\"Bleached Faith\" (Religion)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 06, 2009, 11:04 (5525 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt quotes "Bleached Faith", in which the author says that according to ID, God "limits himself to performing minor tasks, such as the construction of a bacterium's flagellum. By reducing the Almighty to "the God of the gaps", it removes religion from the realm of faith and values, the precise area where science is inadequate."-Matt writes that the God "presented by ID gives us no validation for any of our religious traditions; it is a different philosophical viewpoint, but it does nothing to justify our existence, tells us nothing that we didn't already know, and still ... doesn't answer any question about our origins. It's a religious scepticism that doesn't seem to know what it wants outside of replacing our culture's focus on materialism."-You have yourself made a distinction between Design and ID, because ID is sometimes used as a cover for Creationism and Christianity. When this happens, ID illustrates the exact opposite of the above. Its proponents use Design to "prove" the existence of God, and from there they proceed to their religious agenda, which provides all the faith and values you could ask for. I would therefore like to answer what I see as a criticism of Design rather than of ID. This whole subject, though, raises important issues of motivation, and perhaps we each need first to explain just what it is we're looking for. My own motivation is to find out whether there is or is not a God, and if there is, what is its/his/her nature. No-one can answer these questions from knowledge, but we can all exchange views, and I find this a stimulating and, I must add, generally enjoyable occupation. -And so to Design, and the first question concerning the existence or non-existence of some intelligent outside power. The bacterium's flagellum is one of thousands of examples that can be used to suggest that there is a designer at work. It can be argued that the more complex the organ, the stronger the case for design. Personally, I cannot reject the design argument, but my non-disbelief in design is not strong enough to produce belief in a designer. The same applies to my non-belief in chance. That's why I'm an agnostic.-However, this is only the first step. If you do not exclude a designer, you can speculate about its nature. This, of course, is where culture plays its part, since different cultures have different concepts, but in my neutrality I'm not prepared to accept any culture on trust. Here I depart from some of your premises, because I'm not concerned with validating religious traditions, or with justifying our existence. I'm only concerned with what might be the truth. The three main monotheistic religions, for instance, emphasize the almighty power and ultimate benevolence of God. I look at the world he/she/it may have created, and I see random suffering everywhere. I can't reconcile this to benevolence. I can, however, associate it with Deism, and so if I did believe in some kind of designer, it would probably be a deistic one. I would see no point, however, in worshipping such a God.-The speculation doesn't end there. If there is a designer, it may be of a totally different form from our own. I don't understand the nature of consciousness, I'm not prepared to dismiss all psychic experiences as nonsense or fakery, and I'm not prepared to dismiss the common elements of religion as delusion. And so I acknowledge the possibility of something we generally call a soul. This raises the theme of an afterlife with all its ramifications. Again I don't believe in it, but again I acknowledge that there are too many blank spaces for me to form a clear, convincing pattern.-It's true that Design (but not necessarily ID) takes religion out of the realm of "faith and values". For me, faith and values do not provide truth, but I suspect that we are unlikely in our lifetime, or maybe in any lifetime, to find the truth. If people are able to take the leap of faith either in a designer of their conception or in the creative skills of chance and natural laws, good luck to them. I would only plead that since no-one "knows" the truth, they should be tolerant towards one another. As far as values are concerned, I don't trust the religious people who claim to know God's will. I'm all for humanistic values. As for science and religion not studying the same things, I agree, but in my view religion should not run counter to the findings of science ... and that is what gives the design argument its important role in religion: it helps to make what you call the "two entities" compatible. -[You wrote, under ID, "I do continuously hope that I bring something of interest here." You do indeed!]