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Topic: Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam? (Read 917 times) |
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Hermit
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Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam?
« on: 2006-11-21 01:26:51 » |
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"God vs. Science" in TimeTM
Source: Jefferson Eyes
Authors: Dr. Gerry Lower
Dated: 2006-11-10
External Links:
The conflict between religion and science is adequately defining of the times such that TimeTM Magazine recently ran a cover story devoted to dealing with issues of theology and the asking and answering of Why questions(1). The following is a summary of the results of the TimeTM investigation.
The conflict between religion and science is "a debate that long predates Darwin, but the anti-religion position is being promoted with increasing insistence by scientists angered by intelligent design and excited, perhaps intoxicated, by their disciplines' increasing ability to map, quantify and change the nature of human experience"(1).
Actually, the conflict is a debate that predates even formal Old Testament Roman religion by nearly a millennium. In historical and evolutionary terms, the "anti-religion" position of science is actually an anti-supernatural (i.e., anti-magic) position.
Magic is not real and that truth is as old as science itself. Anti-supernaturalism has always been virtually a prerequisite for entry into the realm of creative thought in science. If a magical god causes everything, then there is no need to look around for earthly causes, there is only the need to start praying.
"Brain imaging illustrates the physical seat of the will and the passions, challenging the religious concept of a soul independent of glands and gristle. Brain chemists track imbalances that could account for the ecstatic states of visionary saints or, some suggest, of Jesus"(1). [Hermit: Presupposing not only an historical "Jesus" but also that he was a "visionary". That is far too great a leap of faith to be justifiable.].
Given contemporary knowledge, it is self-evident that brain provides the organic basis for mind, that mind exists electronically upon brain nucleic acids. The notion that "chemical imbalances" are beneath enlightened thought, e.g., nascent Christian thought, is simply ludicrous, a denigration of the Christ, of Thomas Jefferson, and of all people on earth. This position remains nothing more than an extension of the ancient Roman effort to destroy any notion that the Christ might be human and freely thinking for himself.
Nascent Christian values, centered around thinking for oneself and caring for others, based in human rights that were overtly derived via dialectic synthesis, the same approach to thought involved in the derivation of the values of science and natural philosophy. More than anything, the first Christian was a very clean scientific thinker, not drawn to eastern or western cultural extremes of thought, content with having defined an honest middle human ground. [Hermit: Imbued with western ideas, this is also way beyond the supportable. The only identifiable historical Jesus was a nasty piece of work, a terrorist proposing a return to mosaic law and the stoning of the Roman Tetrarchs for not only sleeping with their cousins, but marrying them, and even more, for forcing the use of Roman money.].
"Catholicism's Christoph Cardinal Schönborn has dubbed the most fervent of faith-challenging scientists followers of "scientism" or "evolutionism," since they hope science, beyond being a measure, can replace religion as a worldview and a touchstone"(1).
In principle, science has already replaced religion as a world view. The missing term here is "natural philosophy" - not scientism or evolutionism. Natural philosophy provides a world view based on existing scientific knowledge, a view true for all people. Based on science, natural philosophy and nascent Christian human rights, Democracy constitutes a scientific humanism, transcendent of western religious and eastern ethical systems. Natural philosophy embraces physical, biological and cultural evolution to see life as a living whole(2).
"It is not an epithet that fits everyone wielding a test tube. But a growing proportion of the profession is experiencing what one major researcher calls "unprecedented outrage" at perceived insults to research and rationality, ranging from the alleged influence of the Christian right on Bush administration science policy, to the fanatic faith of the 9/11 terrorists, to intelligent design's ongoing claims. Some are radicalized enough to publicly pick an ancient scab -- the idea that science and religion, far from being complementary responses to the unknown, are at utter odds"(1).
That science and religion are incompatible would be the utter truth of it, the former based on empirical-logical thought, the latter based on supernatural fabrications explaining nothing in empirical terms. As a result, religion requires maintaining faith in faith itself, faith in the utterly mindless.
"Finding a spokesman for this side of the question was not hard, since Richard Dawkins, perhaps its foremost polemicist, has just come out with "The God Delusion," the rare volume whose position is so clear it forgoes a subtitle."
"Dawkins and his peers have a swarm of articulate theological opponents, of course. But the most ardent of these don't really care very much about science, and an argument in which one party stands immovable on Scripture and the other immobile on the periodic table doesn't get anyone very far"(1).
