Wilson: Theory of evolution and traditional religion are irreconcilable

[BurtWorm]

Reading this in its entirety requires a premium subscription or a daypass:

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/03/21/wilson/print.html

Darwin's own transformation from devout Christian to non-believer obviously raises significant questions in our own time. It raises a very provocative question: If you fully accept the theory of evolution by natural selection, does that logically lead you to atheism?

Well, it does up to the origin of the mind and spirit. And one of the Vatican's scientific spokesmen, incidentally, just recently turned thumbs down on intelligent design. John Paul II took the position that evolution's been pretty well proved, and certainly was acceptable as God's way of creating the diversity of life. But the human soul was injected by God. So that's a kind of compromise position that a lot of devoutly religious people have taken.

But that begs the question, when did the soul enter? I mean, if you accept evolution, at some point humans evolved out of something that came before. So do all creatures have some kind of soul? Or do only humans have a soul?

Yeah, that's the dilemma. Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind.

Are you saying we have to choose between science and religion?

Well, you have to choose between the scientific materialist view of the origin of the mind on the one side, and the traditional religious view that the spirit and the mind are independent of the process of evolution and eventually non-corporeal, capable of leaving the body and going elsewhere.

This is not a view that all scientists subscribe to. Stephen Jay Gould famously talked about how science and religion are two entirely separate spheres. And they really didn't have anything to do with each other.

Yeah, he threw in the towel.

He dodged the question.

He dodged the question, famously. That's no answer at all. That's evasion. I think most scientists who give thought to this with any depth -- who understand evolution -- take pretty much the position that I've taken. For example, in the National Academy of Sciences, which presumably includes many of the elite scientists in this country, a very large number would fully accept the scientific view. I know it's 80 percent or more who said, on the issue of the immortality of the soul, they don't care.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Indiginous spirituality disagrees

The Mayan Calendar is actually a map of the evolution of consciousness, and is rather interesting in that it goes back to the Big Bang (which Mayans say happened 16.8 billion years ago) and explains the evolution of cellular life, animal life, and humanoids. www.mayanmajix.com has more information about this.

I have yet to meet a mystic that has any trouble melding science and faith. The works of Pir Vilayat Khan are a good example of this.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Mystics meld everything with anything

that's why they call them mystics.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

19. Yep

and may be one reason we seem to have these grins on our faces so much of the time.....:)

[Maat]

47. I love that calendar.

Your faith is mystical, and so is mine (Church of Religious Science).

And I second that - mystical faiths do not have any trouble reconciling science and faith.

[Brilligator]

3. I think that's kind of silly

The Catholic viewpoint on it is perfectly reasonable. Defer to science and assume God is the force that set it in motion.

It's not science of course, but it's also not incompatible. That is, you don't have to choose in that scenario.

[BurtWorm]

4. If you're interested in what is true, they're irreconcilable.

That's Wilson's point. Both can't be true.

[Brilligator]

6. What can't both be true?

Religion and Evolution?

I'm saying he is wrong. He is right about fundamentalist religions that take the Bible literally. But there are religions, Catholicism is one, that have no contradiction at all with Evolution. If they do, I'm curious what they are.

Edit: Oh I gotcha, the soul thing. Sorry. Let me think about that for a bit.

[BurtWorm]

13. The theory of evolution: life developed out of matter

with no direction at any point from anything supernatural--in other words, obeying the laws of physics to a T. On this view, God did not create the heavens and the earth; material conditions were, by chance, right for it.

As Wilson says, Gould dodged the question when he said religion is about something entirely other than that strictly natural process. It's like saying there's a wall between material nature and spiritual supernature that can't be bridged except by the imagination. But Wilson is asking what is that imagination in the first place? Isn't it, like everything else in Nature, a product of material conditions? Is there any other way to view it if evolution is fact? Both Wilson and Gould would agree that there is no place at which something called Supernature can interact with Nature, not even in the imagination. From an evolutionary view, the border between Nature and Supernature is firmly shut, utterly impervious. This is obviously in complete contrast to the religious view, which sees the border as porous in every part, like a nylon stocking.

[Brilligator]

16. That's not the Theory of Evolution

You're vastly overstating the ToE. It doesn't address the origins of life, just how it proceeded from there. So there is still no contradiction in stating God set up the rules of the game and ToE is just the discovery and observation of how those rules work.

What you're describing is actually Materialism.

But on the other hand, his point about the sould seems a good one. I don't know how they justify how and when the supposed soul comes into play.

[BurtWorm]

20. Point taken.

He does use the term "scientific materialism" in opposition to "traditional religion." I don't want to be unfair to his point of view. But he also says--and Darwin also clearly believed--that natural selection was troublesome from a religious point of view because it is utterly dependent on material laws and utterly independent of divine guidance. So the question is, at what point could the hand of God let go of the matter to allow natural selection to do the rest?

