Dawson wrote:
"Hi John,
I also read the essay a few months ago but never had the time to comment
on it. I especially liked your turn around --- and maybe you intended
that to remind some of us about how WE sometimes write things not seeing
them as pejoratives toward the our non-theist cohorts. He is a brilliant
scientist, but as one non-theist friend I correspond with said about
similar matters, many such scientists
"...adorned themselves with scientism as vulgarly as Argentine
generals sport rows & columns of medals &
ribbons on their chests. "
I really can't say it better. Sadly for him, since as I recall he is
Jewish and much of his family suffered during the holocaust.
It is strange that in the same way that the holocaust has taught me that
I can ONLY depend on the Lord's Grace to make me an firm instrument
against such follies of human madness, it has taught Prof. Weinberg to
reject the Lord.
Mainly, I was wondering about your expression:
This cat has looked at a king; Weinberg is a king for all my pebble
throws. "
------------
Umm. I'd not apply your friend's description to Weinberg. I met him just
once, at the NTSE; my impression is that he is a fine gentleman, and, in
conversation, comes across as knowledgeable but not arrogant.
The expression comes from an old fable, which once I could remember but
cannot do so any longer. I used it twice in my essay on Weinberg, and the
one you quoted was the second one. The moral of the fable is, of course,
that a king reigns in all his power, yet a common cat can see him in his
chambers, and knows that he is mortal.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
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