razib
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09:51:22 pm on August 17, 2008 | # | |
section of an interview with sf author john c wright on his christian conversion:
I knew the Christians were evil in theory; I could not explain how so much unique good came from them.Greatly daring, I attempted an experiment in prayer, addressing a Supreme Being I knew with deep certainty did not and could not exist. My prayer was quickly and awfully answered.
A miracle occurred. I suffered a supernatural experience and found all the foundations of my carefully examined and rigidly logical philosophy swept away as if by a tidal wave of blazing and supernal light. A great and powerful spirit visited me.
The whole thing was as simple and astonishing, as easy to explain and as hard to explain, as falling in love.
I am one of those rare creatures whose belief in the supernatural is due to empirical considerations. My mysticism is entirely scientific. Alas, the second step in the experiment, when the miracle occurs, cannot be reproduced before the eyes of skeptics.
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Willow 10:24 pm on August 17, 2008 | #
That’s awesome. I know how he feels.
Muse 11:59 pm on August 17, 2008 | #
What empirical considerations?
razib 12:11 am on August 18, 2008 | #
you can google it, but it seems like he feels he had a personal experience with god. that is, he experienced and encounter with god.
Willow 12:37 am on August 18, 2008 | #
A miracle, assuming it has some kind of literal manifestation, would be empirical evidence of the supernatural. Ie not “i had a vision” but “this chair moved from here to there without help” or “In a dream I saw Cheng Fei lose the floor event by 1.25 points and the next day that’s exactly what happened.” In other words, some part of the event occurs outside the mind, making it measurable if not repeatable.
I’ve been thinking about miracles a lot lately…
Willow 12:43 am on August 18, 2008 | #
Ooh I notice he makes the Tolkien-Lewis-Waugh connection. Most people only get as far as Lewis. It’s harder to see the Waugh link because he’s so much more ambivalent. If only he’d kept going and gotten to Lings, we might have had him for ourselves.
Lawrence of Arabia 5:10 pm on August 18, 2008 | #
“Alas, the second step in the experiment, when the miracle occurs, cannot be reproduced before the eyes of skeptics.”
So much for the scientific part…or the empiricism. Wait, what was he saying again?
LoA.
thabet 8:42 pm on August 18, 2008 | #
Heh @ LoA.
Isn’t he confusing ‘direct experience’ (experiential) with ’science’ (empiricism)?
The two are not the same, imho.