Faith and Reason
"Religious faith is not inconsistent with reason." I nearly choked on my breakfast when I heard this on the Today programme. These words were spoken by Mr Blair, in his inimitably sincere style. He was addressing an Islamic conference in London, on June 4, and pledging more money to support Islamic studies in British Universities.
When I'd calmed down I went to check, and it really is true. In the full text of his speech, on the No 10 website, he says:
"In the face of so much high profile accorded to religious extremism, to schism, and to confrontation, it is important to show that religious faith is not inconsistent with reason, or progress, or the celebration of diversity."
But religious faith is inconsistent with reason (and much more that we value as well).
Comments
Diametrical opposition is a kind of consistency, isn't it?
I guess this means I can use Amaterasu as reasonable evidence for the sun's existence.
Since when did we start believing anything politicians said anyway?
While in this particular case the notion that the type of faith being talked about somehow being consistent with reason is purely laughable, this isn't always the case. It is conceivable, in a sense, to have a religious faith that is completely consistent with the strictest definition of science - a sort of deism, where the deity in question started off the universe and then allowed the laws (of Physics) so carefully crafted work their magic. Here, the faith is not contradictory to the science, and the science can't directly contradict the faith since science, by its nature, has nothing to do with the realm of faith.
It isn't EASY to find this sort of consistency because logic and indirect reasoning may make things look absurd, but science is in the business of proof.
I'm an atheist who is rather anti-religious, so no doubt anyone reading this by now is set to respond with a really pointed commentary about how I don't know what I'm talking about, so, I'll refer you all to someone who said much the same and certainly knows his stuff. Check out "The Meaning of It All" by Feynman.
(All of the above was definitely written as an academic sort of take on things, since, truthfully, 'faith' in this day and age generally refers specifically -yet namelessly- to the sort of faith embodied in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. But for some reason tonight, I wished to play Devil's Advocate.)
"It is conceivable, in a sense, to have a religious faith that is completely consistent with the strictest definition of science - a sort of deism [. . .] but science is in the business of proof."
So, you're saying that, because "science is in the business of proof," I can have the believe that a god began the universe and then disappeared even though I have no proof yet still be "consistent with the strictest definition of science?"
One has to take into consideration the following:
1.) Tony Blair is a gullible douche who might as well be a weathervane.
2.) For whatever his faults, like Putin, he sees himself as a conduit of national interest, and the national character has many faithful within both the United Kingdom and Russia, two increasingly multiconfessional nations. Forget the contradictions between expressing the virtues of Islam in one breath and Western Christian values in another, he's (Blair) expressing the will of many Britons who hold each other in contradiction. These people are those who hold reason to be holy, those who believe reason is to be found in God, and those who differ on what book God authored.
Is religious faith incompatible with reason? Take this simple test. In the Koran there's a story about a man falling off a roof and landing on a woman thusly explaining how he impregnated her. Use this story on your teenage girlfriend's dad as an excuse for knocking her up. If the dad finds that story reasonable then faith is reasonable.
I wonder what Francis Collins would have to say on that. I'm not saying that to make a snide remark; I really do wonder what his commentary on that would be.
As far as reason in Islam goes, if you're curious, look up the debates between the Traditionists and the Rationalists during the Mihna that culminated in Greek philosophy's eventual purging from the Islamic world prior to the Mongol sack of Baghdad. Also worth looking into is Islamic Philosophy, which most Muslims today believe to be a Greek/Persian travesty of Islamic norms, because it bordered on what they see as polytheism and Greek unbelief.
Yes, yes I am. Though, perhaps I wasn't entirely accurate - saying science is in the business of proof isn't completely true, but the essence of science is repeatable, demonstrable experiments, correct? Since I can't test for the existence of god, that doesn't fall within the realm of science. Sure, take any certain god -for example, the poster below mentions the part about the man in the Koran falling on a woman and impregnating her- and there are countless things that, from experimentation, would show how damnably unlikely and, in some cases, impossible such things are. We could set up an experiment with a lot of women laying down on the ground somewhere and men falling off a tree and onto them, and somehow I doubt we're going to end up with any pregnancies because of that.
Let's take a tangent that is scientific but not quite so reactionary - string theory. A large number of scientists are happy to admit (some more gleefully than others!) that, with our current capabilities, this really isn't so much science as it is science-based philosophy, since we have no way of testing any of the theories at the moment. Until we can, it isn't scientific, no matter how much we cloud things in mathematics and technical terms.
