Evolution Was the Key in Joseph Campbell’s Loss of Faith

_{William Dembski
June 13, 2009

Education, Religion, Science

2}_{Categories
Education
Religion
Science}

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Joseph Campbell died in 1987 but remains influential. In this revealing video, Campbell clarifies why he left the Roman Catholic faith of his youth — EVOLUTION:

While many try to reconcile their faith with evolution, many find in evolution reason to leave the faith. Just because there’s no strict contradiction between the two doesn’t mean that the two aren’t in tension. Campbell felt the tension and left the faith.

SOURCE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJmNBxbExuA

Postscript [added 06.14.09, 7:40AM CST]: It’s interesting to see Campbell disparage the biblical cosmology for being several millennia old and thus out of touch with current cosmologies — myths that impact our lives being myths that are compatible with contemporary cosmologies, according to Campbell. But when I studied ancient near eastern cosmologies at Princeton Theological Seminary, I found an interesting thing: they divided into cosmologies in which creation occurs through a spoken word by a supreme deity (the biblical cosmology was not unique in this regard) and cosmologies in which natural forces evolve and do all the creating, producing better and more powerful deities as time flows along (e.g., the Babylonian creation, in which Marduk is born several generations down and finally becomes the chief god). Given that this is an information age and that the Bible teaches that God created the world through a spoken word, would it not follow that the biblical cosmology is actually back in the saddle and ready again to engage culture? It would seem then that the provenance and length of time that a cosmology has been with us need not sap it of its cultural relevance or impact.

