How to escape the Science v Religion fallacy

Thomas

Thomas

Christ plays in ten thousand places
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Below is an edited offering from a critical review of David Bentley Hart's book, "The Experience of God".

I have no idea of who the author is, beyond this article, other than he is an atheist, and that the major part of his critique is his response to Hart's theism. However, he also spoke about Hart's anti-materialism, and in that I found his comments (as they are throughout) thoughtful and well-presented. I have kept my own comments to a minimum.

"Concluding Thoughts
"The Experience of God is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Hart’s conception of God (the main purpose of the book), even if I did happen to believe in some kind of Higher Power, is not just unsatisfying (and not what many self-respecting Christians actually believe, I suspect), it’s literally an empty abstraction."

(Aside: The apophatic is certainly not for everybody, hence the more prevalent tendency to cataphatic expression is religious experience. But from a personal perspective, the apophatic is arrived at through the cataphatic, and to the atheist is for this reason can well appear 'abstract' or 'unintelligible'.)

"On the other hand, I completely agree with some of Hart’s critiques of modernity, materialism, and the scientistic worldview; a worldview that has, I believe, in claiming to be able to contain everything in its mathematical, deterministic framework, over-extended itself. The remedy however, is not to embrace Hart’s abstract God nor is it a return to a supernatural, enchanted worldview ...

"Rather, as I’ve tried to show wherever possible in this article, philosophy offers us far richer, more meaningful reflections on human existence and the world we inhabit than either science or religion can offer. The former is admittedly more practical, but, in restricting itself to physical objects and mechanical processes, this usefulness is procured only at the expense of being able to provide a satisfactory understanding of a conscious, lived life. The latter is more comforting (some versions of it anyway) and easier to grasp in its basics, but is probably a complete fiction. If that doesn’t bother you, that’s fine, but I better not catch you trying to argue for your beliefs or against anyone else’s on the grounds of plausibility or reasonableness."

"One might object that few people understand philosophy, and moreover, they don’t want to. That’s fine. Few people have much knowledge of science and no one understands quantum mechanics, but that hasn’t stopped the scientific worldview from dominating the intellectual landscape and shaping how we see ourselves and the world. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to have been caught up in the framework it has foisted on us. Likewise, one doesn’t have to directly read Heidegger and Kant (a daunting task indeed) to get a glimpse of a different framework that just might offer more than either a mechanical, meaningless universe or an abstract, meaningless God."

My emphasised point I regard as significant in local debate. Once Christendom defined the worldview. Today its Sciencedom prevails, in which people have faith and trust as 'the answer to everything' and are only too readily to assert that any question that science cannot adequately answer according to its own principles is, therefore, invalid. It's a neat trick, but its a rhetorical device that's been used for centuries.
 
Another edit from the above essay:

"Materialism
Materialism is actually a metaphysical principle; i.e. a principle which goes beyond the physical, in the sense that rather than being about physical matter itself (which is the job of the sciences), it’s about reality. Specifically, it’s a principle which asserts that everything that exists is comprised of physical matter, and a material description of the universe is therefore also a complete description of it. This means, as Hart quite correctly argues, that materialism cannot be proven according to scientific; i.e. evidence-based, empirical, methods because those methods are already mired in the physical. Nor is there a deductive argument which could confirm the truth of materialism.

"... materialism cannot find support in the successes of science ... The success science has had in exclusively adopting the materialist principle, by assuming that there is nothing more going on than the (quantum) mechanical interactions of tiny particles, is no guarantee of its truth. As explained above, observation of the physical is insufficient to prove a metaphysical claim."

"Well, it’s true that science can’t explain consciousness, but let’s be crystal clear on this; religion can’t explain it either. Saying something like “God is Mind,” or “Consciousness comes from God,” absolutely, unequivocally ... does not explain consciousness. Such statements don’t even address consciousness let alone make a start towards explaining it; they just bury it in pseudo-philosophical non-sequiturs."

