Science and Religion cannot overlap.

[Whateverist]

Still only a problem for a wee mind intent on literalism.

The overwhelming vast majority of believers, you mean.

Sadly true. Of course you can't judge the merit of theism based on its weakest forms even if those are in the majority.

[Mudhammam]

The overwhelming vast majority of believers, you mean.

Sadly true. Of course you can't judge the merit of theism based on its weakest forms even if those are in the majority.

I know, but there is no form of theism--or any faith that depends on it--that doesn't run counter to the very notion of science, which demands a skepticism not compatible with religious faith, as that makes a number of specific and unjustified claims about reality.

[Michael]

Jenny,

You mention Kierkergaard. I can very much relate to three key aspects of his view on faith: 1) all knowledge is ultimately subjective and nothing can ever be certain, 2) faith is born from an existential crisis often following on from (1)*, and 3) faith is a risk, and requires a 'leap to faith'. My own journey of faith reflects those aspects, though with much less drama and angst than experienced by Kierkergaard. That's not to say that all faith must follow that path, but it's a description of faith that really 'clicked' with my own experience.

It seems to me that Nietzsche and Kierkergaard followed the same path up to a certain point. Both looked into the abyss of uncertainty. But then each took a different direction.

*P.S. Just a note on my own 'existential crisis': for me that followed the development of a profound sense of the numinous that just wouldn't fit in with the atheistic world view I had at the time, but I also realised I could never (and still cannot) be certain that this subjective experience reflected reality. Faith, for me remains a commitment in the presence of uncertainty much more than a certainty in my life, but it is a commitment which has made more and more sense as I have journeyed onwards (and still journey). That sense of the numinous for me started after I started simply sitting in silence (in a church I used to walk past each day), so to this day I remain much fonder of silence as a path to God, rather than being an enthusiast for preaching, apologetics, or philosophical arguments for God. I since joined, as a lay member, a Benedictine monastic community, and it is that very quiet expression of Christianity that makes most sense to me (my life is framed by being a husband and Dad, a scientist, and an 'oblate', a lay monastic; all three gel very nicely together for me).

[Michael]

[Michael]

Just a little more (in case anyone is interested in the development of the relationship between faith and science/reason). Here are some words from the natural philosopher, Francis Bacon, often credited with the formation of modern science as a disciplined activity. I find this still rings true to me today.

"So it must be confessed that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have, by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice, justice and wrong, good and evil? Thus, because the light of nature is used in two several senses: the one, that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not to inform the duty. So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation from God."

[pocaracas]

[Michael]

Pocaracas. Could you please be a little more specific - could you point out to me where you think I have been dishonest, intellectually or otherwise, in what I have written? I'd rather deal with a specific accusation concerning what I have written, that we can then discuss, rather than just a general insult and ad hom argument against my proposed character.

[Whateverist]

*P.S. Just a note on my own 'existential crisis': for me that followed the development of a profound sense of the numinous that just wouldn't fit in with the atheistic world view I had at the time, but I also realised I could never (and still cannot) be certain that this subjective experience reflected reality. Faith, for me remains a commitment in the presence of uncertainty much more than a certainty in my life, but it is a commitment which has made more and more sense as I have journeyed onwards (and still journey). That sense of the numinous for me started after I started simply sitting in silence (in a church I used to walk past each day), so to this day I remain much fonder of silence as a path to God, rather than being an enthusiast for preaching, apologetics, or philosophical arguments for God.

I wonder if it matters to you that God be an entity unto itself or if you would consider the possibility that God is a layer of being within everyone. Given the experience you describe here it seems to me that the numinosity you experienced could be explained equally well either way. To my mind, the second possibility seems less extravagant in the demands it makes on my reason while fully accounting for the experience itself. I also don't see how it diminishes God if that is understood to be a primordial otherness within. A presence that is intimately aware of your subjective struggles by virtue of making them possible. There is something that makes our normal sensibility, our conscious minds, possible. We don't (almost by definition) consciously do that. The ground is prepared for us by ancient, transitional forms of psychic experience which are more generic than we are, less individuated. They are like the titans of Roman mythology which perform grand, essential tasks like holding up the heavens. In that sense, they do 'create' the universe, at least as we experience it. They also stand watch over our affect and insight, granting or withdrawing these for reasons that flow from a logic unique to themselves. I believe this model can pretty well account for most of Christianity and other religious beliefs too. If God is conceived of as 'on board', what really is lost? You might say then God is only in our heads, but then so are we.

[pocaracas]

Pocaracas. Could you please be a little more specific - could you point out to me where you think I have been dishonest, intellectually or otherwise, in what I have written? I'd rather deal with a specific accusation concerning what I have written, that we can then discuss, rather than just a general insult and ad hom argument against my proposed character.

yeah... you would... But I'm not giving you the satisfaction.
You claim to be a scientist. You also claim to be a christian.
The dishonest position is your agreement with those who presuppose a god, hence your own presupposition that such a god exists.
As a scientist, how can you accept such an extraordinary presupposition?, unless you are being dishonest to yourself.

Oh... "proposed character"... so you are not who you show yourself to be... interesting....

[Michael]

Pocaracas. You won't give me the satisfaction of backing up your accusation of dishonesty? Well, I have no interest in, and no respect for, ad hom argumentation and those that pursue it. I shall leave it there.

Whateverist. Those are interesting thoughts, and ones I am not totally averse to. But there are reasons why I don't go down that path, which I will elaborate a little later when I have some more time.