Hasbeen,

So you must be sorry for very many people, because the majority build their understanding of the world on the achievements and wisdom - sometimes expressed in quotable bits - of earlier generations. Otherwise there would be no, among other things, science and technology, including your computer and the internet you use to communicate with us.

Sels,

Again, I agree, and do not see where this contradicts what I wrote, although I am not a follower of Karl Barth since, as you know, my understanding of philosophy is through that of science (which does not impinge on my understanding of the NT).

>>Barth based theology on the Word of God i.e. Christology and was not the first to do so but perhaps the most thorough-going.<<

Exactly, Barth spoke of theology, not philosophy, and although I am not a theologian I think all Christian theologians base their theology on Christology and the NT. What Barth was against, I think, was a REPLACEMENT of Christian theology with philosophy or natural theology, not for an outright rejection of the validity of the latter.

“Barth is anxious not to appear completely negative in his attitude to reason and philosophy. Like St. Anselm, Barth would acknowledge a fides querens intellectum, where faith leads the way and reason follows. He agrees that we are at liberty to use ideas taken from secular philosophy in the work of exegesis, and that such ideas are ‘legitimate and fruitful!', always provided they are kepút subordinate to the text and follow after it. ” (John Macquarie, 20th Century Religious Thought, SCM Press 1971, p. 322.)

Ojnab,

You are certainly entitled to express your worldview beliefs the best way you can, as you apparently have just done. But please accept that others have the same right without being misrepresented ad absurdum by those who do not understand them.

I rarely bother to contribute to theological brawling, but I must congratulate the participants for a well managed discussion.

In my view, which I think is quite uncontroversial but some may find confronting, there is essentially no difference between science and religion. They both arise from the human mind's drive to find explanations and both have gone through enormously many iterations to become sophisticated and complex. Both admit the possibility of being wrong and rely on maintaining a commitment to finding truth in the face of setbacks. Wherever scientific endeavour has flourished there has already existed a religious tradition from which the science has sprung to explain gaps in the religious explanation.

In many ways "scientism", which I define as the unreasoning adherence to faith in the explanatory power of science, especially by those unskilled in its practise, is taking on all the trappings of the most intolerant sectarianism.

One thing that religion offers as an integral part of the package that science doesn't necessarily do well is a moral framework, whatever you might think of the specificity of any given framework based on your position within or without its boundaries. Ethics has been the secular attempt to do that and it has, to a very large extent, merely reframed what religion had already constructed.

Richard Feynman, perhaps the greatest scientific mind of out time, told of his experience following the Manhattan Project when he suddenly realised that he had given almost no thought to WHY he had been working on this project, being so swept up in the process of doing it.

Krauss, et al, recognise this as well. I recommend a visit to Krauss's YouTube channel for all the adherents of scientism.

On the original topic, I suspect the author's question reflects a poor understanding of the nature of complex systems, which is nothing to be ashamed of, since it is shared by the enormous majority of the population. GlenC's comment touches on this as well.

In fact, systems theory and complex behaviourist models allow us to think about our observations of things which are not obviously deterministic, which is the role that God has played in religious models. Einstein famously asserted that if he had not been a physicist he would have become a Rabbi and had much to say about his vision of the system of the world.

I recommend those interested in the subject to do some reading of the works of Koestler, Bertalanffy, John Nash, Richard Aumann, Feynman, Csikmentihaliy, Kahnemann, David Deutsch and of course EO Wilson as a first step. Try to do so with an entirely open mind, digesting the broad conceptual ideas, not the detail of the reasoning and without trying to fit it into what you think you already understand. Do the same with the great religious works, both Abrahamic and otherwise and with the great philosophers of all ages.

As humans, we occupy a unique position in the system of the world, which is that we are the only participants which are able to conscientiously make choices about our behaviours based on reasons other than simple stimuli-response, yet few of us ever really do so.

Please try.

Behaviour based on reason, perhaps when one looks at Carols by Candlelight one wonders what the people are there for, is it a social outing, is it boredom, is it the tunes of songs, is it the singers or is it because they believe a baby boy was born in a manger of a virgin birth, possibly in five hundred years time Carols by Candlelight will still be going, still singing about the manger birth, but still no proof that such an event happened, but the reasoning will still be that it did so, behaviour is taught as a child, which we follow good or bad, religion is instilled in children at an early age, so if your reasoning is that seventy virgins are awaiting you in heaven or a God's house of many rooms, then one reasoned belief is as good as the other, that reasoning and behaviour is what has been taught by your peers at the time of your birth.
People like myself, once again taught as children through Sunday School to believe, began to reason later that the whole concept is flawed, people at that period of time of the birth were almost illiterate, their behaviour would abound with stories of all sorts of reason which would not have been checked out by anyone, story tellers only, as pointed out earlier any belief is purely between your ears, even my Atheism, life is good here so let's make out it is good after we go even if in spirit form. religious people want to change you to their way of thinking, how many times have I been told he is "watching you" , you know, keep it to yourself if you believe that.

Hi Ojnab, there is an old phrase which goes along the lines of "there are none so blind as those who will not see". It's an interesting phrase and it's by no means trite; in fact it underlies the empiricism which is at the heart of the scientific process.

It implies something very profound about the nature of observation, which is that in order for us to make any observation, we first have to come to the view that the observation may be possible to make. It seems reasonable in that case that if someone claims to have made such an observation, then either it is possible to make, or they are dishonest. If it is possible to make the observation, then either they have correctly interpreted their observation, or they are mistaken in some way. If they are mistaken, then there is some other explanation, which must do at least as good a job of explaining the observation or it is incomplete and hence may be mistaken.

To reject something merely because you have not personally observed it is fundamentally anti-scientific and is a classic sign of "scientism", in my view anyway. Rejecting out of hand what we don't understand is simple stimulus-response, more fit for a talking parrot than a human

Perhaps, instead of assuming that the religious are somehow acting in bad faith or are defective, you (or any of us) might simply accept that to date you have not observed what they say they have observed and then put your mind to a way in which you might be able to. That would be the scientific approach.

Dear Craig,

You seem to assert that science and religion are similar and complementary, that both are attempts to understand the world.

But the goals of science and religion are diametrically opposed: science aims to understand the external, objective world, in order to be able to manipulate it and achieve worldly success, while religion aims to break our attachment to the world and turn our attention inward to our true original nature - which is God.

That impression of similarity is only because the church, for centuries of corruption, have been meddling with the affairs of the world and the science thereof rather than concentrate on its religious work, teaching the good news of salvation.

Science cannot teach morality because no empirical evidence was ever found for value or for goodness or for worthiness. Not a single particle or wave or force was ever detected to prove that one behaviour ought to be encouraged while another should be avoided.

Similarly, religion and those who are serious about it, should not get involved in science, but instead look at the other side of the scientific coin and say: "whose face is this? isn't this Caesar (representing the desire for egoistic control over nature)? then give him back his coin, it's his and we want nothing to do with it!".