"So ... what about Hart’s basic charge that materialism requires faith? I have been resistant to this idea in the past, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more sympathetic I have become to it... One can only have faith in something that cannot be demonstrated or proven. If God’s existence admitted of demonstrable proof, faith would be unnecessary... With this definition of faith on the table then, it’s unavoidable that materialism is a form of faith. In what way? Well, it’s obviously not faith in scientific, or even common sense, observations/experience... it is faith in the sense we discussed earlier; namely, that being a metaphysical postulate, it can never be confirmed by physical observation/experiment. In other words, it is an assumption prior to any observation/experiment we make, or even could make."

This is all logically indisputable and gets us to faith, but I would go even further and agree with Hart once more that (at least in some of its more extreme, even dogmatic, versions) materialism is indeed both irrational and absurd. This is because it’s an assumption that is unable to account for the basic facts of human existence, as we incontrovertibly know them. There is just no conceivable material, mechanical, deterministic explanation for subjective experience or thoughts. This seems so obvious to me that it barely needs stating. A complete description of every single neuron, atom, subatomic particle, or even quantum string in the brain, including what they were all doing, still would not explain how conscious experience arises in a purely physical world (at least not without substantial revision of what we mean by ‘physical’). This is where the irrationality and absurdity kick in."

"So, the mere existence of conscious experience and non-physical thoughts means that materialism is out as a comprehensive description of our universe... The failure of materialism (not science, remember, which deliberately restricts itself to investigating the physical) doesn’t necessarily mean that we ought to abandon ship ... Perhaps, as Hart suggests in that quote above, consciousness, in some form or other, is fundamental (something like panpsychism), or maybe our recent forays into quantum mechanics necessitate a re-thinking of what the ‘physical’ actually is ... "

+++

So there, I think, is plenty of material to evidence the fallacy of the science v religion debate, from a viewpoint that critiques both science and religion.

Some might answer that 'Science will provide the answers', but this is a statement of faith, and again, a faith that might be inadvertently locked into a closed view of the world – materialism – a view that "can never be confirmed by physical observations/experiments". It's simply posing one metaphysical paradigm against another, when that paradigm cannot adequately explain itself.

That some new, unknown science will eventually arrive to explain God away is a statement of blind faith on two counts, the first is its a faith position that's been explained above, the second is that it takes no account of theologies that keep pace and are concurrent with our scientific understandings.
 
If you could pull all that into a tasty sound bite, it may get traffic. Lots to learn watching adverts my entire life.
 
I dont think religion and science need to be in a boxing ring. That is our anthropomorphic version eh?

I still think they are both searching for the same thing, one refers to it as G!d, Allah, Supreme Being, Collective Consciousness, the other the TOE (theory of everything.

One goes quantum, the other prayer, manifestation, power of the word, thoughts in mind appear in kind.

For the past two thousand years we have seen the merging of the two as the religionists have jailed or lambasted scientific advancement, then as the public accepted the thesis the apologists modified the interpretations of scriptures.

We have done nothing over that time but get closer in my book. I am speaking as the collective, on the whole, individuals are duking it out in the boxing ring...your mileage may vary.
 
Thomas said:
there is nothing more going on than the (quantum) mechanical interactions of tiny particles,
Click to expand...
This statement from Hart had me scratching my head. The way Quantum theorists describe the dynamic dance or “spooky action from a distance” (Einstein) hardly seems “mechanical” even though it is called “quantum mechanics.” The discovery seems to be about such a weird way of functioning that deeper dimensions with other rules than what one would normally associate with mechanical devices seems in play or at work. Even ordinary electrical systems act much less predictable than mechanical devices, as though moody or having a mind of their own. Often the fix is to unplug and reboot. I had to do that with my router recently. I even had to do that with a washing “machine.” It quite working right. I thought it was done for. My wife asked if I had unplugged it and plugged it back in. “Why not try that,” I thought. It worked, and is still working years later. What ghosts inhabited the simple electrical mind of my washing machine and the more sophisticated mind of my router? I don’t know of a mechanical device needing to be defragged. Our smart phones often start acting goofy and have to be turned off and back on. None of these electrical systems, although physical, seem to be like a machine.
I think these observations are consistent with a view of different depth levels of overall reality. The Vedic concepts of gross, subtle, and causal “body” sub-realities seems to fit a view of gross matter on the surface, energy or energy-like stuff deeper in, and then something more like Mind Itself (David Bohm and Basil Hiley’s “super implicate order”?).
The energy and potential dimension seems a bridge between regular physical reality of “classical objects” and Mind Itself or some other “Causal” reality that from our limited perspective comes closest to how our minds come up with shit out of nowhere, like my philosophical stabs in the dark here!
 