Comments

Silly why? I guess on your premises he couldn’t help himself, he had no free will in the matter.
Whether or not he had free will in the matter doesn't change the fact that it was a silly decision. Decisions can be made without notions of "free will", which thus far has yet to be defined by its proponents. Could you give me a coherent definition of the concept of "free will"?RDK_{June 15, 2009
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RDK, ------"If that’s the only true reason you’re a Christian, then that’s a silly reason for you to be one. Free will is, for all intents and purposes, an illusion. Try defining for yourself what free will even means. Just think about it for a minute. What is “free will”?" Silly why? I guess on your premises he couldn't help himself, he had no free will in the matter.Clive Hayden_{June 15, 2009
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The reason I’m a Christian instead of a Deist is because I believe human beings have free will.
If that's the only true reason you're a Christian, then that's a silly reason for you to be one. Free will is, for all intents and purposes, an illusion. Try defining for yourself what free will even means. Just think about it for a minute. What is "free will"? The idea that we have wants? Yes, people want things. But for your will to be "free" instead of merely a deterministic cause-and-effect process? What does it mean for your will to be "free"? That you don't follow your will sometimes? I suppose if you wanted to frustrate yourself. But then again you'd only make that decision because you wanted to frustrate yourself, and because the desire to do so was stronger than some other desire that might have taken precedence. As individual organisms we react to the environment. As the environment changes, so does the individual's concept of the "right thing". The environment is dictating your input - perception is the key and it can be manipulated. It is a combination of pressures, some internal and some external, that collectively dictate our pathway through life. That's why free will is bunk. Our personality - our will, or essence - is not free. If anything, it's steady and solid. Humans are creatures of habit; it's patterns in behavior that make us who we are, not some sort of quasi-religious entity called a "soul" hanging off in some other dimension.RDK_{June 15, 2009
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Actually, it would be much simpler to say I'm a Christian because I believe in Christ. lol. It's all in the name. A Deist believes in a Deity and not much else.tragic mishap_{June 15, 2009
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JTaylor
Why be a Christian when perhaps being a Deist is more congruent with ID?
The reason I'm a Christian instead of a Deist is because I believe human beings have free will. A Deist says that God basically does not act in the world and never has except to create it. I believe God sent his Son into the world to die for our sins, and furthermore I believe that when we submit our will to him, he acts in our lives. Submitting our free will to God allows God to live in us and act through us. As for the natural world, I believe God has done miracles but only in special situations. In general he acts through the free will freely submitted to him by those who believe. So God acts in the world and in my life every day without affecting the course of natural laws. A Deist does not believe that.tragic mishap_{June 15, 2009
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Gaz: "So come on Gil, stump up, this is your chance. It’s only “sub-teenager” stuff after all, so we should be able to handle it." I'm interested too, because if my guess is right (that Gil must be in his forties/fifties)calculations are right, Gil's sub-teenager years must pre-date all of the work of Dr. Dembski. What sources did Gil use?JTaylor_{June 15, 2009
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Gil: "At that point my atheistic faith was totally destroyed by the evidence and simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics that I learned when I was a sub-teenager." Thanks for sharing your story. What happened next though. I believe you are now a Christian? Did you look into other world religions? To me there always seems a disconnect between a Designer who essentially has hidden the mechanisms of design and the Christian God who deliberately and purposefully communicates to the world, and has even described how the world was made. Why be a Christian when perhaps being a Deist is more congruent with ID? I"ve asked this before but never had a satisfactory answer.JTaylor_{June 15, 2009
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mad doc @ 23:"RDK “Your childish smear tactics automatically make me not want to hear anything remotely useful you might have to say. That being said, would you kindly share with us….” This statement speaks for itself." Shameless atheist! Listening to what people say, even when he KNOWS they're wrong!djmullen_{June 15, 2009
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GilDodgen @ 19: "I abandoned my lifelong, religious-like faith in materialism and atheism when I discovered that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation/variation and natural selection was the biggest joke and con job in the history of 'science,'" I've seen you say similar things before. How much training / indoctrination did you have in evolution? I graduated from high school in 1965, 7 or 8 years after Sputnik spurred the educational reforms that brought evolution into the high schools and created the modern creationist movement. Yet I can't remember if evolution was even covered in biology class. If it was, we couldn't have had more than one fifty minute hour on the subject and we may have had nothing on it at all. Our biology teacher's main job was basketball coach and driver's ed instructor. If he had any special thoughts on teaching evolution, they were probably about getting through the subject without a horde of religious parents complaining to the principal. Did you ever actually study evolution in a school? From reading your writings, I'm betting that if you ever did, it was along the lines of my "evolution education": it only lasted an hour or two and the instructor didn't go very deep into the theory.djmullen_{June 15, 2009
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RDK "Your childish smear tactics automatically make me not want to hear anything remotely useful you might have to say. That being said, would you kindly share with us...." This statement speaks for itself.mad doc_{June 15, 2009