[Brilligator]

21. You're forcing me to play devil's advocate

and I'm getting outside my realm of knowledge, but to answer your question, ("at what point could the hand of God let go of the matter to allow natural selection to do the rest?") I would assume right from the very beginning.

That is, God is the explanation for why atoms exist at all and why and how they join and don't join as they do and why water boils and why gravity happens, etc. In short, he set up the natural laws and let them go.

The problem I see with this is that you now have a kind of full-fledged dualism, with God for some reason jumping out of the physical realm at the beginning but keeping constant interference in the spiritual realm. Seems kind of odd. At the very least you would think this would lead people to an idea of God as more of a concept of the initial force than any sort of interfering, hand's-on God as most religions portray Him.

[BurtWorm]

23. That's actually DEism.

Which is what Wilson says he provisonally subscribes to--meaning he can't prove there's a First Cause kind of god and won't even go so far as to say he even believes in one, just that maybe there is one.

[BurtWorm]

24. To elaborate on your point

in the Salon interview, Wilson says:

"And it's beginning to look -- it's looking pretty persuasively -- that we are in fact ultimately physical and chemical in nature, and that we evolved autonomously on this planet by ourselves. There's no evidence whatsoever that we're being overseen or directed in our evolution and actions by a supernatural force."

[Spinzonner]

10. The problem with both views

to the extent they may be true at all, is that their both projections into a human sphere of comprehension of what might be the larger, actual truth.

So who's to say that the encompassing truths are incompatible if the human mind isn't capable of comprehending them ?

[cali]

11. Agree.

boy do I love Wilson; he's so brilliant and he's so adept at translating complex ideas into clear simple language. What he says makes perfect sense, but I think it leaves out one concept; the idea that two seemingly irreconcilable truths can exist within the same construct.

[Gildor Inglorion]

5. Do all creatures have some kind of soul?

From the Bible, Revelation, Chapter 16, verse 3: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead ; and every living soul died in the sea." Either this means mermaids & mermen, or all the creatures living in the sea have souls, right? But I also think religion and scientific inquiry are two entirely separate fields of study.

[BurtWorm]

7. Tell me what a soul is and I'll tell you if I think they all do.

:hi:

[Gildor Inglorion]

14. Easy answer...according to the Bible

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7 KJV) The soul, therefore, is the union of a body and the breath of life from God. (Can you tell I was very attentive in Sunday school as a child?)
BUT...I firmly believe in evolution. Stephen Jay Gould is one of my favorite authors.

[BurtWorm]

15. At what point did God breathe into your nostrils?

;)

If all a soul is, is whatever animates a body, then of course all animals, being animate, have souls. But then souls may clearly turn out to have no spiritual dimension at all.

(Would plants have souls? Would bacteria?)

[Brilligator]

18. ...and at what point in our evolution

did we acquire souls?

Assuming animals don't have souls, then clearly we did not have souls at the time we were the animal that is now a common ancestor of us and apes.

So sometime after that?

[Gildor Inglorion]

26. Truthfully, none of this speculation really makes any difference

From a purely scientific point of view, it's like wondering about angels and heads of pins. As far as Christianity (at least the Methodist variety) is concerned, they preach the resurrection of the body, so the "soul" really has nothing to do with anything.

[BurtWorm]

27. Do methodists view heaven as a real place then?

I'm just curious because some person in another thread is telling me that "religion's" idea of heaven is more gaseous and difficult to imagine. But I certainly can imagine bodies in space, and that's what I was led to believe heaven was: a real place. Maybe in a different dimension not attainable through any route but death, but tangible and comprehensible by human minds, or we wouldn't know enough to want to go there.

[Gildor Inglorion]

32. There's more than one heaven...it's a subject of endless speculation

and unprovable, anyway. I'm a nonpracticing Methodist, by the way. Until puberty, I was a GOOD boy!

[Inland]

28. Shades of heresies past.

It's funny, nobody talks about resurrection of the body anymore, but it was one of those things that really got people riled up a thousand or more years ago. I think the orthodox christians leave it out of their creed.

[Gildor Inglorion]

31. United Methodists (the sect of which I'm a baptized member)

recite this "Apostle's Creed" every Sunday:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
****the resurrection of the body,****
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

I added the *** for emphasis. Heresy? You bet! But it's supposedly the universal Protestant belief.

[slide to the left]

8. So I believe in evolution

but I am not an atheist, far from it. People are just unwilling to accept thing that are different from what they are taught. There are secular fundies too.

