Fact and Truth

[Orlion]

I guess I just react when you begin speaking about organized religion as a general evil, and give an impression of manipulation and control that I know is NOT the rule, not only in Orthodoxy, generally speaking, but in all sincere versions of the Faith.

I can't speak for Orthodoxy, but in the US, most of the religions I've been exposed to are a general evil (as you defined: about manipulation and control). As an analogy, they're like American politics, but in the theological arena. Within each sect, it's all love and hope, but start getting them to interact with each other, and it can get pretty nasty. Imagine a hard core Republican talking to a hard core Democrat "debating" politics. As a result, religion often becomes a forbidden subject in conversation.

I must also specify that I mean American Christian religions, I haven't had much exposure to other non-Christian religions.

[danlo]

Just to quickly interject: I don't see anything really wrong with organized religion as long as it doesn't get rooted in it's own dogma, forcibly tries to convert, has a finality of separating itself from the rest of humanity (i.e. "if you don't believe what we believe you're going to hell"), infringes on a non-believer's soul (such as the Mormons recording names for future baptisms or resurrections), is non-violent, doesn't advocate a political agenda, and doesn't attempt to lead it's followers like lemmings over a cliff (even though lemmings really don't do that), (such as that Heaven's Gate cult, or what Jim Jones did, or the brainwashing Sun-Yung Moon does). Given those circumstances, nothing wrong if someone wants to join. Personally I get very edgy when two or more people begin agree on a particular agenda...

[rusmeister]

Just to quickly interject: I don't see anything really wrong with organized religion as long as it doesn't get rooted in it's own dogma, forcibly tries to convert, has a finality of separating itself from the rest of humanity (i.e. "if you don't believe what we believe you're going to hell"), infringes on a non-believer's soul (such as the Mormons recording names for future baptisms or resurrections), is non-violent, doesn't advocate a political agenda, and doesn't attempt to lead it's followers like lemmings over a cliff (even though lemmings really don't do that), (such as that Heaven's Gate cult, or what Jim Jones did, or the brainwashing Sun-Yung Moon does). Given those circumstances, nothing wrong if someone wants to join. Personally I get very edgy when two or more people begin agree on a particular agenda...

If I may take this point-by-point:
1) Everyone is rooted in one dogma or another. Most have no conscious awareness of this, that's all.
2) Forcibly tries to convert: agreed
3)separates itself from humanity (needs qualification, but as stated): agreed
4) infringes on a non-believer's soul: agreed - violation of free will
5) Non-violent: needs qualification, but agreed in general
6) Doesn't advocate a political agenda: Needs major qualification, but probably agreed
7) interpreting "lemmings" as "self-destruction": agreed

"Agenda" also needs to be defined. Otherwise, your words "get edgy..." could be interpreted as a hope that no one should agree on anything.

Maybe I'm not quite as "fruit-of-the-loom" as past impressions have given...?

[rusmeister]

I guess I just react when you begin speaking about organized religion as a general evil, and give an impression of manipulation and control that I know is NOT the rule, not only in Orthodoxy, generally speaking, but in all sincere versions of the Faith.

I can't speak for Orthodoxy, but in the US, most of the religions I've been exposed to are a general evil (as you defined: about manipulation and control). As an analogy, they're like American politics, but in the theological arena. Within each sect, it's all love and hope, but start getting them to interact with each other, and it can get pretty nasty. Imagine a hard core Republican talking to a hard core Democrat "debating" politics. As a result, religion often becomes a forbidden subject in conversation.

I must also specify that I mean American Christian religions, I haven't had much exposure to other non-Christian religions.

The main thing I'd say here is that the result of the practical politics of pluralism is precisely that any discussion of religion that takes truth seriously (with the threat of one side being right and another actually wrong) is forbidden. It is not a result of the two sides that do care about truth, who want very much to hash it out, even though it be atheist vs Christian (for certainly there are some atheists that care very much about truth, and I believe I've met some here. ) The proposition that there is cosmic truth and that it is knowable is of greatest threat to those who claim that there isn't (or that it is unknowable in principle, which is practically the same thing), and so they have the greatest interest in stifling attempts to establish that there actually is.

