The Ideology of Scientism (part 1)

 

            Colin Blakemore (Neuroscience, Oxford) writes an article entitled, "Science is Just One Gene Away from Defeating Religion." He sees religion and science as opponents in a chess match. One wonders, is it only a chess match and not a war that engage science and religion? Thus advances in science are automatically viewed as detraction from religion. He intimates this when he says that the discoveries of Watson and Crick were a defeat for religion because previously life was a mystery that implied spiritual magic.[1]  He wants to see religion as some long ago thing that science is beating. He says, “Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was certainly a vital move in that chess game - if not checkmate. In an interview for God and the Scientists, to be broadcast tonight in Channel 4's series on Christianity, Richard Dawkins declares: ‘Darwin removed the main argument for God's existence.’"[2] Why should any success of science be an automatic defeat for religion? Religion is not about understanding how the physical world works, yet he tells us:

Science has rampaged over the landscape of divine explanation, provoking denial or surrender from the church. Christian leaders, even the Catholic church, have reluctantly accommodated the discoveries of scientists, with the odd burning at the stake and excommunication along the way… The process of Christian accommodation is a bit like the fate of fieldmice confronted by a combine harvester, continuously retreating into the shrinking patch of uncut wheat.Ten days ago, on Darwin's birthday, Richard Dawkins, Archbishop of Atheism, and Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford, conducted a public conversation in the Oxford University Museum, where Bishop Sam Wilberforce and Darwin's champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, had debated Darwin's ideas in 1860. The two Richards were more civilised. But inevitably, Richard H claimed for religion a territory that science can never invade, a totally safe sanctuary for Christian fieldmice. Science is brilliant at questions that start "how", but religion is the only approach to questions that start "why". Throughout history, human beings have asked those difficult "why" questions.[3]

Isn’t this really a matter of how we look at it? Since ministers supported Darwin and argued that his new scientific discovery was actually a help to the Gospel,[4] it can hardly be called a defeat. It can’t be science’s job to bully religion so what is really going on here?

            In any discussion about God in the modern world theology automatically runs into conflict with science. Both God and science are vying for the same slot as umpire of reality. God was formerly understood as the authority, the power, the basis of all, God was the one who spoke “the word from on high.” Now there’s another umpire. Science seeks to produce a limit on God. Science tells us the way the world works thus science sets the rules for truth in modernity, perhaps even to the point of ruling out God? We are told by many voices that God is merely an ideology. Feuerbach said God was the mask of Money.[5] God is the involuntary projection of human attributes.[6] Marx wasted no time in backing it up by codifying it into doctrine. I’m going to bracket discussion of God for now since we all know the criticism that God is just an ideology. What about science, the challenger for the job of umpire? Modern thought tells us science is pure objective observation of facts and direct proof of all that is reality. Doesn’t the implication of masking ideology come with that territory? When we examine the nature of modern science, especially in so far as it is used in opposition to belief in God, we find that there is no pure objective science, unsullied by the ideological impulse to impose a truth regime upon reality, rather than to merely umpire.

            But first this raises the question, if science is not this pure unsullied ideal of fact finding, what is science? Science as it is taught to the beginning student in her freshman year may not be the same as science defined by the top ranks of professional scientists in their dealings with each other. One example of the way science is introduced, Christopher G. Morris, Dictionary of Science and Technology: Science is systematic observations about the workings of the natural world:

1. the systematic observation of the natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to formulate laws and principles based on these facts. 2. the organized body of knowledge that is derived from such observations and that can be verified or tested by further investigation. 3. any specific branch of this general body of knowledge, such as biology, physics, geology, or astronomy.[7]

As for a general or popular definition, Webster defines science:

1

: the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding

2

a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study science of theology> b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge science>

3

a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science

4

: a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws science and an art>

5

capitalized : christian science

See science defined for English-language learners »

See science defined for kids »

Number one would include theology. The circularity of number 4 should be apparent. Number 2 does include theology, and also can include anything that has been rigorously systematized. We know this by the tag phrase “have it down to a science.” In other words when you tell someone “you have that down to a science” you can say that about anything from cooking to martial arts. Number three is one that deals with our usual understanding of science, what we mean by “science” when we argue with atheists about science. That is not the only form of knowledge, or “there’s no scientific evidence for God.”

a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science

We all know what we mean by science. We all know that science is a pure and true endeavor that is derived from observations of fact so it can’t be misguided. Yet once we ask “what is the nature of science?” and begin to really study it we find it’s not all that clear. In fact there seems to be an epistemological crisis brewing that threatens to pull out all the nails in everything that modernity has so carefully nailed down. For example how do we know which version of “science’ the fist two definitions above are discussing?