[BurtWorm]

17. Actually, one of the interesting things about Wilson

is that he was raised to be a strict Southern Baptist fundamentalist, and he is extremely sympathetic to their worldview. But he says flat out, it's wrong.

[BurtWorm]

22. He also says he is not an atheist, interestingly enough!

He calls himself a "provisional deist." He's liek an agnostic making Pascal's wager, holding out for the possibility that there might be something divine, but he hasn't seen enough evidence to support it yet:

Let me follow up on this because I've heard you call yourself a deist.

Yeah, I don't want to be called an atheist.

Why not?

You know, being a good scientist, and having been drawn up short so many times on my own theories and speculations -- as all honest scientists are -- I don't want to exclude the possibility of a creative force or deity. I think that would be a mistake to say there is no God or supernatural force. As the theologian Hans Kung once said, how are we to explain there is something and not nothing? Well, that's a question I'm happy to leave to the astrophysicist -- where the laws of the universe came from and what is the meaning of the origin of existence. But I do feel confident that there is no intervention of a deity in the origin of life and humanity.

It is the distinction between theism and deism.

That is the distinction. So I am not a theist, but I'll be a provisional deist.

To be a deist, you're saying maybe there was some creator, some presence, that set in motion the laws of the universe.

Maybe. That has not yet been discounted as a hypothesis. That's why I use the word provisional.

[slide to the left]

25. I am for sure not Baptist

I went to a Baptist College, but I never was one

[Inland]

9. Well, somebody had better tell both the scientists and the religious.

Because they apparently don't know what this guy is laying down as an "of course". Maybe if they had a subscription, they could see what makes it a matter of course.

[papau]

12. Interesting - there are survey's - and then there are surveys :-)

In 1997, Edward Larson of the University of Georgia did a survey of scientists(participants were drawn from a directory of American scientists): 60% responded, a figure considered high for any surveys. Of those, 40% expressed belief in a deity, while nearly 45% did not. Larson's survey also discovered that physicists were less likely to have such faith, while mathematicians were significantly more likely to believe in a supreme being, as defined by Leuba.

(survey of)...517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%.

The above is Copyright © 2006 American Atheists, Inc
================================================================================

From:Tim M. Berra, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University in Mansfield. He is a a two-time Fulbright Fellowship recipient and the author of over 50 scientific papers and five books.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/education/berra.html
A comparative study of the religious views of leading scientists in 1914 and a random sample of scientists listed in American Men and Women of Science showed an amazing constancy over these 80 years. Belief in God among scientists was 40% in 1914 and is 40% today.7 However, less than 10% of the scientists elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) indicated a belief in God and only 5% of NAS biologists claimed to be believers.....

Scientists have taken a variety of philosophical stances when it comes to the debate between science and religion.

Stephen J. Gould, a prominent evolutionary scientist, argued for the mutual co-existence of science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria,4 while Richard Dawkins, an equally prominent evolutionary biologist, wrote that claiming that religious beliefs are outside the domain of science is intellectually dishonest.3
Ernst Mayr, a father of the modern evolutionary synthesis, simply and clearly explained the differences between science and religion.8
Science does not invoke supernatural explanations or rely on revelation to understand how the universe operates. Religion does both.
Scientific explanations are open to change when the data support a revision. Religions are hesitant to revise lest a theological change spawn a new religion.
Florida State University Philosopher of Science Michael Ruse asks the question "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?" Ruse answered it "yes."11 Philosopher and historian W.B. Provine sees it quite differently.10
The scientifically literate citizen should understand both viewpoints.

....The only Christian religious groups that have problems with evolution are the Protestant fundamentalists, who insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible, much as Muslim fundamentalists insist on a literal interpretation of the Koran. This group is trying to infuse their brand of religion, taught as science, into public school classrooms. Having failed in the past to have evolutionary theory banned from the classrooms, the fundamentalists have adopted a patchwork enterprise they call "creation science." In spite of a pretense to scientific language, these creationists ultimately are reduced to using supernatural explanations to answer scientific questions. This is a profound contradiction and an anti-science view since the scientific method by definition cannot deal with the supernatural.9

=================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/national/23believers.html?ei=5088&en=affec45468b0ff25&ex=1282449600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"....."No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals. Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."

Since his appearance at the City College panel, when he was dismayed by the tepid reception received by his remarks on the incompatibility of good science and religious belief, Dr. Hauptman said he had been discussing the issue with colleagues in Buffalo, where he is president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.

"I think almost without exception the people I have spoken to are scientists and they do believe in the existence of a supreme being," he said. "If you ask me to explain it - I cannot explain it at all."