Also, I think that the overwhelming majority of sincere believers - and their churches, generally speaking, do actually proceed from love and hope, but would certainly concede that those are sometimes forgotten in the clash of opposing ideas. (I imagine you'd concede that it can be difficult for unbelievers to maintain those virtues in the same circumstances...)

[danlo]

Everyone is rooted in one dogma or another. Most have no conscious awareness of this, that's all.

expand and/or prove it--if you're talking about it merely as opinion maybe, but that may be too mercurial for some-I believe I'm too flexible to be rooted in it-spiritually and when it comes (if it does) to religion. If I said, "It's my creed to take care of my family everyday." then yes that's something I'm rooted in. Is that dogma?

Maybe I'm not quite as "fruit-of-the-loom" as past impressions have given...?

I've never completely dyed you in any wool, maybe others have, besides I can't tell what the make of your Superman t-shirt is from the photo...

[rusmeister]

Everyone is rooted in one dogma or another. Most have no conscious awareness of this, that's all.

expand and/or prove it--if you're talking about it merely as opinion maybe, but that may be too mercurial for some-I believe I'm too flexible to be rooted in it-spiritually and when it comes (if it does) to religion. If I said, "It's my creed to take care of my family everyday." then yes that's something I'm rooted in. Is that dogma?

Maybe I'm not quite as "fruit-of-the-loom" as past impressions have given...?

I've never completely dyed you in any wool, maybe others have, besides I can't tell what the make of your Superman t-shirt is from the photo...

Someone else on another forum did that pic for me - I never would've bothered on my own to make something like that - but hey, I liked it!

Dogma, in its simplest form, is a conviction/proposition that is not open for debate - a base assumption from which others spring. Thus, believing firmly that this world is not a dream , but that we are experiencing objective reality, and not allowing for "an alternative view" is dogma. So is believing that "life is but a dream". So is, "All views are equally true, there can be no one view that is more correct than the rest." or "There is no one single objective truth". These are (philosophical) dogmas - base principles which people assume and from which other ideas proceed which may also be dogma. The law of gravity is a dogma of natural science, as is the conservation of heat. That's why I say that y'all hold dogmas as firmly as any religious believer. Even the most flexible pluralist.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, I am pretty dogmatic about gravity. And oxygen; arsenic; bullets; water; and a jillion other things.

I'm not dogmatic about, for example, "All views are equally true, there can be no one view that is more correct than the rest." Nor the assumption that there is no creator. I just haven't seen any compelling evidence or logic that one view is more correct than the rest, or that there is a creator.

[Zahir]

I'd say that technically the observable universe is an assumption one has to go with in order to do anything. In fact there is always room for doubt about anything, but sooner or later you've got to act on the fact that some things seem so consistent you might as well ignore the tiny room for doubt.

Like gravity. Needing water, air and food. Germ theory. Yeah, odds are that really truly is a chair after all. Might as well sit down if you're so inclined.

Obsessing about the doubts can be just as pointless and obnoxious as those who see the entire world in term of football or Twlight or the rules of their church or a favorite philosopher or some narrow political doctrine or their collection of Star Wars memorabilia.

So we do all have dogmas. At least a few. But I tend to think of them as premises, from which you begin action and thought.

[danlo]

...or death or taxes, but that's, actually the difference-we could reprogram our societal mindset about taxes but we can't about death-that's what I mean as dogma-not the practical dogma as rus is stretching it out to be-natural law is very different from canonical or man-made law.

[Zarathustra]

No, we do not all have dogmas. This claim is an misuse of the term.

Dogma is not merely a strong conviction or basic assumption. It’s also a conviction in something that arises from faith rather than evidence. In other words, it is absolutist, unjustified beliefs dealing with matters that transcend the natural world … i.e. the plane of being where the availability of empirical evidence makes faith and dogma unncessary.

