From: Impu-Sebek (pechever@usc.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: God and Science:  The Ramblings of The Nightstalker
Date: 11 Nov 1992 04:29:03 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: phakt.usc.edu
Summary: An introduction by a newcomer to the Place.
Keywords: new newbie callahans persona sophomore geek

One of the several doors to the Place opens and a figure stumbles in from the 
snow that piles on the floor.  As he straightens, you see a shock of thick
black hair fall around the shoulders of his black leather jacket, which is so
trendy/cool you want to scream, or retch, or both.  His fingers are covered
with silver rings, his wrists are heavy with silver bracelets.  A pentacle 
gleams at his left earlobe, an ankh at his chest.  His black eyes swirl with 
the light of madness.
He is Impu-Sebek, the Wordster.
He hears the voice of the Nightstalker, known to him in dreams, and hearkens:

In article <1992Nov10.030145.9961@ucc.su.OZ.AU] pope@physics.su.OZ.AU (The Nightstalker) writes:
]The Nightstalker appears from under a pile of papers on colliding galaxies
]that lies in a corner of the bar, and hands Mike the following......
]
]The following article appeared in The Physics Society of Sydneys
]journal "Jeremy", this year.
]
]God and Science: are they incompatible?

"Hm.  I think Mike wants a different sort of paper.  Green, with numbers in
the corners.  Is it bad manners to mention your bar tab in mixed company?
He grins -- quite forward for a newcomer -- and unlimbers his baliset.

]Science traditionally has not always had the highest regard for any being that
]might be called God.  From the times of Newton and his laws, physicists have
]sought to understand the universe in such a way that there is no need for a
]personal being in the created order.  Johannes Kepler, who worked for more
]than 20 years on his planetary laws of motion, once said ``My goal is to 
]show the celestial machine is not a divine being but like a clock."

"Well, to be charitable, I'd say that God by any current definition is not
the business of science, so the affair would be one more of ignoring rather
than rejecting the concept.  It'd certainly play hell with objectivity; just
look at the Dead Sea Scroll translations and the Apocrypha for a textbook
case of the morass that happens when science meets religion head on."

]An admirable task, for there were some who thought that angels pushed the
]planets along in their paths, and for them the universe was a place where God
]did things in a less than subtle way.  If Johannes thought that God was
]the one who wound up the `celestial clock', it is not for me to speculate.  It
]was an analogy also used in what was called `argument from design', where
]the orderedness of creation was used to infer Gods' existance.  For those who 
]have read the book of Romans, they will see that this is a perfectly biblical
]thing to do, to appreciate God's creative nature from nature itself, but is
]that enough to discover who this God is?

"Personally I believe this week that the world is a big work of art and God 
just wants good reviews--none of this worship/we're not worthy hoopla.  But
then I don't subscribe to the JCM (judeo christian mythos), and this article
seems to imply that almost exclusively when it says 'religion'."  He shrugs,
and weaves his multipick in an experimental riff down the baliset's scales.

]The great man of science, Albert Einstein, had a nebulous concept of God. When
]refuting Quantum Theory he said, ``God does not play dice."  His remarks about
]God reflect a deep respect for nature rather than knowledge of a personal being.
]Einstein sent a telegram to a Jewish newspaper saying ``I believe in Spinoza's
]God who revels himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not a God who
]concerns himself with the fate and action of men."  Why should he not believe
]in a personal God, and indeed if he does not believe, does that mean that God
]does not exist?

Impu-Sebek grins wryly.  "Non-nebulous views tend to absolutism, thence to
fanaticism.  That's not healthy.  Einstein knew this.  To recast some of my
earlier stuff into a different form:  God is intensely personal.  Science is
communal.  I never saw a God/Science dichotomy myself, but since people insist
on making their lives complicated..." He sighs, and tunes a string.

