God and Science Collide

Clark,

Thanks for the links. Very interesting.

I wish that this question would be reframed: Does science make a theistic, non-deistic, non-dualistic God obsolete? A God who only created the universe is not a God I would even care to believe in. A God who is only active in the “spiritual” world but not the “natural” world does not jive with my scientific OR religious beliefs. And again, I wonder why I should care because I live in the natural world.

I am somewhat happy, I suppose, as a believer in God, that many scientists are able to harmonize their belief in God with science. However, I wish they would think beyond deism and dualism. Likewise, I wish that people would think beyond mainstream conceptions of science. Only one commentator does both.

Here’s my run down on the commentators:

Pinker: Honestly, as much as I think Pinker is an arrogant prick (speaking from experience), he is probably one of the most honest of the commentators in terms of the true incompatibility between mainstream science and God. Where I disagree with Pinker (and others) is the claim that religion has led to all sorts of bad things and science has not (a few, but nothing like the atrocities of religion). This view is ridiculous; it strips away everything else in a culture except whether it is religious or scientific. On this ground, the Holocaust can be attributed to religion because of the Catholic beliefs of Hitler and others. However, a more compelling view (in Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust) is that the Holocaust would never have occurred outside of a scientific modernist worldview). Whatever one wants to believe about the Holocaust, the problem is much more complicated than calling it the sin of science or religion.

Schonborn: Not surprisingly, a natural law view of God. Convincing if you are Catholic. I see it as little more (if anything) than a deism.

Phillips: I remember this guy did a forum at BYU. Classic dualism.

Hoodbhoy: Classic deism.

Midgley: As is often the case, this lone woman talks the most sense. Midgley is the only contributor that pushes us beyond mainstream conceptions of science (well, I suppose that Kauffman, below, does as well, although in an unsettling way). She reminds us:

“Science does have its own worldview that includes guiding presuppositions about the nature of the world.”

Midgley concludes:

“Scientism thus emerged not as the conclusion of scientific argument but as a chosen element in a worldview—a vision that attracted people by its contrast with what went before—which is, of course, how people very often do make such decisions, even ones that they afterwards call scientific. We ought, I suggest, to pay a lot more attention to these crises and take more trouble to make sure that our worldviews make sense.”

Amen.

Sapolsky: Atheism that recognizes the need for wonder (preferably without religion but it cannot be filled by science). I like this last claim — that wonder cannot be satisfied by science. I definitely agree, as well as agree with our need for wonder.

Hitchens: Another who recognizes the true incompatibility of science and God, unless you are talking about a deistic God. Also a complete idiot when it comes to judgments about religion.

Ward: Deism or dualism. Take your pick. But no room for theism and science here.

Stenger: Fairly honest approach of the incompatibility between a truly intervening God and science. At least for now. God might intervene later.

Groopman: Classic dualism, satisfying only to those who think God is immaterial and timeless.

Shermer: A more nuanced atheist view. The only God who can exist is one who is in space and time and is constrained by natural laws. This view appears to be satisfying to some Latter-day Saints. I agree with God’s need to be in space and time. I disagree that God is constrained by natural laws. This is because I believe that natural laws are a human construction.

Miller: I liked this essay, but I disagree with Miller’s view that God is not be found in the natural world. Dualism.

Kauffman: This one was intriguing. I liked the hermeneutic leanings, disliked the relativism. God is a meaningful construction (as is science).

So, the winner … Mary Midgley, “a philosopher with a special interest in ethics, human nature, and science, and is the author of Evolution as a Religion and Science as Salvation.”

I’ve heard thoguhtful theists say something along the line of there being “mysterious modules” we won’t understand. Indeed isn’t that fundamentally the Libertarian Free Will position? Although I suppose one could quibble over the meaning of “understand.”

I have some thoughts on some of the presentations and hopefully will add a few comments here tomorrow.