If you have evidence for something, you don’t require faith to believe it. Evidence is justification for belief, by definition. If your belief in something is contingent upon evidence (meaning that you’d alter this belief with the discovery of counter evidence), then you don’t have a dogma.

This means that every naturalistic, empirical belief about the natural world is not dogmatic, by definition. Every tenet of science is contingent upon the evidence. Even the existence of the universe itself. The fact that we observe a universe IS the justification for believing that it exists. If this evidence changes (e.g. if we stop being able to observe the universe), then we'd have to revise that position, wouldn't we? How is that in any sense dogmatic?

[DukkhaWaynhim]

And there are many many different levels of evidence. We ideally want independently-verifiable objective evidence that all can agree upon -- but we rarely get that.
Lots of people use all kinds of evidence to support one thing or another, just to have that evidence rejected or disregarded as being subjective, questionable, unprovable, unlikely, or even unpopular

dw

[Zarathustra]

And there are many many different levels of evidence. We ideally want independently-verifiable objective evidence that all can agree upon -- but we rarely get that.
Lots of people use all kinds of evidence to support one thing or another, just to have that evidence rejected or disregarded as being subjective, questionable, unprovable, unlikely, or even unpopular

dw

Recognizing the problematic or incomplete nature of evidence is even more reason why beliefs which are contingent upon evidence aren't dogmatic ... as long as you recognize it. People can be dogmatic about the strength or reliability of evidence, I suppose. Just as people can be dogmatic in their approach to science and the natural world. However, inserting dogma into the picture is not the same as saying dogma is inherent to all belief, or that everyone shares in these kinds of dogmatic behaviors. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that dogma is something we must all guard against, but some of us do so better than others. For the ones who guard against it the least, perhaps it is easier for them to assume that everyone else is doing the same. But no one can use their own experience to speak for anyone else in this matter.

[rusmeister]

...or death or taxes, but that's, actually the difference-we could reprogram our societal mindset about taxes but we can't about death-that's what I mean as dogma-not the practical dogma as rus is stretching it out to be-natural law is very different from canonical or man-made law.

No, we do not all have dogmas. This claim is an misuse of the term.

Dogma is not merely a strong conviction or basic assumption. It’s also a conviction in something that arises from faith rather than evidence. In other words, it is absolutist, unjustified beliefs dealing with matters that transcend the natural world … i.e. the plane of being where the availability of empirical evidence makes faith and dogma unncessary.

If you have evidence for something, you don’t require faith to believe it. Evidence is justification for belief, by definition. If your belief in something is contingent upon evidence (meaning that you’d alter this belief with the discovery of counter evidence), then you don’t have a dogma.

This means that every naturalistic, empirical belief about the natural world is not dogmatic, by definition. Every tenet of science is contingent upon the evidence. Even the existence of the universe itself. The fact that we observe a universe IS the justification for believing that it exists. If this evidence changes (e.g. if we stop being able to observe the universe), then we'd have to revise that position, wouldn't we? How is that in any sense dogmatic?

Miriam-Webster:

Definition of DOGMA
1
a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet

Dictionary.com:

a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

OED:

c.1600 (in plural dogmata), from L. dogma "philosophical tenet," from Gk. dogma (gen. dogmatos) "opinion, tenet," lit. "that which one thinks is true," from dokein "to seem good, think" (see decent). Treated in 17c.-18c. as a Greek word in English.

I am speaking above all about philosophical dogmas - including the philosophy of science - for no science (knowledge) can operate outside of a philosophical system. All philosophical dogmas are "man-made", in the sense that we come to them as conclusions, observations of the interaction of our minds with an objective reality, but arguably NOT in the sense that we "make up" purely artificial ideas. Honest philosophy is an attempt to identify what is really true, what is ultimately objective. A philosophy that starts by claiming all is subjective has nothing to say to anyone except the speaker.

All knowledge is a matter of faith - of faith in the validity of our reason for starters. (I wish more people would have given GKC's "Orthodoxy" a whirl...)
The natural scientists has just as much faith in his findings as the religious person does in his, although certainly you can make distinctions.

