Thread: Deists and scientists: why not together?

Deists and scientists: peaceful coexistence

I would very much like to know what people on this website think about peaceful coexistence between those who study our material world (scientists) and those who study our spiritual world (theologians). My attempt to write an essay on that subject failed, as you can see at:

Spirituality and science

The webpage was prepared to generate a discussion. Those who post comments should refer to specific “contributions,” as numbered (or to specific persons, as numbered at the beginning). This will simplify the discussion.

And let us keep in mind that the main topic is peaceful coexistence. Is it possible? Is it desirable? What should we do promote it? etc.

Thank you in advance,

Ludwik Kowalski
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State University
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Hymn of the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Society of Jesuits/Professor of Geology) is a great example of how a gifted man of faith, who also happens to be a scientist, can reconcile the apparent conflicts.

Hymn of the Universe

I think it's because the two concepts go against each other. Religion is all about belief, while science is all about disbelief. Science will never believe anything, it is never happy will the current explanations to any given phenomena, and will do everything on it's power to disprove them. Religion on the other hand is about faith, people have faith in their god and will never question it's existence.

These two concepts don't sit well together, science does not like conformism, and religion does not like their belief to be questioned. That's my point of view, at least. I try to respect theists and their belief, but it always, deep in side, makes me uncomfortable. I assume the same thing happens to theists.

Originally Posted by elite

I think it's because the two concepts go against each other. Religion is all about belief, while science is all about disbelief. Science will never believe anything, it is never happy will the current explanations to any given phenomena, and will do everything on it's power to disprove them. Religion on the other hand is about faith, people have faith in their god and will never question it's existence.

These two concepts don't sit well together, science does not like conformism, and religion does not like their belief to be questioned. That's my point of view, at least. I try to respect theists and their belief, but it always, deep in side, makes me uncomfortable. I assume the same thing happens to theists.

My previous post give and example of a Jesuit priest, also a respected geologist and paleontologist who is an absolute example of the fallacy of your view. You're stating the stereotypical view and obviously didn't even bother to check out my post.

I think science and faith do go together. In fact, I think it'll be science that proves the existence of God. I believe in creation and evolution.

Originally Posted by ThereseAline

I think science and faith do go together. . . .

Unfortunately, this is not always true. The "we are better than you" attacks are common. What should be done to end animosities?

Ludwik

Baron said something good about a Catholic Priest? That's about as miraculous as Patrick converting from militant atheism to Protestantism.

Professor Kowalski, I don't know what I'm more impressed with: that you began a major writing project at age 78 which required you to review and critically reflect on a mountain of journal entries, or that you have a Ph.D. in nuclear physics (your brain must be about to explode), or that you're not living retirement in sunny Florida watching scantly clad 19 year old women walk by in the twilight hours of the life you have left?

You're at an age where you want to reflect, make and bring peace within the world around you. I think individuals - such as yourself, Baron, or Patrick - can reconcile the life of the mind and heart with science and religious faith.

But I think the world must collapse in war. Christians must suffer persecution in the latter hours. Religion is just not love of God - the non-religious fail to grasp the battle of religion totally or the question fully - religion is also the Church of Satan. And many atheist are doomed to follow Satanists unknowingly because they simply are not as clever as the intelligent elite within Satanism.

God can not exist and Christianity must be wrong because it does not offend the objectives of Satanism. Satanists will not make war with atheists because atheism does not offend them.

In the end many Christians will deny God because the cost of fidelity too high and the rewards of betrayal and conformity too great.

Scientism is not science anyways. Furthermore, the arts and humanities have something to teach. They can teach us about the power of narrative. I'm convinced the rescue of the Catholic Church (as one example, I realize Protestantism exists) must come through a rewritten narrative from itself, and must be connected to the narrative of the body, the female vagina, and the vaginas of the products of European colonization: the Latinas.

It was not intellectuals that rescued the Christian West from the swords of the Turks and Moors. It was illiterate people that had their passions aroused through a narrative that appealed to them and united them in common defense and crusade.

It the era of MTV and secular mores about sex you must connect it to the genital powers of attractive looking women. The Satanists will always come delivering their messages with the brightest, wealthiest, and best looking people. And no one wants to be uncool. Science and sex are cool - irrespective of anything leading to STD's or nuclear war.

Originally Posted by Baron

My previous post give and example of a Jesuit priest, also a respected geologist and paleontologist who is an absolute example of the fallacy of your view. You're stating the stereotypical view and obviously didn't even bother to check out my post.

First, my post came three minutes after yours. I did not notice you had posted.

