The question came to me because I was recently asked to speak at a Catholic college at a symposium on science and religion. I guess I was viewed as someone interested in reconciling the two. After agreeing to lecture, I discovered that I had been assigned the title Science Enriching Faith. In spite of my initial qualms, the more I thought about the title, the more rationale I could see for it. The need to believe in a divine intelligence without direct evidence is, for better or worse, a fundamental component of many people’s psyches. I do not think we will rid humanity of religious faith any more than we will rid humanity of romantic love or many of the irrational but fundamental aspects of human cognition. While orthogonal from the scientific rational components, they are no less real and perhaps no less worthy of some celebration when we consider our humanity.
Dawkins: As an aside, such pessimism about humanity is popular among rationalists to the point of outright masochism. It is almost as though you and others at the conference where this dialogue began positively relish the idea that humanity is perpetually doomed to unreason. But I think irrationality has nothing to do with romantic love or poetry or the emotions that lie so close to what makes life worth living. Those are not orthogonal to rationality. Perhaps they are tangential to it. In any case, I am all for them, as are you. Positively irrational beliefs and superstitions are a different matter entirely. To accept that we can never be rid of them—that they are an irrevocable part of human nature—is manifestly untrue of you and, I would guess, most of your colleagues and friends. Isn’t it therefore rather condescending to assume that humans at large are constitutionally incapable of breaking free of them?
Krauss: I am not so confident that I am rid of irrational beliefs, at least irrational beliefs about myself. But if religious faith is a central part of the life experience of many people, the question, it seems to me, is not how we can rid the world of God but to what extent can science at least moderate this belief and cut out the most irrational and harmful aspects of religious fundamentalism. That is certainly one way science might enrich faith.
In my lecture to the Catholic group, for instance, I took guidance from your latest book and described how scientific principles, including the requirement not to be selective in choosing data, dictate that one cannot pick and choose in one’s fundamentalism. If one believes that homosexuality is an abomination because it says so in the Bible, one has to accept the other things that are said in the Bible, including the allowance to kill your children if they are disobedient or validation of the right to sleep with your father if you need to have a child and there are no other men around, and so forth.
Moreover, science can directly debunk many such destructive literal interpretations of scripture, including, for example, the notion that women are simple chattels, which stands counter to what biology tells us about the generic biological roles of females and the intellectual capabilities of women and men in particular. In the same sense that Galileo argued, when he suggested that God would not have given humans brains if “he” did not intend people to use them to study nature, science definitely can thus enrich faith.
Still another benefit science has to offer was presented most cogently by Sagan, who, like you and me, was not a person of faith. Nevertheless, in a posthumous compilation of his 1985 Gifford Lectures in Scotland on science and religion, he makes the point that standard religious wonder is in fact too myopic, too limited. A single world is too puny for a real God. The vast scope of our universe, revealed to us by science, is far grander. Moreover, one might now add, in light of the current vogue in theoretical physics, that a single universe may be too puny and that one might want to start thinking in terms of a host of universes. I hasten to add, however, that enriching faith is far different than providing supporting evidence for faith, which is something that I believe science certainly does not do.
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Add CommentDawkins & all atheist scientists conveniently take what they like and rejected what they don't like to present science as strictly materialistic and by default deny any non-physical reality. Human perception (& animal for that matter) is being supposedly researched and studied using what Dawkins describes as a "scientific standard", namely the double blind. This is utter rot and he knows it. Double blinding is used in drug trials precisely for the reason that it relationally distances the two parties and by such distance destroys insightful perception (not intuitive but insightful, which relies on relationship). To be scientific a control is run along side the experiment THAT IS ALL! Great Prayer experiment produced a nil or negative result. They did not even get a placebo effect. The negative result is interesting. It can only be done by administering a nocebo! See my website http://www.annavictoria.net and find that human perception points to a non-physical reality its science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA nice discussion, and balanced at least on the part of Krauss, whereas Dawkins is his usual self, pontificating and patronizing to those who dare to believe. Although I agree with their views on religious fundamentalism, scientific fundamentalism also has brought misery to the world, namely the belief in racial superiority - which stems from (incorrectly) evolutionary theory. Furthermore, it's preposterous to suggest that people of faith are somehow less intelligent. I try not to ridicule atheists, perhaps Dawkins shouldn't ridicule people or faith, or it makes him as narrow-minded as those who ridicule the non-believers.
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Edited by Milan320 at 04/15/2008 7:29 AM
Krauss is too symphatetic to religion (as an appendix), while Dawkins really pursuits the questioning of the beliefs. Overall it is an interesting discussion.
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