Hi Rhian,

I didn’t mean to suggest that God’s message would be found in quantum mechanics. The poor stringing together of those two sentences (which I partly blame the word limits there) seemed to give that impression, but all I really said was that a God with an important message for us all would not be hiding away to such an extent. Anything that could qualify as a god would understand that the Abrahamic God has made appallingly insufficient attempts to reach us; especially if He’s trying to convey the ultimate message to us.

<<…personally I disagree with George that [the problem of evil] is unrelated to the relationship of science and religion >>

If you haven’t already read it, Sam Harris’s The Moral Landscape, probably touches on what I think you may be alluding to here. In it, Harris dispels the long and widely held belief that science has nothing to say about morality (or ethics and jurisdiction, as George has said).

Finally, whether or not the scriptures were meant to be taken literally, and whether this absurd and obscure God of today’s sophisticated theist is actually “new” or not is largely beside my point. My point was more that (invented or adopted) its rise in popularity is a sign of the desperation to cling to the concept of a god - in a world where it is becoming increasingly irrelevant - rather than simply abandoning it. Religion is unique here in that I don’t think we could find an example outside of religious belief where such lengthy, convoluted and desperate attempts are made to keep a concept alive. I think that says a lot.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said “invent”, but then we really don’t know what the writers of the scriptures were trying to convey, do we. And that’s just one of the many problems theists face in justifying their beliefs.

Dear progressive pat,

You wrote: ...all I know is Isaac Newton was Christian and Lady Gaga and Keira Knightly are atheists.

I'm sure you know many other things. Isaac Newton lived in seventeenth century England where it would have been most hazardous to announce that one was not a Christian. He certainly would not have been able to go to university and hold the positions he held. However, he was an unorthodox Christian who did not accept the trinity.

Lady Gaga lives now, and Keira Knightly who I never heard off may also be contemporary. If Isaac Newton were alive today and Lady Gaga along with Keira Knightly lived in seventeenth century England Newton might be an atheist, and Lady Gaga and Keira Knightly would most certainly be Christians.

Jon J,
>> If we rewrite 'religion' to remove any and all empirical content, we can make it compatible with ANYTHING! <<

Well, not “with ANYTHING”, e.g not with the belief that religion has to have an empirical content, whatever that means ;-)). You probably meant “with any system supported by empirically verifiable facts”, or something like that. I anticipated this reaction, so I wrote that “a person … who believes in … God … will probably not agree that everything he/she sees as God's intervention can be this easily explained away.” Also, I made it clear I did not consider deism. Nevertheless, thanks for this observation.

Anyhow, what exactly is meant by the “empirical content” of a worldview? Although a worldview does not have to deal with the concept of God or divine action, it somehow should with those of consciousness and free will, irrespective of what physics or biology can "empirically" say about them. Hence my suspicion that divine agency should be detectable, if at all, in the vicinity of, or rather in connection with, these human phenomena.

Of course, I agree that these considerations would be hard to sell to fundamentalists of both the theist and atheist kind.

david f,

I was careful to write about belief in God of the Abrahamic religions, not about religion as such, but you are right that in the last two paragraphs (and the subtitle), I speak of religion as if I equated it with belief in the God of Abraham. I apparently could not resist the temptation to quote my favorite saying, (that you might remember from my other posts). So yes, I am that George who writes those posts.

And yes, religion can mean many things to many scholars - psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists etc - studying the phenomenon of religion, and not all definitions are as dismissive as the one you offer. Also, as you know, since Goedel there are unprovable propositions also in mathematics.

AJ Philips,

It was also you I had in mind, when I added “Let me state again the obvious: this need is given by the scientist's (a priori) faith … It should not be regarded as an argument for the existence of God.”

Rhian,

Thanks for the many insights. Yes, I thought I made it clear I was reacting to what Randall called “confusion”, and tacitly assumed that she was referring to scientists who were theists (and not e.g. to people like Fritjof Capra, who tries to reconcile Buddhism with modern science).

