Ushering In An Age of Reason....Or Not.....?

I should not be getting involved in another thread but I can't just let this sit there like a great ugly pimple. In this you are very subtly attacking the straw man of a Christianity that is opposed to science. Your country is the home of several scientists who are out spoken theists. People like Polkinhorne, Mcgrath and Lennox. Are you really going to say that people like these lack reason.I am a big fan of science. As I have said many times it is, IMHO, a natural theology. It searches for truth in areas bounded by the natural world of energy and matter. However, even in the world of science there is much ambiguity.Here are a couple of quotes from the man listed as one of the world's most influential atheists from the July issue of Scientific American.

quote:

---

What is the nature of physical reality? We may never be able to grasp that reality. The universe and its ingredients may be impossible to describe unambiguously.

---

He was asked if it is possible to do theoretical physics and not have philosophical thoughts. He replied:

quote:

---

Most great physicists have had a fairly strong philosophical side. My friend Dick Feynman hated philosophy and hated philosophers, but I knew him well, and there was a deep philosophical side to him. The problems that you choose to think about are conditioned by your philosophical predispositions. But I also have a strong sense that surprises happen and put your philosophical prejudices on their head. People have an idea that there are cut-and-dried rules of science, you do experiments, you get results, you interpret them; in the end, you have something. But the actual process of science is as human and as chaotic and as contentious as anything else.

---

I really question your idea that the age of reason can be ushered in by excluding the reason of every other group other than your own.The fact is that human reason is a reality, and to accept your beliefs it is necessary to believe that human reason has evolved from a non-reasoning source. We have different views on how reasonable that is. Roger Penrose who is essentially agnostic says this:

quote:

---

"There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance. Some people take the view that the universe is simply there and it runs along—it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it, about its existence, which we have very little inkling of at the moment."

---

Here is an interesting article about the thoughts of the physicist John Wheeler. Does the Universe Exist If We're Not Looking?I suggest again that an "Age of Reason" is not going to come about from just one world view or philosophy.

Actually the enlightenment came about because the church became the route to power, which in turn totally corrupted the church and brought about the abuses which followed. In the case of Susskin, ( a committed atheist), his point was that he believed that there were limits to what they could discover with the scientific method. In Penrose's case he believes that the world has purpose and doesn't exist by chance. Wheeler suggests that consciousness is fundamental and that our universe wouldn't exist without it. These are their subjective views based on empirical evidence. Others have looked at the same empirical evidence and have subjectively come to some form of theism or deism.Now maybe science can come up with answers to some or all of these questions but it certainly isn't a given. We aren't talking about any forced answers superstitious or otherwise. It is a discussion between intelligent people with varying ideas about reality. It sure seems to me that if there is only one view of reality allowed we just might miss something.

It can only be the Age of Reason if the atheistic view point is accurate. If however it is actually a theistic world then it can't become the Age of Reason. Your viewpoint presupposes a conclusion which can't be empirically proven and so fails right from the start.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

Alright let's try this. I'll talk about this from a Christian perspective. Let's forget about supernatural claims and concentrate on the message. First off I suggest that we can have confidence that the quotes of Jesus in the Gospels are reliable reproductions of what He actually said. (They don't have to be word for word to be reliable.) Jesus said some things that were very counter-cultural. He was living under Roman occupation and saying things like "love your enemy", "turn the other cheek", "go the extra mile" and "pray for those who persecute you". That is not something that someone of that era whether it be before or after 70AD is at all likely to make up.When Jesus was asked what the greatest command was He replied that to love God and love your neighbour. We can see in Matthew 25 when Jesus says that "when you did it for the least of these you did it for me" we understand how we are to love God.I suggest that we can examine His message objectively and see if it has merit.In South Africa we can see what can be done when Christ's message of love and forgiveness was put into action. Rev. Desmond TuTu organized and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation commission. Whites and blacks came together, one by one confessing the atrocities that they had committed against each other. One by one they offered and received forgiveness and reconciliation. Bishop Tutu's book on the subject is No Future Without Forgiveness. No Future Without Forgiveness. There is a title that has to make you stop and think.Look at the difference between the results of what happened after WW I and WW II. In the first case we had the treaty of Versailles which was a punitive revengeful treaty. Sixteen years later we had WW II. After WW II the allies, (primarily the Americans to their eternal credit) helped rebuild war torn Germany and did not take revenge and today we are allies.In other words Jesus' message was generally unpopular, and to a large degree still is today, but we can verify that the message that He brought is a message that can be demonstrated to have value. Jesus’ theological claim of love and forgiveness IMHO has been shown to have merit and has not been refuted.

On the basis that your reason only accepts that which can be at least potentially demonstrated to be true empirically. When I pointed out to you that reasonable people come to different conclusions than you, your answer is: "When it comes to their religious beliefs I would very much say that they are letting faith trump reason".That is your subjective view. Considering that we are talking about reasonable, well informed sceintific people I'd suggest that your view is unreasonable one. So you're saying that even though something is true it is unreasonable to believe it and I'm to take that as reasonable.

