That's what Brother Fred Said...When He Was Logicalling on My Positivism

...if 

human 

culture 

is 

not 

to 

descend 

into 

an 

arid 

wilderness 

of 

materialism, 

it 

is 

important 

to 

remember 

that 

there 

are 

other 

levels 

of 

experience 

and 

knowledge 

than 

that 

represented 

by 

A History of Philosophy Volume 11: Logical Positivism and Existentialism

by

Frederick Copleston

Y'know...

oops, sorry, didn't mean to shout. Y'know, it seems to me that this half of a sentence pretty aptly sums up what is wrong today. 1  We...and by we, I mean everybody except me...and you, right? Or, at least, almost everybody I know. "We" have so little respect for the spiritual, the mystical, that if belonging to a congregation didn't have some immediate fringe benefits (e.g. business contacts, free utilities for an hour a week, etc.), churches probably wouldn't even exist anymore. Well, not really, but youknowhatimsayin. Empircal evidence has become the standard by which "we" measure all experiences, even if we don't really have the slightest idea what that evidence says. Shit, most of us don't even understand how our car engine runs, but we still have more faith in that than in any God you would care to talk about. But I don't think this is a case of the spiritual being eclipsed by the scientific. Because, as Copleston points out various times and in a number of different ways, there is no real "competition" between science and religion. They are completely different realms. The pretty young lady in a hat is not competing with the old crone. But it takes some flexibility of mind to understand that they are not mutually exclusive. To understand that you do not have to choose between them. And maybe there are some people who actually can't see both of them. And I think it's that flexibility of mind...that willingness to see things in more than one way...which has led to the seeming rejection of the spirit by the scientific mind.

And that leaves us with an arid wilderness, doesn't it. And that's not even a poetic image anymore; it's the physical reality of the Damoclean sword whose thread has frayed to the point where breakage is going to occur within a couple of decades or so.

If you want to kiss the sky

Better learn how to kneel.

 (On your knees boy!)

by U2

1  "What's wrong today is what's wrong with you. You're so sorry, so damn sorry, but that's all you'll do, with a Vietnamese baby on your mind...your pretty little mind." "Vietnamese Baby" by David Johansen (with New York Dolls)