Janet responds: Thank you so much! I should pay you a kick-back, because I just got my own weblog up and running five minutes ago, and it addresses exactly these issues. I hope you’ll visit and tell me if it helps.

It really takes my course on the history of theory — which is a great branch of philosophy — to make it clear what I’m trying to say, so I’m putting transcripts from my course on my site. A lot of what I’m saying is well-known within my fields but I want to bring that high-level theory down (in my own way) to the issues that really matter to us in our ordinary lives. And I really want to hear what all you scientific types think about it, when you’ve heard my fuller arguments. And there are points I try to make that you could really help me with. I don’t know how to do a pingback yet, but here’s my web address: www.deepgraceoftheory.wordpress.com Tomorrow’s post is going to be a meditation on Sean’s posts on Dawkins and how science knows, and on “Soulforce” visiting Christian campuses.

You say

“At its base is the assumption that our worldview is shared, unchanging and unwavering, throughout all time and every category we would claim for our own. It is a form of prejudice. And the foundation of it all is fear….”

Now Sean’s blog on how science operates (”What I Believe that I Cannot Prove”) dispells these kinds of assumptions about science.

What are the assumptions about science that Sean dispells? I agree that Dawkins should not “dismiss an entire group of people.” However, there is a widely held belief in a deity who is engaged in our everyday lives through supernatural powers. That belief is one that Dawkins is justified in dismissing, on the basis of science, no matter how much we might admire the belief’s defenders.

I’ve been reading your posts and I just can’t quite figure out what you are trying to say. Is it that God exists, or that science can’t address the question of God’s existence, or perhaps that the answer to that question can have different equally valid answers when address in different frameworks of knowledge, or that the existence of God is somehow personal. Perhaps it is not the actual question that bothers you, but rather the arrogance of science to claim it is the only way to answer this question. I just can’t tell. It seems interesting though, so I’m hoping I can figure it out.

You continue to attempt to put belief on the same plane as knowledge. Just isn’t going to work. I know if I drop the cup of coffee in my hand it will fall to the ground. I do not believe that a virgin gave birth 2000 years ago or a dead man arose from a grave after 3 days.

Nobody is saying that faith communities don’t have the power to do good things in the world. They most certainly do. But you cannot elevate faith and belief to the level of knowledge.

And on the issue of tolerance for Gays etc., science tells unequivocally, that this in not a “choice” so therefore is not subject to moral judgement.

Dawkins can say anything he likes. It doesn’t make it correct or incorrect. He doesn’t speak for “science”. Perhaps on his commentary you should take the biblical “turn the other cheek” suggestion.

Regards,

Elliot

“Ironically, the assumptions that lead us to accept the Bible as inerrant and perfect are the same assumptions that stop us from fully including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals into our churches and schools. At its base is the assumption that our worldview is shared, unchanging and unwavering, throughout all time and every category we would claim for our own. It is a form of prejudice. And the foundation of it all is fear: fear of our ability to cope with change, fear of having to wrestle with new ideas and situations, fear of losing our Self, fear of being alone, fear of being wrong.

“Faith cannot grow in concrete ground. It needs good, tilled earth. So we must wrestle with the earth we are blessed with, to sift it and question it, to tug at its roots and examine them, to prepare its branches for the grafting of new truths and revelations, to water it with thought, and nourish it with fervent study. Uncertainty cannot scare us, and—like Scripture asserts—we must prepared to submit our deepest truths to the ways of God. If we are to become the new creature, transformed, we cannot fear. There is no fear in love; that is the lesson—Northwest University included—must learn.”

This is now Janet again: here’s the part I would emphasize for scientitsts to consider:

“At its base is the assumption that our worldview is shared, unchanging and unwavering, throughout all time and every category we would claim for our own. It is a form of prejudice. And the foundation of it all is fear….”

Now Sean’s blog on how science operates (”What I Believe that I Cannot Prove”) dispells these kinds of assumptions about science. So how can someone like Dawkins in good faith use science to dismiss an entire group of people who vary greatly from one another and many of whom operate (within their faith) with the openness and humilty evidenced by soulforce.

PS It is fascinating for me to have a comment from someone outside the North American tradition who feels excluded or stereotyped by me as one who would not love science. I never thought of that or intended it! Thank you for writing. How can I get at how dangerous it is to claim “Reason is on our side” without accidentally overgeneralizing myself? I have to work on this. A crusade or jihad in the name of God isn’t any worse than one in the name of Reason (think of Manifest Destiny or colonialism), and I think Sean, for instance, would probably agree, based on his comments on Northern Ireland. I’ve taught the history of the West and science-and-religion courses all my life and am working on a book right now, so that’s why I got so interested in this discussion. I’m learning a lot and it’s worrying me to see this much polarization going on. But I wasn’t criticising folks for being formed in a particular intellectual tradition, but trying to warn about using it as a foundation from which to attack others.

I wanted to respond to some of your earlier comments, but I thought I was a little too late to join the discussion. But since you are still leaving your comments, and since Sean took care of some of the more general issues, this might be a good occasion to write about what you wrote from my personal point of view.

I enjoyed your comments. I really do. But I have to say that, just as you seemed to be frustrated by what Sean wrote, I felt a little frustrated by the comments you left here and also to “The God Conundrum.” I apologize in advance if I sound offensive. English is not my native language and I cannot control all the nuances.

You used the words like “Anglo-American intellectual tradition”, “the Anglo-American rationalist-empiricist tradition”, and “the good-old British empiricist tradition” to characterize the position of scientists and atheists like Sean or Dawkins. The implications may be (1) these scientists/atheists take their positions because of their Western cultural tradition, (2) science/atheism is biased because it has its origin in the Western tradition, (3) someone from a different cultural tradition is likely to (if not necessarily to) take a different position, and (4) someone in some different discipline (like you, Janet) may be able to escape from such bias.

Janet, you sound like you are a North American, or at least a Westerner more broadly. I am Japanese, so I am from somewhat different cultural background. One can argue that you and Sean have more in common than Sean and me. Yet, you and Sean have very different views and my view is very close to Sean’s. You sound like a nice person and all, but when you criticize people for taking “a basically Anglo-American intellectual tradition” for granted, or “other way of knowing”, you are not being a spokesperson for a non-Westerner like me.

Why science appeals to me and other non-Westerners? I think the main reason is that science makes sense, even to the people outside of the West. The modern science may have its origin in the West, but it can cross the cultural borders. There is fairness and openess in science that is hard to find in other fields. You can think about the reason, but I think science deserves some credit for this.

How about religion? So, you are Christian. You are in the Judeo-Christian tradition just like many Americans, and Westerners in general. So, why can you criticize others for taking “a basically Anglo-American intellectual tradition” for granted?

What I don’t like about religions, aside from the fact that I think they are irrational, is that every religion is regional. If there is a god, why would it spread its message only to a part of the word and not the entire human population? Choosing any religion is unfair, because you are favoring one cultural tradition over others by doing it. Atheism is fair, because everyone is born an atheist.

Interesting you bring up Teilhard de Chardin. A theology based on the possiblilty that God does not exist in our past or present but “might” exist in our future is certainly an interesting possiblity and one that could not be disproven by sceince or any other method. This gets directly to what may be a more and expansive interesting question: “Than does God exist?” which is “Is there meaning or purpose intrinsic in our existence and that of the Universe at large?”

Elliot

And it has some really great stuff in it. I’m still trying to figure out where the fundamental tension or disconnect that I feel, reading it, is located, precisely. I may have treated it reductively before, and if so, I apologize.