===========================================================================

[hunter]

29. Horrors! You've convinced me to become an atheist!

:rofl:

Honestly though, conflicts between my religion and my science don't even register on my charts. If they exist at all they are lost in the background noise of my spirituality.

But my political views very often contradict the official views of my church.

I probably keep going to church for the same reason I remain a U.S. citizen. Many of my political views contradict official U.S. policy. I feel I can accomplish much more as a subversive insider than I can by burning my passport and moving to a neutral nation. Our Priests might read some flame I wrote in their morning paper and then they see me in church, and I know it sometimes makes them stop and think. It's also sort of fun to come up with various ways of not contributing to the church slush funds of evil. If only I could do that with the IRS! Nope, sorry, that's an Iraq war expense, Mr. Bush; I'm writing this check to the womens shelter instead...

I think it's a very odd thing to accuse the religious fundamentalists of black-and-white sorts of thinking, and then as a self proclaimed progressive, engage in the same sort of black-and-white thinking yourself. Someone like Stephen Jay Gould did not dodge the question -- for those religions that respect the findings of science what Gould claims is entirely true. Science and Religion become two entirely separate spheres.

Well, look at that, will you? The earth isn't 6000 years old and the Universe is much bigger than we thought. Glory be to the Deity or Pure Random Chance.

Most of the argument boils down to what you consider "traditional religion." If you define traditional religion as some sort of young earth creationism, then yes, science does conflict with that. But if you are arguing about something like "Do dogs have souls?" it seems a silly thing to get your panties in a knot about. That's the kind of question you ask in religion class to get out of doing any real work... Hmmm, I wonder what St. Francis really thought about that...

I personally think dogs have some sort of soul... Oh no! Is that blasphemy?

[BurtWorm]

30. I doubt Wilson's "panties" are in a knot over any of this.

;)

And you know he's not asking "Do dogs have souls," I hope.

His questions are really about how the universe works. He says that it seems to becoming clearer and clearer that there's no trace of God inside the universe. (He doesn't rule out that there may be one or more outside the universe.)

[hunter]

33. It's not unreasonable to look around and say "Nope, I don't see God here."

One of my grandfathers was the sort who would say, "Have you looked under those rocks over there?" and then point to a field of rocks.

That also begs the question, of course, but the point is human beings don't have anywhere near the omnipotence required to claim "there's no trace of God inside the universe."

When I read this thing I can almost hear E.O. Wilson teasing Steve Paulson, who seems to be very sincere, but a little dense.

The best part of the interview is this:

By the time you got to college, had you rejected your religious background?

In college, I did begin to get a good education. As soon as I got to the University of Alabama, I discovered evolution and the new synthesizers of evolutionary theory. I read them all. This was an epiphany. I realized that all I had loved about the natural world, and all I had learned, now made sense. And that's what converted me.

So you spent your whole youth out in the fields, observing nature, but in some ways it didn't add up because you hadn't understood evolution.

It didn't. And it can't. That's the problem. You cannot explain the patterns of diversity in the world, the geography of life, the endless details of distribution, similarity and dissimilarity in the world, by any means except evolution. That's the one theory that ties it together. It is very hard to see how traditionalist religious views will come to explain the meaning of life on this planet.

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. -- Theodosius Dobzhansky

[Inland]

35. Not feeling a ton of respect for this Wilson guy.

He moves without any transition from evolution explaining the diversity and distribution of species to religious views explaining the meaning of life. There's no recognition that there's any difference between discovering the development of fins to finding a meaning of the lives of humans.

[BurtWorm]

37. Gee. He'd probably be crushed to know that.

I mean you're obviously such a quick study, totally grasping all that E.O. Wilson is about from my one post. Wow. I'm impressed.

[Inland]

40. You can't refute my point.

Maybe an uncrushed E.O. Wilson will appear and explain his brain fart for you. But in the meantime, I'll go look at a thread where the atheists declare their superiority over the religious because they don't let anyone do their thinking for them.

[BurtWorm]

45. Your "point" such as it is is that you don't have a ton of respect for

Wilson. You're right. I can't refute that. As for the incoherent bit in the body of your post, I can't refute that either because it similarly is an opinionation, delivered extremely sourly as all of your posts addressed to me are, based on an obviously very prejudiced reading of one post in Democratic Underground's Religion/Theology forum. How do you refute a mood?

[Inland]

52. Well, an "opinionation" can be refuted. Unless it's correct. nt

[Goblinmonger]

73. I'm pretty sure I'm on your ignore list, but had to do it anyway

[arwalden]

97. ~

Perfect! :thumbsup:

[hunter]

42. That was my first response too, a long time ago (re: post 35)

It's funny, while I was reading the Salon article I could almost hear E. O. Wilson's voice, which means I must have heard him speaking a long time ago, very likely in person.