]The man he spoke of, Baruch Spinoza, was the Jewish lensmaker and philosopher
]who reasoned that God and the material world were indistinguishable.  Human
]minds were part of God's mind, and the better you understood the universe,
]the closer you came to God.  This 17th century writing foreshadowed modern
]cosmology, and the names of Paul Davies and Stephen Hawking come to mind.
]While Paul Davies may be fence sitter, Stephen Hawking is more like the 18th
]century mathematician-philosopher Pierre Simon Laplace.  When asked by
]Napoleon where was God in his theories, he simply replied ``I have no need of
]that hypothesis."  Was he correct in stating this, or is it the standard
]arrogance of the scientific mind?  Laplace was a Newtonian to the extreme, in
]that he felt that an equation could be written down to desribe everything
]with precise accuracy.  We know now that his basis, Newton's theory has been
]somewhat disrupted by Relativity, Quantum Theory and Chaos.  But the 
]question remains, can the scientist exclude God from the big picture?  Think
]of the painter painting the room in which he is in, does he ever paint
]himself, thus painting himself, painting himself...?  Can the cosmologist think of the universe in which he is sitting?

"Now that Laplacian quote is interesting.  Note he says: "I do not need that 
hypothesis."  Certainly God is not necessary in the hard, objective stuff
of science (and therefore, is it not something beyond God, and thus the very
face of God itself?  But I digress).  Whether or not Divinity is a hypothesis
you, as a thinking entity, would like to have need of, is strictly up to you."
He frowns.  "Not only do I digress, I repeat myself.  I extend my apologies."

]The church has never been too kind to the scientific mind, and any challenge
]to the authority of the church has generally led to the perpetrator being
]branded a heretic.  Copernicus, when he proposed that the Earth revolved around
]the Sun kept it to himself until close to his death to avoid being burnt at
]the stake, which was the lot of `heretics' at that stage in history.
]Giordano Bruno was not so lucky.  Galilieo had to recant his views on the
]solar system or face certain death.  The track record is not good, but there
]are two points to make.  One is that a view held by the church may not always
]reflect the God which it represents, for does the Bible say that the earth is
]flat or that it is at the centre of the universe.  Even the poorest scholar
]can see that it does not, yet these are views that the church has held in
]the past and persecuted physicists for rightly showing these views to be wrong.
]Then there is the case more to do with genetics and so on, where the moral
]issues become greater.  Does the scientist have the right to make decisions
]over the genetic makeup of the human species, or is that purely the ground of
]a God that created?  

"In the above we see most clearly the direct relation in the article-writer's
mind between 'religion' and 'christian religion'.  I've already pointed out
that this link is artificial and -- to some extent -- bogus.  Indeed, a
large source of the Science/God antagonism has been generated by the above
mentioned attitude."

]There is a new view these days called ``scientism", which seems to think that
]science is the panacea for all woes and that ``how" and ``why" questions are
]now blurred because since science has relieved the need to seek some great
]cosmic purpose, there is no ``why".  Thus science claiming through its'
]understanding of the way the universe works that there is no God, then the
]questions of every day are just ``how" questions, and science can deal with any
]of the moral issues that we face.  Thus, by understanding all of the ''how's, we can then formulate a ''why" which encapsulates all of these.  This is the new religion of science.  To 
]them, ``cosmic purpose" is an invention of the theologian, and thus is
]something that holds science back.  In the words of Peter Atkins in his New
]Scientist article (8 Aug 1992) ``Religion claims total understanding, but fails
]to deliver anything but sweet words; science claims cautious progress, and is
]able to deliver success at every stage."  There are three things wrong with this.

"The last sentence seems to indicate that the speaker is going to expostulate
upon the loveliness of 'religion', i.e. the JCM.  I'm already experiencing
a severe allergic reaction in anticipation of the (undoubtedly sincere) 
attempts at soul-saving the article-writer is going to indulge in."

]The Christian faith is one where some of the answers must simply be taken
]on faith or admitted to not being known.  It explains the human situation as
]a rebellion against God and that God reveals Himself through history, but
]leaves some of the great questions of ``why" unanswered.  In the book of
]Romans, there is a quote ``who are you O man to talk back to the God that
]made you?"  This is hardly giving all the answers.  Christianity gives
]purpose but not all the answers.  

