Continually re-evaluating the facts as they emerge surely is the only way to be honest.
Yes, but as the facts thus far do not fully provide the evidence for a Creator-less universe (and, I would posit, will never be able to), then an evaluation of these facts still leaves room for a Creator.
I've been in science a decade- from the inside- and I will say,
honestly, there is as much faith the individual has in whatever their worldview is, and the ways they believe are valid in obtaining information. The more I read modern physics, the more this is confirmed for me. People see what they want to see, and as we only have access to the reality in our head and not the reality that actually exists (if it does, indeed, on its own), we really can know nothing for sure and must always remember that when we look at the facts, the conclusion is that we know very little and
can know very little. In the social sciences, this came with the wave of postmodernism; in physics, it is coming with the realization that the experiment cannot be separated from the observer. We create the reality we wish to see.
Now, the imbalanced position is to say (either as a religious person or as a scientist): "I have the answer!" or, "I am confident I will have the answer!" But this is a fallacy on either count, because we have already come to know in science that we
create our answers. That is, human cognition is such that we are automatically biased by both our culture/worldview, by our experiences, and by our personalities and the way the brain works to see things as we will see them. So others' rational conclusions and bases for evidence will differ from our own, but there is no real reason why we should priviledge ours over another's. It is ethnocentrism and arrogance.
The balanced position is to understand that however I see the world is the way I see it, and it is no more or less valid than any other's way. The only measure of validity, at the end of the day, is usefulness. Science has been useful for some things and utterly useless for others, as has the "irrational" ways of obtaining information and processing it, like shamanism. I've looked at the data, cross-culturally, on various things from cosmology to medicine and concluded that there are a wide variety of ways to obtain and process information and each are useful in different contexts. If the human species could quit with the arrogance and the feeling of primacy of self, it would learn that the
best and most
useful way would be to keep a tool-kit of worldviews and ways of processing information, and intuit the correct context for each of these, rather than bickering with each other about the "correctness" of any of them.
There is no correct way to gather and interpret information. There are only ways that are useful and ways that are not, and this is a shifting and subjective ground.
As for a Creator being, if scientists proved that abiogensis occurred, and got life to spring from zapping this goop with that electricity, and it evolved all the way to a human being, etc.-- what does that prove? Think about it, as a scientist. What is proven here? The
process.
How it happened. Says absolutely nothing about why. God is in the
why. The Creator is
in the process, not separate from it.
Science is a limited way (as any way is) of investigating the universe. It simply
cannot answer the question about God. In fact, it is limited automatically by its methodology, as a scientist must define what it is investigating before it investigates. As all mystics and shamans nearly universally agree that the Great Spirit or what have you is
beyond humann comprehension, we can only
experience the Creator. We cannot define It. So once we define what it is we are investigating as a scientist- God- we have already mucked up our methodology and doomed ourselves to failure.
It is far more honest to simply say- we do not know. Not everything in the universe is suitable for scientific inquiry. Recognize the limitations-- some things are meant for an artistic inquiry, or a mystical inquiry, and so forth. Just as I wouldn't turn to religion for inquiring how to invent a hydrogen-powered car, I wouldn't turn to science for answers about God. In either case, it is pointless, and my irrationality shows most clearly in my clinging to a single method of inquiry if I do so. Rationality and reason are in part recognizing our limitations and appropriate tools for the context. Science is only rational when applied rationally.
Faith is a suspension of 'reason'.
No, it isn't.
Definition:
(1)
: firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2)
: complete trust (3)
: something that is believed especially with strong conviction;
1. There is proof for both evolution and for God. In both cases, proof is dependent on one's definition and methodology. To ignore either side is to invalidate another's method of inquiry without any rational reason to do so, except that you perceive yourself to be the most priviledged in the world in your intellectual capacity. You define what is proof based on your preconceived assumptions about what should be proof. You define the world you accept (your reality) by your own thought. Which is, of course, irrational and unreasonable. Especially in science!
2. I rest my case. Seems the only way to get around #2 for both the Creator-less scientists and the Creator folks is to sit on the fence and admit you can't ever know. Which is a position that both sides get annoyed with.
3. I rest my case further. Both sides do this.
So... definition proves the point. Both sides are based on
faith. Why is that such a bad thing?
Every person, in order to keep from being immobilized by the possibilities, chooses a worldview and method(s) of inquiry about their reality. Some are more open than others, more context-based, but everyone does this. It is part of being human. What makes us uncomfortable with it is that
we want to be right. Other people's realities threaten our own. If I am a skeptical sciency kind of gal, and a shaman's reality is an intuitive spirit-filled one... am I wrong? Or is the other gal's wrong? That another lives in a world that is so different from my own makes me worry that my world is not really what the world is. Am I then crazy? Am I limited? Am I missing something important? Suddenly, the other's worldview and method(s) of inquiry are so threatening. And so we defend "our" world from this attack.
Oh, it is so laughable once you really "get" it in your own self.
People... we are all equally right. Or, more aptly, we are all equally wrong.