But you have to realize that while we might debate Wilson's sociobiology, and then debate the ethics of any applications that may arise from Wilson's sociobiolgy, the fascists are already out there eagerly conducting field trials.

:scared:

[BurtWorm]

46. What exactly do you mean by that?

Which fascists and what field trials are you talking about?

[hunter]

49. No, I'm not wearing my tinfoil hat too tight.

:tinfoilhat:

But sociobiology is a hobby of the right wing, very much like eugenics used to be. We will certainly find some very nasty stuff as we are picking our way through the wreckage of the Bush Administration. It will be especially interesting to see how political money influenced right wing religious organizations. Right wing Catholics seem especially prone to this sort of manipulation, and there's something unsettling about that when you look at the Supreme Court the party of Reagan/Bush has been building.

Wilson himself is not a part of that. He's a scientist, and some of the scorn heaped upon him in was the result of his political naivete. At about the same time Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis was published, idiots like William Shockley, inventor of the transistor, were running around claiming white people really were better than black people, while making deposits at sperm banks for any women who wanted "superior" Shockley babies.

I found a Guardian article that shows how Wilson is no friend of the Reagan/Bush kleptocrats:

While Wilson makes no apologies for his can-do American approach to saving the planet, he doesn't attempt to defend American consumerism. "We live in a delusional state," he says of the West, finding himself in tune with more radical anti-corporatists and in complete opposition to the new Bush administration. "America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost."

He goes onto describe the concept of the ecological footprint, how each American citizen requires 24 acres to sustain his or her lifestyle, while those in developing countries use a tenth of that, and adds: "To bring the world's 6bn people using today's technology up to the level of the average American will require four more Planet Earths. I've seen the figures for this assessment, I've repeated them in front of a wide variety of experts, nobody has refuted it. "It's an enormous differential. The right-wing know-nothings in the conservative think-tanks in Washington, and the demagogues of whom we have an abundance in the US keep coming back: 'Well, that's what America is all about, we want the rest of the world to reach our standard, right?' Wrong! We're running out of land. The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4137503,00.html

[BurtWorm]

50. Shockley et al were racists, not sociobiologists.

Plain and simple. Sociobiology, unlike eugenics, is not a political program; it's a theory and framework for research into social behaviors from an evolutionary perspective. (It isn't social Darwinism, either.)

In case you haven't been paying attention, the right wing in the US is anti-science, anti-rational, anti-intellectual.

[hunter]

51. My point was that Wilson was unfairly lumped in among them.

.

[BurtWorm]

56. By people who didn't know what they were talking about.

Amen to that!

[Inland]

58. So let me get this straight---

there was this scientific theory. Misused by right wing ideologues and perverted into something both evil and contrary. And some holders of the legitimate theory were unfairly lumped into the same group as the others......Huh. Sounds so familiar. Can't quite remember.....

Oh, yeah, it's what happens to every christian and most religious in DU every day, but with religion instead of science.

[Odin2005]

93. The way Wilson was bashed when "Sociobiology" came out...

...angers me to know end. He was getting DEATH THREATS for crying out loud. If people wonder why I hate blank slaters with a vengence, that is why. It was one of the most pathetic episodes of bashing science that doesn't fit with ones ideology.

[BurtWorm]

39. Note that he doesn't say there's no trace of God.

Just that it is seeming less and less likely that God has anything to do with the universe.

[papau]

34. no ones "panities" should be in a knot over the interaction of religion &

science.

Indeed, "there's no trace of God inside the universe" is no doubt true for some observers, and then again is not true for others. It all depends on what "trace" means - and more important - what it means to the observer.

I also agree that Stephen Jay Gould did not dodge the question -- for those religions that respect the findings of science what Gould claims is entirely true. Science and Religion become two entirely separate spheres.

[Inland]

36. It's just reformulating the concept of science disproving religion

and labeling the ability of religion to accept science's findings as a dodge. Gould dodges, the Catholic Church dodges. In reality, people can define religion in their own way. Whether by convenience or conviction, some don't find it a problem. Most don't find it a problem.

[BurtWorm]

38. Most people are not trying to actually work to figure out

what this universe is really, really all about. And by work, I mean get the hands dirty and the brain cogitating. Problems tend to provoke work if you want to solve them.

[Inland]

41. But that person isn't E.O. Wilson, is it?

He's declaring an inescapable contradiction ("problem"), not resolving it. That work is being done by the religious who, after giving it some thought for several hundred years, are finding their faith and scientific reason to be consistent. Are you glad they've worked it out to their own satisfaction?

[BurtWorm]

44. You've been thinking a thought for several hundred years?

Good for you!