Back on the other side of the fence, this is the stupidity inherent in Intelligent Design - it can't be tested and thus isn't scientific. You can have someone with "PhD" after his name recite the details of it in a mix of latin and technical terms, but it isn't science.
For that matter, look at the launch of the space shuttle the other day - some people say that the design of the shuttle is a great example of science. Well, in reality, it's the result of technology.. a byproduct of science, in a sense. Basically, the word 'science' is tossed around a lot and takes on meanings which aren't terribly true to the basic idea. And, when you get down to it, science and faith aren't inconsistent. They're damn sure in opposition on many issues, but not inconsistent. If they were, how do you explain the well-spoken and bright Dr. Francis Collins, who certainly isn't a loon?
Once again, I'm an atheist and a scientist, and I'm largely arguing semantically - in principle, I agree with you. But the devil, as the say, is in the details.
Brian,
I mostly disagree.
"...But the essence of science is repeatable, demonstrable experiments, correct?"
It's more than that. It's repeatable, demonstrable experiments with as little bias as humanly possible (blinding, randomizing, et cetera) with all errors accurate and taken into account as well as capable of being falsifiable (one must prove that a falsification has not occurred). Take any part of this away and it's no longer scientific. Combine this with any religious claim and the claim fails.
"Since I can't test for the existence of god, that doesn't fall within the realm of science."
We can't test for the yes-or-no existence of a god, but we can test for the existence of godly claims. For example, creationism is pretty much proven false by the first law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy. Evolution, which is now considered a law, disproves species as static beings. Various astronomical and geological techniques can be employed to prove that Earth is not the center of the universe, nor does the sun revolve around it. Mathematics proves that pi is actually approximately 3.14159. As you know, the list goes on and on. A faith "consistent with the strictest definition of science" would be a rather tepid faith, indeed.
"If they were, how do you explain the well-spoken and bright Dr. Francis Collins, who certainly isn't a loon?"
This is clearly a logical fallacy: appeal to authority.
In the Koran there's a story about a man falling off a roof and landing on a woman thusly explaining how he impregnated her.
Wow - look what I've been missing! When I tried to envisage what the man and the woman had to be doing just before he fell off the roof, I decided that the Farrelly brothers must have collaborated on that part of the Koran.
Firi, Before commenting, let me preface my remarks with the same disclaimers as Brian's - I'm a scientist and an atheist, but there are few points you make with which I can't agree.
For example, creationism is pretty much proven false by the first law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy.
Technically, a "law" of physics can't disprove creationism or anything. The laws of thermodynamics are ultimately only as binding as the observations/experiments which support them. Most creationists are thoroughly dishonest in calling their crap "scientific". Since they know that even the most gullible of their followers knows that science is powerful - yielding powerful technology, they have to try avoid exposure as powerless witch doctors. But the more honest among the creationists will simply say that the events described in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible are miracles - inherently irreproducible. The first law of thermodynamics can't disprove anything that is admitted to be irreproducible from the outset.
Evolution, which is now considered a law, disproves species as static beings. Various astronomical and geological techniques can be employed to prove that Earth is not the center of the universe, nor does the sun revolve around it. Mathematics proves that pi is actually approximately 3.14159.
If, by "evolution", you mean the collection of data that do indeed disprove the notion that species are static, then you are correct, of course. But "laws' are simple, basically just axioms that scientists infer from data. The best science is that which employs the fewest axioms. So the Newtonian inverse-square "law" of gravitational attraction is indeed a "law" (applicable in a limited juristiction, of course, since it doesn't apply under relativistic conditions - but no matter). Calling evolution a "law" is pretty strange usage of the term.
A preface: I'm not sure I'd call myself an atheist. I am a scientist that believes that if there is a God, he has no active role in the functioning of life on Earth. To say, 'there is no God' is reactionary. The strongest statement you can make is that there is no compelling evidence that, if there is a God, he actively interferes in the behaviour of the universe. The behaviour of the universe is stochastic, essentially random, and I see little if any evidence to the contrary.
Faith, in a general sense of a belief in the existence of God, is not inconsistent with science. Creationism certainly is. Saying the Earth is 6000 years old or whatever certainly is. But to believe in God? Ok! I have no evidence one way or another, so to each their own. I have evidence that prayer has no power in and of itself. I have evidence that species evolve, and that terrible things happen to wonderful people. But I have no evidence that there is no cosmic being who simply watches the universe. I can't think of why belief in such a being would be appealing, but if it is, so be it.
