From: Simon Dennis <mav@cs.uq.oz.au>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,alt.atheism
Subject: Science and dogma
Date: 30 Jul 92 05:18:10 GMT
Reply-To: eros.uknet.ac.uk@natalie.ibmpcug.co.uk
Distribution: world


tgk@cs.toronto.edu (Todd Kelley) writes:
>When dealing with something as basic and important as a view of how
>the universe is and how it should be made to become, arbitrariness and
>dogmatism are insidious nemeses.  Dogmatism and arbitrariness define
>religion.  (For example, science is not a religion because it's neither
>dogmatic nor arbitrary.)  Therefore, naturally, truly open-minded persons
>scorn religion.  This does not mean they scorn what religions say; it
>means they scorn what religion is: a set of arbitrary beliefs which
>must be accepted without question.

>Todd

Some of the above quote seems to me to be a little hasty. At best
religion is very narrowly defined. I certainly wouldn't consider
dogmatism and arbitrariness as defining characteristics of a religion.
Religion is an individual or community's response to the mystery within
their experience. This definition is very closely related to Campbell's
conception of myth. If one looks at the enormous diversity of belief
systems which are called religions it is very difficult to tye it down
more tightly than that. I would certainly consider science a religion,
and in fact the prevailing religion of our day, at least in the western
world. Naive science has a God in the form of Truth and is clearly a
response to our experience and hence I would claim it is a prime
candidate. In general, I find the concept of atheism somewhat slippery. 
The idea of being without God seems to contradict the idea which I hold
very dear, that there is a commonality to the human experience. I suspect
that most claims of atheism refer very specifically to disbelief in a 
personified deity. The God of a Buddhist monk though is at best vaguely
personified and I suspect there are numerous additional difficulties with
such a suspiciously western sounding concept.

Any unqualified post-Kuhnian claim that science is neither dogmatic nor
arbitrary is certainly radical. It would seem that there is significant
evidence that these characteristics abound in science. David Hull has
an interesting book called "Science as a Process" which reports a
series of case studies which exemplarfy both the dogmatic and arbitrary
nature of science in practice.

Finally, I would like to take issue with the idea that religions are "a set of
arbitrary beliefs which must be accepted without question". To the contrary
religions seem to invoke an enormous amount of inquiry. For a significant 
portion of history universities in Europe were primarily involved in 
theological debate. And the tradition continues today although it has shifted
focus somewhat (perhaps the most creative Christian thought these days springs
from the liberation theologists in Central and South America, Korea, the
Phillipines and South Africa). Christian thought has changed dramatically,
baring only a remote resemblence to its original formulation (whatever that may 
have been), and continues to evolve. I have no trouble acknowledging the 
arbitrariness of religious belief. As with all forms of belief it is contextual
both in place and time.

Simon.


--
Simon Dennis                  Address: Department of Computer Science
Email: mav@cs.uq.oz.au                 University of Queensland
                                       QLD 4072
                                       Australia
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