wil said:
I dont think religion and science need to be in a boxing ring. That is our anthropomorphic version eh?
Click to expand...
I don't think they should ever be in the same ring at all.

It's age-old. Once religion said (wrongly) everything was 'in their ring' and under their perview. Now it's reversed, if science hasn't got an answer, the question is simply ruled inadmissible.

wil said:
I still think they are both searching for the same thing, one refers to it as G!d, Allah, Supreme Being, Collective Consciousness, the other the TOE (theory of everything.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the 'TOE' is a unified theory with regard to physics, whereas God, etc., is metaphysics.

wil said:
For the past two thousand years we have seen the merging of the two as the religionists have jailed or lambasted scientific advancement, then as the public accepted the thesis the apologists modified the interpretations of scriptures.
Click to expand...
🤣 Well that's a somewhat one-sided view ... makes no account or reference to the 'religionists' who pioneered scientific advancement in almost every field of the sciences.
 
otherbrother said:
This statement from Hart had me scratching my head. The way Quantum theorists describe the dynamic dance or “spooky action from a distance” (Einstein) hardly seems “mechanical” even though it is called “quantum mechanics.” The discovery seems to be about such a weird way of functioning that deeper dimensions with other rules than what one would normally associate with mechanical devices seems in play or at work.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, 'probabilities' rather than 'certainties'.

otherbrother said:
Even ordinary electrical systems act much less predictable than mechanical devices, as though moody or having a mind of their own.
Click to expand...
But that's not what's going on, though ... that's romanticising the device.

I talk the the coffee machine (I make the same burbling noises) and my grandkids ask me what we're talking about. The washing machine sings to me when it's finished its cycle, and I chide it for 'making a song and dance' about what it's programmed to do. I talk to all our devices, and quite often the furniture ...

otherbrother said:
What ghosts inhabited the simple electrical mind of ...
Click to expand...
My browser tells me "Unplugging (smart devices) drains capacitors that store residual electricity, ensuring all volatile memory (RAM) and hardware registers are completely reset to their default states, unlike a simple software restart which may leave some errors intact."

"The quantum world is the subatomic realm of particles and energy ... Unlike the predictable, macroscopic world described by classical physics, the quantum world is characterized by probabilistic outcomes and wave-particle duality, where entities can exist as both particles and waves simultaneously."

Hart is simply saying the Quantum realm is a deeper realm matter, not an intermediary between the Newtonian and spiritual realms.
 
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otherbrother said:
This statement from Hart had me scratching my head. The way Quantum theorists describe the dynamic dance or “spooky action from a distance” (Einstein) hardly seems “mechanical” even though it is called “quantum mechanics.” The discovery seems to be about such a weird way of functioning that deeper dimensions with other rules than what one would normally associate with mechanical devices seems in play or at work. Even ordinary electrical systems act much less predictable than mechanical devices, as though moody or having a mind of their own. Often the fix is to unplug and reboot. I had to do that with my router recently. I even had to do that with a washing “machine.” It quite working right. I thought it was done for. My wife asked if I had unplugged it and plugged it back in. “Why not try that,” I thought. It worked, and is still working years later. What ghosts inhabited the simple electrical mind of my washing machine and the more sophisticated mind of my router? I don’t know of a mechanical device needing to be defragged. Our smart phones often start acting goofy and have to be turned off and back on. None of these electrical systems, although physical, seem to be like a machine.
I think these observations are consistent with a view of different depth levels of overall reality. The Vedic concepts of gross, subtle, and causal “body” sub-realities seems to fit a view of gross matter on the surface, energy or energy-like stuff deeper in, and then something more like Mind Itself (David Bohm and Basil Hiley’s “super implicate order”?).
The energy and potential dimension seems a bridge between regular physical reality of “classical objects” and Mind Itself or some other “Causal” reality that from our limited perspective comes closest to how our minds come up with shit out of nowhere, like my philosophical stabs in the dark here!
Click to expand...
Field based theories are generally "smoothed out" abstractions of some deeper process.