Perhaps the only reasonable conversation I've ever heard from Sean Hannity is where he debated Christopher Hitchens. Hannity's argument was that all the engery in the universe had to come from somewhere. And you know what? The argument that God created all energy, snapped his fingers and let loose the big bang, is about as reasonable as any other theory i've ever heard. Eventually we may find a truly compelling explanation for the big bang. But in the meantime, God still owns a sliver of real estate in rational discourse.
But what pray tell does the term God mean in that context. It seems to me just an arbitrary term to be used to describe something we don't understand. The personal God that Sean Hannity apparently believes in, the God of the book. The one that is commonly referred to in discussions of God has no place in rational discourse. I suppose we really don't disagree all that much, but why use the term God with all its accompanying baggage to describe the unknown. When you say God just snapped his fingers as being reasonable. I wonder what it is you picture, something with fingers it can snap, that doesn't sound reasonable to me. Perhaps you're using it as a metaphor for an unknown cause, so again why use the loaded term God but to show some unwarranted respect for believers.
So, let me say a few things here...
Ok, I have no problem with this statement. Call it "god" call it "the big bang", it's the same event, and has no relevance to what these x-tians call "god". as Hitchins puts it so well "These people pretend to know the mind of god, and what he wants you to eat and who to go to bed with"...
I don't pretend to know how the universe started, but to call it "god" means as much as calling it "Wevnedkern". It's a gibberish word in that sense, with no real impact to how my life is lived and what is going to happen to me when i become worm-dirt.
This is exactly what Dawkins refers to in "god delusion". Yes, it is impossible to disprove God. However, it is possible to make the likelyhood of his existance less and less.
I can say the world is held up by a physical "Atlas". I comb the earth looking for his "hands", Ah, not there. So I go into space to look for him, in case he keeps moving his hands. Ah, not there either. I can speculate he is invisible, but I get no indirect evidence of that either (no infared light emitted, no heat, no "pressure" from his hands surrounding the earth). So, because all of these things poing away from Atlas holding up the earth, the probability of Atlas actually being there goes down. Same applies to God.
So many audacious claims are made in the bible, which science has since proven wrong, that the probability of god being there (at least the "god" in the bible), seems to keep decreasing. The "other god", who doesn't contact us and just "puts the universe in motion" doesn't matter, because apparently we have no instructions from a being such as that.
Nice discussions about the numbers of angels who can dance on the head of a pin, or somesuch, but I would like to say that, when I was taught science way back in the sixties, it was a matter of TESTING the evidence, trying to DISPROVE an hypothesis. Proof is for Mathematicians.
"why use the term God with all its accompanying baggage to describe the unknown (first cause)".
a fair question, norm. are we to assume then, that you admit to the necessity of such a "first cause"? this in itself would be a major leap in your thinking as expressed on your blog so far. if we don't call it "god" (so as not to lend, god forbid, support or respect to "believers"), would you also admit that a natural, healthy human curiousity might lead to some speculation as to the nature of this "first cause"? and, since the chain of events brought about by the big bang, while following the course of natural laws which have also appeared seemingly out of nowhere have led to the existence of the human race, of which we are a part, do you really find the anthropomorphisization (whew) of said cause to be so farfetched and impossible, or even improbable? after all, the mystical traditions of all "god" based religions have as a fundamental tenet the idea that "god" is ultimately unknowable. so saying that "god" is just a word for an unknowable first cause (i.e. "something we don't understand", as you put it) would fit in pretty well with most religious traditions. the fact that these religious traditions have, upon detailed and unwarranted speculation (brought about, as i say, by natural curiousity) led to horrible things like wars, persecution, etc., as well as good things like love your neighbor, etc., strikes me as a track record no better or worse than science.
"The first law of thermodynamics can't disprove anything that is admitted to be irreproducible from the outset."
I suppose you're right. I'm not trying to say that faith is 100% incompatible with science, even its strictest definition, but I am trying to say that a faith consistent with the strictest definition of science would have to do so much backbending that one might as well discard it altogether.