:applause:

[Inland]

53. No, "the religious", not me. But answer the question.

Enough of the reading miscomprehension, already.

Go back to the post, and answer its question: Aren't you've glad they've worked it out to their own satisfaction? Yes, or no?

[BurtWorm]

54. What kind of question is that?

I'll answer that one: It's a rhetorical question, which by definition doesn't merit a response. How I feel about other people's "satisfaction" is neither interesting nor relevant.

Let me step back from this logical swamp and try to address the issues you seem to be trying to raise.

PS (on edit): I needed to go back and reread your post to pull the shreds of meat off its skinny bones.

Wilson is not addressing the phony problem of how to get science and religion to play nice. That's the religious world's problem, seeing as their description of reality is essentially fantastic, and fantasy is not anything science has anything to say about except as it impinges on reality. Wilson is (as most scientists are) interested in the problem of what is real and true.

Aren't you glad with this answer to your question? ;)

[Inland]

55. Oh, I see.

These people find a faith consistent with scientific reason isn't interesting or relevant. It merely contradicts the premise of the OP, so why would you comment on it?

[BurtWorm]

57. Which people specifically are you talking about?

The Pope? The ID hucksters?

[Inland]

59. What, you don't know? My.

You could start with the Pope. At least, the current one. Let's see, that's a billion believers represented right there.

You could continue with the Archbishop of Canterbury. You know who he is?

Or you could just fucking ask around. Clearly hunter and paupau aren't ID people, or at least they hide it well enough. In fact, has anyone on DU ever come out against evolution? Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

See, this is why you dodged my question. You know that plenty of believers have found faith and science compatible, but the thesis is incompatibility. Somehow, you have to define religion in a way that the practioners don't, or use nonsensical made up terms like "traditionalist" religions like EO Scott. In other words, somebody forgot to tell the Pope that his theology is incorrect.

But I can't make you take a stand, say anything directly, or even stop you from pretending to need questions answered. You aren't interested in a debate of ideas, just trying to parry and evade. That's why I didn't float my ideas to you in the first place. It's a waste of time unless I'm looking for a dead end quarrel. Next time, when I post to someone else, just let it go.

[BurtWorm]

60. It's fine to say faith and science are compatible.

But what do you mean by that, really? Just that some religious people say they're comfortable with science, or vice versa? Wilson is not talking about an individual's psychological comfort. He's talking about whether the worldviews are logically compatible. And they're not. One views a universe with a God in it, the other views it with a God, if it exists, outside it.

[Inland]

61. And what does HE mean by "religion", then?

Because nobody bothers to actually define which religious belief is entirely incompatible with science, or, for that matter, ask any believers to explain how it is compatible, the statement is entirely unsupported. In fact, it's really left to say things that nobody agrees with, the inside/outside god dichotomy. That's not religion, or science. It's just a slogan.

Like I said, somebody forgot to tell all the religious scientists the news.

[BurtWorm]

62. He used the term "traditional religion"

by which he presumably means ones like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. Even theistic Buddhism. Any religion that has a God or system of Gods interested in humanity and active in or interactive with the universe somehow.

[Inland]

63. Presumably, then, the Pope doesn't know his own religion.

Further presumably, scientists don't know their own method, because last I knew, there weren't any peer reviewed papers on the existence of god.

Amazingly enough, both scientists and religious, who know their own belief systems at least as well as a man who uses terms that require a "presumably" in a definition, aren't finding a conflict. Sometimes they end up being the exact same people, to boot.

Conclusion: the guy finds an irreconcilable conflict between worldviews that are undefined and apparently nobody holds. Well, goody for him, but it's a little too much mystical bullshit for me.

[BurtWorm]

64. Again, you're talking about psychological comfort, not logical

compatibility.

[Inland]

65. Not at all.

I'm saying it's complete bullshit to say there's logical incompatibility between undefined worldviews.

I'm saying that as far as science and religion, where people are able and do define their beliefs, they find no logical incompatibility. You can say that they are merely comfortable with being logically inconistent, but that's pulling up the thesis by its own bootstraps, in that first ou would have to look at their beliefs and find them inconsistent.

But nobody is going to allow believers to waste time explaining their ACTUAL beliefs and how they DON'T conflict with scientific reason, are they? That hundreds of years of religious thought that you blew off is nobody's interest, which is why there's always somebody surprised to hear the official Catholic doctrine is pro evolution. It doesn't fit in with the negative stereotypes and doesn't allow for people to pretend like you either have to choose science or religion. And that's the mechanism going on here, isn't it?

[BurtWorm]

66. Science is a defined worldview.

Part of "religion's" problem is that it's undefined.

