Intermission: news and events
... and an anniversary offer
An anniversary offer
Hello to all of my readers this Easter weekend. There are over 37,000 of you now, which is quite an increase on the zero I had this time two years ago.
Today is the second anniversary of the publication of my first essay here, Under the Spreading Walnut Tree. I’ve just read it again, for the first time since I wrote it, and it’s not a bad description of what I ended up doing, though I never thought I would write as much as I have - or read as much supporting material. But that’s how it goes: every door you open leads to six or seven others, and you could just keep on walking through them forever.
I won’t be walking forever. My next essay will be with paid subscribers next week, and three more will follow after that, before this project reaches its conclusion. After that - well, after that I have other ideas about what will happen here in the Abbey, and I’m quite excited about them. But that’s for later.
For now, here’s an anniversary offer for all my readers: all this month, an annual subscription will be 25% cheaper than usual. Given that an annual sub is already cheaper than a monthly one, this will be a useful saving if you think you can stand reading me for another year. If this grabs you, you can press this button:
Upcoming events
In other news, I have just updated my website to feature the public events I’m doing this year. I’ll be speaking in several places in Ireland, the UK and the US. I expect to add a few more on as time goes by. Some of the details have yet to be nailed down, but all the dates are final, and some tickets are on sale already.
Some more podcasts
Meanwhile, I’ve been talking to a couple more people on the other side of the etheric wires. I get asked to do a lot of podcasts and I mostly say no. I get sick of hearing myself talk, you might be surprised to learn. But I tend to say yes to people I think I can learn something from. My second conversation with John Heers - motto: Heavy Things Done Lightly - is a good example of this. We talked about a lot of things, including the tension/conflict/contradiction between creation and evolution, which is a subject I have thought virtually nothing about up to this point. I’m going to think more about it now. I always enjoying talking to John: he’s a welcoming and relaxing host.
Those of you who are fed up with hearing me talk about religion might be pleased to know that on this next podcast it’s never even mentioned. This is another second-conversation, this time with comedian and economist Dominic Frisby. We ended up designing our own utopias, just for the hell of it. It was fun. Dominic’s substack is worth a read too: his recent piece on conflation is short and to the point.
You’ll find a lot more conversations, with all sorts of interesting people, on my YouTube channel.
And finally …
An honourable mention to a recent review of my Buckmaster Trilogy of novels. Rhys Laverty digs deep into the stories and the themes, and ties them together smartly and thoughtfully. This is as good an overall picture of what I was trying to do as I have seen anywhere.
Have wonderful Easter.
Paul
Hi, Paul. Looking forward to whatever comes next on this project! Your work has been extremely impactful, in a positive way, on my life in these past couple of years. Just as a word of caution as you explore creation and evolution: be very careful about falling into a false dichotomy. Be sure to distinguish between the actual science of evolutionary biology and the philosophies it is often used in support of/the philosophical milieu in which it was developed. The former is in zero conflict with Orthodox Christianity while the latter truly is. Having watched the video, John Heers utterly confused the two. His objections were to a metaphysical materialism and to reductionism. Those are not necessary components of any science. Almost everyone, Christian or not, who goes on about the supposed conflict between any science, with evolution being a favorite, has a failure of understanding, be it in understanding the relevant Scriptures, the philosophical questions, Christian theology and how it relates to the natural world, or in understanding the science. The science of evolutionary biology is as well supported as anything can be in science; the Christian understanding of the world is not dependent upon any particular scientific understanding of the world, but it does have a lot to say about what that science can or cannot, does or does not mean. Rejecting reductionistic materialism does not entail the falseness of the absolute glut of paleontological and genetic evidence in favor of evolutionary biology nor the successful predictions both in the lab and in the wild of the theoretical framework. Medical applications abound, which is more evidence (and please distinguish between this and the medical institutions you are rightly leery of). Hell, we have even witnessed speciation, the evolution of one species into another, in the lab and we've captured it on video; it happened exactly as evolutionary biology would predict. While we do not have a full scientific understanding of our natural history, so our current scientific understanding is not the pinnacle, it is well supported enough that it is not likely to be overturned, but will likely be understood in a broader context, much as Newtonian physics wasn't overturned, but came to be seen as a special case of a more general understanding, be that from the quantum or general relativistic frameworks. Indeed, this expansion is currently being debated; look up the Expanded Evolutionary Synthesis if interested. What you will not find in this debate is that evolution via natural selection is false, only that it is only one among many drivers. Further, virtually everyone who has studied this science in depth sees it as accurate within its domain, regardless of theological commitments. So the vast majority of Christians who study this for a living see it as neither false, nor in conflict with their faith. Indeed, the only people who see it as a false science already had a prejudice in favor of its falseness. We Americans are peculiarly interested in this question in a way other Christians simply aren't. This goes for American Orthodox as well. And we American Christians are the ones most likely to see a conflict, and those outside of the United States that do, do so often because of American influence.
The relationship between science and Christianity is something I've thought a lot about. While I'm not an expert in any science nor really any subject, I do have some scientific education (just a Bachelors of Science in Physics) and I spend most of my free time reading theology and related topics. I was raised a non-denominational Evangelical Protestant and a Young Earth Creationist, have since become Anglican, and am contemplating conversion to Orthodoxy. As my faith has become more traditional and my worldview more enchanted, I have come to have less problems with well supported science.
Indeed, my greater appreciation of my ancient faith and a greater appreciation of scientific knowledge (in terms of it being a part of wisdom, not in terms of the Baconian philosophy driving much of it or in terms of its technological applications) have not only gone hand in hand, but have often driven one another.
This isn't the forum for doing so, but if you'd like a conversation from a different perspective on the subject than John Heers', but one that is highly sympathetic to his concerns and to what you've been doing here and elsewhere, I'd be happy to be in correspondence with you, by email or even hand-written letters. Just let me know, but whatever you do and wherever you end up on this or anything else, God bless you and thank you for sharing your sorely needed perspectives!
Thank you Paul for all your revelatory writings, I have learned a great deal. Orthodox in general do not evangelize but the Orthodox story needs to be told more often and in my opinion who better to tell it than one who has been found and brought into the fold. Please continue to share your faith; I believe it’s what you are being called to do. Have a blessed Pascha.