Friday, April 3, 2009

That It Is, Is The Mystical

Darwin's Angel by John Cornwell is a riposte to Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion where Cornwell attempts to show up some of the inconsistencies of Dawkin's central thesis by way of a guardian angel. Now after writing that opening summary, I'm trying to figure out why anyone should read the book, its sounds about as grounded as a kestrel on speed. But if you give it a chance it actually works and begins to break down some of the certainty associated with the God Delusion by cleverly using the work of people ranging from Wittgenstein to the spiritually tortured philosopher/mathematician Pascal.

The book however isn't blatantly religious if one is going on the narrower definition of the word and is far less dogmatic and stringent that the Dawkin's atheist vibe. Anyways my head seriously hurts after all that profound thinking, and I thought first mover only ever referred to commerce and was just reference in a Michael Porter paper from the eighties and bob's your uncle. How wrong I was!!!

So after getting that book off the shelf I was tempted to play If God Was One of Us or the SouthPark Faith +1 Christian Rock Band, but I resisted, instead I went for Placebo and Running Up That Hill, mainly because I just couldn't inflict Kate Bush generally prancing around the place on anyone.

Also a band called Placebo singing about god, the irony is delicious.

4 comments:

Sleepy said...

You will never know how grateful I am to you for sparing me that screeching harridan.

As for Dawkins and all the rest?
I'm sure someone has said, 'Distrust those who have found the truth...'
Or something.
New weed. Synapses bolloxed!

Neil said...

Indeed, Kate was always a bit on the cookie side. As for the Dawkins stuff, its always best considered in a purple haze!

Sleepy said...

Or while suffering a Strawberry Cough! Er hem!

Neil said...

Er hem indeed! Say no more ha ha