Re: Second Annual Evolution Sunday -- 11 February 2007

lamoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Larry Moran) writes:

On 20 Jun 2006 13:37:30 -0400,
Steve Schaffner <sfs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
lamoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Larry Moran) writes:

[snip]

Why worship something that may not exist?

Why pursue a hypothesis that may be wrong?

In order to find out whether it is wrong.

But you don't have any evidence for it. I thought people with a
scientific worldview based their beliefs and actions on things they
have evidence for. I'm trying to be difficult; I'm trying to get a
clear statement of what this scientific worldview is that you're
talking about, so I can see if I have it and if it's in conflict with
theism.

Is that why you worship God? Is it in order to find out whether He
exists?

No, it's a different example of scientists acting without solid evidence.

Do you pray?

Yes.

Do you expect your prayers to be answered?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

'Cause if they are answered
and you can prove it to me then I will believe in God.

Well, that's nice, but I'm not trying to get you to believe in
God. I'm trying to get you to make a case that my beliefs and my
scientific practice are in conflict.

If there's no evidence
that prayers are answered then why keep doing it?

Because praying certainly has an effect on me.

[snip]

Do you believe in a supernatural being who created the universe?

Casting the discussion in terms of "a supernatural being" immediately
sets the wrong frame, in my view. I tend to think of it more like
this: at the lowest level, the nature of reality is utterly mysterious
to us, whether scientists or not. We can describe how things behave,
but what it means for things to exist and why their behavior follows
patterns, and why these particular patterns, is opaque to us. For me,
the question is, is there anything in that opacity that is remotely
analogous to purpose or mind? I don't know, but I am open to the
possibility.

I don't understand your answer. You seem to be saying that you can't
rule out the existence of some undetectable being. Is that being
the one who is responsbile for the patterns you see in nature? Is it
the being you worship and pray to?

Yes and no. Mostly, I'm saying that "being" is the wrong word to be
using. It suggests an object that shares a way of existing with the
physical objects in the universe, when what we're talking about is the
source of existence (as we know it). I'm trying to get you away from
thinking of a creator as one more object that scientists can
scrutinize, since the scientists themselves, and their attempted act
of scrutiny, are themselves creations, and not independent of the
creator. To use a standard analogy, it would be futile for characters
in a novel to attempt to detect the existence of the novelist, or to
conclude that the novelist doesn't exist because they have no way of
detecting her.

With that stated, then yes, I'm saying that I can't rule out the
existence of some undetectable being -- since the being is undectable
in principle. (Which is not to say that creatures can't be aware of
their creator, but they can't *detect* him.) The reason I find the
idea worth taking seriously is that it fits with my own sense that I
encounter (in prayer, among other ways) a presence not unlike
personality, and that I find structure and meaning in the shape of my
own life that doesn't reduce to a scientific description of it. These
feelings could be illusion, but they are real experiences for me,
and part of what I have to integrate in trying to come up with a
coherent view of the world.

I don't pretend to be a deep thinker, and the way I think about these
things might seem quite silly to a philosopher -- but I haven't found
atheist scientists to be particularly deep thinkers as a group either.
Mostly, scientists do what they're good at, and aren't very good at
understanding what it all means.

--
Steve Schaffner sfs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Immediate assurance is an excellent sign of probable lack of
insight into the topic. Josiah Royce

.

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