Roger,
Reversing your question: What draws Christians to mainstream science? The answer has to be “jobs/careers”. Mainstream science is jobs, careers. It dominates our economy. There are very few decent paying jobs/careers which doesn’t require mainstream science. We live a scientific, technology driven world.
@Patrick, I wish that you had responded to my original points, which were
- Design or Order
- Teleology, and
- Western dualism
It is clear that you reject all of these so that you fit the philosophical profile of scientism that I developed in the blog.
Sorry Roger, I don’t have any knowledge of what is Teleology and what is western dualism so I am not able to respond to your original points. Nor do I know what the philosophical profile of scientism is or means. I may have a Doctorate of Philosophy, however I have never read or studied one page of philosophy so I would have to say it is “all Greek to me” 
Socrates’ motto was “Know Yourself.” That is wise advice and the basis of philosophy or the love of wisdom. One does not have to study the classical philosophy to have a philosophical world view, just as one does not have to study medicine to have a health profile.
Philosophy is about human understanding, just as science is about nature, and religion is about faith. Everyone lives in the natural world, so everyone is involved in science. Everyone is involved in trying to understand science and life, so everyone is involved in philosophy. Everyone is involved in trying to find the meaning and purpose of life so everyone is wrestling with the realities of faith or lack of faith.
In other words one cannot wish away our understanding of philosophy any more than we can wish away our understanding of science. Nor should we pay much attention to those who see philosophy as an intellectual game that has little to do with life and wisdom.
Christianity, Philosophy, and Science are the three pillars of Western civilization. It cannot survive without them. Right now philosophy is seriously, because it does not speak to the needs of science and of faith. It needs to be fixed or the whole system could well slip out of control.
I disagree. This may have been true in the past but it certainly not true today. We live in a post-Christian western world. That pillar is gone or severely worn down. Philosophy was gone a hundred years old. Certainly not a pillar of Western civilization. That leave science as the only pillar remaining.
Science together with Reasoning are the only path to human survival.
You are expressing a materialistic philosophy, which has been done times before, ie. “…only the material and physical really matters… all else is deception…” This is your philosophy, your life view, your pillar. It is also your faith, that science is the basis of life, and that human survival is the only goal.
If it is true that Christian pillar is gone, and philosophy is gone, then it also logically follows that Western civilization as we know it is likely to disappear soon, and something else will replace it. However, predictions that God is dead appear to be premature.
A one legged stool is very unstable. Reasoning is part of philosophy, which is the reason why philosophy is important, even though many like yourself are ready to toss it overboard.
Science and logic are means to an end. They are not ends in themselves or a way to determine the proper End. Therefore they cannot take the place of Christianity and philosophy.
ISIS is perfectly capable and comfortable in using science and reasoning to conquer the world as was the Soviet Union.
If life has no real purpose, it really shouldn’t make any difference. If life does have a purpose, then the side that believes strongest in its Purpose will win out. The way things are working out is that Islam will win out because it believes in something, even if it is the wrong thing,
Of course it will probably take everyone with it, and the “post Christian” West will be fail when it does not stand up for its beliefs, because it has none. This makes Science and Reasoning the path to human disaster.
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Roger,
The future you describe is very dark. I am much more optimistic about the future given the advances in science especially the life and medical science as well as in chemistry and physics. I don’t see reasoning as part of philosophy. I actually see reasoning coming out of scientific understanding of human emotions and thoughts. I don’t see ISIS or even an Islam world winning out over science and reason. Also young people seem more scientific and reasoning than their parents who carried a lot of religious or supernatural dogma around with them. As more people realize that each people can have their own purpose and meaning, instead of following the “leader” syndrome, amazing things will happen. I think that we will see amazing things in the next 30 years or so.
Patrick, Islam will not win out over science and reason. They will simply use science and reason and the products of science to win out over everyone else who lacks a definable and defendable purpose.
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@Patrick
I am glad in a way that you have so much faith in science. However scientific thinking demands evidence before it determines something is true. You have made many statements, but presented few facts. Where’s the beef? Where is the evidence to back up your beliefs?
Europeans have been predicting this type of utopia at least since the French Revolution. Why should this time be different? Are the young people who supported Hitler, and Mao, and now support IS going to support science even though they do not understand it?
You also seem to endorse a kind of libertarianism, which I do not. Wealthy people have used this ideology to discourage ecology and other efforts to encourage people to work together for the benefit of all.
I have noticed that you reject Reason and so do the New Atheists. Reason requires Philosophy, which you and they reject, so please do not hide behind Reason.
You do not like the way things are, even though you and others refuse to day that life is not good. Still you propose to destroy life as we know it in the expectation not based on any evidence that what will come after will be much better than what we have now. That is a leap of faith!
