[Vision2020] Poll on Idahostatesman.com

[melyndahuskey at earthlink.net]

Arguments from analogy are dangerous things, as any rhetorician will tell
you.  Chasuk says, "In your illustration of the
spider, the spider at least registers that we exist (or so I imagine; I've
never been inside of a spider's mind, if it has one, to verify
that this is true).  in the case of humanity assessing God, we necessarily
invent Him out of whole-cloth, as He has left us no  inarguable evidence of
His existence."

But if we can imagine a spider that registers our existence (let's call her
Charlotte), surely we can imagine that any "inarguable evidence" of that
existence is beyond her.  Charlotte sees a fleeting shadow, feels an
arbitrary and destructive force pass through her web, witnesses some large
and blurred thing of inherent un-spiderness set in action a killing mist
that slays her babies.  She posits from that the existence of some
supra-arachnid being which controls her destiny, and using the spider
senses at her disposal, construct from it a theology.  Just so, we humans
might continue to argue from analogy, drawing on the dimly-shadowed
understanding we can bring to bear on the fleeting evidences of a
supra-human power.  

In case anyone's wondering, I think analogy is demonstrably a poor tool for
apologetics.  But it leads to some great poetry:
For example, Christina Rossetti:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

or, if we're of less hopeful fiber, we might try Thomas Hardy:

I leant upon a coppice gate 
When Frost was spectre-gray, 
And Winter's dregs made desolate 
The weakening eye of day. 
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky 
Like strings of broken lyres, 
And all mankind that haunted nigh 
Had sought their household fires. 

The land's sharp features seemed to be 
The Century's corpse outleant, 
His crypt the cloudy canopy, 
The wind his death-lament. 
The ancient pulse of germ and birth 
Was shrunken hard and dry, 
And every spirit upon earth 
Seemed fervourless as I. 

At once a voice arose among 
The bleak twigs overhead 
In a full-hearted evensong 
Of joy illimited; 
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, 
In blast-beruffled plume, 
Had chosen thus to fling his soul 
Upon the growing gloom. 

So little cause for carolings 
Of such ecstatic sound 
Was written on terrestrial things 
Afar or nigh around, 
That I could think there trembled through 
His happy good-night air 
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 
And I was unaware. 

Poetically yours,

Melynda Huskey