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RDK (21), You beat me to it with: "That being said, would you kindly share with us these revelation-bearing simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics? If it convinced you, I’m sure it would do a number on the rest of us." Exactly my view. So come on Gil, stump up, this is your chance. It's only "sub-teenager" stuff after all, so we should be able to handle it.Gaz_{June 15, 2009
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I abandoned my lifelong, religious-like faith in materialism and atheism when I discovered that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation/variation and natural selection was the biggest joke and con job in the history of “science,” concerning what basically underlies living systems: complex, functionally integrated information-processing systems and the information they process. At that point my atheistic faith was totally destroyed by the evidence and simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics
It would be appreciated if you would keep stories about your own cult-like embracing of evolutionary science to yourself, and stop trying to paint the opposition with it. Nobody worships Darwin. Nobody takes a blood oath in order to become an evolutionary biologist. Your childish smear tactics automatically make me not want to hear anything remotely useful you might have to say. That being said, would you kindly share with us these revelation-bearing simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics? If it convinced you, I'm sure it would do a number on the rest of us. And also, you say that the nonsense put out by the evil Darwinist cabal wouldn't be tolerated in other areas of science, but just recently in another thread somebody railed on the case of astronomers who use evolutionary concepts in order to "assume" that the solar system is 4.6 billion years old. Which one is it? You're can't have your proverbial cake and eat it too.RDK_{June 15, 2009
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PaulBurnett:
Or better yet ... if evolution was not just silenced but completely taken out of the knowledge base. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of intelligent design?
Oh, my, No! The aim of intelligent design, as I understand it, is to find the accurate place for evolution. No well-studied IDer rejects all of neo-Darwinism. Many of us see neo-Darwinism as a significant piece of the puzzle of how life came to be. Ie, it appears that much of nature was designed to evolve. At least neo-Darwinian evolution plays an important balancing role within nature. Further, evolution means much beyond neo-Darwinism. For instance, many see evolution to mean "change over time". As such ID has no argument. Some see evolution to mean "universal common descent". Many of us IDers believe that a very strong case has been made for UCD. Alas, Dr. Dembski, it seems that you are saying that as long as cosmology has a beginning, Biblical cosmology is somehow way more correct than a naturalistic perspective. On this I agree with you wholeheartedly. It seems that the scientific community is busy theorizing a way around the fact that the universe has a beginning, because the other option is anathema to the naturalist.bFast_{June 14, 2009
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How ironic and interesting. I abandoned my lifelong, religious-like faith in materialism and atheism when I discovered that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation/variation and natural selection was the biggest joke and con job in the history of "science," concerning what basically underlies living systems: complex, functionally integrated information-processing systems and the information they process. At that point my atheistic faith was totally destroyed by the evidence and simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics that I learned when I was a sub-teenager. Joseph Campbell’s faith was destroyed by completely unjustified extrapolations that would not be tolerated in any other area of real science. He was screwed and deceived by junk science.GilDodgen_{June 14, 2009
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jerry,
There is no “I understand your point of view but I still think my point of view makes more sense.”
considering that, for example, you just went on at considerable length about how evolutionary biology is bs while at the same time acknowledging that you know very little about it, it is really surprising that it's hard for us to find middle ground?Khan_{June 14, 2009
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Dembski: "It would seem then that the provenance and length of time that a cosmology has been with us need not sap it of its cultural relevance or impact." Is that what Campbell is after, "cultural relevance or impact"? If so, that's a poor goal. People care about truth. Cultural relevance happens when you pursue truth. Aim higher.tragic mishap_{June 14, 2009
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Could someone more familiar with Campbell tell us what his bottom line is? He denies the objective truth of science and claims that the "cosmology" of the Bible is out-of-date. Campbell: "No scientist says, 'I've found truth'. It's a working hypotheses, and the next season will have another structure." "The problem of mythology is to relate that found truth, to the actual living a life. The myth has to deal with the cosmology of today, and it's no good when it's based on a cosmology that's out of date." Campbell doesn't appear to believe in scientific truth, and he doesn't appear to think that the best myth is the one that's closest to the truth. So what is the best myth? "A mythological image that has to be explained to the brain is not working. When you move through a cultural field that is so alien to your own that the images don't click off any response, any recognition, then your out of sync." Out of sync with what exactly? Is he saying that myth should not be subjected to reason, and if it must be then it's not working? This is laughable. Any myth can be subjected to reason. To what end is myth supposed to be working towards? I'm sure Campbell has an end in mind it's just not clear from this video, so I'd appreciate it if someone else could clarify.tragic mishap_{June 14, 2009
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@8:
I have no idea what it would mean to take that statement literally. You attribute anyone’s errors to a lack of nerve. That strikes me as incorrect.