No you may not. I simply don't have enough information to know. I tend to think that it's always existed since If I when I assume a first causeI find myself thinking and what caused that. The first cause answer seems to just define away the problem, sans evidence, an unsatisfactory solution to my mind.
but i thought you said that the first cause answer doesn't define anything (and i would agree). my point here is about the logical necessity of a first cause. i guess you don't think there is such a necessity, but i think "its always been here" is an equally useless (in terms of explaining or understanding anything) proposition. so why am i concerned with useless propositions? uh...philosophy major. another useless proposition. i do, however, enjoy the speculation as to the nature of a first cause, if there was one. "its always been here" just doesn't provide much potential for amusement.
and btw, if you can be so credulous as to believe the universe, with all its laws and intricacies has always been here, i don't see the problem in a slight paradigm shift, towards belief that a "first cause" has always been here. just sayin'.
Might I add, though, that the "it's always been here [in one form or another]" proposition aligns perfectly with the first law of thermodynamics? Although this is not proof, it is a form of evidence. In other words, I cannot think of a scientific means for evidencing that the universe was created from nothingness.
Aside from the atrocities of religion, the supernatural explanations do not really add anything to our understanding. Norm’s hypothesis can actually be supported by science whereas saying god did it raises more questions than it answers. This is ultimately why scientists prefer natural ideas over supernatural ones. Saying God did it doesn’t really say anything. It begs questions such as "who created god?" or "why couldn’t there be many gods?" etc. With Norm’s hypothesis you are essentially using the same amount of matter and energy to explain itself rather than bring a new entity to the picture.
It should be noted that most religious traditions only claim the deity is unknowable when they are faced with embarrassing questions they themselves cannot answer. Many of them, however, quite readily claim to know the entity’s mind and are eager to interpret it for you.
Just a side note from a passing reader: the Big Bang is not the beginning of the Universe, as is commonly misunderstood. It is the beginning of the Universe AS WE NOW KNOW IT, in its current state. It is NOT a sudden explosion of a bunch of something out of nothing. No. In some way or another, what we think of as The Universe existed before the Big Bang, we do not in any way have the technology currently to go back farther than a few microseconds after the Big Bang. Secondly, as per a Dawkins argument.....we on Earth percieve a cause-effect relationship, and we are very fond of these relationships....but there's no law of physics or anything else that states that everything, every effect, has a cause. Perhaps in the big wide Universe, sometimes there is no specific causality. That ones a little hard to grasp....just thought I'd throw it in there. But...the Big Bang...yeah its not the beginning of the universe, its the beginning of the universe behaving as we now know it.
I have always thought the comments on this blog were quite insightful and now I think I have figured out why. There are a lot of scientists commenting! I am an atheist, but am only majoring in physics so I take my chances right now playing with the big kids…..
I think what really makes faith and science incompatible is their methods of “knowing”. As mentioned, science is concerned with predictions of theories and how they compare to experiments. Faith, as I understand it, you hold without evidence or even in spite of it. So while a system a belief may not contradict scientific theories, how one arrived to that belief is quite against the scientific spirit.
Let's take a tangent that is scientific but not quite so reactionary - string theory. A large number of scientists are happy to admit (some more gleefully than others!) that, with our current capabilities, this really isn't so much science as it is science-based philosophy, since we have no way of testing any of the theories at the moment.
I am actually currently reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. He says that in order to test the predictions of string theory with current technology we’d have to build a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy! He goes on to say that for the first time in physics the theorists are ahead of the experimenters.
The important thing to remember however is that it is, in principle, possible to test string theory out. We just don’t, as you mentioned, currently have the means to do it. The way many people describe God as being invisible, outside of time, etc. seems to suggest testing out God’s existence isn’t even possible in principle.
hi erick. as usual, i don't disagree with anything you say here, and thanks for the delightful article.
if by "norms hypothosis" you mean the idea that the universe and its laws were always extant, however, i can't agree that this idea can be supported by science, anymore than the idea that a super intelligent being outside of space and time created the world we live in can be. both ideas nicely explain everything and are equally untestable. furthermore they both equally beg the question. as i said before, if you can believe the universe was always here, you can believe "god" was always here. in both cases the problem is a causeless effect- which is, i hope you'll agree, a problem for science. from the article you posted by turok: "The cyclic model emerged from the idea that each Bang was followed by another, and that this could go on for eternity. The whole universe might have existed forever, and there would have been a series of these Bangs, stretching back into the infinite past, and into the infinite future."
i was surprised to see this idea being used as part of the support structure for a kind of theory of everything- after all the idea of the eternity of the universe does pretty well on its own as a "theory of everything", as does the "super intelligent being" idea. bringing in either one to shore up a scientific theory seems like cheating to me, as they are both untestable.
in any case, thanks for the fascinating reading.
p.s. i've got a religious friend who's into string theory. he thinks god is in the holes in the grid. or something like that.
me, i drink.