Sadly science went dogmatic nearly a hundred years ago and ridiculed anyone who tried to lift the corner of the rug.

Most quantum stuff only looks weird if you assume dimensions and distance are fundamental.

Bohm went on to develop pilot wave theory which has its own vast higher dimensional "configuration space", and was one of the victims of the science community's scorn.
 
Another section of the review offers this:

"A second theme in The Experience of God is that materialism is incoherent. Materialism is actually a metaphysical principle; i.e. a principle which goes beyond the physical, in the sense that rather than being about physical matter itself (which is the job of the sciences), it’s about reality. Specifically, it’s a principle which asserts that everything that exists is comprised of physical matter, and a material description of the universe is therefore also a complete description of it. This means, as Hart quite correctly argues, that materialism cannot be proven according to scientific; i.e. evidence-based, empirical, methods because those methods are already mired in the physical. Nor is there a deductive argument which could confirm the truth of materialism.

"Hart also notes, again quite rightly, that materialism cannot find support in the successes of science; "Empiricism in the sciences is a method; naturalism in philosophy is a metaphysics; and the latter neither follows from nor underlies the former." (p.296) The success science has had in exclusively adopting the materialist principle, by assuming that there is nothing more going on than the (quantum) mechanical interactions of tiny particles, is no guarantee of its truth. As explained above, observation of the physical is insufficient to prove a metaphysical claim."

+++

I would add that the reviewer, Nathan Hohipuha, an atheist, agrees with Hart that a strict materialism is incoherent, but he also argues, throughout the article, that so too is Hart's thesis regarding God.
 
Thomas said:
As I understand it, the 'TOE' is a unified theory with regard to physics, whereas God, etc., is metaphysics.
Click to expand...
Physics only would be a Grand Unified Field Theory (GUFT).

A Theory of Everything would have to account for everything, including gods, rice pudding and income tax, so the bar is much higher. There's a LOT to triangulate, a lot of lenses and data to sift through.
 
Thomas said:
🤣 Well that's a somewhat one-sided view ... makes no account or reference to the 'religionists' who pioneered scientific advancement in almost every field of the sciences.
Click to expand...
Lol...of course in the past all scientific advancement was made by religionists....they were the majority...it is simple math.
 
Thomas said:
Today its Sciencedom prevails, in which people have faith and trust as 'the answer to everything' and are only too readily to assert that any question that science cannot adequately answer according to its own principles is, therefore, invalid. It's a neat trick, but its a rhetorical device that's been used for centuries.
Click to expand...
Science clearly says what it knows and what it does not. No mystery.

List of unsolved problems in physics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia has such lists for all science subjects. These are available on other sites as well or one can check through AI.
Otherwise also, my religious belief is in 100% agreement with science. That is why I do not have problems with science or religion.
 
Lol...of course in the past all scientific advancement was made by religionists....

Forgot to add....back when everyone was a religionist ....or they were shunned, jailed, punished.

Math
 
wil said:
Lol...of course in the past all scientific advancement was made by religionists....

Forgot to add....back when everyone was a religionist ....or they were shunned, jailed, punished.

Math
Click to expand...
You love the hyperbolic absolute mode, man, you really do! 🤣

As ever, the reality is far more nuanced than you allow.
 
Aupmanyav said:
Science clearly says what it knows and what it does not. No mystery.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Their are good- bad- and pseudo- claimants in all fields of life.

Aupmanyav said:
Otherwise also, my religious belief is in 100% agreement with science. That is why I do not have problems with science or religion.
Click to expand...
Same here.
 
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