"Who am I to speak to my Maker?  Why, the one who empowered Her, of course."
An angry baseline hums like bees through the floorboards of the Place.
"Answer-seeking _is_ a purpose.  Christianity..."
He shuts his trap before he can embed his foot deeper.  This is not the
time or place for a discussion on the evils of institutionalized fear.
"Let's just say I refuse to consider pride a sin."

]Secondly, on a simple level, what relevance are the great discoveries of
]science on a day to day personal level.  When a woman is being pack raped,
]does it matter that elctrons repel one another?   Does the starving Somalian
]really care that black holes may be the power source for quasars?  If science
]can prove that God does not exist, then mankind is liberated from something, but
]to what?  Indeed science has not proven such a thing.  Where is the comfort of
]science to the needy and poor?

"Just because Science does not provide all the answers does not mean 'religion'
provides all the rest."

]Thirdly, what is the success of science?
]It either looks for something that it supposes is already there and thus has
]achieved nothing, or it looks blindly until it finds something.  It tells
]us ``how", but can we really convolute all our ``why" questions into ``how"
]questions?  Science does not tell us ``why", nor can it.  If there is a God
]then surely that God must reveal his nature himself, and science is incapable
]of understanding him but only what has been done by him.  If we can throw
]away God, then there is no ``why", only ``how".  The question then remains,
]does science do away with God?

"This has some coherence and even a glimmer of wisdom in that it recognizes
the basically disparate missions of Science and Spirit (which the article-
writer calls 'religion').  The first part of the paragraph, however, is
utterly silly.  If you suppose your socks are in your drawer, and go and look,
you accomplish more than if you just suppose they're there and don't look.
Look at a CD player and tell me Science achieves nothing."  He snirks
(a combination of snort and smirk -- only for advanced cynics), and
drills the multipick through a curtain of tiny treble notes, sending his
fingers dancing through the higher end of the scale.

]The answer must in the end be no.  This answer lies in the claims of the Bible
]versus the claims of science.  The evolution vs creation debate is an old one,
]but unnecessary.  The main point of the beginning to Genesis is to show
]how order arose out of chaos, and thus since evolution is exactly that sort
]of process, the two accounts agree.  The difference is in ideology, did God
]intiate the process or was it random, ``why" is there life?  The ``how" is
]not under major dispute for the generalities, although the specifics are
]still open to conjecture.  The Bible claims that the human situation is
]a result of a rebellion against God.  Can science dispute this?  It can
]neither support nor contest such a claim, for human behaviour and emotions
]have not been reduced to mere chemical reactions.  This question must be
]debated theologically or philosophically.  Why society is the way it is cannot
]be formularised for it is a ``why" question, although there are ``how"
]aspects.  Thus, claims by Christianity must be dealt with on its own ground.
]No all pervading theory of what is out there is sufficient to discover the
]answers of ``why", lest we be painting ourselves into the room.

"Certainly religio/spiritual claims must be debated in a philosophical format
and not via equations...but your continual generalizations of 'religion' as
Christianity disturb me.  Quick straw poll:  Any Pagans in the house?
Any non-pagans that do magick?  For the record, I don't consider myself
learned enough to call myself a Pagan, but I do sport an interest in magick--
it's more of a spiritual path than a religion."
He peers around the room for reponses.

[.sig regretfully deleted]
[comment for the day regretfully deleted]

"Oh, and by the way, this is my first time here, so I'd like to say Hello
to everyone and a big hearty wave to some people who always make good reading
on alt.magick and alt.satanism:  Semhaza the Antichrist, Shava Nerad Averett,
Amanda Walker, and josh geller...Hecate bless his crotchety heart"

He smiles hugely, and settles down to play a medley of Beatles tunes on the
baliset.
-- 
"They robbed from the rich...and gave to the CRIMINALLY INSANE!!" -Ren & Stimpy
"Necro-Bestial Anal Buttsex!?" -GWAR  /   Two suns in the sunset... -Pink Floyd
"She was SO sensitive...so I squicked her."                    DikuMUDs forever
Stop the War on Rights...legalize drugs           Email: pechever@chaph.usc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.callahans