Science is wonderful at doing certain things, like popping warm toast out of my toaster and making heavy objects float and fly. Without science we wouldn't be able to do those things. No wonder that science enjoys a position of high prestige in our society.
But the achievements of science blind many people to the fact that science is a limited tool for understanding ourselves and the world. In some areas science has showed astounding progress, but in other areas science has taught us no more than we knew since the time of the Babylonians.
Consider some of the most important questions facing us as human beings: Why are we here? Where ultimately did we come from? Where are we going? Science can provide us with very limited answers. As the philosopher Wittgenstein once put it, one has the feeling that even if all possible scientific knowledge could been obtained, the biggest questions of life would remain largely untouched and unanswered.
Skepticism is of course a central tool of science, but many skeptics make the mistake of failing to apply skepticism to science itself. They are skeptical within science but they are not skeptical about science. They naively believe that science can answer all the questions that require answers. Thus they demand of science what science has never provided and is not likely to provide in the future.
I call this the "atheism of the gaps." The basic idea is that if science hasn't figured something out, just wait a few years, because the brilliant scientists are working on it. Have faith that they will come up with good answers in the future, just as they have in the past. In other words, we should assume that people who are smart enough to make toasters are also smart enough to figure out whether there is life after death.
Yes, it's laughable, and that's why I'm sorry to see smart fellows like my friend Michael Shermer succumbing to this science-worship. Shermer is the editor of Skeptic magazine and author of some fine books including most recently The Mind of the Market. We've done several God v. atheism debates, the most recent one before 2,500 people at Fresno State University. It was one of our liveliest, and you can watch that debate here.
Shermer used to be a Christian fundamentalist. He always gets off a funny line about how he used to go door to door handing out literature, and now as an atheist he wants to go back to those people and take back the stuff he gave them. In a way, though, Shermer remains a believer. He still places his faith in men in white robes. Only these men happen to work not in pulpits but in laboratories. Science is now Shermer's religion.
In a couple of my debates, I asked Shermer what kind of scientific evidence he would require to be convinced that God exists. I asked him, "What if we discovered a new planet tomorrow and emblazed on it were the words: YAHWEH MADE THIS. Would you then believe that there is a God?" Shermer said no. He would automatically conclude that some chance combination of chemicals must have generated those words. In short, he is closed to supernatural explanations, no matter what the data, and is only open to natural explanations.
This I consider a selective sort of skepticism that is actually a lamentable sort of dogmatism. I see it also in Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. In a way they are much narrower than religious believers. That's because the religious believer admits both natural and supernatural explanations. By contrast, these unbelievers have closed themselves off to all possibilities that don't fit their naturalistic outlook. One may say that science has blinded them to the things that science cannot possibly tell them.
Reader Comments ( Page 6 of 61)
76. That should be "Please don't take Lewis' "Liar, lunatic or lord" tack either"
Sorry
Ryan Anderson at 10:38AM on Jun 9th 2008
77. Why is it so important to "know" everything?
People want to understand every little thing in the universe so much that they will make up the craziest things to explain it...think Scientology.
There are just some things that are unknowns and that we can never know. I don't know if that's by design of God or by chance of science, but that's just the way it is.
Davidg at 10:38AM on Jun 9th 2008
78. Ryan,
No. He did.
Dinesh,
If Cthulhu rises from the sea, Crom charges down from his mountain, Yig and Set slither out of their dark realms, Orochi and Gojira conquer Japan, and the skies filled with Lovecraftian "Old Ones", Christians would still try to view it in the frame of their own mythos.
The missing last chapter of Revelation is two words... "Just kidding."
Mokele Mbembe at 10:38AM on Jun 9th 2008
79. Oh and if there is a God...I think he could come up with a better name than YAHWEH. It sounds like bad sci-fi.
Davidg at 10:40AM on Jun 9th 2008
80. "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - The Call of Cthulhu
No I haven't read it. Too much literature in the mythos, too complex, and much of it is noncanonical. I just get chills from Lovecraft and Robert E Howard's views about how the world we know is inside a fragile bubble, and we are thankfully unaware of how vast and cosmically terrible, unjust, and unforgiving the universe truly is right outside of it.
Mokele Mbembe at 10:50AM on Jun 9th 2008
81. There is no question that Dinesh D'Souza is a smart man but his belief is placed only on faith. What the likes of Shermer, Hitchens et. al. are saying is that there is no evidence in the natural world for a god. D'Souza, in my view, simply chooses a course of attacking their views. He still has not been able to provide the evidence.
Paul at 10:54AM on Jun 9th 2008
82. Mac, thanks for #30 flash from the past a la "America".
========================================================
"Most atheist do not believe in God simply because when they prayed they did not receive an answer to their prayers.
So they come to the conclusion because God did not answer their prayers then God does not exist."
Obs, you have absolutely no idea what atheists believe. I have not "prayed" since I was 4 and wanted a Tiny Tears doll for my birthday.
You keep forgetting, no belief is what we are born with. I personally was not indoctrinated with religion.
Linda at 10:55AM on Jun 9th 2008
83. Mokele; I read a lot of Lovecraft in high school. Recently, reading about the "death star galaxy" reminded me of his cosmology.
Ryan Anderson at 10:56AM on Jun 9th 2008
84. The fall of man is a misnomer. When the sun rose on the first human beings what set them apart from their ancestors was the ability to know good from evil. Man could no longer look only to his instincts for guidance, but had the ability to think, and make moral decisions. The story of leaving, being expelled, from the garden of Eden meant that man had evolved beyond animal instincts, and now had to make his way on this planet using his mind. Hard work, thinking, that made it seem as though life became harder so lead to the idea of being a fallen creature, when in fact it was the opposite. Even today many people are trying to abrogate their self, and bend their knees to myths of the past rather than grapple with taking responsibility, and trust in there own natural ability to think for themselves.
