cladking
Well-Known Member
I'm not one of them. Many scientists and most of those who believe in the infallibility of Peers are those who are wrong and are in a majority.
A proper understanding of science will not lead one into this group.
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Is religion inferior to logic ?
- Thread starter zerogain
- Start date
A proper understanding of science will not lead one into this group.
cladking
Well-Known Member
Then why do so many fundamentalist scientists refer to creationists as trying to establish the "God of the gaps"?
You can't have it both ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cladking
Well-Known Member
OK. I shouldda read the thread before responding.
I think I understand where you're going here but what is "volume"?
You make some great points.
Even where all the terms are defined and "objective" truth can have light shown on it there is still some subjectivity because everyone has his own definitions of terms. Until terms can be quantified there can be no objective truth and most terms will always be unquantifiable. Reductionistic science is a very powerful tool but most observers expect more from it than it can ever possibly deliver.
Whateverist
Active Member
Sorry for my slow response to this response of yours but life has been extremely busy this past week with important even joyous occasions but attention demanding all the same. By Tuesday I’ll be back to normal.
For now let me just thank you for that essay. Brilliant so far. The first two paragraphs you posted immediately grabbed my attention too. Two of my online evangelical friends will definitely appreciate it as well. One is a librarian in Michigan who is sharing revelations from what she is reading in Kierkegaard which expresses much the same; she led an online discussion group in another forums on a Myron Penner’s book The End of Apologetics which now informs my sense of what Post Modernism is really about. The other is a math teacher in a Christian school in Missouri whose mind is wide open to everything including the shortcomings of his denomination as it is actually practiced. In fact it was he who shared a really great book with me which perhaps you have read too, Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor.
Thanks so much!
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Whateverist
Active Member
Oops. Missed this part which I mostly agree with. Our “evolving spirituality” certainly can help us avoid getting mired in all the trappings of an ancient mindset which no longer apply. A “lord” no longer provides a ready vessel to carry the meaning and respect that is due to what is truly sacred in human life. On the other hand it has the advantage of having evolved unselfconsciously through our developing as we have. It would be hubris to assume we can just slap together what we like to take its place but agree with you that some adjustment is needed toward recognizing that any explicit schema must fall short. Any ancient tradition that still claims to exclusively hold the only, highest truth needs revision. There is probably something worthwhile to be garnered from them all and every reason to avoid taking any of them too literally, that not being how mythic understanding works.
Whateverist
Active Member
This is what is known as scientism. Science where it applies is the best we have. It just doesn’t handle everything and neither does rationality.
Thanks for dropping the note. Sounds like a good distraction. Something like a wedding or childbirth? I'll share something which you might enjoy in the meantime in response to this post.
Great. I'll be happy if others find it as insightful and helpful as I have.
Here's where this will get interesting in discussion with you. BTW, I have to say that the first time I saw your username, "FaithNotBelief", I thought, here's someone who understands a critical distinction whom I'll be able to talk with! I'm convinced I was right.
Regarding postmodernism and the book you referenced. I haven't read that book, but saw a few of the reviews of it on Amazon just now. This is up my ally. Although I see myself as a post-postmodernist, or sometimes called Integral, or Metamodernism. I came across this short 14 minute video this morning explaining what Metamodernism is, which is a response, or I would say the next stage beyond modernity and postmodernity.
Here's a couple quotes from it which briefly, and accurately describe my approach these days in rescuing that baby of spirituality from the bathwater of the mythic-literalism of premodernity, the bathwater of "reason in the empty throne of God" of modernity, and the deconstruction of all truth of postmodernity.
In brief, metamodernism "strives towards a greater form of meaning and connection and a deeper sense of truth." In response to the question of what is metamodernism (or Integral),
"Their intention is not fulfill it, but to attempt to fulfill it in spite of its unfulfillableness".
and
"The metamodernist has her own unapologetically held grand narrative, synthesizing her available understanding. But it is held lightly, as one recognizes that it is always partly fictional - a proto-synthesis."
