Possible is one thing, reasonable is another
Jason Rosenhouse looks at this natural v supernatural problem.
If you hold views about a supernatural realm that have absolutely no empirical consequences whatsoever then you have nothing to fear from science. There are even certain religious systems that posit such a realm. But that is not the sort of faith held by most Christians.
True; so the business about what is ‘beyond’ nature becomes irrelevant.
So long as we are talking about a divine creator in the abstract then there is no conflict with evolution. Deism is not threatened by evolution.
But Deists aren’t the people who freak out about evolution, so they’re not actually the people Mooney is talking about, so again, they are irrelevant.
One more time, science can not rule out the existence of a supernatural realm, but it can certainly make certain ideas about how the supernatural realm interacts with our earthly realm seem highly implausible.
Just so. If it’s entirely beyond and outside, nobody knows, so you can believe anything you want to, but don’t expect anyone to agree with you; if it’s not beyond and outside, then science can investigate it, so the ‘this is where science stops’ claim doesn’t apply.
The clear distinction between methodological and philosophical naturalism is mostly irrelevant to the question of whether science and religion are compatible, since religion typically claims far more than the mere existence of a supernatural realm…Different people can draw different metaphysical conclusions from the same empirical data. The argument is over whether it is reasonable to accept both evolution and traditional Christianity, not over whether it is possible to accept both.
Yes that’s what I meant by the more long-winded “It’s perfectly possible to know that one can’t know X and still believe X. It’s a constant battle, to be sure, and there’s no guarantee that atheists and naturalists won’t always be saying ‘But there’s no good reason to believe that’ – but that’s life as a grown-up, isn’t it.” It’s possible, and that’s all you get. We can’t give you reasonable too, and it’s unreasonable to expect it.
If you hold views about a supernatural realm that have absolutely no empirical consequences whatsoever then you have nothing to fear from science…But that is not the sort of faith held by most Christians.
Maybe not now but when I was growing up the industry standard for Christianity was “mainline” Protestantism, evolution was taught as fact in the public schools and it never even occurred to most people that there was any problem about that.
What you’re seeing now is the “hollowing out” of American religion with the unchurched as the fastest growing “religious group,” conservative evangelicals holding their own, and mainline churches dying by attrition as the educated, urban-coastal elites who were disproportionately represented amongst their members become secular. So it may be true that currently “most Christians” in the US imagine that their religious beliefs entail empirical commitments, including those that are inconsistent with scientific claims, in particular, evolution.
This process is self-perpetuating and I think we’re now beyond the tipping point. For the general public, the vague mainline Protestantism that most Americans espoused in a half-assed way is invisible, or at best, perceived as anomalous. Soft evangelicalism, which is still socially conservative and committed to implausible empirical claims is now the industry standard. So, since most Americans don’t even perceive liberal Christianity as a serious option any longer, those that are offended by the implausible empirical claims and social conservatism wouldn’t dream of affiliating with any religious organization while those who want to affiliate imagine that they have to take on this garbage as part of the package.
I’m really fed up with seeing Ken Miller et. al. characterized as “accommodationists.” You are not going to kill the religious impulse which, I would suspect, is hardwired into perhaps 5 to 10 percent of the population. Those of us who are interested in fighting the anti-scientific, socially conservative crap of the Religious Right should be making the case that it is reasonable to hold that religious belief is compatible with science and with reasonable ethical and political view–that this isn’t simply a matter of political expediency. It is of course controversial whether religion and science are compatible–metaphysics is always controversial. The point is that, whether true or false, it is an intellectually viable position and the public should be aware of that.
Was mainline Protestantism the industry standard everywhere? Wasn’t it Catholic in a lot of places, and evangelical Protestantism in a lot of others?
I’m not characterizing Ken Miller as an accommodationist (not least because I’ve read very little of him), but rather the people who scold non-accommodationists.
The thing is, even for a lot of people (like me) who hate the anti-scientific, socially conservative crap of the Religious Right, fighting it comes farther down on the list of priorities than some other things, such as not having to shape what we say according to a political agenda. I don’t want to make the case that it is reasonable to hold that religious belief is compatible with science because (depending on the religious belief) I don’t necessarily think it is.
Doesn’t the Catholic Church accept the theory of evolution? I thought that they did, but I might be wrong.
The Vatican ‘accepts’ TOE with its own addition (God intervened to etc etc), but I was answering something in H.E.’s comment.
The religious right is stupid, while the Vatican is intelligent. I was impressed by the anti-choice (I refuse to say “pro-life”) arguments in the recent TPM blog on the subject: they came from people who know how to argue. I don’t know what is more dangerous: a stupid enemy (the religious right) or an intelligent one (the Vatican).
Actually you did say ‘reasonable,’ H. E. – see above – ‘should be making the case that it is reasonable to hold that religious belief is compatible with science.’ I see what you mean by the distinction, at any rate.
The business about having to shape what we say according to a political agenda comes from the disagreement with Chris Mooney, which is what set off this series of posts. The people who are under pressure to do that (from Mooney and other accommodationists) are explicitly atheist scientists and also atheists (yes, explicitly atheist atheists). I didn’t say anything about a suppression of free speech, I’m just disputing the advice to shape what one says according to the putative wishes of a particular audience that Chris Mooney has been offering.
As for what should be highest on the agenda – I think it’s obvious that different people are going to have different views on that.
I hesitate to enter this arena, but:
H. E B. said: “You are not going to kill the religious impulse which, I would suspect, is hardwired into perhaps 5 to 10 percent of the population.”
One – as small a proportion as that?
Two: What about the ethical system, usually regarded as a religion, of Bhuddism, which has NO problem with evloution and materialism, since these are regarded, “spiritually” as deceptions from Mara…..
5% would be my guess because I’d guess that that’s about the percentage of philosophers who are theists–though I have no hard data on this.
If you’re in philosophy you know all the arguments pro and con, you’ve been drilled in skepticism about everything, and the metaphysical and logical worries are always in your face. As an academic you operate in an environment where atheism is the taken-for-granted norm so you will not be religious as a cultural default. So I’m guessing that whatever percentage of people who are theists under these conditions represents the percentage of people who are going to be religious whatever happens. I may have the figures wrong, but I’m guessing that whatever the percentage of theists in philosophy will be the percentage of people in the general population who would be religious come hell or high water.
As for ethical systems like Buddhism, we don’t need wisdom literature, whether Buddhist, Judeo-Christian or otherwise to deal with ethical issues. Ethics is a purely secular enterprise–we can it out on our own. For people who want wisdom literature because they don’t want to bother there are innumerable self-help books and therapies to choose from. If you aren’t interested in myth, cult and metaphysics there’s no reason to go for Buddhism or any other religion.
A small percentage of the population though, I’m convinced, is interestd in myth,cult and metaphysics–has an ineradicable taste for religion. And we’re going to be religious regardless.