The Religion of Science

The Science of Religion is the Economist's report on a new European scientific crusade to discover the materialistic (Darwinist) explanations for religious beliefs. While they're at it, could they request funding to study the areas of scientists's brains that light up when they watch for which brain areas of Christians light up when they read Psalm 23? It might go a long way in explaining the evolutionary rise of science and scientific beliefs. Although by the time it's all figured out, Christianity will be listed in the books as a mental disorder. What about atheism? Will they study areas of atheists's brain that go dim or merely blink when "God" is mentioned?

Comments

[Bill R]

Scientists might just as well try to figure our what "gene" makes us human, i.e., makes us think that somehow we are qualitatively different from other animals. Just a delusion of course. Which the other animals could tell us, if they had scientists....

[Stuart Koehl]

To say that the evolutionary biological explanation of religious beliefs in man disproves the existence of a creator God is, to say the least, reductionist in the extreme. One could just as easily say the fact that man appears "hard wired" for faith, and that faith has a distinct survival value "proves" both the existence of God and of a divine plan of creation. After all, if God exists, certainly He would want man inclined to believe in him, and He would want that belief to be rewarded in various ways. And, oddly enough, that is precisely what Scripture says, both about man and about God. I'm SO glad that God agrees with Darwin.

[Bill R]

"I'm SO glad that God agrees with Darwin."

If only Darwin and his followers would return the favor!

[bonobo]

If only Darwin and his followers would return the favor!

The word "favor" represents an evolutionary advance on former orthographical times, in that the sequence "favour" lost out in adaptational advantage by reproducing itself less often in English literature than "favor", because the advantage conferred on "favor-ite" reproducers in spending less time at the keyboard spelling "favor" than "favour" allowed the proponents of the former to reproduce more successfully (the latter being confined for longer periods at their keyboards by the typing of extra "u"s) than the troglodytic "favour-ites".

How Darwinist myth-making could fail to find favo(u)r with anyone is beyond me. Maybe it's because I'm a troglodyte...

[Mike Melendez]

So that explains why many people are made uncomfortable by memes. Or was that mimes?

And I thought bonobos were earlier on the evolutionary ladder than troglodytes.

[stoo]

"To say that the evolutionary biological explanation of religious beliefs in man disproves the existence of a creator God is God is, to say the least, reductionist in the extreme."

Evolutionary explanation of religion is a possible reason to not believe in god, for people to take on board or ignore as they wish. It's not an assertion that god doesn't exist.

Science doesn't have anything to say on the exist\not exist question - in fact that's why science doesn't bring God into stuff. A hypothesis that isn't falsifiable isn't useful either!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Science doesn't have anything to say on the exist\not exist question - in fact that's why science doesn't bring God into stuff. A hypothesis that isn't falsifiable isn't useful either!<<<

"Science" doesn't say or do anything--that's the job of "scientists", who, being human, have their own innate biases derived from their education, training and experience. As a result, scientists seldom leave God out of the equation one way or the other. Though scientific method by its nature should have nothing to say about teleological questions, scientists can hardly avoid addressing them, and being trained to exalt materialism (since the scientific method is predicated on the ability to observe and measure phenomena, and only the material can be observed and measured), the natural tendency of most scientists, especially those in disciplines such as biology that directly impinge on teological turf, not merely to ignore theological arguments, but to actively oppose them, and in so doing, take science out of its proper epistemological place and into a realm in which the scientific method is not particularly helpful at all.

Of course, some theologians try to do the same thing in reverse, but they are just as wrong-headed as their scientific-materialist counterparts. Each discipline should stay in its own balliwick and only rely on the other as appropriate to provide context to or inform its own findings.

[Jim Kushiner]

>>>"Science" doesn't say or do anything--that's the job of "scientists", who, being human, have their own innate biases derived from their education, training and experience. As a result, scientists seldom leave God out of the equation one way or the other.<<<

Great point! Man constantly smuggles himself unannounced into in these discussions of purely empirical science. There is no "science" that exists apart from the observer. Man, in himself through the exertions of his rational faculties stands in sense as the mediator in the cosmos between the very small (particles) and the very large, the micro and the macro, as within his mind and nowhere else the "laws" and properties of both micro and macro are contemplated for purpose of understanding the whole. In that sense, the cosmos surely is anthropocentric and in terms of knowledge, the thing scientists rightly value, we *are* the center of the cosmos.

[pilgrim kate]

Bill R.: Which the other animals could tell us, if they had scientists....

Thanks for a morning smile.

[stoo]

^^Well yes, science is only about building models by which we can explain natural processes.

"the natural tendency of most scientists, especially those in disciplines such as biology that directly impinge on teological turf, not merely to ignore theological arguments, but to actively oppose them"

Some scientists are biased like that. But I'm talking about how the scientific process ideally works. Also I don't know about this "active opposition" evolutionary theory isn't actively "opposing" god, it's ignoring him until he presents physical evidence. As it should. Or are you just grumbling about Dawkins?

As for disciplines staying on their bailwicks, sure. But science's bailwick is everything within this physical universe. So that's going to mean questions like how humans came to be the way they are. And also why society works the way it does. Stuff like the human mind is still rather difficult, and may be beyond explanation, I dunno. But it's worth a try at least!