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And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

Wednesday, 9th July 2008

The truth little Red Rum can teach those clever dons

Thus human beings ceased to be wholly fatalistic and some of them became Promethean. Without this development I should think it highly unlikely that the race would exist today. As it is, our future appears limitless, if we retain our freedom of will and our refusal to accept material domination. But will we? Fatalism is deeply rooted in many people; it is a subjective propensity rather than an objective fact, and its expression takes many forms. In the ancient world it survived the discovery of gods. It grafted itself on to or cannibalised the new concept, so the fates came into existence as new forms of deity, themselves to be appeased, but to no purpose since they had no ultimate aim themselves and anyway were unappeasable. It was fatalism which held back the world of antiquity from progress, and was in the process of destroying it when Judaeo-Christianity came to the rescue.

Fatalism is on the march again, in its new form of militant atheism. It has made big strides, particularly in the past decade, especially in higher education, and has captured key centres, notably my old university, Oxford, which is now a place of despair and misery. Modern materialist fatalism takes two particular forms. In science, especially in the current fashion- able subject, biology, it has produced Darwinian Fundamentalism. This is now taught as the explanation of everything by the process usually called the survival of the fittest, but might equally be called the destruction of the unfit. In academic philosophy, which has become a mere slave of Darwinism, it is called Naturalism, though there is nothing in human nature about it. It teaches that any phenomena not capable of a materialist or scientific investigation are outside the reach of philosophy.

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Cogito Ergosum

July 10th, 2008 3:31pm

This article typifies the inchoate rage of the religious mind against the idea that science is the key to understanding our world and our place therein; and that the results of science from the steam engine to the jet plane and modern medicine have liberated the more thoughtful humans from the fatalism he abhors.

Egg

July 10th, 2008 4:35pm

Of course science is the key to understanding the material elements of the universe; but when it comes to matters like telepathy, poltergeists and religious experience, for which there is ample evidence but which does not fit in with a materialistic view of the world, some scientists (the more honourable ones in my view) accept that they have no explanation for them, while others (the fundamentalist and often militant atheists to whom Paul Johnson refers - I name no names) simply refuse to consider the evidence. I'm afraid that in my view simply makes them bad scientists.

Vernon Howell

July 10th, 2008 8:36pm

Er... how has the jet plane liberated humans from fatalism precisely? Liberated them from a certain amount of gravity perhaps, but fatalism I think not. On the contrary there is a new strand of fatalism which holds that flight is destroying the planet and we are all doomed. Your technological-rationalist optimism is so 19th century, my friend.

Cogito Ergosum

July 11th, 2008 6:01pm

To Egg 1635/10/7/2008:

It is science rather than religion which is more likely to accept that currently there is no explanation for some phenomenon. Some puzzles do take a long while to crack. In the examples you quote, however, there is historic justification for considering in at least some cases the possibility of human fallibility, ranging from wishful thinking to outright cheating.

To Vernon Howell 2036/10/7/2008:

The jet plane and other modern machines make travel much easier and quicker. Travel broadens the mind, at least for the more thoughtful humans.

Vernon Howell

July 11th, 2008 8:08pm

Yes for some people travel broadens the mind, but not necessarily in an atheistic or materialist direction, unless your definition of 'thoughtful' is atheistic. Also, I point out that many travellers spend a lot of their time visiting ancient sacred spaces (temples etc), or museums which are full of sacred art. Finally, back on the fatalism theme, there are many secular fatalisms- whether socio-economic or biological- deterministic. So 'liberation' from belief rarely if ever entails the kind of existential liberation I think you are making claims for.