            It might be good to consult other sources of definition. There is no official Science Bible to turn to and get the very most authoritative ruling on the matter. We can consult other text books. University of Georgia Geology Department puts out an online page for students that include many definitions. It moves from most standard to “revealing.” Dr. Sheldon Gottlieb in his lecture series, “Religion and Science, Best of Enemies, Worst of Friends,”

Science is an intellectual activity carried on by humans that is designed to discover information about the natural world in which humans live and to discover the ways in which this information can be organized into meaningful patterns. A primary aim of science is to collect facts (data). An ultimate purpose of science is to discern the order that exists between and amongst the various facts. [8]

The statement “discern the order that exists between and among the various facts,” allows for social science such as sociology, psychology, history, economics, and yet it also opens the door to metaphysics. The statement itself limits science to the natural world, thus hinting at a domain of science. Yet the it also leaves unanswered just what that domain is. For social scientists the limits will be much looser than for physical sciences. Another statement about the nature of science pins it down to the natural world: “Science involves more than the gaining of knowledge. It is the systematic and organized inquiry into the natural world and its phenomena. Science is about gaining a deeper and often useful understanding of the world.”[9] Of course science is about a deeper understanding “of the world.” What does that mean? Is it about understanding the world of metaphysics? Or is it about understanding the world of politics, or the world of meta ethics? What kind of understanding? Is that quotation limited to the “natural” world? Does it mean all “worlds” of our conceptualizing? The more varied the definition the looser they become. We see the definitions drifting away form the concept of systematic understandings of the workings of the physical world and nothing more. It’s in those “stretches” of definition that are probably designed to allow flexible field of study that we see creeping in various agendas such as the ruination of religion. This is strictly speaking not a goal of science, not even part of science’s business. These kinds of hobby horses are inherently part of science as long as it is not kept to a rigid dogmatic limitation. I am not arguing for such a rigid dogmatic limitation in the understanding of science. I am arguing for clearly identifying the distinction between science and it’s “others.” Being aware we should be leery of assuming that science is the only form of knowledge.

            As important as deciding what science is and what it’s not, is an understanding of it’s domain. Of course domain will be related to the nature of science and thus definition of what science is will set an understanding of its domain. For example, if science is limited to the systemic observation of the workings of the physical world then it’s domain is the physical world. That means statements issued in the name of science about the lack of realms beyond the physical and their alleged non existence are departures form the scientific mission and bleed into realms of philosophy and metaphysics. If the purveyors of science as the only form of knowledge want to try and include philosophy in science as a section of scientific observation, then they must also accept philosophy as a whole as a valid endeavor and a potentially valid form of knowledge. Stephen J. Gould, a major voice in science of the late twentieth century, proposed a concept of division between science and religion called Non-overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA. The idea is that science and religion are about different aspects of reality. Their teaching authority (magisteria) is not competing so they don’t overlap

Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolved.[10]

Yet Gould’s idea has not gone unchallenged. Richard Dawkins challenged the notion on the grounds that the areas of interest do overlap. Yet he didn’t just say ok let’s look at the Genesis creation story, the obvious point of overlap. No he claimed for science all territory including moral ground. It’s not just an overlap but there’s no ground left to assign to religion. He speaks as though science gets to control all of reality, including ethical theory. See the chapter on ethics for an understanding of the problem here.

More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.

The same is true of many of the major doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. The Virgin Birth, the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Resurrection of Jesus, the survival of our own souls after death: these are all claims of a clearly scientific nature. Either Jesus had a corporeal father or he didn't. This is not a question of "values" or "morals"; it is a question of sober fact. We may not have the evidence to answer it, but it is a scientific question, nevertheless. You may be sure that, if any evidence supporting the claim were discovered, the Vatican would not be reticent in promoting it. [11]

He argues that because we don’t have a clear idea of when the soul emerged our pre-human ancestors then of course the idea is absurd and we can’t assert that there is a soul. He says: “Well, what are these two distinctly different domains, these "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" that should snuggle up together in a respectful and loving concordat? Gould again: "The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value." While Dawkins seems to take the tact that there’s nothing beyond the material so therefore if Science gets the material realm then it has everything. Of course it doesn’t dawn upon him that there might be other ways of looking at the same aspects of life. In so making this “in your face” attack upon all religion Dawkins reveals clearly an ideological sense of “all or nothing.” Gould was not as aggressive as Dawkins, but then he wasn’t as ideological either. Yet he did make provision for the one obvious point of overlap in the conflict about Genesis fomented by creationism. He dealt with it by turning to the Catholic Church which regards evolution as not a problem and which does not insist upon the literal nature of six day creation. Science has the authority thorough its power as systematic debunker of bad ideas to demonstrate the falsehood of such literalism.[12] Gould used the Catholic Church to resolve the problem. The Catholics had never had the problems with evolution that Protestants had. They had made statements to this effect historically. On  Oct 22, 1996 Pope John Paul II reinforced this as Gould points out. He points to the document “truth cannot contradict truth,” the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He then deals with creationism by writing it off as fanatical and unscientific. [13] Dawkins is not content. He wants to remove religion form reality. Thus he asserts that since physical reality is all there is, and science is about physical reality, there’s nothing left for religion to be about. While it is true that the scientific domain is limited to the mechanical workings of the physical world that does not, however, mean that it can move on from that position and assume that all the other view points are under its domain.

