Balancing Faith and Science

Your belief? Your feeling? You "feel" we should do this and that?The question is, apart from your feeling, why does the universe exist?There are two possible answers, and no evidence one way or the other.

It is your belief that there has to be a reason, a "why", for the universe to exist. For me it just does and it's a wonderful thing. That is no reason to believe there has to be a why. For the second part, why do you limit yourself to only two possible answers, aren't there possibley an infinite number?

It may be wonderful and it may be horrible, but your answer is one answer out of two. There are only two.This is not about my "belief." I don't have any belief as regards this ultimate question.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course they can't all be true. In fact, it's likely that not even one of them is true. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue we'rediscussing. It also has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not GOD created the universe.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The issue is balancing faith and science. Someone mentioned that faith, by definition, is irrational. I agree with that, and I'd add that science, by definition, is rational. I was merely trying to tip the balance by showing the irrationality of faith. Not off-topic, in my opinion.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

The argument you are referring to by Lewis? He has several, but here is his most basic (discussed extensively in Lewis' book "Miracles").It has to do with the nature of reason. The idea is that our ability to perceive truths, such as mathematical truths, could not have arisen from natural selection except by a fluke. It is true, of course, that the ability to perceive logical truths is useful for survival, but its usefulness has nothing to do with its validity as a logical procedure. Usefulness has to do with cause/effect, not ground/consequent. And if it arose by a fluke, then Reason has no logical ground. And Reason must have a logical ground, for if not we we have no reason to trust our inferences that lead us to a belief in the theory of evolution. Reason itself cannot be doubted, for we would be using Reason to try to doubt it.The ability to perceive truths, therefore, does not fit into the scheme of Naturalism, for to fit it in destroys the logical ground for Naturalism.

But what does your point have to do with whether or not Religion and Science are mutually supportive or mutually exclusive?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This whole discussion reminds me of the old quest to determine how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. A pin can be easily produced, examined, measured and tested, but no one yet has ever produced, examined, measured and tested any angels yet. So why even posulate or ruminate about angels dancing on pins? Thats how I feel about the beginings an purpose of the universe. We have a universe, where are these god(s) or whatever that produced it, if they did indeed produce it? Have they been examined, measured, and tested yet? Why not? I never thought it useful to conjure up something imaginary to explain something physical.

Welll that seems to be a typical Lewis argument - a shallow argument from incredulity.The validity of a logical argument is the reason why it is reliable.Therefore the validity is directly tied to the usefulness.

I don't think that's quite the point. No doubt our ability to perceive logical truths is useful. The point is, how did this ability develop in the first place? Only through a fluke--say, a mutation. Therefore, logic has no ground.

Philosophy refers to the essence of all human thought. Religion refers to the survival of faith. Neither can be empirically tested or skepticized. Oh geez, not the people argument again.I can't recall his name off the top of my head right now, but there was a philosopher in the 19th century who pointed out that there are only 2 ways for a person to receive a communication from god: traditional and personal revelation. Without writing a whole 15 page philosophy paper, I'm just going to ask you to believe that there are problems with both of these choices.If the ways god communicates to people are questionable, then there will never ever be such thing as true religion. The best thing you will always have are a group of people claiming to have "truth" on their side. When I say religion, I was referring to this group of people, unless you can convince me that there is another way god can communicate with people and that there is such a thing is religion without people. Well, when the theory was first proposed someone named it "Big Bang" as a way to ridicule it. It stuck. Again, anything beside the literal reading of the bible is religion yielding to science.First the Earth was flat because the bible said it's flat (I actually have the bible passage that says the Earth was flat). Then, overwhelming evidence forced the world powerfuls (religious brainwashers) to admit that the bible wasn't really saying the Earth was flat, but the wind was still blowing north and south because it said so in the bible. Oh my goodness, we found out through science that the wind actually blows east and west. So, the bible wasn't literal in that sense either. BUT the 6 days creation account was true because the bible said so. AND all hell broke lose.My problem is you non-literalists keep moving back the goal post trying to adhere to science while at the same time trying to influence science in your favor (not you you, I meant you in general). At least with the literalists we know where they stand. Then Jebus was also metaphorical and the trinity was really there to confuse peons. I hope you know where I'm going with this. No, it really seems like you are suggesting the opposite, that religion is a determining factor in what we conclude in science.I, too, also believe that there is only one truth. To quote my philosophy professor 2 years ago (yes, my profs are my idols), "...not a single person on the planet know what truth is."Don't get me wrong, I am not a relativist. I just don't believe... won't accept that you, or anyone at all, have a monopoly on truth. And how are the things you listed above scientific? Remember that we are discussing about merging science and religion. You are missing the point. It is possible (very very improbable, though) that we will find evidence that will force us to conclude that he had at least 1 single homosexual relation with another man. It is impossible to find any natural evidence that he was the Jebus was the sun god. Rationality is subjective. You know that! I believe we are on topic. Unless Collins is here, we will never be strictly on topic.Oh, so since he knows so much about science we should just throw out all the other opinions of other scientists that disagree with him?For a scientist to make a credulous claim on religious belief is like a desdamona-like person making a credulous claim on science, or what stars are made of... or how people "share" DNA.... Sure, they may know a thing or two, or they may even know a lot about it, but that doesn't mean it's absolute truth.

Very well put. I'll copy some of what Collins had to say about what he read of Lewis.

What you have cited is the argument about morality, but the argument about Reason must logically precede that, for the validity of reason is taken for granted in the argument about morality.

You keep trying to make the argument that the only true Christianity is one that takes the Bible literally. I realize that this makes it very easy to dismiss the Christian faith but the fact is, that literalism has never been mainstream Christianity.The Bible is a collection of books that tells us through a series of stories and teachings about God and human relationship with him. It is not a scientific book. By the same token science is not theology. The two deal with different worlds and neither has to yield for the other. I have no idea how you would have come to that conclusion but it is wrong. I am not suggesting that at all. Science should neither assume that God exists nor should it assume that He doesn't. Science should be agnostic. I have never suggested that those attributes were scientific and I don't agree that we are talking about merging science and religion. What I am suggesting, and what Francis Collins is saying, is that the two complement each other but they are very separate disciplines. Neither Collins nor myself are suggesting that because he is a Christian that he has a lock on truth. This whole forum is about evolution and creation. Collins is a man who probably has as strong an academic background in science as anyone anywhere, and he finds no contradiction between science and the Christian faith. It doesn't mean that Christianity is the truth but I would doubt that there is anyone who is better positioned to say that science does not deny Christianity, and Christianity does not deny science, or that one has to yield to the other.

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No doubt our ability to perceive logical truths is useful. The point is, how did this ability develop in the first place? Only through a fluke--say, a mutation. Therefore, logic has no ground.

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Well there's a clear example of the genetic fallacy. The validity of logic does not depend on how we developed the facility to recognise it. Which raises the question of how good our ability to recognise logical validity is - obviously not good enough for you to actually notice that fallacy. Don't you think that a clear idea of what it is that we are supposed to be accounting for is actually necessary to form a valid argument ?It also does not even attempt to construct a reasonable history of the development of logic. So as well as being fallacious it is a shallow strawman as well.