The philosophy has no nerve by refusing to say any myth is wrong in the objective sense. This means that philosophy can make no truth statements and is therefore useless to anyone who is interested in objective truth. An ad hominem would be more along the lines of saying Campbell's ideas are wrong because he never got a PhD. I'm attacking the ideas directly and therefore it's not an ad hominem.tragic mishap_{June 14, 2009
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jerry (#12) provides a link to William Holman Hunt's "The Hireling Shepherd" - which did not work for me. There is a higher-resolution version at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/William_Holman_Hunt_001.jpg "Hunt asserted that he intended the couple to symbolise the pointless theological debates which occupied Christian churchmen while their "flock" went astray due to a lack of proper moral guidance." The painting's title comes from John 10:12-13 (King James version) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hireling_ShepherdPaulBurnett_{June 14, 2009
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There is an interesting painting from the pre Raphaelite, William Holman Hunt in 1851 expressing the general condition of distractions. http://members.tripod.com/preraphs/images/whhunt/hirelingshepherd.jpg In the painting the shepherd is I believe to be the Church of England. And the temptress could be a lot of things. The sheep are a lot of people and Joseph Campbell could fit the description of one of these lost sheep. Interesting phenomenon about those who espouse naturalistic evolution so ardently. There is no room for doubt amongst any of them. Their adherence is absolute which I find the most interesting part of all the aspects of these discussions. There is no "I understand your point of view but I still think my point of view makes more sense." It is a "give not an inch" attitude whether it is the atheist or the TE. It is amazing where ideology leads one in terms of behavior.jerry_{June 14, 2009
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William Dembski (#2) asks: "Where would Joseph Campbell’s faith be if a cogent refutation of evolution had been available when he was first exposed to it?" Or better yet, Where would Joseph Campbell's (or anybody else's) faith be if evolution was simply not part of their worldview - if evolution was not mentioned or spoken about or even known about - if evolution was not just silenced but completely taken out of the knowledge base. Isn't that the ultimate goal of intelligent design?PaulBurnett_{June 14, 2009
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Exactly! That’s why so many of us are delighted wtih the ID movement. Not only is it personally encouraging, and not only does it lay the groundwork for the restoration of culture after the abomination known as “modernism,” but it is also helpful to seekers of an intellectual bent. Darwin’s purpose in proselytizing natural selection was to drive the flock away from the shepherd, following his father and grandfather. He was a brilliant propagandist, and he gave the intellectuals of his day just what they wanted: a reason to disbelieve. Sites like UD are like the great return. “We were like men who dreamed, our hearts will filled with joy.” Thanks for starting it.allanius_{June 14, 2009
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If that Biblical statement is taken in the sense you mention it, in fact, I believe Alvin Plantinga needs to just retract his advice essay from long ago.PhilosophyFan_{June 14, 2009
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I have no idea what it would mean to take that statement literally. You attribute anyone's errors to a lack of nerve. That strikes me as incorrect.PhilosophyFan_{June 14, 2009
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riddick, are you not familiar with the parable of the sower? In particular the seed sown amongst the thorns. Further, it is not He who leaves us,rather it is us who leave Him. I don't mean to turn this into a debate, I just wanted to point this out.IRQ Conflict_{June 13, 2009
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It's a philosophy, not a person I object to. Wait, you didn't take my "cajones" statement literally did you?tragic mishap_{June 13, 2009
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Oh come on... you ad hominem to the max.PhilosophyFan_{June 13, 2009
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Um, I'd have to agree this thread has nothing to do with TULIP, so let's have that discussion another time. I found Campbell's remarks, confusing to say the least. I wonder what his goal is, since it appears not to be objective truth. I don't have a lot of time for people without the cajones to say that if one thing is right its opposite must be wrong. Evolution here is just another compelling myth Campbell for whatever reason is unable to simply reject. Raised in the Catholic church, learned about biology and how it conflicted with Genesis, had not the masculinity to believe one is right and the other is wrong, embarked on a long journey of finding more such myths he couldn't reject, built his own mythology of some overriding truth that declines to be any truth at all (from an information theoretic standpoint of course). In the end his philosophy makes perfect sense in his own mind, despite making no sense to anyone else. "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"tragic mishap_{June 13, 2009
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Sorry, that was somewhat off-topic. But I agree with the post and have no idea why people could not see why it's correct: some idea, such as say an eternal universe or evolution, may in fact be false and hurts faith. Therefore, it's diligent to test the theory to its limits. It boggles my mind why others get so offensive when they believe their theory is going to be subjected to rigorous standards. Of course, they think this is some false operation like something out of a good book I once read called Voodoo Science (of course, the "science" there was no constructive like ID is even if ID happens to be false).PhilosophyFan_{June 13, 2009
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" One either rejects Christ and remains lost, or one is saved at some time and remains saved forever" Well, read Return to Rome by Beckwith and see if you agree with him. I am not sure whether he would agree or not, really. I need to focus study on theology versus philosophy some tiimes. =0PhilosophyFan_{June 13, 2009
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