            Science is limited to the physical domain and it is also limited to a naturalistic framework. It’s not an automatic qualification to denounce unseen realms. Areas of concept that defy our direct empirical observation are beyond our understanding that is not proof in itself that they don’t exist. To then assert that they must not because knowledge of them is not rendered through science is a philosophical statement and not a scientific one. Neil deGrasse Tyson in his article “The Perimeter of Ignorance” demarcates the domain of science by observing that where scientists run out of factual material they evoke God. Where factual knowledge ends science’s domain ends, but science can keep extending the domain by continuing to seek knowledge.[14] That staves off belief because God is evoked where knowledge runs out. That is a wrong concept because it imposes the wrong view of religion, that religion is failed primitive science. Tyson’s concept of the perimeter of ignorance helps us understand the nature of science and its proper boundary in relation to other topics. The problem with it is that it seems to imply that religion only takes over where we have no facts, thus implying that religion is also about understanding the workings of the world but it just doesn’t proceed by collecting facts. That may not be Tyson’s true concept. Tyson’s argument turns out to be a prefect example of the thesis; it’s really a tirade against intelligent design. So he’s willing to move beyond what we can know about the workings of the physical world to explain what the working of the physical world is not predicated upon. Not that I am defending intelligent design. I am neither an intelligent design advocate nor am I a creationist. What I do seek is to separate the conflict between science and religion in such a way as to understand what is really conflicted. Often times what people take to be science is really one of it’s “others,” the ideologies that ride on the coat tails of science.

What many take to be a conflict between religion and science is really something else. It is a conflict between religion and materialism. Materialism regards itself as scientific, and indeed is often called “scientific materialism,” even by its opponents, but it has no legitimate claim to be part of science. It is, rather, a school of philosophy, one defined by the belief that nothing exists except matter, or, as Democritus put it, “atoms and the void.”

However, there is more to materialism than this cold ontological negation. For many, scientific materialism is not a bloodless philosophy but a passionately held ideology. Indeed, it is the ideology of a great part of the scientific world. Its adherents see science as having a mission that goes beyond the mere investigation of nature or the discovery of physical laws. That mission is to free mankind from superstition in all its forms, and especially in the form of religious belief.[15]

One of the major “others” of science is materialism. Materialism is an ideology that tends to be preferred by many scientific types, and thus is often confused with science, or accompanies it in the world views of those who do science or a living. It often forms the basic assumption made in the sciences about domain and about the nature of things. At this point it would be good to ask about the nature of ideology.

What is ideology?

            Webster defines ideology as “visionary theorizing.” Secondly, it defines ideology as a “systematic body of concept especially about human life or culture.” Here it makes three subdivisions: “a :  a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b :  a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c :  the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.” [16] So we see it’s theorizing, it’s not the great fortress of facts that some wish the mystique of science to imply. An ideology is a social movement or a political movement. Another dictionary brings this out more clearly:

1.

the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.

2.

such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.

3.

Philosophy .

a.

the study of the nature and origin of ideas.

b.

a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.

4.

theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature. [17]

According to John Adams Napoleon popularized the word “ideology,” which was used by the French philosophes. They used it in a positive light to highlight their own ideas, and in a negative sense to characterize folly of others. Adams said that ideology was an attempt to explain reality because it was too complex.[`18] According to Terry Eagleton there is no one single meaning of the term, yet he seems to have clear enough idea what he means by it. It’s very common to find Marxists and other kinds of social and political revolutionaries using it as though it means the legitimating story telling that the dominate structure uses to justify its power. So ideology is what the other guys say to make themselves seem right. As Eagleton points out, does that mean the rebelling faction doesn’t have their own ideology? They never exaggerate or justify but always tell the truth? He says, “If, for example, ideology means any set of beliefs motivated by social interests, then it can’t simply signify the dominate forms of thought in a society.”[19] Ideology is what the other guy has, he claims. No one owns up to being ideological. Then in his review of Dawkins’s book The God Delusion it’s pretty clear where Eagleton thinks Dawkins can be placed in relation to ideology:

Card Carrying Rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist that we have had since Bertrand Russell are in one sense the least well equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first year theology student wince.[20]

 For practical purpose I defined ideology thusly: One idea that defines the world and determines how one sees everything filtering all perceptions through the lens of its truth regime.

Ideology and Science

            It seems that from the upper echelons of the world of books to the mid level management of opinion leaders in movements such as new atheism, to the popular level of the internet and message boards, a myth has spread far and wide that science is the only form of knowledge. James Felton Keith quotes the architect of physicalism Otto Neurath as saying: “according to phsyicalism the language of physics is the universal language of science and any knowledge can be brought back to the statements on physical objects.”[21] In 1964 George Richmond Walker wrote: “the thesis that art is important because, like science it gives us knowledge of reality has not faired well in modern philosophy [among logical positivists and the analytic school] “…all cognitive experience belongs to science and they hold that the business of the philosopher is to analyze the methods, terms, and laws of science in order to clarify their logical structure and empirical content.” Even though this was written in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists way backing 1964,[22] it apparently has filtered down the masses. We find the whole movement of new atheism thriving on this idea and the mid level management of that movement and the popular level are abuzz with it. As Mark Thomas of the popular level internet group “godless geeks” tells us:

Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism — the basis of science.  Naturalism is also the basis for how all people live their lives most of the time.