So, the idea that says that what can be empirically proven via experimentation is true, while one that is not subject to empirical experiment is not, is already a dogma. It is held on faith, on faith in the senses (something to which I approve of to a considerable extent), but mostly on the external physical senses - thus, emotive drive, something much more difficult to experiment on, gets discounted from the get-go in the approach that limits itself to the natural sciences.

The most dogmatic aspect of your approach, Z, is that if you can see it and touch it and go back to it and experiment on it, you'll believe in it - and not if you can't. That is a blind faith in your senses and in nothing else. I think about what Hopko said about knowing and believing being thoroughly inter-related, and how the idea that we can only KNOW scientific things, and only BELIEVE religious things, is completely false - and dogmatic.

Once one realizes that one IS dogmatic, and HAS dogmas, and identifies what they are, one begins to think more clearly. As long as one think that they have no dogmas, they're screwed. And when the dogmatic materialist is deprived of his rhetorical weapon of accusing the believer of being unreasonable, he is forced to face the believer on equal terms - ones in which the believer is quite as reasonable as he is - more so because the believer is willing to admit that the 5 external senses, while a good beginning, may not be the only path to truth - especially since they can all be deceived.

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch20.html

The following paragraph is of nearly equal interest, but I have noted the aversion of some people here to texts of any significant length, and so leave it to those with genuine curiosity of how I could possibly hold the views that I do.

[Zarathustra]

Miriam-Webster:

Definition of DOGMA
1
a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet

Dictionary.com:

a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

OED:

c.1600 (in plural dogmata), from L. dogma "philosophical tenet," from Gk. dogma (gen. dogmatos) "opinion, tenet," lit. "that which one thinks is true," from dokein "to seem good, think" (see decent). Treated in 17c.-18c. as a Greek word in English.

But that's not what you're talking about in the post above:

Dogma, in its simplest form, is a conviction/proposition that is not open for debate - a base assumption from which others spring. ... y'all hold dogmas as firmly as any religious believer.

You can't take one sense of a dictionary definition and pretend that it's the same as another. From one of your own sources:

2: a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church

For instance, you can't claim that definition 1 equals definition 2. That's an equivocation. I'll grant you that science has "established opinions" (def. 1) but just because this meaning shares the same word in the dictionary with "doctrines concerning faith" (def. 2) does not allow you to conclude that we hold dogmas "as firmly as any religious believer," or that our established opinions are "not open for debate," as you concluded above. An established opinion might be resistent to debate (that's how it becomes established), but that's not the same as being unquestionable.

... no science (knowledge) can operate outside of a philosophical system.

Fine, I'll concede that point.

All philosophical dogmas are "man-made",

Irrelevant to the issue of dogma.

Honest philosophy is an attempt to identify what is really true, what is ultimately objective. A philosophy that starts by claiming all is subjective has nothing to say to anyone except the speaker.

No one here is saying that all is subjective. But that doesn't mean that people who think this aren't honest. Skepticism is an honest attempt to come to grips with the real fact of subjectivity. Personally, I'm not a skeptic. I do think we can transcend our subjectivity, through our subjectivity ... but that's another discussion.

All knowledge is a matter of faith - of faith in the validity of our reason for starters.

This is the most skeptical position of all! How can you purport to construct an objective philosophical system of knowledge if you're starting from the premise that all knowledge is a matter of faith? Faith is personal. Faith is subjective.

The natural scientists has just as much faith in his findings as the religious person does in his, although certainly you can make distinctions.

There is the "just as much" again. How can a scientist have "just as much" faith in his findings if his findings are--by definition--contingent upon the empirical evidence? There is no way you can make a quantitative comparison between these two realms of belief, when they depend upon metaphysically distinct criteria.

So, the idea that says that what can be empirically proven via experimentation is true, while one that is not subject to empirical experiment is not, is already a dogma.