Nietzsche went crazy when he witnessed the flogging of a LIVE horse.
Brock: (I'm standing on Paul Davies's shoulders, who is standing on S. Hawking's) Did God put His Finger on the North Pole to start ("create") the Earth, which "starts" at the No(r)th(ing) Pole,, "grows" until its point of maximum expansion, the "equator," and then shrinks again until the End-of-Days, at the South Pole?
This is a hypodimensional analogy. Flatland with curved Lebensraum. Sure, but....
Well?
With Occam's razor, I slit God's throat. ("If I did it," that's how).
Mr. Becker: If God be a First Cause, then He be a veritable Dedekindest Cut of All: a sort of Boundary between what-exists (in any manner whatever, including delusions, illusions, Reality, etc. etc.), and (a hypothetical) Nothing-reified/refried.
If this is the role of God, then he doesn't exist so much as neither-exist-nor-not-exist in a sort of Limbo/Not-limbo. Not non-existence, but falling either asymptotically close or far short of existence, or somewhere in between.
Or do you mean an Order-out-of-Chaos sort of role. Then the Davies/Hawking analog can be reworked with a bit of effort, twisting, weaving, untangling. Evolving "God" from some..., but then you've lost "The Creator". Not to mention being a Prager (engraver/Pragueman) of necessarily False (incomplete) Idols/Images.
God is a prejudice, a Bigot's mustache best shaved off with Occam's razor (again!). Before the whites came (inseminated) Indians never grew such mustaches, there was no "great Spirit". No Ghost Dances with 'The Flow'.
Left out/Left behind: wouldn't a first cause really be/mean: The Cause of CAUSATION?
And wouldn't that be a sort of Ouroboros (self-eating snake) run backwards in time (a self-barfing snake ).
Quite an Image.
And more paradox than hypothesis.
Practically, Theism parasitizes Deism (and kills it). Fundamentalism parasitizes the more subtle Shul/Schola/Pre-Mihna Whatever, and creates Ugly Americans, Ugly Israelis, Crusaders, and, brutum inter brutes, Bible-thumpers and Terrorists.
Or is it Bible-humpers and errorists?
(Alluding to Michael Moore:) "In God We Trust."
Or is it "in God we rust"?
one evil axis, i always hesitate to engage you because i rarely understand all the points you bring up in a post. your many puns and obscure references often cause me delight when i do recognize one (your reference at another post to a led zeppelin song-by way of robert johnson- springs to mind. your level of pure cleverness prevents me from saying "cut the shit and talk straight" in the same way that i wouldn't ask dali to paint more "realistic" interpretations of life. so keep up the good work, you are a treasure.
at the risk of getting walloped by a torrent of creative english and knowing in-jokes, however, i would humbly point out that both the "eternity of the universe" idea and the "super creator" idea (leaving religion out of it, please) both admirably pass the test of occams' razor in terms of their simplicity. i'm sure you must have come across situations where occams razor simply fails the test of truth. occam himself realized this possibility when he spoke only in terms of likelihood rather than proof. it is a useful model- simply far from infallible. sometimes the more complicated explanation is the correct one (see darwin).
firi, you're quite right, of course, but the existence of a closed system does not in any way imply that it was not created.
i hope everyone realizes that i am not arguing for the existence of god here, but rather for the freedom of the human mind-which includes the freedom to speculate on the creation of the universe free from ANY restrictions, whether they be those of religion, those of science, or those of people who hate religion or science.
as to whether this is a dead horse, oea, perhaps when prejudice and harmful human certainty have been eliminated. until then, the horse is very much alive and we, with nietzsche, can continue going crazy observing its flogging.
Alright, well, in an attempt to cut to the chase, I agree with Mr. Becker on two main points.
Occam's razor is a generalization. A game of probability and likelihood. To think of simplicity as being an essential truth is to unnecessarily limit alternate hypotheses, which in turn limits understanding. That being said, hopefully I didn't give the impression that I believe that God formed the Earth. Nor that he/it necessarily has fingers with which to snap. I just meant that the idea that some infinite, or near infinite consciousness got the whole ball rolling at one point is about as good an explanation as any other that's floating out there. At present at least, perhaps forever, it is unknowable, untestable. Along that same line of reasoning, if someone wants to say that they believe there is a God, well I really have no counter argument. All I can say is, "ok". I think its unlikely, personally, but in the end, who cares? To each their own as long as one's philosophy does not lead to a net negative impact on the life of this planet.