To be explicit, modern science relies on methodological naturalism.  This means that science doesn’t incorporate any supernatural or religious assumptions and doesn’t seek any religious or supernatural explanations.  Science is the use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process.  Science also depends on mathematics, which likewise has no religious or supernatural component.[23]

On the strictly popular level, Answers.com tells us “Science is the only form of knowledge. There is no way to know something without it being scientific in some way.”[24] Stephen Barr comments:

            From the positivists this is to be expected. That’s what their movement was about, philosophy embraced that it’s not science and seeking to gain its shore of control through the priesthood of knowledge. That Walker analyzes the fortunes of art as an epistemic resource is merely the valid job of a top level thinker in the world of letters, it’s what they do. When popular sources start saying things like “naturalism is the basis of science” then we have cause for concern. Naturalism is not the basis for how we know things nor is it the basis of science. Naturalism is a philosophy and an ideology and science is the basis of it.[225]

I can understand why one would say that science is naturalistic, because science must assume naturalistic means of knowing. There’s a big difference in saying that science must make naturalistic assumptions and that “naturalism” is the basis of science! The poppy chock that “there is no way to know anything unless it’s scientific” is just popular twaddle. I know what I had for breakfast without using science. They are making a leap form “scientific Knowing” to “naturalism” as though they are the same thing. Naturalism is an ideological understanding of the world. If science is ordinary and so all encompassing those ordinary observations that have no systematic nature are part of science then religious belief is part of science too. These are philosophical statements they are not scientific statements. They represent a philosophical doppelganger of science that rides on its coattails. Science is not a sweeping proclamation on the nature of all reality.

            The problem is no one actually sticks to this. People who do science for a living, people who just love science and read about it in their spare time, as well as people who know almost nothing about it other than that society reveres it as the umpire of reality, all confuse the ends of science with their own agendas. They all baptize their own projects, beliefs, ideologies and prejudices in the light of science and confuse the goals and ends of the latter with the former. Richard Dawkins confuses the goals of science with his own distaste for religion. Others try to expand science into he realm of ethics, while still others regard it as the only form of knowledge and use it as a replacement for metaphysics and epistemology (all the while denouncing metaphysics and epistemology as “stupid philosophy that makes stuff up’). It’s hard to find pure scientific motives and at the same time stay within the domain of science which is firmly planted in the department of “workings of the physical world.” Those who love and do science are humans and they are prejudiced and biased and they mix their own motives, agendas and ideologies with the doing of science. For this reason science is a relative human construct. It is not the only form of knowledge and it is not the arbiter of all reality. These ideologies that attach themselves to science are the “others” of science.

            E.O. Wilson’s Consilience: The unity of Knowledge, is a prefect example of what I’m talking about in terms of mistaking one’s ideological goals for science. Of course Wilson is one of the major thinkers in science in this century and at the end of the last century. Consilience is perhaps his Magnum Opus.  In this work Wilson shows us his path and his ambitions that mark out exactly the syndrome I’m talking about. Even the subtitle is a frank admission that he’s reducing all forms of knowledge to one. He points out that in his childhood he loved the classification system of ants. He was very attracted to the study of ants. He read about the classification system of Carolus Linnacus, as a boy and was greatly impressed. Then a bit latter he discovered evolution. He writes about that auspicious moment: “Then I discovered evolution. Suddenly--that is not too strong a word—I saw the world in a whole new way…” an insight that he describes as an “epiphany.”[26] He gives us a key to understanding his fascination. He says that the brilliance of Ernst Mayr’s 1942 Systematics and the Origin of the Species, “by giving a theoretical structure to natural history, it vastly expanded the Linnaean enterprise. A tumbler fell somewhere in my mind and a door opened to a new world.”[27] That is a wonderful description of that process whereby new vistas dawn in the mind and one suddenly realizes “a whole new world lies before me with this…” such was my own feeling when I first discovered Bruce Wiltshire’s book Metaphsyics,[28] or when I read William Faulkner for the first time (Light in August). Both were in my sophomore year of high school. Nor is there anything wrong with evolution or Darwin and gaining a larger perspective on science and the world through reading Darwin. Yet it does seem as though he just doesn’t want to stop classifying all of reality until he’s classified everything his way. This is so because he argues for putting everyone under one label, science is the only form of knowledge.

            He says:

The enhancement, growing steadily more sophisticated, has dominated scientific thought ever since. In modern physics its focus has been the unification of all the forces of nature—electro weak, strong and gravitation—the hoped for consolidation of theory so tight as to turn the science into a “perfect” system of thought which by the sheer weight of  evidence and logic is made resistant to revision. But the spell of enchantment extends to other fields as well, and in the minds of a few it reaches beyond into the social sciences, and still further as I will explain latter, to touch the humanities.[29]

He’s taking the notion of science organizing our understanding of reality to the point of redefining our knowledge and subsuming the understanding of other fields. The term consilience is defined by Webster’s as “the linking together of principles from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory.” There’s not necessarily anything wrong with a comprehensive theory. Yet is does seem subsuming of other fields and thus probably doesn’t consider other view points very well. Wilson is not an atheist. He speaks of his view of all embracing scientific view freeing him from the confines of Christian fundamentalism, but having been passionately religious in his youth, he turns to the metaphor or symbol of Ionian thought in science as the new way for those seeking redemption from purposelessness. He also speaks of the wonderful feeling of the taste of unification in metaphysics; clearly exceeding the domain of science as studying the workings of the natural world. He doesn’t see himself as anti-religious but as offering a way for those who see more than religious traditions allow.[30]  Perhaps that is a valid aim for science. On the other hand the temptation to play God and control all other forms of knowledge is clearly a strong one for some and it’s made its mark in the new atheist movement. Why should we have a unified knowledge that subsumes other fields? That’s at best “totalizing” and at worst fascistic. As Arthur Warmoth observes, “the idea of the unity of knowledge seems to be a will-of-the-wisp that has periodically led western philosophy into the dangerous night bogs of hubris.”[31] He understands Wilson to seek the reduction of all meaning to one definition controlled by one discipline, the sciences. The problem there is that there distinction between making meaning coherent and making it “unified.”

