From: ajm@wag.caltech.edu (Abner J. Mintz)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: God and Science:  The Ramblings of The Nightstalker
Date: 11 Nov 1992 01:57:05 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: seurat.wag.caltech.edu

Hmmm.  An impressive attempt at seperating science and morality, Nightstalker.
I think I'll put in my two cents worth ...
(Is it just me, or have we done something similar in the past?)

BTW, was all that quoted from the article, or just the first bit?

>God and Science: are they incompatible?

God and science are irrelevant to one another.  God and morality are not;
science and morality are only distant (third?) cousins.

>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."

The purpose of science is to study the universe as it is.  Ideally the
scientist keeps assumptions to a minimum, or at least states them as 
assumptions.  Stating as an assumption 'There exists a being that can do
whatever it wants, and probably has, affecting the entire universe' doesn't
leave much room for anything else.  The answer to any question becomes
'Because God Wants It That Way.'  The answer to *every* question becomes
trivial.  Thus, science can never assume there is a God (or other       
'super-natural' being) without becoming a trivial disciplin.  

>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 `arguement 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?

No.  If flowers bloom in the morning, I can state that the reason they bloom is
1) Because God made them that way.
2) Because Faeries make them bloom.
3) Because of biological tropisms caused by light interacting with chemicals.
4) Because the ghost of Louis Carroll breathes on them.
5) etc.

Which of the above claims is testable?  If no-one sees God, or Faeries, or the
ghost of Louis Carroll, the claimer can just claim they are invisible.  Only
a 'scientific' explanation is testable.  If your claims aren't testable, you
can say whatever you wish, and no-one can ever prove you wrong.

>The great man of science, Albert Einstein, had a nebulous concept of God. 
>Why should he not believe
>in a personal God, and indeed if he does not believe, does that mean that God
>does not exist?

No.  Science deals only with the perceptible.  Until the day that God chooses
to make himself objectively perceptible (perceptible to all instead of to
a few) we will be unable to prove if God exists or doesn't exist.  

>Stephen Hwaking 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?

Arrogance?  Not really.  The universe appears to be explainable to a large
degree, and since that degree expands every year, it isn't arrogant to 
assume that the entire universe and everything in it is ultimately
explainable.  And if the universe is explainable without God, he isn't
needed as a hypothesis!

>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?

Of course he can.  It's thinking of what's *outside* that universe that's a
pain!  The rules a scientist learns only apply to the space-time the rules
were learned in ...  If there was a Big Bang, where the rules drastically
changed, we can't predict what happened before it.

There is no reason to exclude God from the big picture.  And no reason to
include him either.  So far the painting is amazingly good, but we haven't
found the artist's signature ... or even proof that the paints aren't random
splotches that we think look good because our artistic sensibilities were
formed by nothing better ...

>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?  

Well, here's where science and morality become third cousins.  Science *never*
tells you *anything* about morality.  Science only tells you what may have 
been, what is, and what is possible to be.  It can always tell you how, and
never tell you why.  

>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.

'Scientism?'  First I heard of that!  But I will state the following: if there
is a cosmic purpose, I don't know what it is.  I've never seen any signs
pointing to it, either.  And Christianity does no better a job at answering
'why': it just pushes things back a step.  Why are we here? 'Because God Made
It That Way.'  Why did he make it that way?  'Ummmm ...'

As I've stated, science never deals with why's, only with how's.  Very few
people try to claim that science tell us why ... and they're as much
theologists as any preacher!

If religion could give me *any* understanding of the why's of the universe,
I'd be profoundly grateful.  All it seems to give, however, are 'because's'.
In much the same spirit as a parent to a child, when I ask questions, it      
tells me that the answers are all known by God.  Well, that's nice.  But I
would like to know some of the answers for myself.  If God and the Bible
won't tell me what happens when a buckeyball is doped with potassium, then
why shouldn't I find out for myself?          

It is unfortunately similar that religion's answers to questions of morality
are 'Because' as well.  The Bible doesn't say 'Murder is wrong because it
deprives others of an equal chance at happiness' or somesuch.  It says  
'Murder is wrong.'  Well, I agree with it ... but there are other areas where
I don't agree.  If God is willing to show me why I'm wrong, I'm more than
glad to change my mind.  But I've never heard a peep out of him.

>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.  

Christianity gives the rules but no reasons for them.  Some of the rules
appear highly arbitrary.  It describes penalties for not following the
rules, but doesn't prove the existance of the police.  Or the jail.  What's
more, there are alternate sets of rules that have equal claims to validity
and which contradict each other and Christianity.

Can you really blame me for trying to find out the rules for myself ... both
how's and why's?

>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?

The comfort of science to the poor and needy is that, without science, there
would be more of them!  Science leads to technology, and technology can lead
to comfort if properly used (or to death if used improperly!).  Not every
answer is appropriate to every question ... choose your matching properly.
If science can lead to proper birth control and farming of arid areas, it
will be a great comfort to a starving Somalian!  If science can lead to
mace and other defenses, maybe the woman won't get gang-raped!

If you don't think science has an affect on you on the personal level, then
turn off the lights ... and the computer!

Science tells you what you can do.  Morality tells you what you should do.
It is a mistake for religion and philosophy to make claims about objective
facts.  it is a mistake for science to make claims about morality.

>The question then remains,
>does science do away with God?
>The answer must in the end be no.  

Agreed.  Neither does God do away with science.  Agreed?

>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.  

Not yet!  =8)
(To be fair, solving human reactions will probably end up like solving the
Schroedinger equation ... impossible due to limitations on computation
power.)

>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.

Claims by christianity must be dealt with on the same grounds as any other
philosophy ... until the day it intrudes into the real world.  Then it enters
the domain of science.  (Maybe I should say 'objective world' instead of
'real world'?)

Until the day when God starts changing the world in ways we can observe,   
science will just have to ignore him.  *shrug*

Newsgroups: alt.callahans