Jerry Brown at 10:57AM on Jun 9th 2008
85. As someone who believes in the tooth fairy and the easter bunny dimwit has as little understanding of science as he does of atheism.
Geoff Barker at 11:02AM on Jun 9th 2008
86. Somber: Science can, and has, demonstrated concise and precise reasons for our existence. We are here due to nothing more than the fortunate outcome of laws of physics and evolutionary legacy. We exist to perpetuate that legacy. When we die we are nothing but decomposing protiens and the record of our existance; a memory that is doomed to slow erasure by the inevitable passage of time.
PV: I love this! Not only has science NOT proven any of that with any empirical studies/experiments, but these conclusions of atheism should be enough to make agnostics run, not walk, from atheist theory. By the admission of atheists, humans have no purpose, no reason for being, and no inalienable human rights! Go atheism! At least agnostics have a healthy skepticism about data that keeps them open to new data or revolutions in past data. Arrogance is the real problem of atheism and a major threat to science. The know-it-all cockiness of atheists closes their minds and makes them ripe for egg-on-the-face when new science overturns old science (which happens constantly, by the way).
Somber: And all our art, our literature, our entertainment, even our religion is a desperate and fanatic attempt to inject some artificial meaning or purpose into an existance that is, alone, incapable of meaning.
PV: Bravo! The conclusions of atheism are reason enough for most people to reject the thesis entirely. The atheist theory itself is sick. There are major holes in the data of atheist theory. Atheism continues to reach conclusions that are the stuff of sociopaths. Atheism = Meaninglessness at the square of the speed of light, or A = mc2
Somber: There is no faith that is true that can not have its truthliness challenged by another faith or story or myth or superstition. They are all unprovable.
PV: Absurd. See my list of "Christianity would not exist if..." comments to our friend Ryan Anderson.
Somber: The final point that Dinesh makes is a valid question. What level of scientific evidence would be needed to prove the existence of such a being? To be honest, there is no scientific critiera I can imagine to apply to such a question.
PV: This a hole in atheism. It has no possible criteria which if met would force the conclusion that there might be a God. Ironically, scientists who have an atheistic presuppositional bias will posit nearly any possibility, from other dimensions and the existence of an invisible Higgs Field to the theory that nothing can produce all energy/ matter. But posit an Intelligence somewhere at the origin of the Big Bang and atheists go bonkers! Atheists are irrational beings who will allow themselves to posit ANY other thesis for the origin of all things except the idea of Intelligent non-matter.
Somber: Is God matter? Energy? Some other state of existance unknown? Quantum? Sub quantum? And if God is such an esoteric and alien being then why is it that such a being needs or cares about human endevors and behaviors?
PV: Many scientists already are willing to theorize the possibility of other non-material dimensions. That is comparable to the view of the Theists.
Somber: If you presume God to exist then you should be able to posit some testable traits of such a being.
PV: I completely agree. First, Theism is more intuitive than atheism at the theoretical level, as a world full of mind-blowingly intelligent systems and beings and blueprints are understood by rational observers to have links to Intelligent Engineers. And, Christianity in particular relies on evidences from history and logic.
preteristvision at 11:04AM on Jun 9th 2008
87. Ryan,
I've read half of The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. I'd love to finish it, but I have games to finish, a PS3 on the way, Blaxploitation movies to watch, dog-training books to read, women to seduce, iron to pump, songs to learn, songs to get, music videos to catch up on, TV shows on DVD to watch, blogs to troll, software to write, software to modify, shelves to build, DMV disputes to settle, friends to make, friends to lose, and sanity to maintain.
Mokele Mbembe at 11:09AM on Jun 9th 2008
88. Mokele: so you would rather know everthing about a movie before you go see it? What would you do if you knew for a fact, that there was no god, or the converse that there was absolutely a god? And you knew you were doomed to hell? Would you want to live that life. I am just curious because I like seeing different perspectives about how people view the world.
I personally think these questions are pointless due to the fact that they cannot be answered. Why are we here? Well, why? To serve god? Then we are born servants, which I find depressing? To worship god? Then that means we are only here to kiss ass.
Are we here for no purpose? Then why go on living?
I like to think I am here to eat pizza....
Jesus came to this world to save us from our sins and eat pizza, drink beer and watch NASCAR.
CaptainCack at 11:12AM on Jun 9th 2008
89. PV: "Theism is more intuitive than atheism at the theoretical level, as a world full of mind-blowingly intelligent systems and beings and blueprints are understood by rational observers to have links to Intelligent Engineers"
Maybe it is more intuitive, but intuitive does not equate to truth and you are still lacking one shred of evidence for anything divine.
Ryan Anderson at 11:23AM on Jun 9th 2008
90. "What would you do if you knew for a fact"
I wouldn't know, I'm not the 'believing' type of person, as I've never had a belief that hasn't been betrayed. -But that's an issue of faith, not of knowing fact. If I knew for a fact that the whole twisted Xian worldview was true, I would toil and panic everyday to spare myself from Hell. I would probably be driven to killing darkies and breaking the legs of queers just to spare my own salvation if I knew the universe was so disgusting and unjust. I guess if you believe Hell is real, cowardice would seem justified. Hell is for heroes.
Mokele Mbembe at 11:23AM on Jun 9th 2008