It is certainly true that induction, deduction, abstraction, and the exploration of causal relationships have permitted natural science in the Greco-Christian West to conquer territories beyond the reach of the scientific efforts of any other culture. The natural sciences have been uniquely successful in understanding nature. However, there are other meanings of "meaning" that have proven important in human intellectual life across many cultures. It is useful, and it fits into the paradigm of contemporary cognitive science, to see these different types of meaning as different types of patterns of abstraction that can be used to order sensory data.[32]

Wilson is just one thinker, but he is not alone in his attack on forms of knowledge other than science. He did, however spawn a whole sub-discipline that seems more ideological than scientific: Wilson started sociobiology and then it transmogrified into evolutionary psychology.

---

[1] Colin Blackemore, "Science is Just One Gene Away from Defeating Religion." The Guardian.  Originally from the Observer. 21st of Febuary, 2009. On Line:
 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/genetics-religion 
accessed 10/29/13.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] David C. Lindberg,  Ronald L.Numbers, ed.,  God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science. Berkeley, Los Angelis: University of California Press, 1986. 372-374.

[5] Van A. Harvey, Feuerbach and The Interpretation of Religion, Carmbridge: Press Syndicate for the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought, 1995/1997, 4.

Harvey is professor emeritus, taught religious studies at Stanford Univesity. His Ph.D. from Yale in 1957. His thesis supervisor was H.Richard Neibhur.

[6] Ibid., 25.

[7] Christopher G. Morris, Academic Press Dictionary of Science & Technology quoted on in “some definitions of science” addendum to Geol 1122 “what is and isn’t science” Universlity of Georgia Department of Geology, on line resource, URL: http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122sciencedefns.html   visited 2/11/11.

[8] Sheldon Gottlieb, quoted on the University of Georgia  addendum Ibid. Originally from his lecture Harbinger Symposium, “Religion and Science the best of enemies the worst of Friends,” Mobile,. Alabama, April 3d 1997

[9] University of Georgia Addendum GEOL 1122  originally: from the Multicultural History of Science page at Vanderbilt University.

[10] Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, New York: Ballantine Books, 1999, 3.

[11] Richard Dawkins, “When Religion Steps on Science’s Turf: The Alledged Seperation Between the Two is not So Tidy.” Council for Secular Humanism, Free Inquiry Magazine  volume 18, no 2, no date given. Online publication URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_2.html  accessed 9/19/13.

The article is credited to volume 18, no 2 but when I look up the issue sperately the article is not there. Yet it is online at the page URL above.

[12] Stephen J. Gould, “Non Overlapping Magisteria,” Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms,

New York: Harmony Books, 1998, 269-283.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Neil deGrasse Tyson, “The Perimeter of Ignorance,” Natural History, Nov. 2005, on line copy: URL:

http://naturalhistorymag.com/universe/211420/the-perimeter-of-ignorancevisited 10/25/11

[15] Stephen Barr, “Retelling the Story of Science,” First Things,  March (2003) on line version:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/retelling-the-story-of-science-24  accessed 12/9/2013

[16] Marion-Webster’s dictionary online, “Ideology,” URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideology  accessed 9/19/13.

[17] Dictionary.com, American Heritage new Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 3d, edition,Houghton Mifflin Company 2005, online resource, URL: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ideology  accessed 9/19/13

[18] Jospeh J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, New York, New York: Vintage, 2005, 238.

Adams was explaining to Jefferson that he had been too idealistic in accepting all the French revolution has to offer and the meaning of the term “ideology” indicated a false infatuation with things only partially understood, that Jefferson was carried away with the romance and was too open to the entire program of the philsophes without understand it well enough.

[19] Terry Eagleton, Ideology, London, Brooklyn New York: Verso, 1991, 2.

Eagleton is professor of English at Lancaster University  (England) and is a major literary critic.

[20] Terry Eagleton, “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching,” London Review of Books, vol 28, no 20 (19 October) 2006, 32-34.

[21] James Felton Keith, “Integrationalism: Essays on the Rationale of Abnundance.” Detroit, Michigan: Think ENXIT press, no date listed, online URL: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=dgOinwwR-FoC&pg=PA12&dq=%22According+to+physicalism,+the+language%22#v=onepage&q=%22According%20to%20physicalism%2C%20the%20language%22&f=false   visited 1/11/11.

[22] George Richmond Walker, “Art, Science, and Reality, “ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Sept. 1964, 9. on line version: URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=xgcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=science+is+the+only+form+of+knowledge&source=bl&ots=MZJYHUMFpM&sig=pB9flvCGNQnTWSGqGUH4jsiYbhg&hl=en&ei=F0LuTbqDMo6CtgeRqaSYCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=science%20is%20the%20only%20form%20of%20knowledge&f=true  visited 1/11/11

[23] Mark Thomas, “Why Atheism?: History and Development of Science and Scientific Naturalism.” Web page URL: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/WhyAtheism.htm  visited 1/11/11.

