Title Author Date

Yin and Yang of Kenneth Miller Rossow, Amiel Apr 30, 2006

I appreciate Al Moritz's comments, particularly his kind words about my being fair, as well as his support of those parts of my essay where I acclaim the "yang" part of Miller's book, but I don't think his critique of some other parts of my thesis is valid.
He wrote, regarding my interpretation of the "yin part" of Miller's book:
As I see it, the "yin part" is entirely written by Miller from a believer for other believers, without the intent to "convince" skeptics. If Rossow misunderstands it as having such an intent, it necessarily appears weak from his perspective, but this is not Miller's fault.

In this passage Moritz seems trying to attribute to me something that I never did -- guessing what Miller's "intent" was. I don't know what Miller's intent was and neither does Al Moritz, as none of us can read Miller's mind. I find Miller's arguments in favor of his faith, as they are formulated, weak and partially wrong, regardless of whether Miller wanted only to share his thoughts with fellow believers (as Moritz suggests) or also wanted to convince skeptics (which is not an unreasonable assumption, given the force with which Miller offered his pro-faith arguments). I did not psychoanalyze Miller's intent.
Perhaps Moritz did not notice the following sentence in my essay: "What we see, instead, is a display of an intelligent and insightful mind desperately trying to prove to himself that his religious faith has a rational foundation." Note the words "prove to himself."
Since Moritz seems to share the opinion that science is "enriching faith and elevating the concept of God", whatever this means, the sections of my essay dealing with Miller's "yin" part apparently created an emotional need to rebut that part of my thesis which is inimical to Moritz's beliefs.
For Moritz, who apparently shares Miller's views on science as "enriching faith," Miller's arguments favoring faith may sound convincing. For skeptics, however, neither Miller nor Moritz offers any notions which could make skeptics "convert" to Miller's pro-faith attitude. As to the assertion that the critic's opponent simply does not understand this or that point, this is a device which not only substitutes for arguments of substance, but also simultaneously self-flatters the critic, who supposedly understands the matter better than his opponent.

Best wishes.

Amiel Rossow

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