Athesism and Science

[obscenegrace]

If this is a repeat, I apologize but I'm very interested in the the concept of god and its relationship to science. I will begin with a quote:

God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. —And we—we still have to vanquish his shadow, too."

from The Gay Science Friedrich Nietzsche

In my opinion, atheist's reliance on modern materialist science is one of these "shadows of god." In other words, most atheism seems to require a level of blind faith in empiricism. I believe this faith in empiricism creates a dogmatic devotion to the existence of an ordered, calcuable and therefore knowable universe.

Take Albert Einstein for example and his infamous "God does not play dice with the universe" quote when confronted with the chaos of quantum mechanics. I think its safe to say , in his mouth, the term "god" does not name a minded being but is representative of a force of rationality that binds the universe together, making it calcuable, measurable and most importantly, predictable. The thought that particles might randomly pop in and out of existence and behave in unpredictable ways terrified this man of science-- like a man having a crisis of faith. He spent the rest of his life trying to disprove it and ultimately, he failed.

Don't get me wrong--I'm no theist but I believe atheists retreat to materialist science all too often without fully recognizing that the so-called death of god is not limited to the absence of a bearded man in the sky.

obscenegrace

[QED]

Hello obscenegrace. You've managed to put into a few fine words something I have failed to express properly myself despite many pages of waffle. The notion of an empirically verified material world looks more like an abstract mental concept every day. To use the vernacular, it should have been blown away by the findings of Quantum Mechanics almost a century ago. But what is the most appropriate paradigm to take its place? I would say it must still reflect the large-scale orderliness of a world which is nonetheless evolving through some process -- one that has been misinterpreted by generations conditioned to look for anthropomorphic patterns in everything.

In a speculative mood, I'm inclined to say that we are operating without a proper sense of scale or compass to serve as a reference for our measurements. We can mentally conceive of what seem like appropriate metrics for our 3+1 dimensional world, but the "reality" we experience is only partly cooperative. By this I'm thinking that some dimension is illusory due to the divide between the "materials" that support our thought and the thoughts themselves. As you will be able to tell from this it's not an area of thought that's particularly straight in my own mind so pardon me for dumping a rather cranky stream of consciousness in your thread.

What I'm trying to get at is a misconception about scale and significance -- along the lines of "who are we to think the universe is very large, or very old... maybe it could all be packed into a suitcase" kind of thing. By the same token, rather than judge all the apparent complexity in the universe as something that demands our kind of mental effort to arrange, it could all be as effortless as a shower of sparks

[McCulloch]

Well said. But I have to move this to a discussion forum.

Please review Tips on starting a debate topic

[ST88]

The thought that particles might randomly pop in and out of existence and behave in unpredictable ways terrified this man of science-- like a man having a crisis of faith. He spent the rest of his life trying to disprove it and ultimately, he failed.

Don't get me wrong--I'm no theist but I believe atheists retreat to materialist science all too often without fully recognizing that the so-called death of god is not limited to the absence of a bearded man in the sky.

It's true that dogmatism comes in many forms. Science is not (supposed to be) like religion in that theories and even "Laws" can be altered based on observation, including the idea that strict observation is a valid means of perpetuating empiricism. But just the fact that scientists are human can lead to dogmatic-like behaviors and attitudes about research and conclusions. It's very easy to get caught up in a hermeneutic -- life inside the bubble -- and not be able to see other possibilities. It's why experiments and findings must be repeatable and repeatedly tested by others who do not have the same agendas and day-planners.

I do not believe that atheists "retreat" to materialist science, as this metaphor does not quite accurately describe what is going on. I think it would be more accurate to say that some atheists use material science as a bludgeon without really knowing how to swing it. That particles may pop in and out of existence may seem unbelievable to someone who does not know the mechanics of why this happens, which understanding requires being able to push aside old ideas and look into new ones -- and the human race is not known for this type of behavior. I should say that I have no special knowledge here, I just think such knowledge requires not only an open mind but a free mind. And here is where many atheists are trapped, not from "falling back" on empirical science, but from using it in a way it was not intended to be used.