[Inland]

68. "A"religion isn't undefined.

You can find tons of definition for the Catholics. You can swim in definition. You can start with the Nicene Creed and go to yesterday afternoon. That's a billion peeps right there. And other relgions are are big writers too. You could zero in by googling the subject matter.

But you would rather not ask.

Apparently it's easier to just state a logical inconsistency between undefined terms, and then somehow figure it's somebody else's fault.

All for the purpose of pretending a false dichotomy between being a believer in religion and a scientist. It's bullshit. Give it up, or go figure out the terms. I'm not going to go through the motions of a discussion with Humpty Dumpty.

[BurtWorm]

69. Okay. Let's take the Nicean creed and see if it's compatible with science.

We believe in one God<=========point of incompatability with science
the Father, the Almighty,<=========point of incompatability with science
maker of heaven and earth, <=========point of incompatability with science
of all that is, seen and unseen.<=========point of incompatability with science

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,<=========point of incompatability with science
eternally begotten of the Father,<=========point of incompatability with science
God from God, Light from Light,<=========point of incompatability with science
true God from true God,<=========point of incompatability with science
begotten, not made,<=========point of incompatability with science
of one Being with the Father;<=========point of incompatability with science
through him all things were made.<=========point of incompatability with science
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,<=========point of incompatability with science
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit<=========point of incompatability with science
and the Virgin Mary<=========point of incompatability with science
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified
under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again<=========point of incompatability with science
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven<=========point of incompatability with science
and is seated at the right hand<=========point of incompatability with science
of the Father.
He will come again in glory<=========point of incompatability with science
to judge the living and the dead,<=========point of incompatability with science
and his kingdom will have no end.<=========point of incompatability with science

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,
and the giver of life,<=========point of incompatability with science
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son
is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.<=========point of incompatability with science
We believe in the one holy catholic
(Christian) and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,<=========point of incompatability with science
and the life of the world to come. Amen.<=========point of incompatability with science

[Inland]

70. Really? So you DO have a paper disproving god!

Which experiment did they perform?

Yep, now it's "science" that's undefined, isn't it. No, that's not entirely true. It's defined as being "incompatible" with religion, and not much else.

All this bullshit for a fake dichotomy.

[BurtWorm]

71. The creed asserts one God

Then goes on and on about Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Never being incompatible with science. It's incompatible with itself.

[Inland]

72. But not science.

As for whether it's inconsistent with itself, that's not the issue here.

Well, I'm done. It's a false dichotomy made out of undefined terms and ignoring what people actual believe.

[BurtWorm]

76. Oh don't go.

I learn so much from our little dialogues. ;)

[Inland]

77. Sorry, class over. For homework,

feel free to google the subject matter for what the religious people really believe.

[BurtWorm]

78. For your homework, compare and contrast

an individual's personal beliefs with the body of knowledge about the universe. Use a close, unprejudiced reading of E.O. Wilson's interview on salon.com as a starting point.

[Inland]

81. You were the one gettting schooled today.

I didn't need to tell you before, but I don't enjoy our dialogue because I'm not learning anything.

And as for the homework that includes "the body of knowledge about the universe", tell you what: wait by the phone for me to call and tell you I'm done with the material, and in the meantime, start devising the test. Write it out longhand. Copy it three times. Mail it to E.O. Wilson for proofreading.

I'll let you go in the meantime. Seems you're getting a little testy.

[BurtWorm]

87. You don't learn anything because your mind is closed.

You approach every dialogue we've had with extreme prejudice.

I'm not testy at all. :hi:

[BurtWorm]

79. PS: You just admitted a central point of traditional religion

is incompatible with science. So what is your problem with Wilson's or my saying that? :wtf:

[Inland]

83. Oh, did I? Then we're done. Game over, no more need to talk.

Apparently I've made a binding admission, oh, well, what the hell, you win, every term is now defined, the incompatibility established, the Pope needs a lesson in his own religion, and religious scientists need to learn about science, and all by my admission.

I had no idea of my own power to make shit into gold. But if it helps you stop wasting your time and mine, it's a power serving good, right?

[BurtWorm]

86. Your choice.

:eyes:

[Goblinmonger]

74. OK, I call bullshit

When I talk about the Catholic Church and what it teaches, you tell me that what is important is what each individual catholic believes. Now, when you want the big numbers, the church is now the representative of billions of people.

Hypocrisy ain't just a river in Egypt.

[trotsky]

80. Great catch, GM.

Go figure. :eyes:

[arwalden]

98. (Kinda Like Declaring Atheism A "Belief", Eh?)

<< you have to define religion in a way that the practioners don't >>

:shrug:

[papau]

43. Actually I think most folks are trying to actually work it out - indeed

that is what brings science types like myself to the concept of "God".