Second, all I said is that religion and science don't sit well together. I never said it had anything to do with believing or not in the existence of a god. Simply put, the "objective scientist" is not biased, thus cannot have belief. Conceptually speaking, science and religion are the total opposites, which is why there is so much conflict between them.

kowalskil, my thoughts: As long as anatomically correct homo sapiens have been around, about 200,000 years, there have been varying forms of religion.

Many of the earliest studied religions were focused on making sense of a chaotic world. For instance, because they didn't have the knowledge on how wind works, they had to create something so they could make sense of wind. You can also see these "try to make sense" connections in ways not even related to nature. Sociologists and anthropologists have a pretty solid scientific grasp of cultures and societies and why they exist, however those early religions had no such concepts of this.

Thus religion was born in order to understand the world, and the societies, that surrounded our ancestors.

As societies advanced and became modern, science replaced religion because it gave understanding of things such as the wind, rain, death, life, etc etc. So why is religion still around?

Humans are a very social organism. In fact, anthropologists believe that if it wasn't for social groups our species would of died off long ago. And in order to keep a group, a society, a tribe, or a culture together, certain rituals are used. Rituals, from our current going to church every Sunday, to tribal people gathering once every month for feasts and chanting, bind together the group you belong to. So even though science explained everything that was unexplainable in their societies, the people still held on to their social beliefs, because without communion and being a part of a group these humans would have died.

Science was the natural progression of religion. Since religion was made to make sense of the world around them and science is now doing that why are we at such odds?

My thoughts: I believe we can function without religion. Our political, familial, and cultural rituals keep us bonded more as a society than any religion can.

Also, evolution is a fact. You can study evolution in action any day of the week. For me, and many other scientists I know, religious people can go a long way just recognizing that evolution is a fact and theory. (I'm using theory in the purely scientific definition of the word.)

I don't know if the animosity will ever disappear. For as much as we don't understand now and religion tries to explain away with a god, science is actually trying to get to the bottom of the matter.

As long as there are mysteries religion will be around, and science will be there trying to make sense of those mysteries without a god explanation. It's the natural progression of how human societies evolve.

And who knows how it will evolve in the future! Perhaps God will be 100% disproven like ALL the other gods that were around longer and came way before this current worshipped one. Perhaps he'll be proven. But it will be scientists, most who don't currently believe in one, that will do it.

If scientists can put aside their ego and try to explain science without attacking religious faith too much, and if God believers can put aside their ego and see that science grew from the curiosity about the religious, then maybe the animosity will disappear.

PS: If you want some reading material on what I wrote see: The Origin of Virtue and Ritual, Politics, and Power. Or any first term cultural anthropology books freshman use

Originally Posted by elite

First, my post came three minutes after yours. I did not notice you had posted.

Second, all I said is that religion and science don't sit well together. I never said it had anything to do with believing or not in the existence of a god. Simply put, the "objective scientist" is not biased, thus cannot have belief. Conceptually speaking, science and religion are the total opposites, which is why there is so much conflict between them.

I still say you could not have read my original post, which highlights the work of a respected geologist and paleontologist who was also a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. Your response is the typical programmed observation that schools produce these days, which speaks much more of a kind of conditioning than it does of real education.

If you read even a few paragraphs from the link in the original post you'll see that a man who combines faith and science can actually bring in a dimension that's lost to those who can only see this debate as belonging to one side or the other. far from seeing science as contradicting his faith, de Chardin sees it as something that reveals the marvelous intricacies of it.

Originally Posted by elite

I think it's because the two concepts go against each other. Religion is all about belief, while science is all about disbelief. Science will never believe anything, it is never happy will the current explanations to any given phenomena, and will do everything on it's power to disprove them.

I'm not entirely convinced it's as black and white as this.

I haven't heard of any credible scientist that fully understands and can explain why gravity is what it is, yet every scientists believes in it -- even counts on it. Newton's theory, Einstein's theories, gravitons, etc., are all incomplete in explaining it. Gravity is probably one the biggest points of faith in science.

Now, I do agree that science is doing everything it can to understand or even disprove gravity, but I know of no scientists that just don't believe in it.

Originally Posted by kowalskil

Deists and scientists: peaceful coexistence

I would very much like to know what people on this website think about peaceful coexistence between those who study our material world (scientists) and those who study our spiritual world (theologians).

I'm not sure how one could study something that can neither be experienced nor observed, such is the 'spirit world'. "...those who study our physical world and those who have invented our spiritual world," is how you should put it. Theologians can stop now. It has all been said, over stated in fact, nothing new on that front. But there is no end to what can be known about the world we actually do live in.

