bound asteroid, eliminating Armageddon) Williams is aggrieved, presumably of the denomination that an asteroid is deemed divinity's will; meanwhile, it leaves the rational to save humanity as per usual.
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