Thomas apparently has some kind of job in computers and belongs to an organization called “godless geeks.” I quote him because his view illustrates the thinking at the popular internet level.

[24] Answers.com, Wiki Answers.”Is science the supreme form of Knowledge?”  on line resource: URL:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_science_the_supreme_form_of_knowledge  visited 1/11/11.

[25] Stephen M. Barr, “Re-Telling The Story of Science,” Op cit.

[26] E.O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York:Vintage  Books, division of Random House,First edition, 4.

Wilson is two time winner of Pulitzer prize, he was biologoy professor at Harvard. His specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, he is the world’s leading expert. He is very well known and has won many awards for his popular level writing on science and humanism.

[27] Ibid. 4

[28] Bruce Wiltshire, Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy. Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill Co., First edition, 1969.

[29] Wilson, Consilience…Op Cit., 5

[30] Ibid., 6-7.

[31] Arthur Warmoth, “Reflections on Concilience,” Comments on revew of E.O. Wilson’s Concilience.

On line resource, http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/warmotha/consilience.html  accessed 9/22/13.

Warmoth is professor of psychology at Sonoma State University.

[32] Ibid.

What do you mean by mean?

 


Atheists on CARM were making a big production of the idea that there is real meaning to the phrase "God makes life meaningful." Their contention is that their lives are meaningful for them, becuase they want to think they are, and no other form of meaning that makes any difference. I think this is one of their more myopic conceits. They proceeded to play a little game, whenever a theist tired to describe what was meant they would say "O but there's no God so it doesn't mean anything." All roads to Rome, and Rome is the Colosseum! where the Christians face the lions. Of course what they really mean is (if we can use that term "mean") is that "there is no other meaning that I choose to regard but the one I care to give things. This is obviously a very selfish attitude becuase that could just as logically be said by UFO chaser who smells like Bigfoot and talks to people who aren't there and then insists "I'm not bothering anyone, and anyone who is bothered doesn't deserve not to be."

When we say "meaning" God gives us meaning we have reference to an ordered relation between the idea and the particulars. Not to say it's necessary Platonist although it is Platonic in the sense that it relates the messy business of daily life to an ideal. God is Truth, Being and love. These three things correlate. they are based upon the nature of being as an eternal necessary reality of depth in which the beings are produced and in turn partake. Here I make the distinction made famous by Theologian
John Macquarrie's Principles of Christian Theology.   God is being itself, or the ground of being, the individual temporally bound contingencies created by God are "the beings." Thus, we have "Being" and "the beings." The latter are products of the former, or we could say they share in the nature of the former. Here I am making the assumption that being holds within it a meaning, based upon being as the source and origin of consciousness, thus the center of valuation and understanding, and the beings are the recipients of that understanding. It is the understanding of that center or origin of consciousness that bestows meaning upon us when we undersatnd the reality of that center and we harmonize with it's aims and interests. In the same manner we are loved by God and when return God's love we are living up tot he purpose for which we were created and thus we fit the valuation of the meaning of creation and we fulfill the purpose for which we were created.


Meaning is an ordered relation based upon creative purpose and wisdom and orients the contingent aspects of being to the eternal necessary aspect. It does this enabling us to ground identity and purpose: as SK said "when I find God I am more myself." Paul says In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17). We could say that living up the purpose of creation is an outgrown or a product of Salvation. The soteriolgoical process begins in life on earth, and culminates in eternal life after death. It is a restoration process; the term "salvation" is related to redemption, buying back, also to healing, restoring. Part of healing and restoration is to harmonize with the purpose for which our lives were intended.

Meaning is related to the transcendental signifier (or TS) and they way it orders relations as the top of the metaphsyical hierarchy. For reference I urge the reader to read my transcendental signifier arguemnt for the existence of God.  As well as the commentary on the page that goes with it. I might also point out there's a page on the Derridian background to the argument that one might find useful. In a nutshell the TS is the top of the metaphysical hierarchy, the apex of the organization scheme, the organizing principle which making meaning of all the marks (words) we use to bestow meaning upon things and ideas. In determining the organization of a system the TS is a principle which determines meaning. Derrida tells us that God is the supreme form of the TS.

"Without God, who has been the ultimate Transcendent Signified, there is no central perspective, no objective truth of things, no real thing beyond language." [Nacy Murphy and James McClendon jr." Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies." Modern Theology, 5:3 April 1989, 211]

Here it is said "signified" becuase signified is the thing to which the word refers. The word "G-o-d" is the "signifier" the thing with which we signify, and the thing we signify is the signified. The word "God" is the signifier, and thing to which it refers is the reality we call "God." Here Derrida, an atheist who was actually to prove there was no TS, admits that there is no central perspective or meaning without God. That's ok for him becuase his whole point was there is no  meaning. I have refereed to God as the "top of the metaphysical hierarchy." That is just what the TS is because it's the  principle that organizes. That's God's major job description as well.


For Heidegger metaphysics is grouping sense data into ordered categories. that's' not a good thing for him becuase it means we lose truth in preconceived notions. The altnaritve according to Heidegger is almost logos sort of move, where we allow the sense data to suggest it's own categories so we let the organization work by itself. SK goes one step further than that and says it's not just the sense data that suggests the categories but the logos, the ordering principle the mind of God.