No one said that. Science doesn't deal in Truth. It deals in accuracy. Description vs metaphysics. In addition, science doesn't say that religion is not true. There is no need to defend against this imaginary assualt upon faith by sabatoging the perceived "enemy" with an accusation of an equal amount of faith. Believing that this book will fall if I drop it is on a different plane of existence from believing that god will heal me of a fatal disease if I pray. You cannot quantitatively equate these two qualitatively distinct realms of belief.

The most dogmatic aspect of your approach, Z, is that if you can see it and touch it and go back to it and experiment on it, you'll believe in it - and not if you can't. That is a blind faith in your senses and in nothing else.

I don't have blind faith in my senses. But ignoring the practical validity of one's senses can lead to skepticism and ultimately solipsism. You're making a more skeptical argument than I am! You're really prepared to doubt the entire universe just to prove that I'm as dogmatic as you are? Go right ahead. I suggest this little experiment to test whether your argument is sincere or bologne: step in front of a bus and see which you have more faith in ... god's ability to protect you from these "phantom" senses you're plagued with, or the hard reality of the bus itself. As your foot hovers over the curb in hesitation, that feeling you'll be experiencing is a kind of certainty distinct from faith. It is knowledge based on past experience with other hard objects at high velocity. It has little to do with that warm fuzzy feeling one might get when one thinks about god.

Once one realizes that one IS dogmatic, and HAS dogmas, and identifies what they are, one begins to think more clearly. As long as one think that they have no dogmas, they're screwed. And when the dogmatic materialist is deprived of his rhetorical weapon of accusing the believer of being unreasonable, he is forced to face the believer on equal terms - ones in which the believer is quite as reasonable as he is - more so because the believer is willing to admit that the 5 external senses, while a good beginning, may not be the only path to truth - especially since they can all be deceived.

I agree with the first sentence. But we all realize that senses can be decieved. Even the scientist. Do you honestly think you're telling me something I don't know when you point out the fact that senses are fallible?? Given that I already know about this, how can I be dogmatic about my senses? How can I have faith in something that even a child recognizes as easily fooled? In order for you to pretend that I'm dogmatic about my senses, you must pretend I'm being as naive as a toddler. Or a crazy person believing his hallucinations. There is no way to match up your accusation of dogma with even the bare minimum of common sense we all share when it comes to perception. I know about illusion! I'm not dogmatic when it comes to my senses. I do not have faith in them. But I do trust them most of the time ... a distinction you're pretending doesn't exist by equivocating on the dictionary definitions of these words.

[Zahir]

No one said that. Science doesn't deal in Truth. It deals in accuracy. Description vs metaphysics. In addition, science doesn't say that religion is not true. There is no need to defend against this imaginary assualt upon faith by sabatoging the perceived "enemy" with an accusation of an equal amount of faith. Believing that this book will fall if I drop it is on a different plane of existence from believing that god will heal me of a fatal disease if I pray. You cannot quantitatively equate these two qualitatively distinct realms of belief.

Bravo!

[danlo]

[Orlion]

Also, I think that the overwhelming majority of sincere believers - and their churches, generally speaking, do actually proceed from love and hope, but would certainly concede that those are sometimes forgotten in the clash of opposing ideas. (I imagine you'd concede that it can be difficult for unbelievers to maintain those virtues in the same circumstances...)

Just saying that I find a lot to empathize with in danlo's and your posts. I still tend to think that the organized religions that get in your face with pamphlets are the kind that danlo, DW, and I are against. The ones you mention, were beliefs precede from love and hope, tend not to be jerks... and you tend not to find them unless you happen into a soup kitchen or other such acts of humanity.

I've been thinking... the main thing I have against the "bad" organized religions (and political parties, for that matter) is not that they are so damn certain that they are right: it's that they believe that they somehow have the right to coerce everyone else into their way of thinking and living. And somehow, they're the only ones special enough to do this (Danlo's example of Mormons performing sacred rituals for the dead is an excellent example of this: they do it because without them doing it, these dead are, for all intents and purposes, damned. .. so only by doing those rituals can they be saved. That's arrogance, that's tyranny).