Hi BluejayYour quotes need to be fixed up. You have partly attributed to you what I said. I think I'll take that as a compliment. So this new "Age of Reason" isn't concerned about accuracy. Is that reasonable? In the OP Straggler refers to an Age of Reason that is based on objective evidence thus philosophy and theology out of bounds. I'm saying that there is no objective evidence that philosophy and theology have no value so that the concept fails from the start.

I have gone through that. Christians IMHO are to read the OT through the lens of the NT, and an eye for eye is something that can be understood as having come from the cultural and personal biases of the writer.Christ's message as a first century Jew would be the equivalent of someone in Holland in 1943 going around telling people to love the Nazis. (This would not mean to collaborate, but it would mean that you pray for them, feed them etc.) It is an incredibly difficult message, but the point of it is that the ultimate goal is about changing hearts, and changing hearts brings a long term victory as opposed to the shorter term victory of winning a military battle. Definitely easier to say that it is to actually put it into practice.

OK, fair enough, but I could say the same to you. Dawkins, Hitchens and Straggler are as imperfect as the rest of us. How much of what they write have you read? Polkinhorne was one of top physicists in the world and was one of the guys responsible for the discovery of quarks. How about Francis Collins who as a biologist led the "Human Genome Project" and who called DNA The Language of God".You accept their reasonableness when it comes to what you agree with them on but when you don't agree with their conclusions they are unreasonable. Is that reasonable?

I don't believe I ever said that. I'm just saying that man, unless there is mental illness, has instilled in him a knowledge of good and evil. Put another way I contend that man has instilled in him the ability to live by loving selfishly or to live by loving unselfishly. I think that we are spring loaded to the former but we are able to override that and choose the latter, with all of us doing so imperfectly. It's all a matter of degree I suppose. Not really. As a Christian I see Jesus as more than a prophet or early Jewish scribe. Therefore I understand the narrative of the OT as made clear by the NT.

You still have a job. Don't you ever run out of time for this? But you accept your unevidenced beliefs. We decided in that other thread that there is no such thing as subjective evidence. There is only objective evidence on which we draw subjective conclusions. Your atheistic beliefs are just as subjective as my theistic beliefs. Polkinghorne and Collins have found that what they have found objectively confirms their subjective theistic beliefs. In fact Collins who was an atheist came to his beliefs because of his objective knowledge of biology.An Age of Reason that only includes objective knowledge is in my view anything but reasonable.

First off you are essentially declaring that faith isn't reasonable. You however have faith that your version of the Age of Reason is reasonable. Why is your faith reasonable but mine isn't? Your version of the Age of Reason is essentially based on the faith that mankind is alone and that what we can perceive is all there is. I understand that you believe a society based on that assumption is the best way for man to move forward.How do you deal with those who disagree and as result are holding back this utopian society? Except that he has predetermined what is rational and reasonable.

Exactly, there is a limit to the knowledge to be gained by scientific means. Susskind is an atheist so of course he wouldn't recognize other means, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe philosophy and theology have something worthwhile to say that science can't answer, so why exclude them. Sure they won't come up with the kind of answers that science does but it doesn't mean they don't have value. Fine, but he is suggesting a deeper meaning that science at this point doesn't have a clue about. Agreed but he is saying that the material exists because of consciousness which if he is correct means that consciousness exists apart from the material. Well how about those intelligent theists of whatever faith that don't use the methods you mentioned? Personally I haven't slaughtered goats for over a dozen years now.

Sure he'd say that but what do you expect? He's an atheist. No Let's just say we disagree. Religion will never explain things in a manner that you would accept so from your perspective you're right. No bias there eh? Like all of us they have come to their own subjective conclusions based on their interpretation of the objective facts.People like Francis Collins and CS Lewis came to Christianity from non-theistic backgrounds. Frogs actually. A lot less clean-up.

Hi Straggler I'm not saying their beliefs are objectively evidenced. I'll use an example. Collins looks at the objectively evidence of DNA and subjectively sees that DNA as the Language of God. All of the people I mentioned take pains to point out that their beliefs are NOT incompatible with science.Please don't think I'm trying to put my feeble brain in their category but neither are any of my views incompatible with science. Yes I agree with that. The point is though it is a subjective view as to which subjective conclusion is more subjective than others.I genuinely believe that your subjective conclusion that intelligence can evolve from a non-intelligent source is more subjective than my view that intelligence has evolved from an intelligent source.I know you see it the other way around which does put as at a bit of an impasse. I don't see it as a rule. The world is what it is. There is no objective evidence that atheism is true either. In one way or another everything we conclude is subjective, it is just that some subjective conclusions are easier to make than others. It isn't that god(s) is immune to objective evidence; it is that we have to come to our subjective conclusions based on what we know. We exist and what are we to make of that?

Bluejay and AZPaul3I appreciate your replys but I have just had too many responses in too many threads to respond to all but I read through them carefully and considered them. I resonded to Straggler as it is his thread.I need some theistic support around here. The trouble is, I seem to disagree with a lot of the theists as well. Can't you guys see that everyone else but me is wrong.