(no subject)
Put the crackers aside for a moment, and take a look at PZ at his best:
Fish confuses the rejection of the supernatural pretext with the rejection of the depth of real feeling. He is mistaken. In my case, I read his superficial theological gloss with loathing because I see him substituting the wishful thinking of millennia of shamans and priests for the reality of the human condition-his conciliatory apologies are support for generations of lies. He confuses the efforts of the writers of those texts to grapple with suffering and doubt with the legitimacy of the religious answer; I can respect the beauty of religious literature and the struggle put into it while at the same time realizing that falling back on the will of an imaginary being is an admission of failure.
The essay stands much better as a whole. And it quotes Gilgamesh!
Fish confuses the rejection of the supernatural pretext with the rejection of the depth of real feeling. He is mistaken. In my case, I read his superficial theological gloss with loathing because I see him substituting the wishful thinking of millennia of shamans and priests for the reality of the human condition-his conciliatory apologies are support for generations of lies. He confuses the efforts of the writers of those texts to grapple with suffering and doubt with the legitimacy of the religious answer; I can respect the beauty of religious literature and the struggle put into it while at the same time realizing that falling back on the will of an imaginary being is an admission of failure.
The essay stands much better as a whole. And it quotes Gilgamesh!