Thursday, May 13, 2010
The New War Between Science and Religion
There is a new war between science and religion, rising from the ashes of the old one, which ended with the defeat of the anti-evolution forces in the 2005 "intelligent design" trial. The new war concerns questions that are more profound than whether or not to teach evolution. Unlike the old science-religion war, this battle is going to be fought not in the courts but in the arena of public opinion. The new war pits those who argue that science and "moderate" forms of religion are compatible worldviews against those who think they are not.
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The ideology of science and the ideology of religion are different worldview ideologies - they each have very different assumptions (faiths) and validation criteria. Any "war" arises out of not recognising that they operate in different realms.
ReplyDeleteBut this sort of discussion might reach a profound level if one were to refer to spirituality rather than religion.
You might be interested to read "Quantum Questions" (ed Ken Wilber) - the mystical writings of the great quantum physicists. No "war" for them.
Kind regards
Hugh
Unfortunately, you are taking sides in the war. Your view opposes science.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Jerry Piven:
Advising anyone to read Ken Wilbur is unwise. That isn't emphatic enough: his ideas are internally incoherent, he bastardizes any theological concept he encounters, he is irresponsibly unscholarly (thereby misleading readers about history and religion), and his central concepts are ineluctably vague cliches. His works are, in a word, inane.
Who's Jerry Priven? OK, so don't read Ken Wilber - Buddhism is more profound. The book is edited by Ken Wilber, with commentary by him, but t is primarily the mystical writings of the great quantum physicists. Do you even know who they were? Heard of Einstein, Heisenberg, De Broglie, Planck, Eddington, Jeans, Schroedinger? There is no war. Science is an ideology - one that I happen to know very well having studied and practiced it most of my life. How can I oppose what I practiced?
ReplyDeleteScience and mysticism (for want of a better term to describe transcendent intimate knowledge) are dealing with different world-views that are not incompatible. They speak about different things.
Piven is a Ernest Becker scholar. Go to the Ernest Becker Foundation website, if you want to learn something about existentialism. It might explain your persistent rejection of facts. (This is the topic of my coming paper, which would likely be beneficial for you to read.)
ReplyDeleteYou keep saying there is no War, but I say you are fighting it. So, there clearly is a fight going on.
You claim to have studied science, but you say it is ideology and you can't see thru the "Global Warming" scam? What "science" have you studied and what degree did you achieve?