I cant hold out any longer; there is this irresistible urgeto weigh in on this science and faith discussion. What attracts me mainly, Ithink, is my suspicion that, as so often the case, when we debate questionslike these semantic misalignments have slithered silently into the discussion. Theissue over the op-ed journalists NYT article that even science requires anultimate step of faiththat the laws of nature discovered by experiment willcontinue to holdare implicitly a step of faith has seemed to devolve into when we callsomething faith and when not. For example, are Rick and Martin really indisagreement over whether or not Rick can create and test models of variousphenomena without at some point assuming that: 1) the model is a totally validrepresentation of the essence of the phenomena in question; 2) that eachcontender can assume that his opponent perceives exactly what he perceives inapplying the same name (the name of the phenomenon) to his perceptions; 3) thatwhen the test of the model is over you can be sure that a future test will havethe same result?
From what I have seen so far I dont have faith that I candecide firmly whether or not Rick and Martin are really in disagreement, oronly seem so because of holding different definitions of some of the terms,without awareness of that. Finally, if Rick has to make some assumptions in anyof the three issues described above, is that equivalent to saying he must havefaith about it, or is there a subtle difference between having faith aboutsomething, versus making assumptions about it?
{Damn, its at points like this that I most miss Phils abilityto cut through the semantic fogs.}
As to my own position: Im asking myself why I feel thepressure to weigh in on this thread at all. I believe that Im satisfied withmy position on the question and dont have any interest in influencing what anyoneelse holds. I agree that an Observer function in myself reflects my awarenessorproduces my awarenessof implicitself-system conflict inherent in saying Im satisfied with my (and everyoneelses) position and YET I feel pressure to say what I think. I know full wellthat either: No one will respondin which case I expect to feel terrible; orsomeone will respond, in which case I can expect to find my position challenged. In that latter case Im not likely to remain completelysatisfied. So, I seem to be looking for trouble either way.
I think a little of my history is relevant here, because Ibelieve (have faith -?) that one can come up with semantic misalignments withoneself in reorganizing a system-level concept and still unawaredly (pardon theneologism please) hang on to some treasured old memories of concepts that areinconsistent with ones newer position.
I came upon my university education with a take on realitythat resembles Kennys, as far as I can judge. In the course of that educationI encountered ideas that I had never thought of on my own. On many scores Ifelt persuaded to change my views. After learning in anthropology courses thatso-called primitive societies all over the world have creation mythologies andhero-rescuer mythologies I came to wonder why I should give more credence tothe mythology of an ancient Hebrew tribe than any of the others. My son Pres,whose thinking is, I believe, rather similar to Kennys,told me that there areall kinds of internal tests of consistency that supports the judgments of thatgang of church fathers in 300 something AD who went through a bunch of oldwritings, deciding to keep some and throw out a lot of others. I guess theysaid that God told them which were TRUE and which were not. Well, I have aproblem when I compare what God is alleged to have told the faithful inLeviticus (about stoning women, keeping slaves, etc.) and what his son isalleged to have told the faithful about loving one another and treatingeverybody the way you would like them to treat you. Different human beings havesaid things like this throughout history, some claiming that they were sayingwhat God told them to say and others claiming their ideas were their own.
When I took the course in comparative religion and learnedthat through history, in many places priests pretty consistently found God telling the people to obey theking, I had an AHA reaction. It fitted with a view I already held about howbossy people will say anything to get others to do what they wantincluding subtlyassociating their own image with a higher one the people already revere. As oneof Mohammeds wives is alleged to have said, it was remarkable how often Allahordered Mohammed to do what she knew that he (mo) wanted. It struck me the samethings happened with the clergy of Constantine, and Henry VIII ( to name a few),by referring to God as King, or Jesus as Lord. It has the unconscious effect(well known to the advertising industry) of reverse association whereby Royalty and Nobility get associated withthe divine in the consciousness of common people. The Jesus I knew from readingthe New Testament didnt strike me as wanting to represent himself as any kindof lord, witness his remark about the eye of the needle.
And so it went. I decided that my judgment was as good asanyone elses about whether God ever talked to anybody, or even existed in anykind of anthropoid form. Then I went further, referring back to my youth whereI prayed earnestly to God to make me wise and to know the truth about things Irealized that the outcome of that effort could only be one of two things:either my prayer was answered, or it was not. If it has been, then I feel confirmedin the judgment that what I perceive about reality is as good as it gets forme. If my prayer has not been answered then either there was no one to answerit or Im on my own all of which gets me back to my own judgment being as good as it gets forme.
My judgment is that nobody has so far persuaded me that heknows more about what lies behind the cosmos, the human mind, the ultimatereality than I do. Since what I know doesnt seem very extensive, Im happy tothink there is a lot left for humans to discover about the nature of reality,and Im not bothered to let Newton (and maybe Einstein) declare that the objectiveof science is to get to know the mind of God. Maybe Newtonmeant that metaphorically, maybe he perceived something firmly that I have not,i.e. he had a personal relationship of a sort that I might never have had, witha supreme being, or maybe we both have had (if my prayer was granted). If thelast point then Im sure I know what God told me. It was Keep Looking.
One last step. In a discussion with Bill some years agoabout this stuff, he said to me, Whats wrong with simply saying, I dontknow? Well, there is nothing wrong with that, except its not aestheticallypleasing to me. So I resort of one of my lineages kinsmen (some chauvinisticbias right there I admit) Kirkegaard, when he said, in matters of faith we_choose_ what to believe. I choose to believe that there is intelligencebehind, or in the universe, and that life is moving in a direction of somesort. And so, if there is, is it relayed to some humans in a speech theyunderstand like that of another person (in a Fatherly voice, as Freudsuggested), or only by way of Newtonstake on it? I like Newtons take onit; I cant see any proof for any take on it. So, its my choice, and Imgoing for what feels good.
Maybe MOL? Where was MOL in 1939? I like MOL, but was Hitler at the point at the begininning of WW2 to sit and chat in a peaceful way? Why didn’t we do that? Why didn’t we sit and talk with him? Would that have even worked? At least you knew where Hitler was? Now, we can’t even find the source of the evil–OSAMA.