What the heck am I talking about here with this "logos sort of move?" The theologians of the middle ages regarded the logos as the ordering principle, this is based upon Christ's work in creation "without him was not anything made." That's form John's Logos prologue. They saw the logos as the ordering principle that put things into perspective and fashioned and ordered the way the system works. In modern parlance we could say the logos is the TS or that the Logos is the embodiment of the principle of evolution. Of course the materialists would balk at such a concept. If there is a God who created a universe that evolves then evolution is one of the primary organizing features of reality and thus it has to be a reflection of God's mind at some point. That's what the Logos is, the creative rationale of God. Thus I say Heidegger's alternative to metaphysics (grouping under a single rue brick of sense data which contrasts understanding and meaning)  is a "Logos move" it allows the sense data to suggest their own categories, which was Heidegger's answer, yet I'm adding a theistic aspect that he did not see, which is the choices suggested by the sense data would be a reflection of the Logos's ordering of reality.

So Meaning an ordered relation form the top of the metaphysical hierarchy that enables us to ground our identity and our purpose in an understanding of who we are and what our lives are about and to orient that toward the infinite joys of heaven and knowledge of the divine.

The Big Paleantologist in the Sky:The Dawkins Side of the Armstrong Quote

A couple of weeks ago I put up a quote by Karen Armstrong about the being itself thing. Some atheists mistakenly thought it was saying that religion is stupid and outdated when it really said he opposite, because they are so ignorant they have no concept of liberal theology. When they read some liberal theology they think it's atheism because they don't even know what liberal is. I bot so caught up on that side of the article I totally forgot the article was the result of a request by the editor of two different people about their views. The other commenting person was Dawkins. They two did not know what the other said. A quick rehash of Armstrong's view then we should look at what Dawkins said.

Armstrong said that religion was hurt by the literalizing of the metaphor of the guy in the sky. she said that ancient religion understood something modern evangelicals have forgotten, that God is being itself and the big guy in the sky is just a metaphor. She used Newton as an example of one literalizing the metaphor. Newton decided he science proved God and since that gave him a literal understanding of the existence of God he just literlized the metaphor to fit scinece thinking he didn't need it as a metaphor as long as he had his scientific proof. Then in the next generation La place (really about a hundred years latter) said "we have naturalistic cause and effect so we don't God anymore." Now we go over and look at what Dawkins says we find the only understands the literilzed metaphor.

the orginal Arrmonstrong Quote and my few comments are here:

My analysis of what the Armstrong Quote means here:



The Dawkins part of the article is subtitled "Dawkins argues that Evoluion Leaves God with nothing to do."

Dawkins

Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree with the Reverend William Paley, in "Natural Theology," that the creation of life was God's greatest work. Especially (vanity might add) human life. Today we'd amend the statement: Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evolution, to quote a T-shirt sent me by an anonymous well-wisher, is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.

Paley was another example Armstrong used to say that "here's a Christian who is literilzing his metaphors." So of Dawkins is taking the literized version as the real thing. He's treating evolution as a final case as though there need to be a reason for evolution to exist or any prior conditions that make it work or make it possible.

Indeed, evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe. Most scientists' hunch is that there are independently evolved life forms dotted around planetary islands throughout the universe—though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life elsewhere, it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will turn out to be Darwinian life. The argument in favor of alien life's existing at all is weaker than the argument that—if it exists at all—it will be Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we really are alone in the universe, in which case Earth, with its greatest show, is the most remarkable planet in the universe.

Not likely that we are alone. If he's write about the natural of evolution but that doesn't put a damper on God. Only if you see God as big man in the sky and you think he has to make a decision about each and every little thing he's doing that this would be a problem.

What is so special about life? It never violates the laws of physics. Nothing does (if anything did, physicists would just have to formulate new laws—it's happened often enough in the history of science). But although life never violates the laws of physics, it pushes them into unexpected avenues that stagger the imagination. If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it was possible—except, of course, that there'd then be nobody around to do the disbelieving!

Here he talks as though there are prescriptive laws of physics. Of course if you make a God argument, "who prescribes the prescriptive laws" then atheists will say "don't you know anything? there are not actual 'laws' they are not prescriptive they are only descriptive. If that's the case then of course nothing can ever violate them because what ever happens is a prori what the laws the law says, since it doesn't actually actually do anything bu describe what happens. So why is he talking like there's some sort obeying to be done? My hung is that this is a sort of devotional langauge that atheists use. Since science is their God they they speak about it in different terms when praising it then they do when describing how it works, as Simone Weil said "the language of the nuptial chamber is not the language of the market place." Witness above:evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe.

I think what's happening here is that they are literelizing their own metaphor. When you call them on it (law demands a lawgiver) they do "O yea that's just a metaphor, forgot about that." But Just as a fundamentalist really does think of God as literally a man in the sky becuase he has no other model for thinking about it, Atheists really do in their heart of hearts believe that there are prescriptive laws of physics, that's why their devotional language is about prescriptive laws.

The laws of physics, before Darwinian evolution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirlpools and waves, whirlpool-shaped galaxies and light that travels as waves while behaving like particles. It is an interesting, fascinating and, in many ways, deeply mysterious universe.