This may sound confusing a little, but that essay I shared earlier helps open the door to understanding the nature of what is it to finding truth and meaning in the language of myth and metaphor, without abandoning reason to a premodern mythic-literalism. (Which then can lead to seeing truth in the modernisti perspectives as well, once that is realized without conflict). Here's that video.
BTW. I think his summary of modernity and postmodernity beginning at 3:15 in the video you may find most helpful to your own current understanding of what postmodernity is.
Again, right up my ally. I just put this book on hold in my library for an ebook, after looking at it just now. It fits nicely together with another book I am now reading on similar vein which you might enjoy yourself. It's called Without Buddha, I Could not be a Christian, by Paul Knitter, a Catholic theologian.
The title of that book alone really spoke to me, and reading it now I'm seeing its something I could have written myself, yet in my own way. It is the exposure to others perspectives that helps to illuminate our own. Rather than this whole "who's got the real truth" mentality of the premodern and the modern world, or the purely relativistic views of postmodernity where everyone's view is a good as the next, the Integral approach recognizes that "everyone has a piece of the Truth", and that "no one is so stupid as to be wrong 100% of the time", as Ken Wilber puts it.
Even our own views of truth are "true but partial". We learn to hold our views lightly with an open hand, recognizing that we are all pointing to a deeper Truth, in our own relative, an partial points of view. It's still Truth, but it's more about faith than it is about belief. I like the terms "pragmatic idealism", and "informed naivety".
Facts are important, but they are not where Truth is ultimately found. Rather there is a relationship between truth and facticity which is found in unitive consciousness. "By their fruits you shall know them", not by their orthodox beliefs.
Thanks as well. I look forward to further discussions!
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Your selective cut from m post is unethical and does not represent my post.
There is no such thing as a fundamentalist scientist unless the scientist believes in a fundamentalist Christianity and that is an oxymoron. As far as science goes there is no both ways. Science is simply the objectively verified knowledge of our physical existence nothing less nor nothing more.
The problem with fundamentalists is they rejects science for an ancient mythical belief in the history of our universe and life.
It is a given you reject science without substance or merit. .
Scientism is not science. It is a philosophical view toward science, not relevant to the fundamental nature of scientific knowledge, and does not change the fundamental nature of the knowledge of science as science. Science does not claim 'handle everything. Individuals may claim that, but not science,
There is a problem with your statement on rationality (?). It is not meaningful as stated. The problem with fallible human rationality and logic is that fallible humans tend to use circular reasoning and logic to justify what they 'believe.'
I know this post wasn't to me but I wish to add my thoughts.
People can be fundamentalists about any points of view or beliefs or systems they adhere to. The term can apply to anything tightly held in strict "this is the way it is and no other" black and white inflexible terms. That is not limited to just religion.
So yes, you can have a scientist who is a fundamentalist about their ideas from science, just as you can have a Christian who can be a fundamentalist about the ideas of Christianity. As I like to say, it's not what you believe in, but how you believe in it that makes you a fundi or not.
Well, that is its ideal. However, humans being humans bring their personalities and approaches to truth and knowledge into science as much as they do anything else. While there is a system of checks and balances that may help to mitigate overt displays of biases, it's far from perfect. It depends on many things.
You can have the idea of a "pure science" and aim for that, but you can also have the idea of a "pure religion" and aim for that as well. Sometimes that can be less than successful depending on the environment and the politics and the people involved. I'm just saying, we have to be careful about our idealisms, as those can easily be used to hide or justify a multitude of sins.
Fundamentalist Materialists rejects the spiritual aspect of human nature as nothing more than magical ancient unscientific beliefs. So they are just as self-blinded as the Creationist who denies evolution.
Whateverist
Active Member
As I just said.
I’ll let it stand. I said rationality and science don’t cover the range of human knowing, they aren’t sufficient to arrive at all wisdom.
cladking
Well-Known Member
I got in too big a hurry and misinterpreted your point.
My point is still valid however. The fact is that science has yet to shed any light on the existence or non-existence of a Creator. Any scientist who says otherwise is exhibiting scientism not science. If there is a Creator (s)he does not reside in the gaps but also within the vast swathes of our ignorance and bits of knowledge.
