Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Can they coexist?
Post 81.April 22, 2019
Wall of Alienation : Religion v Science
Fighting-Faith vs Pragmatic Accomodation
The BothAnd philosophy is one of tolerance toward human diversity, including worldviews and religious beliefs. Global uniformity of belief on political & religious topics is a utopian dream, but probably not realizable in the foreseeable future. Some of my beliefs may be wrong, and some of yours too. So, we can either fight about who’s right, or adopt the policy of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, as it guarantees freedoms of religion, speech, writing and publishing, peaceful assembly, and the freedom to raise grievances with the Government. In addition, it requires that a “wall of separation” be maintained between church and state. The strategy of “non-overlapping magisteria”1 was a pragmatic compromise in order to avoid the state religions and religious wars of previous eras2. Although most faiths idealize unity of belief, in practice almost all of them eventually break down into quarrelling sects. So, the tendency toward intolerance of other creeds must be tempered with respect for divergent interpretations of truth.
In a 2005 Skeptical Inquirer article, Astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan responded to some intemperate public statements from so-called New Atheists : “Richard Dawkins . . . urged that we be . . . more ecumenical in our hostility. I will answer in the following way : first, that there is no human culture without religion. That being the case, that immediately says that religion provides some essential meat, and if that’s the case, shouldn’t we be a little more careful about condemning something that is desperately needed? . . . Religion is an attempt to provide, whether truly or falsely, some solutions to those problems. Human mortality is one of those where there isn’t a smidgeon of help from science.” The outspoken atheists, that Sagan was responding to, were not just indifferent to religion, but openly hostile. Their comments imply that religious people must be stupid idiots to believe in a supernatural God, and to submit to the authority of traditional institutions. Sagan was definitely a skeptic toward religious claims. But he was also sympathetic toward the emotional needs of the vast majority of humans. Even more important, Sagan understood that science is not a substitute for religion in matters of Mortality or Morality.
Although I am also skeptical of many religious claims, and doubt the veracity of their sacred scriptures, I must acknowledge that such institutions obviously provide an essential service to their constituents. Specifically, they offer something plausible to believe in, and an internally consistent worldview to justify their tribe’s moral standards. New Atheist spokesman, San Harris, asserted, in The Moral Landscape, that science can answer moral questions3. Which may be somewhat true, but science still can’t offer hope and assurance to the masses without becoming, in effect, a religion : i.e. Scientism, or Secular Humanism. They are pseudo-religions with rational moral rules, but no afterlife for those who face the void. Where many traditional religions are inflexible on key dogmas, Science is supposed to be open-minded. But when secularism poses as religion, it has a tendency to become rigid regarding its own core principles, hence the New Atheism.
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Sagan Quotes :
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
. “I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God.”
Tribal Morality : “A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights the way forward.” http://www.joshua-greene.net/moral-tribes
1. NOMA : Scientist Stephen Jay Gould advocated completely seperate spheres of authority for Science and Religion. This was a diplomatic solution to the conflicts that arose with Galileo’s challenge to church sanctioned cosmology, and Darwin’s non-miraculous explanation for the gradual emergence of the human species.
2. Conflict Thesis : Gould didn’t deny the history of strife between Faith and Science on topics where their interests overlap. He merely suggested that people of good will should avoid aggressive forays into the demilitarized zone, in order to keep the peace. This is a form of Accomo-dationism, which holds that Religion “has beneficial consequences for human behavior”, and should not be abrogated.
3. Atheist Morality : Sam Harris outlined “how science can determine human values”. Which is true, except that official values must be enforced by some moral authority. Religions typically assert that, without divine sanctions (e.g. heaven & hell) humans will always litigate about interpretations of man-made rules. Which again is true, but also for those who claim to bow to scriptural laws. Both Science and Religion must deal with judicial disputes. That’s why civil and religious courts demand respect for the rights of accuser & accused.
Sagan’s Hope
Sagan noted that “we are in need of other sorts of myth, myths of encouragement. Many religions, from Hinduism to Gnostic Christianity to Mormon doctrine, teach that — as impious as it may sound — it is the goal of humans to become gods.”
“Or consider a story in the Jewish Talmud left out of the Book of Genesis. (It is in doubtful accord with the account of the apple, the Tree of Knowledge, the Fall, and the expulsion from Eden.) In the Garden, God tells Eve and Adam that He has intentionally left the Universe unfinished. It is the responsibility of humans, over countless generations, to participate with God in a ‘glorious’ experiment — ‘completing the Creation.’”
This shows that Sagan was perfectly aware of the interpretation of religion that I am proposing: The promises of religion are true, because we’ll make them true.
I doubt that Sagan had a Transhumanist “glorious experiment” in mind when he called for a reconciliation with religion. But my own worldview could be interpreted as describing the Big Bang & Evolution as a sort of experiment in world-making. Apparently, the Programmer left the the progressive program open-ended, to allow Freewill and Chance to partly determine the ultimate outcome of the evolutionary process. The Turing Church is a technological futurist society that expects computing power to eventually become god-power. It’s similar to my own view, except that my Programmer is eternal & transcendental, and pre-human rather than post-human.
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