In my opinion we have come back to where we began, the experiment in nihilism by the Harvard graduate student who committed suicide on Widener Library steps on Yom Kippur. Personally and professionally I am against the suicide of Western civilization based on a wing and a prayer.
Incredible.
But it does explain a lot about Patrick’s positions.
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All of this is on the wrong track. Instead we must realize the truth: there is no watch.
God is not energy. Energy, mass, etc do not exist except as ideas in the mind of God.
Only minds exist. It is counterintuitive but it is more logical then the alternatives. Research “Berkeley’s Immaterialism”.
No God is not energy, nor is God ideas. God is God.
God created matter, energy, space, and time, but God is none of these things, however all of these things and God are relational.
God created life, ideas, and spiritual beings, but God is none of these, however all of these things and God are relational
Reality is physical, rational, and spiritual. It is both material and immaterial. It is basically relational because God is relational and God made the universe to be relational.
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Bodies exist also. That’s why I’m having lunch. And Jesus went to a lot of trouble to demonstrate that the resurrection is bodily.
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Hi Jamie, I apologize for not answering sooner. I was occupied with other concerns but was going to get back to you eventually.
I believe what you`re referring to here is what I remember seeing in the movie—The Matrix. While Neo is waiting to see The Oracle has a discussion with a little Buddhist boy. Here’s the clip — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXtO5dMqEI
In my view, the established laws of the cyclical universe that creates the cosmological constants for sequential universes is the mind of nature (God). We humans are the conscious outgrowth of this universe that can turn around and look back (13.8 billion years ago) from where we came from.
For me, God is energy, mass, and mind—different aspects of the whole. Since energy and mass exist in the mind of God they have being and since they have being they exist.
The human minds that exist in our world are one form of mind—nature has a mind of its own. However, before the first life came into existence through abiogenesis only nature’s mind existed (the cosmological constants). But although only nature’s mind existed during this period (before the existence of human minds) does not suggest that matter and energy did not exist—the cosmological evidence on this point is clear. Therefore, the “mind of nature” and the “mind of God” are synonymous with the “cosmological constants.”
Minds without bodies cannot exist, just as the “cosmological constants” without energy and mass cannot exist.
Thanks for suggesting “Berkeley’s Immaterialism”—I’ll have to get back to you on that.
P.S. The little Buddhist boy’s statement: Do not try and bend the spoon—that’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
It’s only a complicated way of saying that if you want to accomplish something difficult in life you should focus on your primary intention (which is the intended objective) instead of (the obstacle in front of the objective). In this way, your mind will bend to find the solution on how to get around the obstacle to your intended objective.
I am a scientist and a Christian. There is nothing that divides me as Christian from mainstream science. Of course, mainstream science is agnostic. I don’t think, Roger, that you grasp that.
Design is not an issue. As a Christian, I believe God created the universe. Science tells me how God created. I reject ID. I also reject “Design” as in God manufactured some things in the universe directly. Instead, there are secondary causes that produce design. Gravity is one (design of galaxies, planets, etc.). Chemistry is another (design of life, for instance), and natural selection is a third (designs in plants and animals).
Saying “teleology” is the same thing as saying “Design”. Those are 2 words for the same thing. Teleology is also different from saying " life has purpose and meaning". Purpose and meaning are outside the domain of science. The evidence is clear, for instance, that natural selection has short-term purpose: designing plants and animals for the current environment. But because future environments are future, natural selection has no long term goal.
“Because science has taken a materialistic view of reality it generally has denied that life has purpose and meaning.”
No, science hasn’t. Some individual scientists have that philosophy. But the philosophy is not part of science.
Quite frankly, I reject Aristotlean teleology because of my beliefs as a Christian: that God is intelligent, merciful, and sane. Having God directly make the designs we see in living organisms rejects all of those attributes.
“Many scientists have accepted a monistic relativistic world view based on the physical alone.” Again, that is scientists acting as individuals. Science itself says nothing about “souls”. There is no falsifying evidence and some possible supporting evidence. As a Christian, I believe in souls. As a scientist, I cannot comment.
The gaps between science and religion does not exist. For Christians, science simply tells us how God created. Science itself is agnostic and cannot comment on God’s existence. Science can test, and reject, particular methods of creation (i.e creationism and ID), but science cannot reject God itself.
The “gap” comes from individual Christians and atheists trying to misrepresent and abuse science into “proving” their beliefs. Some atheists (let’s call them “militant atheists” following Shermer’s terminology) want to misuse science into disproving God and “proving” philosophical naturalism. Some Christians want to resurrect the Argument from Design (teleology) to “prove” the existence of God. There is no bridge of that gap, but the gap is not between “science and religion”.