Hi Glenn
GLENN:
And yes, God is unscientific because it defies analysis. Nevertheless,
half of scientists say God is real. How can this be? Should it not be
zero? According to you, science tells us what's real, and science tells
us God is not seen under a microscope, therefore God is illegal (as are
values, morals, etc). Despite the impressive impact science has
had, equating science with the metaphysics of our times is a gross
exaggeration and is the hallmark of the SOM strawman. Science doesn't
pretend to own the rights to reality, and the great majority of people
don't think it does. Most people don't expect science to "discover"
God or morals, like they discovered x-rays. Many people do not see
a contradiction between science and God, including many
scientists, because there is an obvious gulf between science and God
that science is not equipped to cross.
JON:
I know, Glenn. Science and scientists doing the work of science is not a bad
thing, and I'm grateful for what science has accomplished over the years and
I hope it accomplishes more. I wish with all my heart that some scientist
could come up for a cure for the various diseases which continue to kill
millions of people each year.
And yes, I know that many scientists believe in God. They also believe in
love, which is nonmaterial. Scientists are only human.
Here's what bothers me. I say to an atheist/objectivist that there's nothing
wrong with believing in God. They say: "It's wrong to believe in God because
religion is responsible for so much killing throughout history."
So then I say: "But what about love? Love can't be proven to exist in
objective reality, yet people believe in it anyway. Love and non-religious
human passion has been responsible for just as much killing throughout
history."
The atheist says: "Love is different. It's just a biological function. An
instinct involving neurons, blah, blah, etc...."
That just leaves me agape. So we tell our kids love is just a biological
function? Mother to child: "I only love you because of a biological instinct
involving neurons in the brain." That is cold, cold, cold.
I guess it comes down to the "divorce" between emotion and technology that
Pirsig talks so much about. Classic and Romantic. On one side you have
religious nuts telling people they will go to hell for not believing in God.
On the other side you have snide atheists telling Christians how stupid they
are for believing in God. It's the extreme insults from BOTH sides that
really trouble me.
GLEN:
You think it is unfair that science doesn't consider God as scientific
and objectively real as other non-material things like gravity and time,
and I've given you reasons why I think it is fair, considering the business
science is in.
JON:
No, I really don't want science to proclaim the objective existence of God.
If they did that, they'd only be doing it to appease some special interest
group. I can understand why science uses gravity and time, yet has no direct
use for God. But many individual people *do* have a direct use for God in
their lives, and I don't like it when they get called stupid for it.
GLENN:
People think nature is ammoral. But nature
isn't giving us our comforts; the scientist and technologists are. It's
these people who cared enough to invent air-conditioners and such.
I don't think this is lost on anyone in the general public. If anything,
people are grateful for modern conveniences, and are not sitting around
going, "My God, I'm surrounded by the products of cruel and heartless
objectivism!"
JON:
You know, it's interesting that you mention air-conditioning. It was invented
here in my neck of the woods, the Florida Panhandle. There was a small
hospital with bedridden patients sweating from sickness and the stifling
Florida heat. A doctor tied ice buckets above the each of the beds, then
rigged a fan near the ceiling which would blow the cold vapor from the
melting ice down on the patients!
GLENN:
Feelings of technophobia and boredom, which result in fretting about
oneself and the world at large, are all byproducts of our modern
conveniences and physical comforts. We all suffer from them. But let's not
be so rash to blame all these problems on "cold and heartless objectivism".
JON:
Perhaps you are correct. In any event, I shall let you have the last word...
GLENN:
I was hoping that my pointing out that the Earth was round was evidence
enough of an ironclad fact of science. When you say that "Science is the
search for something that it says doesn't exist", I think you are
conflating Bacon's and Descarte's dream of science's potential with the
more reigned in attitude of science in the 20th century, thanks to folks
like Heisenberg and Godel. But let's not fly in the other direction and
say that everything is relative and nothing is certain. The Earth is round.
I am certain of that as I am of anything, and science taught me this fact.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle does not throw every scientific fact
into doubt.
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