Fishing For Answers
Stephen J. Gould from The Atheist's Bible: An Illustrious Collection of Irreverent Thoughts
"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher' answer---but none exists."
Comments
Dragging that small chunk this far out of context is kind of aggressive. SJG life was all about 'higher' answers.
Posted by: Crid at August 12, 2008 8:11 AM
"We may yearn for a 'higher' answer---but none exists."
It's all within you and without you. Yer part of it all. Them little atoms inside you are just like them little atoms that make up the galaxies, the stars, the planets, and the guy posting on the other thread whose entire argument is "F YOU!".
The *higher answer* is that you're just as important as everything else, and just as common.
I should start a church and get tax exempt status for this teaching. All I need is a pointy hat and a willing congregation.
Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 12, 2008 11:27 AM
heh, seems a little arrogant for a buncha upright fishes circling some small unregarded star, in a backwater of a basic galaxy among billions of galaxies, to think they know everything. We haven't even left home to go camp in the back yard yet, but we sure know a lot.
I think Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" (NOMA) would seem to illuminate the different facets of his own beliefs, rather than, as Crid states, taking one thought of his out of context...
Posted by: SwissArmyD at August 12, 2008 11:48 AM
Hmm. The problem that faces any editor of a book of quotations is to select pithy passages that survive being dragged out of context. I thought this one worked pretty well, but can entertain the notion that you are right. What was Gould getting at by putting scare quotes around "higher"? How is your "higher" different from the "higher" in the quotation?
Posted by: Axman at August 12, 2008 11:49 AM
Sorry, I inadvertently edited out the part of my post that indicated I was addressing Crid.
Posted by: Axman at August 12, 2008 12:37 PM
Just sayin', his cosmology had no patience with people who weren't curious. (Nor do those of thee and me....)
The opponents in the struggle you're very eager to engage would like to think that we've (SJG, you and me) forestalled progress in our way, so now they should be permitted to choke it in theirs. I bet in the context of the whole essay, his point is clearer.
(After all these years, I should have learned to follow your links....)
Posted by: Crid at August 12, 2008 5:39 PM
Whoa, I though that was Amy... I should follow your links too, Axy
Posted by: Crid at August 12, 2008 6:11 PM
I find it laughable in some regards.
To declare with absolute certainty, that there are no higher answers.
I'm not saying there is or is not a god.
But I find it utterly laughable to claim knowledge of nothingness.
The human lifespan is finite, the amount of knowledge even the cleverest and most long lived intelligent human could acquire, is even more finite. And if history shows us anything, it is that every generation we find out just how much the previous generation was wrong about.
Just with those 3 considerations, any declaration of certainty by any one of any stripe or walk of life about the very nature of creation, be it on this world or on the billions beyond it...is no less egotistical and misguided than the absolutist declarations of the most devout religious leader.
It always reminds me of an old Calvin & Hobbes strip, Calvin standing outside in the dark looking up at the stars with Hobbes.
He screams, "I EXIST!" at the sky, he waits a moment...and follows with: ...cried the dust speck.
Posted by: Robert at August 12, 2008 7:25 PM
I am a great fan of Gould, for his style almost as much as his ideas. His scholarly articles (except for the numerical parts) are almost as easy to read as his Natural History columns, and just as graceful.
Maybe the reason I like the quotation above is that it expresses a view of the universe that I developed in reaction to the church teachings I was subjected to as a college freshman. I summed up that view in an essay written, under a different handle, to hearten ex-members of that church. I don't know how to post a link, but here's the URL:
http://www.hwarmstrong.com/my-spiritual-blindness.htm
I wasn't thinking about Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria," mentioned by Gog, but it sounds as if I was. In general, I don't actually give the theological magisterium as much credit as Gould does; I just try to resist the temptation to jeer.
Posted by: Axman at August 12, 2008 8:33 PM
