Deists and scientists: peaceful coexistence

I lean closer to pantheism, but I find this topic fascinating as I was raised as an Orthodox Christian. I still have respect for the religion and all religions. However, my transition has offered me some unique insight as I've struggled with scientific truths that contradicted my own beliefs.

In a logical, rational world, deists and scientists would get along well. The only thing they would conflict over is the idea of a supernatural creator. In our current state of societal evolution, I don't see it as possible — on a grand scale. It all comes down to personal belief and the unwillingness to let go of it, even when handed evidence to the contrary. I've seen this demonstrated time and time again and have read scientific papers that sound just as dogmatic as some of the religious people I've met. When someone's personal ideology is threatened, they'll either open their eyes and listen to the other side or bury themselves deeper into their ideology. Whatever term you choose to label it, it doesn't lead to peace.

However — I always like to end on a positive — If they can set aside their personal ideologies and see the world as it is, I see deists and scientists as quite a dynamic pair. The truth is neither side can present their position on whether or not a supreme being exists. Once they realize it, there really isn't anything to argue over. Peace will evolve naturally from this understanding.

BTW, my brother graduated from Montclair State University. It's amazing how even the mention of a college reminds me of home as I'm so far away.

Um, the majority of scientists *are* deists. Some people reject religion, or science--but scientists and beleivers are by no reasonable interpretation of the demographics separate camps of people.

veinglory said:

Um, the majority of scientists *are* deists. Some people reject religion, or science--but scientists and beleivers are by no reasonable interpretation of the demographics separate camps of people.

Click to expand...

And Western Science and Western Theology grew up together. For example, ideas of vacua and motion could be seen as theological and/or scientific until Newton and even a bit after that.

Hi Kowalskil,

I think the 'violence' between certain deists and scientists is less epistemological, and more political.

Science is not an ideology, it is a methodology. It has nothing to say about anything that cannot be hypothesised and measured. Scientific findings can certainly be leveraged against theological positions, but rhetoric (on different sides) has sought to grotesquely monumentalise 'science' for motives that are neither scientific nor theological.

I don't see the issue as 'theology versus science', but 'vested power versus deconstruction.'

The position advocated by person 2 (on your posted website) is 'non-overlapping magisteria', short NOMA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria

The problem with it is that it's wrong. If sciene can't say anything about it, why on earth would theology be capable of contributing anything new? Admittably, there are scientists who hold this view (including Stephen J. Gould who coined the term), yet they obviously lack the epistemological understanding of why the scientific method is so important. In my view, such people may be good scientists 'in the lab', but not in the true, philosophical sense (I see good philosophy and science as closely linked together).

Take for instance the infamous case of Francis Collins (head of the human genome project), who turned to Christianity after seeing a frozen waterfall that reminded him of the trinity. What is going on there? It's an interesting case of double-standards, if one of his scientists came to a conclusion about science in such a way in the lab, Collins would most likely personally fire him!

Yet there are also other positions apart from NOMA. There are scientists who believe science validates God. Now this view is definitely smarter than the above, but it's also most likely wrong. All the 'design' arguments have been discredited so far, and there just isn't any other tangible evidence for any sort of God.

There's the interesting phenomenon about lots of physicists being deists. But you also have to be careful there, first of all, most of the time their beliefs have nothing whatsoever in common with a personal God. In some cases it hardly even qualifies as deism. When Einstein said 'god doesn't play dice', he just meant the elegant order of the universe. I find it an interesting semantic phenomenon that physicists keep referring to such principles as 'god', when in fact they have nothing in common with Yahwe or any other religiously based god figure. Same with Hawking, who now finally distanced himself from the god mataphore.

Not to forget, according ot a 1998 survey, 92% of the National Academy of Sciences physicists are still atheists, so the 'many religious physicists' only make up 8% in that field. Still, it is more than biologists (only 5.5% believers), for the obvious reason that evolution shows how complexity arises spontaneously, thereby destroying and even inverting any form of the ontological argument. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Kenneth Miller, a very smart biologist that, among other things, testified in the Dover trial in favor of evolution, wrote a book called 'Finding Darwin's God'. In it he tries to first convince creationists that evolution is right. I'm pretty sure that because he himself is a Christian, and because he uses excellent arguments (including theological ones for why a creationist god would be a fraud), his book is much more convincing to creationists than Dawkins' 'The Greatest Show on Earth'. So that part of the book is good. But now comes the problem: in the latter part of the book, Miller starts to babble about esoteric interpretations of quantum mechanics. He's not a physicist! This illustrates the desperate attempts of rationalization for religious scientists. This isn't scientific! Miller would be appalled if some physicist claimed to have found God in the 'intelligent design of nature'. Not to mention that even many theologians would have serious problems with Miller's descriptions of his god.