This has traditionally been true, that neither religion out of self-righteousness or science out of reason is willing to concede anything the other side. That fact says nothing about which side is correct. This is a scenario where one side has been increasingly capable of defining and explaining reality while the other side has been increasingly discredited as a way of defining and explaining reality. One side is fixed in faith and the other side is fixed in reason(3).
"Most Americans occupy the middle ground: We want it all. We want to cheer on science's strides and still humble ourselves on the Sabbath. We want access to both MRIs and miracles. We want debates about issues like stem cells without conceding that the positions are so intrinsically inimical as to make discussion fruitless"(1).
In truth, the arena occupied by religious Americans does not constitute "middle ground" at all. We abide life at the technologic, capitalistic, despotic extreme and the right wing justifies it all with Old Testament Roman religion, the same Roman religion that justified British dominion of America two centuries ago. We have come full circle to see ourselves from behind. It is not a pretty sight.
Americans do not want it all. Americans under capitalism want to make profits by exploiting the technological aspects of science and human knowledge but they want nothing to do with the philosophical, i.e., spiritual, ramifications of that knowledge (which cannot help but be in conflict with the values of religion-based capitalism). Distracting the mind from that which is meaningful is a traditional core tactic of greed-driven capitalism.
"Informed conciliators have recently become more vocal, and foremost among them is Francis Collins. Collins' devotion to genetics is, if possible, greater than Dawkins'. Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute since 1993, he headed a multinational 2,400-scientist team that co-mapped the 3 billion biochemical letters of our genetic blueprint"(1).
Collins recent book, The Language of God, was written on behalf of evangelical Christians and it represents a scientist's efforts to defend the faith(4). This untenable position (5) is evidence of the narrow educations available in the western world and the propensity to compartmentalize the western mind in the interest of business administration and maintaining the status quo. It is a failure to see science as a human evolutionary program, a program in conceptual evolution, from What to How to Why.
It is not that religion is necessarily evil. [Hermit: If we are talking about conventional religion, which Lower most certainly is, then it most certainly is evil.] In contrast to the Old Testament religious right, evangelical Christians do maintain a social agenda with genuine concerns for the poor(6). The problem is in their keeping their program wrapped up in Old Testament pre-Christian nonsense instead of the nascent Christian program embraced by Jefferson's Declaration.
So, there you have it. Was the conflict between religion and science resolved in any small way in the pages of TIME Magazine™? No, not at all. This is only in keeping with the traditional western failure to resolve the issue in the interest of maintaining the despotic status quo. The mainstream media has to avoid addressing the core question, i.e., is there such a thing as a religious democracy? The answer would be "No"(7).
In historical fact, the conflict between religion and science was largely resolved two centuries ago by Jefferson and his Deist collaborators. The only human approach is to separate nascent Christian human rights from religion and to place them back where they belong, along side the values of science and natural philosophy, all providing the values of Jefferson's democracy. [Hermit: Or even more appropriately, in the trashcan of history].
Religion is, by definition, apart from reason. It is, therefore, apart from science, natural philosophy, and democracy. As recognized by Jefferson better than anyone, religion is also, therefore, apart from nascent Christianity and human rights. Nascent Christian values are unrelated to religious thought. They belong at the core of a scientific American democracy. [Hermit: Oh dear.].
Jefferson knew that Old Testament Roman religion had never seen the Christ as a human role model to be emulated in action. Rome saw the Christ as a supernatural spook unattainable in life. Rome also recognized that if one claimed to be Christian in belief, one could justify conquest and control over both those who were "christian" and those who were not. By Jefferson's day, Old Testament Roman religion had driven imperialism for a millennium and it had driven colonialism for centuries. It had been employed by the British right up until the Declaration was signed.
In America, where we claim the right to a quality public education, it is entirely permissible to say that this right is God-given. It was given by Jefferson and friends in the name of Jefferson's God, located in the "head and heart" of every person, manifest in "the will of the people, substantially declared."( . It would be a challenge to be a better Christian than Thomas Jefferson because he saw the first Christian as being entirely human with an enlightened human message. [Hermit: Another delusion no matter how treasured. Replacing one form of nasty insanity, with another, no matter how less worse, is still far from ideal.].
As for God, Jacob Bronowski has described Einstein's scientific relationships with God better than anyone. "Sometimes Einstein treated God as if God were his uncle ... and sometimes Einstein treated God as if he were God's uncle." This is precisely the nature of the relationship God needs to have with all people in order that they know themselves to be alive and well. We call it "getting to know oneself," "keeping in touch with oneself."
Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the physical world because God (as material information) is the source of the physical world. Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the biological world because God (as genomic information) is the source of the biological world. Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the cultural world because God (as ideologic information) is the source of the cultural world.[Hermit: More mystical than I can follow I fear.].
Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were of our own making because God is of our own making. [Hermit: Sure.].Everyone needs to deal with God as if God is One, like the Earth and the People. [Hermit: So given the former, am I being obtuse when I completely fail to comprehend the point of the latter?].
Readings: - David Van Biema, God vs. Science, Time Magazine, November 5, 2006.
- Dr. Gerry Lower, Making the Earth Our Heaven and Our Home, Axis of Logic, November 29, 2005.
- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Houghton-Mifflin, 2006. ()
- [url=http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2192678&page=1]Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief", Free Press, 2006.
- Sam Harris, The Language of Ignorance, TruthDig, August 15, 2006.
- Dr. Gerry Lower, No Such Thing as a Religious Democracy, The Smirking Chimp, September 5, 2006.
- Edward Dumbauld, The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam?
« Reply #1 on: 2006-11-21 03:41:43 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-21 01:26:51
Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the physical world because God (as material information) is the source of the physical world. Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the biological world because God (as genomic information) is the source of the biological world. Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were the creative source of the cultural world because God (as ideologic information) is the source of the cultural world.[Hermit: More mystical than I can follow I fear.].
Everyone needs to deal with God as if God were of our own making because God is of our own making. [Hermit: Sure.].Everyone needs to deal with God as if God is One, like the Earth and the People. [Hermit: So given the former, am I being obtuse when I completely fail to comprehend the point of the latter?]. |
[Blunderov] I'm terrible at detecting rhetorical questions but even I suspect that the Hermit must be posing one here, given the title of the thread...
My take is that theists have been painted into such a corner by a combination of science and philosophy that they have been forced into a sort of metaphorical pantheism. I count five "as ifs" in the excerpt above; which along with "like", is the hallmark of simile and metaphor. The rest seems to distill down to the assertion that "god" is another name for what Wittgenstein would have called "the world"; "The world is all that is the case."
I would call this a full retreat.
Warm regards.
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Hermit
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Re:Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam?
« Reply #2 on: 2006-11-21 05:42:33 » |
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Actually I really was not sure at all...
I was trying to answer Lucifer's question over at virus: transformational fantasy ideologies & religionist socialist warmongers. Having bumped my head on Lower's website (linked at
# read more Dr. Gerry Lower in my original post), I thought that he might have been trying to argue that "Jeffersonian Deism," to coin a phrase, is compatible with scientific atheism and doing a terrible job of it. It seemed to me that he was either bending over so far backwards as to seem as if arguing for a god, or perhaps it was just that he sounded so wistful about the lack of one that he appeared to have invented a new one all on his own.
It infuriated me that while I strongly suspected that I didn't much care for his destination - no matter where in the fog his perambulation was going to terminate - I still could not for the life of me fathom where he was coming from or why he bothered to take the journey, seeing as how the beginning and the end of his trip were both in such saturated conditions that they appeared indistinguishable. I spent quite some time trying to fathom it out, and as it is so very seldom that this happens to me I thought I'd play it past others here to see if I'd mist* something.
Your reply convinces me that I had not. For which my thanks.
Kind Regards
The somewhat bemused but not even slightly rhetorical Hermit
*The mist-spelling is, of course, an intentional mist-ache.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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David Lucifer
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Re:Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam?
« Reply #3 on: 2006-11-21 17:55:58 » |
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I vote for twisted almalgam. Like a member of Jews for Jesus, trying to be both makes you neither.
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Bass
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Re:Unabashed Atheism or Confused Apologist? Or Some Twisted Amalgam?
« Reply #4 on: 2006-11-22 08:40:29 » |
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The article really tends to contradict itself. By simply labelling someone with a certain interpretation of Christianity, a 'true christian' is its first mistake. The values preached here are global, human values. There is nothing specifically 'Christian' about them.
The first half talks about how religion and science are not really that compaitable, as at the root of it all, religion requires dogma, whereas science requires reason. Which is true. It did manage to address the core issue atleast.
Then from "It is not that religion is necessarily evil." onwards, it kind of just turns into drivel, where it shifts away from reason, onto history.
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