Axis, you do seem to have some valid points, but you obscure them in a virtually unintelligible decadence of intellectualism. "Flatland with curved Lebensraum". What? When discussion is framed like this the result, purposeful or not, is to silence discussion. I think that you'll find that it is much more rewarding to stimulate it instead.
Mr. Becker:
Sorry for the obscuRANT. Think of it as a nervous tick, a side-effect of too many chocolate-covered coffee-beans. I am a (good-purposely) unprincipled Impressionist with (almost) exclusively provisional opinions.
As for passing the test of simplicity, a very simple flying spaghetti monster would still be a superfluous flying spaghetti monster. With the discovery of the Heliocentric System, and Earth's 24-hr. spin-cycle, the God Phoebus-Apollo-Helios-Complicaticus-Et-ceterus-Whateverus is little different from the God Simplicius-the--Sun-pusher, whose from is, say, a single, mathematical point, in their common superfluousness. Simplicius is a simple, yet ultimately pointless point.
The self obsessed/absorbed New Age author Ken Wilber has helped to clarify my thoughts about "God", etc., when he separates individual spiritual experiences from their culturally influenced interpretations. Example: I see blinding White Light, am bliss-filled. It must be "God". Not necessarily. I have an queasy feeling hearing about God in non religious contexts. God is just so non-hypothetical, so beyond doubt by definition. It is so off-putting. I am drawn in by Georg Cantor (Kantor, whatever), where he identifies God with the Infinities. But Cantor's interpretations are still too culturally skewed, a la Wilber.
Archimedes visions, running free and naked, to a point where he could move the whole world with an arbitrarily long lever, turn it upside down, inside out, whatever, seems to be the ultimate freedom. And his demise the harbinger of dark ages to come again and again.
Mr. Brock:
Who cares? If the God in question is Zeus, Zeus's partisans have been relatively quiescent in recent years. But God's? Allah(as in Allah-luia)/El (as in Isra-El)'s are raising Holy Hell. You shold care if the hypothetical Creator is being recruited for such dubious Causes/Purposes. If the Creator is revealed to be a Mirage...
No Creator, and they have to scramble for other, weaker justifications. Negative impacts could come from asteroids, meteors. We should unite to defend ourselves from them, not from each other and our God-sanctioned, Creator-of-the-Universe-sanctioned (population) explosions.
As for Infinite Consiousness Entities, forever unknowable. The Heavens were once in this category, forever beyond reach, of a whole different substance than the merely Earthly, (Neo-)Platonicaly perfect in form. Not our place to more-than-speculate.
Which come back to flogging the Live Horse, Archimedes, free-thinker, and Democritus (does his name mean "Criticizer of the People", the "Demos"?) was the world's most perfect Dionysian, we, everything, is made of atoms, philosophically, we were born to be torn apart, and the little pieces? Planted in the fields of Free Inquiry, leading ultimately to Medeleyev (and doubting Mach), stellar spectra, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Hubble/Doppler Big Bang Boom Bam Wham...
Why is "God" so untouchable? If I get my hands around His throat...
Decadent: my cadences are decadent? The court of Avignon, that which excommunicated Mr. Occam for his...call it communism, was decadent, back in, it must have been around 1337. "Baroque" might be a better descrption, except for the inconvenient truth that they are actually, in fact,
Impressionist.
St. Anselm, he was decadent.
re: one evil axis' last post: WOW. i mean, i'm sorry that this response of mine will knock you off the sidebar (for now) but i have to say: dude, you rock.
while i'm at it, i'm pretty sure your name is an anagram. i've always sucked at anagrams, while being pretty good at recognizing them when i see them. would it be against your religion to enlighten me (us) as to the solution to the puzzle? i realize i'm cheating by asking, but anyone who's better at this than i am could "out" you, and i'm sure there are plenty at 1gm, so... do you believe in the value of charity? my curiousity has led me to humble myself, as my laziness has led me to ask you directly rather than ask friends (or do research). again, hats off. not that i think that flattery will get me anywhere. though it has in the past, so deductively...:)
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