Altogether, it can be said that while religious scientists do exist, they're being fundamentally untrue to the scientific method.

By the way, I used 'atheists / agnostics / non-believers' interchangably because to me they're effectually identical; the only difference being how the people interpret their own disbelief. Are there people agnostic about the tooth fairy? If yes, they're in the same sense agnostic than most agnostics AND atheists are agnostic about god.

It's often said that you can't prove god nor disprove him. I agree that you most likely can't prove god, that's cus he most likely doesn't exist. If he existed, one could find evidence for it.

And obviously in most cases one can't prove a negative. Yet I wouldn't even go as far an a priori accept that god is non-disprovable. Clearly, a squared circle is disprovable because of internal inconsistencies. Apply that concept to the definition of 'god', and depending on the definitions there are lots of huge inconsistencies! More to this approach here: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/110595

Sorry I didn't mean to write the essay for you haha. I'll look at the comments at the website you posted again, maybe something else worth mentioning will occur to me.

From your site:

One should recognize that scientific methodology is not applicable to either validate or refute spiritual claims, and vice versa. Why do I keep repeating this? Because I want everyone to accept this position. Each comments helps me to see it from a slightly different perspective.

That's the whole problem. You're making absurd assumptions asking us to just 'accept this position'. No I most definitely don't accept it! If there's something 'spiritiual' (in your sense! Sam Harris would emphatically differ) or 'paranormal' or 'supernatural', science couldn't EXPLAIN it. It COULD however VERIFY IT'S EXISTENCE.

Yes, indeed, many of ancient beliefs, such as flat earth, age of the universe, etc. were shown to be wrong. That is why I think that it is useful to recognize that God should not be associated with beliefs of our ancestors. S/he is not a material entity. This is just as important as recognizing that scientific findings, such as moons of Jupiter or process of evolution of species, should not be rejected when they disagree with holy books.

First of all I very much agree with the post you're replying to here, about the 'God Of The Gaps' concept. The things the god hypothesis actually 'does' are getting fewer and fewer. Darwin made 'design' obsolete; Hawking and other physicists (combined with the anthrophic principle) made, or are very close to making, 'creation' and 'law-giving' obsolete; Dennett and other philosophers / neuroscientists are making the problem of consciousness (soul?) obsolete; evolutionary biologists and moral philosophers made 'objective right & wrong' obsolete (though that never even was a valid argument for god anyway). Pray tell me, what is left??

Now, you distance yourself from outdated Bronze Age mythology. That's good. But if your knowledge about god doesn't come from the Bible, where else does it come from? Cherry picking and wishful thinking! Double-standards again. You seem to just pulling it out of the air.

You probably disagree with a lot of what I said, I can elaborate if you'd like to hear more about certain aspects of my argument.

kowalskil said:

And let us keep in mind that the main topic is peaceful coexistence. Is it possible? Is it desirable? What should we do promote it? etc.

Click to expand...

Certainly peaceful coexistence is possible. Science was originally founded on the premise that God was orderly, and thus His creation ought to reflect that order. Study of the universe, then, is an indirect way to learn about God.

That's why Psalms says "the heavens declare the glory of God".

I'm reminded of Gould's "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" and I see somene has already mentioned it. Here's Wikipedia's description and Gould's (much longer) essay on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
I'm not much of a fan of it myself.

WalkingContradiction said:

From your site:

One should recognize that scientific methodology is not applicable to either validate or refute spiritual claims, and vice versa. Why do I keep repeating this? Because I want everyone to accept this position. Each comments helps me to see it from a slightly different perspective.

That's the whole problem. You're making absurd assumptions asking us to just 'accept this position'. No I most definitely don't accept it! If there's something 'spiritiual' (in your sense! Sam Harris would emphatically differ) or 'paranormal' or 'supernatural', science couldn't EXPLAIN it. It COULD however VERIFY IT'S EXISTENCE.

Click to expand...

This brings to mind a common straw-man argument against science, that it or its proponents claim science explains everything. It does not do so, nor does it make that claim.

However, that does NOT mean or imply the existence of spirituality, supreme beings, metaphysics or any such things, or that any of these other things are explanations for a phenomenon that is not explained by science. Some things have no explanation, and I'm okay with that.

WalkingContradiction said:

...There's the interesting phenomenon about lots of physicists being deists. But you also have to be careful there, first of all, most of the time their beliefs have nothing whatsoever in common with a personal God.

Click to expand...

As I recall, deism is the belief that God created the universe as-is (or as it was at creation, whether thousands, millions, or billions of years ago), and since then has done no interference or had no effect on the natural world - that the only thing supernatural is the initial existence of the Universe. It seems to be this would NOT be a "personal" god.