Theologians should be aware, or beware, that neuroscientist are putting their loyal subjects under the microscope in an effort to understand the empirical basis for why people experience the "God Phenomenon". How shall these scientist ever report that over half of all people suffer from a brain disorder, and not spirituality?

I still say you could not have read my original post, which highlights the work of a respected geologist and paleontologist who was also a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest.

If you read even a few paragraphs from the link in the original post you'll see that a man who combines faith and science can actually bring in a dimension that's lost to those who can only see this debate as belonging to one side or the other. far from seeing science as contradicting his faith, de Chardin sees it as something that reveals the marvelous intricacies of it.

Sorry If my opinions don't meet your high standards, but since the beginning my point hasn't been in the slightest bit about religious or atheist scientists. And to be honest, unless the scientist's object of study is directly related to a religious belief, it matters little if he's catholic, muslim or believes in unicorns. Science only cares about objectivity, and that is obtained with evidence and general agreement that said evidence is relevant and leads to the deduced conclusions.

I'm not even talking about individuals, I never said scientists are atheist, or that they should be. Theism and religion are entirely based on faith, doubtless belief on the things they think are right (I find nothing wrong with that, so long as they are open to being proved wrong). Science is about disbelief, the search of objectivity. But that doesn't imply a scientist can't be religious, you did not understand what I meant on "unbiased"

A true scientist has to be able to throw their beliefs aside if that is the object of their research, because if the observer is biased, the observations are not trustworthy. That's what it means to seek objectivity. It does not matter if the scientist believes in unicorns, so long as he's not making a thesis on that without evidence. Otherwise, it becomes philosophy. If said scientist were to study "God", he'd have to observe things as a religion agnostic individual, otherwise his observations won't be well received.

In the end, science and religion are total opposites, and there is a long history of conflict between the church and those who sought knowledge. Things can get edgy when a scientific study challenges religious faith, and it has been every time. Which is why there is conflict. Those who are flexible enough to not take sides are few and far between.

You also did not point out that the majority of religious scientists believe in a god significantly different that the one portrayed in the bible, their views varying widely. You can also note that the majority of them questions several parts of the bible, contrary to those who believe every word of it. There are several catholics that support evolution; they discarded creationism, yet still believe in God. That doesn't mean a contradiction, or lack of faith.

Your response is the typical programmed observation that schools produce these days, which speaks much more of a kind of conditioning than it does of real education.

This offends me deeply, specially because I have worked hard to develop my own opinion on religion. I was raised as a catholic, studied in catholic schools and universities, and I took my time to reach a conclusion. I am not atheist because I'm a rebellious teenager, but because I concluded it was the belief that fit me the best. I may not be an old man, but I have enough years on my back to have my own opinion. Which should be respected, for I have not said anything against religion and will never do so.

I'm not entirely convinced it's as black and white as this.

I haven't heard of any credible scientist that fully understands and can explain why gravity is what it is, yet every scientists believes in it -- even counts on it. Newton's theory, Einstein's theories, gravitons, etc., are all incomplete in explaining it. Gravity is probably one the biggest points of faith in science.

Now, I do agree that science is doing everything it can to understand or even disprove gravity, but I know of no scientists that just don't believe in it.

Nor can anybody explain how the university originated. Like I said science is unbiased, objective, and faithless. That's the theory behind it. There is evidence that large objects attract others and it can be measured with relative precision. Gravity is not an absolute law, but a theory based on fairly objective observations by our standards. The same thing applies to pretty much every basic concept in science.

Humans can't be absolutely objective, they'd have to be omniscient to make objective assumptions. Which is why human science is based on approximations to objectivity.

Originally Posted by Zuiun

I'm not entirely convinced it's as black and white as this.

I haven't heard of any credible scientist that fully understands and can explain why gravity is what it is, yet every scientists believes in it -- even counts on it. Newton's theory, Einstein's theories, gravitons, etc., are all incomplete in explaining it. Gravity is probably one the biggest points of faith in science.

Now, I do agree that science is doing everything it can to understand or even disprove gravity, but I know of no scientists that just don't believe in it.

Gravity is not a point of faith, at all. Don't you KNOW that you will fall if you step off a cliff? Can't you count on that? That's not faith, that's gravity; to think that God will save you [from your fall] is complete and total faith. We know scientist do not fully understand anything, if for no other reason than because they say they do not.

Nor can anybody explain how the university originated. Like I said science is unbiased, objective, and faithless.

This is an idealist view of what science should be. It really isn't a realistic view of the way that science is. People like Dawkins expose the lie here pretty well every time they open their mouths (on the way to the bank?).