Alex,
This is another valuable interview, and in a way I think Craig and you are pretty close in your viewpoints. Here are a few more detailed points:
I do think it is vital not to equate atheism and materialism! I consider myself to be 95% atheist and yet not convinced by materialism at all! The evidence for a larger non-material world in no way implies that everything is run by a God. The very concept of God seems to be uncannily close to the political structure of the Church!
It was interesting near the end of the interview to hear how Craig's ideas had evolved massively from the time when he was an fundamentalist Christian! I like his notion that the Church has hijacked spirituality.
I also have enormous sympathy with his concept that the endless piling up of additional Ψ-data is not moving us forwards. I think perhaps the answer is to find a Ψ-effect that is really useful. In an era of fast communications, Ψ-communication is never going to compete, but dowsing and maybe psychic detectives do seem to offer the possibility of offering a useful TECHNOLOGY. I mean, the real reason we all believe in science, is because it seems to deliver the goods! I would suggest that these might be areas that you should explore.
I thought you made a good point that incorporating spiritual data is made difficult by the fact that much of it is contradictory. I think the best way to view such data is rather like early scientific data - fallible and sometimes wrong-headed but ultimately going somewhere exciting.
David  |