In some cases it hardly even qualifies as deism. When Einstein said 'god doesn't play dice', he just meant the elegant order of the universe. I find it an interesting semantic phenomenon that physicists keep referring to such principles as 'god', when in fact they have nothing in common with Yahwe or any other religiously based god figure. Same with Hawking, who now finally distanced himself from the god mataphore.

Click to expand...

Yes, however, he may never be invited back to speak with the Pope. I recall he even said something about that in his first popular book, "A Brief History of Time," that with a discussion he had with the Pope, they both used the word God but with very different meanings.

Here's a quote from and discussion of that book:
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/587

An article on Hawking meeting the current Pope, looks very much like the same story:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/europe/2008/11/02/181372/Pope-meets.htm

benbradley said:

As I recall, deism is the belief that God created the universe as-is (or as it was at creation, whether thousands, millions, or billions of years ago), and since then has done no interference or had no effect on the natural world - that the only thing supernatural is the initial existence of the Universe. It seems to be this would NOT be a "personal" god.

Click to expand...

Yup. Deism is a specific spiritual belief that's well-descriped as the belief in a "divine clock-maker." That something created and set the universe in motion, and it has since continued in that motion unabetted. That something can be described as god, but it makes little assumptions beyond that.

Frankly, I think that for the most part, science and spirituality or faith can get along very well. They often have. There is very little clash between science and spirituality, and I think they will continue to get along. Science and religion? Not so much. Spirituality and faith are not dogmas. Religion usually is, and science is. And dogmas don't tend to get along with each other.

In my experience science and religion clash in the US, but I simply do not see this in Asutralia, the United Kingdom, Canada, or New Zealand (the other places I have lived). In these places scientific discoveries were not seen as contraditing religious beliefs (by the broad swathe of mainstream religious followers). Maybe the issue has more to do with KJ Biblical literalism than anything else?

veinglory said:

In my experience science and religion clash in the US, but I simply do not see this in Asutralia, the United Kingdom, Canada, or New Zealand (the other places I have lived). In these places scientific discoveries were not seen as contraditing religious beliefs (by the broad swathe of mainstream religious followers). Maybe the issue has more to do with KJ Biblical literalism than anything else?

Click to expand...

The major cause is indeed Biblical literalism, which itself has further causes. Another reason is that science is often counter-intuitive to begin with, whereas religion is comfortingly teleological.

According to a 2005 large-scale survey, 39% of Americans reject evolution, and 20% are undecided about it. In the UK, the percentage of people rejecting evolution is still 20%, and in Germany for instance a bit more than 20%. So altough the US is a case for itself, other countries still have a substantial amount of creationists too..

veinglory said:

In my experience science and religion clash in the US, but I simply do not see this in Asutralia, the United Kingdom, Canada, or New Zealand (the other places I have lived). In these places scientific discoveries were not seen as contraditing religious beliefs (by the broad swathe of mainstream religious followers). Maybe the issue has more to do with KJ Biblical literalism than anything else?

Click to expand...

No, they don´t really clash, no. I live in the Netherlands and I reckon the stance of both sides here on religious affairs is the same as in the UK. They ignore each other. Relious people don't want to be told they live in a cold and uncaring universe and scientific minded people don't want to hear their lives might serve for something bigger they can't perceive.

But scientific discoveries are seen as contradicting religious truths. I know a lot of people who, on the basis of their faith, reject evolution for instance. I also know people who, on the basis of their education or profession, see religion as a mass delusion and its adherents as barking mad. On both sides of the isle there is a lot of bickering. But not against the other group.

I don't know why that is, but I'm not sure wether I prefer the ominous silence or the clashing of opinions.

Check out What the Bleep do we Know? Down the Rabbit Hole.

The first bit, the NewsReal, is a bit silly. The serious discussion comes later.
(But I still think it's a bit shallow. Advaita Vedanta goes much farther than this.)

I think it's worth pointing out that no significant religious tradition denies science as a whole. Even the most ardent biblical literalist is perfectly fine with 99.9% of the science being done, and only protests at the few select claims (such as the origin of Life, the Universe, and Everything) which have serious theological/philosophical implications.

Also, it's hard to take the half of scientists seriously who say science can't disprove God, when the other half (a la Richard Dawkins) gleefully declare that science already has disproven God.

Teinz said:

They ignore each other. Relious people don't want to be told they live in a cold and uncaring universe and scientific minded people don't want to hear their lives might serve for something bigger they can't perceive. .

Click to expand...

So what percentage if scientist there believe in God? Because in most countries it is a majority, making it had for mutual ignoring. And as mentioned, most religious people do still believe in the germ theory of disease.

Science doesnt say the universe is cold and uncaring, most scientists populate it with a God, albeit one who is apparently not a micro-manager. It just says the world follows rules.