Of course!!! the problem is believers are making a mountain of a molehill.
I accept all science with substance and merit. I accept it within its metaphysics.
Whateverist
Active Member
Finally got to the video (though I still need to return to that essay you mentioned before.). My over riding impression is that it basically just lays out a proper understanding of PoMo but without the anything-goes, my meaning is as good as your meaning simplification which is often put in service of promoting whatever grand narrative a person prefers. Much Post Modernism seems to go too far but really it is just distorting what it really is either to dismiss it as ridiculous or, as I already suggested, in order to covertly promote a grand narrative that flies in the face of PoMo. I found this PBS.org definition helpful in wrapping my head around it.
“A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called "modern" mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philospher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism "cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself."
I think the take away is that you never can adequately represent reality in a way that will accord with everyone’s experience of it. But I agree with you that even as a work in progress a representation is off track which is based on a literal rendering of an pre modern wisdom tradition or one that just throws out any understanding of the sacred. The former leaves us mired in the past, the latter objectifies us as soulless automatons. a
BTW this is the video which served as my intro to Iain McGilchrist’s writing: The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World; and, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.
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Science is significantly different than 'beliefs' in religions. Most religions deal heavily into degrees of change i interpretation of scriptures. Scieces deals with constantly changing body of knowledge where scientists are constantly desiring to challenge the existing knowledge theories and hypothesis with new discoveries and knowledge. Religions for the most part do not tend to challenge the status quo except for a few academics.. The extreme position is literal interpretation of scripture.
Now some scientists take an extreme religious inflexible position such as atheism, but this is not science, nor is it a literal belief in science.. Fundamentally religious beliefs and positions are not a part of science.
Yes, I find that PBS explanation very good. This is covered in that video I found as well, but more in key highlights. Postmodernism most certainly has contributed to further our knowledge through deconstructing the assumptions we put forth as sweeping absolutes through modernity, which I feel is just doing what the church had done previously through either church authority, or claims of scriptural authority.
It's just that modernity ended up with far greater successes in the sciences, but the whole "We've found the true path to truth" seems a hangover from religious authority. I see this countless times in those who have left the faith, typically of the fundamentalist variety, in discovering the power of science and the tools of modernity. It's just a shifting of loyalties, really. Not a shift in how one approaches Reality as a whole.
Admittedly, it caught me too, but I see it as a necessary step. We can't really skip ahead levels on a developmental line. In the Integral, or metamodern lens, it sees all of these things, the magic, mythic (traditionalism), rational (modernity), and pluralistic (postmodernism) lens as stages of development. One can't really skip from mythic to postmodern without landing on modernity in between.
But like it said in that video, and in the PBS blurb above, the downside of postmodernism it is that with all that deconstruction, you basically end up with a smoking heap. (Each stage has its positive contributions, and their disasters as well). The downside is it is far too easy for those to just says, "Well, I have a right to my opinion", in response to disagreeing with the experts, as if their opinion is no better than their own. Another thing I see all the time as well.
Where I'm at, and what he talked about with metamodernism, or Integral stage, is trying to reconstruct a new very provisional grand narrative, yet held lightly with openness. I said in a previous post today that I was "spiritual but not religious", and that's not quite right. I'd put it more as 'transreligious', in that I respect and integrate the principles of it, but go beyond the structures itself. But that's a different topic. I really don't like to define it much. I just try to live it.
I've done the whole deconstruction thing, and on the other side of that, on the reconstruction side I see "God beyond God", as Meister Eckhart might put it.
Cool. I'll watch this later today.
Let me challenge this assumption. Apart from fundamentalism, those degrees of change in interpretation of scripture is set against a backdrop of changes in the human experience of a changing world, in areas of culture, knowledge, economics, social changes, and so forth. It is really doing nothing different in this way than what you say science is doing.
They are adding to their body of knowledge, how they are interpreting the data in larger models or scientific theories. This is what theology actually does as well. It's about how to take the human view of the Divine, and modify and adapt it to, retranslate our views of meanings of our inherited symbols into meaningful ways to fit our evolving understandings.