The laws of physics move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform. Yea, they don't have any "devotional language," they are not worshiping scinece! come off it.

But now, enter life. Look, through the eyes of a physicist, at a bounding kangaroo, a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring Coast Redwood. There never was a rock that bounded like a kangaroo, never a pebble that crawled like a beetle seeking a mate, never a sand grain that swam like a water flea. Not once do any of these creatures disobey one jot or tittle of the laws of physics. Far from violating the laws of thermodynamics (as is often ignorantly alleged) they are relentlessly driven by them. Far from violating the laws of motion, animals exploit them to their advantage as they walk, run, dodge and jink, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.

Never once are the laws of physics violated, yet life emerges into uncharted territory. And how is the trick done? The answer is a process that, although variable in its wondrous detail, is sufficiently uniform to deserve one single name: Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information. We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet. And my bet, as I said, is that the same process is in operation wherever life may be found, anywhere in the universe.

Holy Tialhard de Chardin Batman. That's devotional enough to be found in Hymn to the Universe.

What if the greatest show on earth is not the greatest show in the universe? What if there are life forms on other planets that have evolved so far beyond our level of intelligence and creativity that we should regard them as gods, were we ever so fortunate (or unfortunate?) as to meet them? Would they indeed be gods? Wouldn't we be tempted to fall on our knees and worship them, as a medieval peasant might if suddenly confronted with such miracles as a Boeing 747, a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But, however god-like the aliens might seem, they would not be gods, and for one very important reason. They did not create the universe; it created them, just as it created us. Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex—statistically improbable —and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe—the miracle-free zone that is physics.

This is a very revealing paragraph because it shows us two things: (1) He really does think of God as just a jumped up man, that's his basic concept and he can't understand or even does know that there is any other option or concept more sophisticated. He really clearly thinks that this is what exactly the notion deity is about. Not the Ground of being but a guy with a ray gun who could zap you and then beam up to the ship before you know it. The big alien in the sky with the Ray gun is no closer to being God than is a cave man with a club in the sky or a pond scum in the sky. The only thing such an image can ever be is a er zots metaphor litearlized and put over in place of the real concept of necessary eternal being which is not a man in the sky. (2) It opens a window into Dawkins own concept of devotional language and his notion of what he worships. I think this explains why atheists are bullies on message boards. What they worship is what they seek and it's their reason for doing scinece: power. I've often observed that the real hateful sort of atheist, the street hood who is filled with so much he's banned from board to board is just hung up on the idea of being powerless and taking it out upon a class of people who he assumes have a measure of social power, church people.

To midwife such emergence is the singular achievement of Darwinian evolution. It starts with primeval simplicity and fosters, by slow, explicable degrees, the emergence of complexity: seemingly limitless complexity—certainly up to our human level of complexity and very probably way beyond. There may be worlds on which superhuman life thrives, superhuman to a level that our imaginations cannot grasp. But superhuman does not mean supernatural. Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences. Once it has done so, of course, those intelligences can create other complex things: works of art and music, advanced technology, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the future? Darwinian evolution may not be the only such generative process in the universe. There may be other "cranes" (Daniel Dennett's term, which he opposes to "skyhooks") that we have not yet discovered or imagined. But, however wonderful and however different from Darwinian evolution those putative cranes may be, they cannot be magic. They will share with Darwinian evolution the facility to raise up complexity, as an emergent property, out of simplicity, while never violating natural law.

So he deifies the agency or the tool through which God works, but can't understand that there's a deeper aspect to it than just the creativity of the agency itself. His concept of deity is clearly contingent and rooted in the magnifying of natural things, such as "big man in sky." Not just any man in the sky, but a big man.

Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.

The reason it appears to leave God out is because all he's really saying is "I can't understand the idea of God in any more complex fashion than a big man in sky, but I have a bigger man in the sky." In other words, big white lab coat guy with test tube in sky beats big cave man in sky. In posing the question "what would have to do" he's positing the notion of God as a man who get's board, waits around, has to find things to do. Presumably God would be using evolution as a tool and doing all that stuff he talks about. But we don't need to say that because even that caters to a model of God as a mechanic with a tool. Now I am not saying that God is evolution, but let's think about using evolution itself as the metaphor for God, then to say "what would God be doing while things are evolving? That is a meaningless question, he would be evolving them!

But Dawkins knows just enough about modern theology be dangerous. He tries to preempt the argument:

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."

That is a copy of a sort of existentially based take on God popular in the early 60s rooted in the works God is dead movement people such as Van Bearuean and Altizer. But doesn't apply to Tillich or his existential ontology (God as being itself).

Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists.

Here we see a tactic used by atheists on every message board where I have argued this. They always copy and imitate their Master's example and appeal to popularity because they think Christianity is just about following the herd. Notice how he equates a literalism of the guy in the sky with belief in God itself, "they believe in God" as though Tillich didn't believe in God. Because his only conception of God is the simplistic guy in the sky. Notice how he doesn't really address the issue of other views of God which are not based upon the Suzerain model. He goes for the most fluphy sounding wavy gravy existential bs he can find.

If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.

What he says here is important because it clues us in. He can only think of existence in literal biological terms. God has to be the big man in the sky to exist, and Dawkins big scientist in the sky is better because he's a more modern big man. Concepts of process theology and being itself and all that is just wasted on him.