Incidently, being sure of one's self and saying so in an area when asked or where such comments should be expected is fine, so you're ok Rus

[rusmeister]

Also, I think that the overwhelming majority of sincere believers - and their churches, generally speaking, do actually proceed from love and hope, but would certainly concede that those are sometimes forgotten in the clash of opposing ideas. (I imagine you'd concede that it can be difficult for unbelievers to maintain those virtues in the same circumstances...)

Just saying that I find a lot to empathize with in danlo's and your posts. I still tend to think that the organized religions that get in your face with pamphlets are the kind that danlo, DW, and I are against. The ones you mention, were beliefs precede from love and hope, tend not to be jerks... and you tend not to find them unless you happen into a soup kitchen or other such acts of humanity.

I've been thinking... the main thing I have against the "bad" organized religions (and political parties, for that matter) is not that they are so damn certain that they are right: it's that they believe that they somehow have the right to coerce everyone else into their way of thinking and living. And somehow, they're the only ones special enough to do this (Danlo's example of Mormons performing sacred rituals for the dead is an excellent example of this: they do it because without them doing it, these dead are, for all intents and purposes, damned. .. so only by doing those rituals can they be saved. That's arrogance, that's tyranny).

Incidently, being sure of one's self and saying so in an area when asked or where such comments should be expected is fine, so you're ok Rus

Thanks,
As long as that distinction is made and kept in mind, I have no problem with complaints against the obnoxious religious organizations that do try to get in everybody's face.
I think that's a problem of perception. The aggressive ones DO get all the attention, and so outsiders might well come to perceive that as 'what it's all like' because that's all they see, and as you said, the soup kitchen or hospital and prison visitations get no press or attention. Just consider how much exposure you get to my faith. The entire attitude is "Come and see!" Not "We're comin' to get ya!"

It's a side note, but thinking about the Mormon rituals - and my mom was one for several years, so it's not just armchair theory for me - my own objections to them, as I said, are that they are a denial of free will. Yet, we (Orthodox and traditional Catholic) sometimes get blasted for NOT doing the same thing. Hang around long enough and you'll hear the stories about the family that wants the member who in life was an unbeliever to have an Orthodox funeral 'to help get him into heaven', to add Church prayers (for believers only) to their private prayers (which are always allowed for anyone).
It is precisely the honoring of the wishes and beliefs of the unbeliever that draws the denial for such burials; the sovereignty (granted to us by God) of our free will. Then on that same basis, people talk about God not being omnipotent because he can't save everybody, even though they CHOOSE to reject Him. We can't win. 'Damned if we are, damned if we aren't.' This is what Chesterton was talking about when he said that he gradually began noting that people attacked the Church for completely contradictory and opposite reasons.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch6.html

It's just one chapter, but it makes the point. I would have to post the whole chapter here, but I'll settle for the intro and hope that the teaser draws the honestly curious:

THE real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong.

It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncanny element in everything. It seems a sort of secret treason in the universe. An apple or an orange is round enough to get itself called round, and yet is not round after all. The earth itself is shaped like an orange in order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it a globe. A blade of grass is called after the blade of a sword, because it comes to a point; but it doesn't. Everywhere in things there is this element of the quiet and incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, but it never escapes till the last moment. From the grand curve of our earth it could easily be inferred that every inch of it was thus curved. It would seem rational that as a man has a brain on both sides, he should have a heart on both sides. Yet scientific men are still organizing expeditions to find the North Pole, because they are so fond of flat country. Scientific men are also still organizing expeditions to find a man's heart; and when they try to find it, they generally get on the wrong side of him.

Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guesses these hidden malformations or surprises. If our mathematician from the moon saw the two arms and the two ears, he might deduce the two shoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain. But if he guessed that the man's heart was in the right place, then I should call him something more than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim which I have since come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduces logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects the unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubborn about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it will not admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deduction that he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to point this out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth.

Examples and details are amply provided in what follows. Of course, I think the whole book ought to be required reading for people who want to raise objections to Christianity (even the objections that I share). It doesn't "prove" Christianity, but it does show that it is sensible.