Anything else strike me as a cluster of false dichotomies.

veinglory said:

So what percentage if scientist there believe in God? Because in most countries it is a majority, making it had for mutual ignoring. And as mentioned, most religious people do still believe in the germ theory of disease.

Click to expand...

It's hardly ever a majority. Even in the US, where the vast majority of the general public is religious (84% according to wikipedia), among 'top scientists' (members of the National Academy of Science), disbelief is the norm. Only 7% of NAS members actually believe in God: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Given these numbers and a basic understanding of science in general, it is highly unlikely that the percentages differ much in other countries. It is however noteworthy that NAS members are 'great scientists' with long training, so among 'normal' scientists the belief in God is higher (though probably not very high either). Technically it's also possible that the NAS is 'biased' against religious scientists, so always look at these findings with some caution.

One more thing: It's interesting that non-belief is greatest among biologist and smallest among mathematicians.

kowalskil said:

I would very much like to know what people on this website think about peaceful coexistence between those who study our material world (scientists) and those who study our spiritual world (theologians).

... Is it possible? Is it desirable?

Click to expand...

Huh? This makes zero sense.

You speak of 'peaceful coexistance' like it's a target. But it isn't - it is the reality we have right now.

Theologians and scientists aren't killing each other. They already have peaceful coexistence.[*]
So what do you mean? That they should stop disagreeing? Why should they do that?

Why is it important? The scientists are discovering ways to cure diseases and sharing it with everyone .. including the theologians.

As long as everyone (including the theologians) gets the benefit of science - who cares if some people choose not to use science in other parts of their life?

It's their life. If they want to say that the sky is green - why bother convincing them that they are wrong?

If someone wants to spend their life translating the 'Lord of the Rings' into Klingon ... why should I tell them that they should use science to guide their thoughts instead?

If someone wants to spend their life looking for invisible leprechauns - why should I tell them that they should use science to guide their thoughts instead?

Why is it important?

Mac
(Footnote:
[*] The exception to the rule is religious extremists. As far as I can tell most theologians are telling the extremists to behave better. If you could ask the rest of the theologians to join the campaign - I'd appreciate it.

And if one theologian can't get another theologian to agree on something as basic as 'do not commit mass murder' - then why on earth do you think that a scientist will be more successful at convincing a theologian of anything? )

Studies of run of the mill working scientists tend to find about 2/3 believe in God, not that different from 4/5 of the general public.

Also, it's hard to take the half of scientists seriously who say science can't disprove God, when the other half (a la Richard Dawkins) gleefully declare that science already has disproven God.

Click to expand...

Really, I would like to know your source. In what sense has Dawkins or any other scientist ever claimed that science has disproven God? The strongest statement Dawkins makes is that science shows no support for God and that the evidence strongly suggests an absence of God. That is not the same thing as claiming that God has been "disproven," no matter how often this canard is repeated.

aruna said:

Check out What the Bleep do we Know? Down the Rabbit Hole.

Click to expand...

Ugh. I do not understand why so many people take the claims of people like J. Z. "I am a 35,000-year-old psychic entity" Knight seriously. What the Bleep Do We Know? is just another entry in the popular "Substitute the word 'quantum' for 'magic'" genre of New Age hoodwinking.

veinglory said:

Studies of run of the mill working scientists tend to find about 2/3 believe in God, not that different from 4/5 of the general public.

Click to expand...

I would like to know your source for this. Most surveys I've seen show that the majority of scientists are atheists or agnostics, and a very small percentage are practicing believers, even among those who do have some vaguely deistic beliefs.

I think this was one: http://legacy.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sp.2007.54.2.289

Studies finding more atheist tend to focus on small groups in higher ranks and physical/engineering sciences. Over the whole group, or even just the half million in the US, the picture looks very different.

That matches my experience as a working scientist where I am usually the only atheist in my team or division, and have never been on a team with an atheist majority.

Amadan said:

Really, I would like to know your source. In what sense has Dawkins or any other scientist ever claimed that science has disproven God? The strongest statement Dawkins makes is that science shows no support for God and that the evidence strongly suggests an absence of God. That is not the same thing as claiming that God has been "disproven," no matter how often this canard is repeated.

Click to expand...

While he may never have said that in a formal logical sense, I think the message is coming through loud and clear on a pathos level. When Dawkins says something like...

It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence... But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

Click to expand...

...then it's not hard to read between the lines and see what he's really getting at. While they may not be technically the same, I see no practical difference between claiming "Science has disproven God," and "Science has removed all reasons for believing in God, so anyone who still does is a complete idiot."

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Dawkins knows that science does not prove God exists. Anything beyond that is human choice, beleif, faith and personality, not science.