Is Ziegler on the money? Yes and No. (Main Forum)

by James, Australia, Thursday, June 21, 2012, 00:28 (337 days ago) @ Benikira

James, I wonder if Klaus Ziegler might be better sticking to mathematics and not dabbling too deeply into logic and ethics let alone theology and prayer of all things.

Those of us who did not go past High School mathematics would indeed be daring in trying to discuss quantam mechanics or any other branch of higher mathematics. But I don't see why a mathematician cannot have an opinion about logic, ethics and prayer. And isn't the issue of the existence of God, one for "philosophy", not "theology", which assumes such existence and then relies on ancient Holy Books for its propositions.

I wonder was he exposed as a kid to that awful milleu many of us were exposed to in our childhood and really came a cropper as a lad when he prayed for something real big and it didn’t come off.

I can assure you he wasn't. I know the family. His father is also a mathematician and not at all religious.

It is fine to talk about philosophers struggling for millennia to clarify paradoxes, to quote Spinoza and Shakespeare and remind us that the problem of the divine will has worried theologians (like Leibniz?) for centuries and thank god or leave god out of it if you like and just be thankful to Voltaire for identifying the big absurdity - but don’t ask me to take what he writes all too seriously. It is a bit meandering and not so great an example of logic – the very thing he seems to want to rely on.

Leibniz, by the way, was both mathematician, logician and philosopher - I am sure you learned about him in your philosophy course in the seminary. And rather just accuse Zeigler of not being terribly logical, why don't you be more precise (logical?) and tell us why?

Mind you I imagine I agree whole-heartedly with what seems to be his main idea about the efficacy or its lack when it comes to asking the god in the sky for special favours.

But that isn’t really what prayer is surely? And I confess I’m not too sure myself these days as to just what it is. Still searching!

Well, let's start with the Our Father, the prayer that God himself taught us:

"Our Father...hallowed be they name.." (praise for the one who has total control over us)
"They Kingdom come, they will be done on earth..." (more grovelling)
"Give us this day our daily bread" (favours)
"And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" (bribes in return for good behaviour)
"Lead us not into temptation" (favours)
"And deliver us from evil" (favours)

If you go to any Christian service anywhere, you will find that all of it involves variants of this. That is the problem Ziegler was writing about, when you combine that with other theological or philosophical propositions about God, such as omniscience and omnipotence.

If you ditch all of the stuff in the Our Father, what are you left with?

However what Judith, Debb and PatrickW have written I find much more satisfying, even convincing than Klaus Ziegler’s writing.

What Judith and Debb wrote has none of this Our Father stuff in it, and sounds more like Buddhist meditation. But I am not going to knock them for saying that they have this personal relationship with a Supreme Being. I accept their honesty and integrity in saying that this is what they really experience. And if PatrickW says that he is more clear headed after praying, I can readily accept that too. Newberg and Waldman in How God Changes Your Brain would agree with him.

Brian’s reference to talking about the “spiritual side of life” being likened to talking about a relationship of human love is also worthy of some thought in the context of prayer. A love relationship can hardly be reduced to one person simply asking the other for favours. Like Indian magic - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Most people who have had a religious experience will describe it in terms of a love relationship, and neuroscientists who study this sort of thing say that the same parts of the brain that are activated in a human love relationship are also activated when religious activity is involved. Everyone enjoys the experience of love, and doesn't enjoy its opposite, when there is conflict with other human beings. But this is not what Ziegler is talking about. He is talking about the philosophical problems that arise from the whole idea of prayer in the sense of asking for favours from a Supreme Being. Nothing that you have said makes that problem go away.

By the way, one of the reasons for posting this sort of article here is that otherwise Catholica could end up degenerating into discussions about cross dressing and placing bets on the latest episcopal appointments. Not that they don't have their place here, but it would be a shame if that was all it was about.