At my
church, in Pittsburgh ,
Church of the Ascension, we just concluded a set of four talks on New
Atheism and Christian responses to it. The talks were held as a pub, which is
part of a new outreach program based on the assumption, as I see it, that
people would rather talk about deep matters while drinking beer (and possibly
eating well-prepared food). While I do not partake of the beer, the
logic of that assumption is clear. Our clergy may argue for more lofty
explanations for the sites of these and similar talks, but I believe it's largely due to the beer and good food. I gather most of the New Atheists and virtually all historical philosophers, past and present, have shared that affection for beer and good food.
During one
of the talks, or possibly two of them, passing comments were made that
philosophy and reflection, which we were discussing and using, could not be
argued to be of any evolutionary advantage. Only a brief example was given, but
I immediately imagined a sort of chase scene involving a hungry or threatened
carnivore and a human who was highly reflective, and for us to imagine such a scene was what the speaker intended.
Extrapolating only slightly, a great migration due to inclement weather, say drought,
could hardly be imagined to proceed well if anyone was stopping to contemplate,
and even contemplatives who manage to continue walking can be a hindrance when others are in a hurry. No,
for getting what needs to be done accomplished, philosophers and writers and
artists and meditative types are rarely picked first to form the team. If Darwin were completely
accurate about how evolution proceeded, virtually all us with such tendencies would have been set adrift on
ice floes, sent on peculiar errands while the rest of the tribe left for higher ground, or pushed to the outskirts of the herd for prey to pick off. I would
argue that our ability to survive, and even, at times, produce offspring, argues for some power other than natural
selection at work.
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