\"Bleached Faith\" (Religion)

by dhw, Sunday, October 11, 2009, 08:44 (5317 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: Reasoning about things that cannot be known [...] is as futile an exercise as being a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.-Great line! I've only repeated it for the sake of repeating it! But if your motive for being on this site is "engaging in high-stakes philosophy", even allowing for your being the devil's advocate, we need to establish a bit of consistency in the arguments. As usual, though, there's a danger that I've misunderstood you, so please take all that follows as an attempt to clarify rather than to criticize. -You agree with Stephen Jay Gould (incidentally, David, I thought he was an agnostic), who "felt science and religion were two separate magisteria and should be two views of our reality". I'm not going to oppose Gould, because I don't know the details of his argument, but earlier, in reply to my statement that ID tried to make religion and science compatible, you also wrote: "Science and religion aren't compatible but complementary." -However, in your post of 8 October at 23.05 you wrote: "I've said for some time here that I thought Process arguments were one of the best theological responses to science. Process theologians modify their theology so that it reconciles what has been discovered in science instead of clinging to old dogmas." What is the difference between science and religion being compatible, and religion being "reconciled" to what has been discovered in science? I'm picking on this because it's so central to all the arguments about abiogenesis and evolution. The difference between your two approaches seems to me to obscure rather than clarify, which is certainly not the aim of "high-stakes philosophy".-I have a similar problem with your idea that religions are about "how to deal with human suffering", and "how we should act towards each other", together with your downgrading of gods as "only the central glue to this picture". Most religions are based on the relations between a god or gods and humanity, and it's not just a matter of suffering and morals but ... as your "Bleached Faith" author remarks ... of "faith and values". Science is supposed to be neutral, but many scientists are not, and if they challenge the very existence of God (e.g. through misinterpretation of Darwin or belief in abiogenesis), the faith and values will fall apart unless religion can come up with a scientific counter argument. In this context, I can't see how religion and science can be called separate "entities" (your word) or "non-overlapping magisteria" (Gould) ... they have to be joined at the hip if religion is not to lose its credibility. One up for process theology ... but you can't go for that AND for your separate entities! -In my view, there's absolutely no need for any of this confusion. Both approaches can be "reconciled" or "made compatible" by removing the rigid divisions in Gould's and your formulae. So let me now set up my own target for you to knock down!-Science is concerned with the material world. Religion is concerned with systems arising out of belief in a god or gods. Science should be independent of religion, but religion should be compatible with the generally accepted findings of science. Too simple?