Certainly the topic of divine action is very rich, especially when treated by those who are first of all theologians rather than scientists. So I agree that there is a lot worth exploring, and I certainly could not have covered everything, even if I could understand it all, which I do not. Polkinghorne indeed speaks of open theology (rather than process theology which he criticizes), “in which God interacts with creation but does not overrule its divinely granted freedom to be itself. Such a concept of continuous creation is helpful in facing perplexities posed by theodicy” as he put it.

I myself am uneasy about process theology, my favorite joke being: I can understand Russell but don’t agree with him, whereas I agree with Whitehead but cannot understand him.

I wonder whether Peter Selick would agree with your description of him as a de facto deist. I have difficulties following his strict distinction between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God of philosophers (and scientists).

I did not say the question of evil was unrelated to the relationship of science and religion, only that it did not require a deeper understanding of contemporary science, as the referred to attempts at explaining divine action, consciousness and free will apparently do. So I certainly agree that theodicy is a “whole other discussion”.

On second thoughts, you are probably right, that contemporary science - again Polkinghorne comes to mind - offers new insights also into the problems of theodicy.

Dear George,

The answer to the question: "Is being a scientist compatible with believing in God?" is 'yes' since there are competent scientists who believe in God.

I wrote the article, "The Man who Invented the Computer." I don't know whether John Mauchly believed in God, but his lying and stealing someone else's ideas seem much more important to me.

At the moment I am trying to collect material on the history of skepticism and the separation of religion and state. In "Yanomamo, The Fierce People" Chagnon describes the elaborate spirit life and theological beliefs of the Yanomamo. The beliefs are consistent and irrefutable. After death "Wadawadirawa asks the soul whether it has been generous or stingy in mortal life. If the person has been stingy and niggardly, Wadawadirawa directs the soul along one path - leading to a place of fire: Shobari Waka. If the person was generous with his possessions and food, he is directed along the other path - to hedu proper where a tranquil semi-mortal existence continues.

The Yanomamo do not take this very seriously, that is, do not fear the possibility of being sent to the place of fire. When I asked why, I got the following kind of answer: "Well, Wadawadirawa is kind of stupid. We'll just all lie and tell him we were generous, and he'll send us to hedu!"

I see just as much reason to follow the beliefs of the Yanomamo as to follow the beliefs of the Abrahamic religions. I see more reason to to share the skepticism of the Yanomamo.

I am also reading Spinoza who believed in God but rejected all narrative, historical religions. He equated God with the totality of the natural world.

There exists a fundamental and mutually exclusive difference between science and religion. Science involves explaining the natural world through mathematics, chemistry and physics, while religion involves explaining the natural world through the intervention of supernatural forces.

I know that there are religious scientists, and how they reconcile that clear contradiction, I do not know. They must be exhibiting some sort of cognitive dissonance to reconcile the two mutually exclusive forms of logic.

George Virsik tries the old todge that since science can't explain everything, then that must leave room for a supernatural explanation. Sorry George, I don't buy that one. Just because we don't know everything, does not equate to any remote probability that a supernatural force created the universe, and all of the natural laws which govern it's continued existence. And we just keep pushing forward our knowledge of the world. Every time we advance, we push the supernatural view backwards.

If you want to pray to the Sun, a telegraph pole, or a non existent, invisible, supernatural entity George, go right ahead. I used to think that people like you were stupid, but I know better now. It seems as if a very large proportion of the human population who are quite intelligent do have a compulsive need to think that they will live forever. And they think that continuing devotions to a supernatural force can bring that desired end about. That does not mean that they are stupid at all. It just means that they are psychologically different to me in their emotional makeup.

But even the stars die, George, and so in all probability, the universe. Science is now very close to creating the first chemically created cell. When humans can create life George, are we not Gods ourselves to the life forms that we created?