What you seem to be focused on is the more resistant face of religion in harder traditionalism, or the conservative approach. But, that exact same resistant face exists in science as well. It too has those who are happy to push the edges of understanding and reinterpretation of traditional views of science, and those who are downright scornful of cutting edge sciences as just too fringe.
It's really not any different, even though the disciplines and the tools themselves are different. It's still humans doing the same human things, and conservatives and progressives, traditionalists and visionaries, exist in both systems.
For a good understanding of what theology does, read what the response of chat GPT gave to one of our forum posters question here. Read both responses. You'll see theology is not static at all, but is meant to be adaptive, as I described above: How Can Theology Really Study the "Nature of God?" An AI answer.
Yes and no. Religion, because it has so many members tends to move more slowly in change. But the same thing can be said of the sciences as well. Long held views are hard to shift. The longer they are held, the harder the shift is to make. It's the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" approach. Science has its heretic hunters too, you know.
No, I'm not talking about atheism. It doesn't matter if that scientist is a believer in God or an atheist disbeliever in God. What I am largely talking about is the religious view of science, by either a believer or an atheist, that is as rigidly held as they do their religious beliefs about God or scripture.
It's not what they believe in, but how they believe in it, that I am focused on.
But human beings approach religion and science with these same religious attitudes. "But my views are supported best by the science!", cf., "But my views are supported best by God's word!".
The Biblical fundamentalists would disagree. The Bible has everything to do with science as far as they are concerned. They are justified in believing things like the scripture do nnot change, and by the literary analysis of the text the authors believed literally what they wrote.
Actually no as far as those who hold a literal fundamentalist view of the Bible. As far as Orthodox Christianity today and in history the basic tenants of Christianity are not questioned even though the concept of the 'Fall' and Original Sin' are held sacred even though they are based on ancient Creation mythology.
The harder approach dominates about half of Christianity today and it is justified by scripture. No such 'harder approach' exists in science, except for the fundamentalists that reject science.
As far as science goes this is false on the long haul. When new theories and hypothesis replace older ones there is a temporal resistance, but as the new theories and hypothesis become accepted resistance fades. There are no old doctrines and beliefs in science that hold back progress in science."
By the way concerning the religions of Judaism, Christianity and ISlam. have not fundamentally have not changed for millennia, except maybe Judaism with relies more on tradition rules and midrash than scripture today. In Christianity going back to the scripture as is over rules attempts at reform in the end, because the authors believed literally what they wrote.
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Scientists do not believe in any sort of infallibility of their peers. In fact the contemporary history of science is to question their peers and come up with new hypothesis and sometimes theories. That is where the success of scientists lies.
cladking
Well-Known Member
YES!!! OF COURSE. Obviously nobody who knows the first thing about metaphysics believes in the infallibility of peers.
The problem is three fold.
1.,= Peers are prone to see reality only in terms of what is known.
2.,= Amateurs and a few scientists don't know the first thing about metaphysics.
3.,= Even peers rarely question existing paradigms.
It might be noted as well that in many of the soft science there is no instruction at all in scientific thinking. Essentially practitioners work solely on building on previous work and the interpretation of new findings in terms of previous work. Dead et als become unchallenged.
Meanwhile I still believe religion is based on the results of natural science. While these results initially were "confused" centuries of thought have straightened them out a little. While "thought" can never be logical per se it often has many attributes of logic. One can reason to what is intellectually obvious even with less than perfect logic. Reductionistic science can't hold a candle to correctly answering some day to day problems compared to religion. The trick is to know when to go with the science and when with other precepts such as religion.
That is not a scientific consensus. It is an anecdotal saying by Einstein that our physical existence if fundamentally deterministic. Science falsifies hypotheis and theories based on this assumption and at present it has not been found false. The old view of randomness has faded and repaced by the Chaos theory where the variability of the outcome of cause ad effect events is fractal within a range of possible outcomes constrained by the Laws of nature and prior outcomes of cause and effect events..