As in the quotes I posted above, science types that find God the better answer to what the universe is all about are not understood by science types that find science has eliminated the concept of God - or at least the need for such concept.

Again from the article: "At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"....."No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals. Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."

Since his appearance at the City College panel, when he was dismayed by the tepid reception received by his remarks on the incompatibility of good science and religious belief, Dr. Hauptman said he had been discussing the issue with colleagues in Buffalo, where he is president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.

"I think almost without exception the people I have spoken to are scientists and they do believe in the existence of a supreme being," he said. "If you ask me to explain it - I cannot explain it at all."

As you can see, each side thinks the other side is not thinking! I therefore do not expect the atheist /theist discussion to convince those on either side that those on the side opposed to them are great thinkers.

But we tolerate each other - I hope! :-)

[BurtWorm]

48. I think more folks are trying to figure out how to stay fed.

And who can blame them?

[swapez]

67. Its God

Psalm 33:12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-christ, that denieth the Father and the Son" (1 John 2: 22).
When you talk about religion you ask questions that ultimately one day we will all have to figure out and answer for ourselves. We are all going to die one day. The understanding of a belief is one that helps us cope and one we can not prove but only through a testimony of God-through his son as stated in the book of John: 1. I am a very Liberal Democrat, but I have a firm knowledge that God exists through my own life experiences and I am happy to share that with this forum. I am a rock-n-roll musician that wears an earring and a bandanna. I fall short of being a perfect person and I do occasionally sin as Christians would call it. But as a Christian I am forgiven if I am sorry for my sins. Even if I sin with the intention of sinning because we are all human and Christ bore our sins on the Cross. Where does that put me? And what is my point? My point is that if Darwin is correct then our body is just a chemistry project waiting to adapt to the next stage of evolution much in the way Hitler envisioned. With God at least a person is trying to find a better reason for existence (putting fourth an effort knowing that we are not perfect), accepting a life that is plentiful and full of love, loss, hope, sorrow, passion, joy, hurt, excitement, tragedy and mystery-for one self and for children and millions of families. Life is a precious thing and should never be destroyed. A life that is agnostic or atheistic is very destructive approach toward society and toward individuals as a whole as experienced by communist and fascist nations. At least hope and faith is something people like to agree upon. In a free society allowing individuals to decide their belief is nothing more than a mere argument leaving those happy in their faith understanding and experiencing a greater Existence. For me it is a joyful hope for the end of all suffering.

[BurtWorm]

75. Welcome to DU, swapez.

:toast:


And you seem to agree with Wilson that your view of the universe and science's are not compatible.

[papau]

82. Welcome to DU, swapez - many here feel as you do AND do not

agree with Wilson, or anyone else, that the religious view of the universe is not compatible with the view of science.

Indeed it is hard to find the "incompatible" between science and religion when they speak to different aspects of the Universe and only one deals with what was before the "big bang" of a marble sized mass coming into existence and then inflating to become the big universe we know and love.

Indeed I thought your post very well written.

I suspect the atheist folks will pick up on:"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-christ, that denieth the Father and the Son" (1 John 2: 22)- and run with it before reading the rest of your post.

One needs somewhat thick skin in this forum.

In any case welcome to DU and this forum!

:toast:

:-)

[charlie]

84. Um, no

You suspected wrongly. But I'll admit, likening a conviction that Darwin was correct to Hitler's "vision", and that atheist or agnostic life is "very destructive toward society" with communistic or fascist-like results lifted my eyebrows a bit.

[papau]

85. I do not speak for him - but I thank you for pointing out the hot button

that could have had a bit more explanation.

As you know, everyday the "very destructive toward society" is used in this forum for things religious, This is the first I have seen of it being used for things atheist - but then again I only drop in from time to time.

The conflating of atheism with communism is while true also not on point as to whether or not atheism is "very destructive toward society" - and I therefore support you in your "lifted my eyebrows a bit".

Likewise the Hitler vision (I assume of breeding folks toward a better human that thought/reasoned/etc better) is not something directly associated with atheists, although some seem to think that if only the religious were better educated and more rational they would embrace atheism, - so again I support you in your "lifted my eyebrows a bit".

But the way I read the whole of the post was that God gave both understanding and meaning - better meaning than what is found within the limits of science - and the poster rejected the atheist claim to be a "better" - as in more educated, etc. - variation of human.

Indeed, when Swapez says "we will all have to figure out and answer for ourselves. We are all going to die one day." he is rejecting the atheist view that dead is dead and there is no judgment - and I support the swapez view.

When swapez says that belief is one that "helps us cope and one we can not prove but only through a testimony of God-through his son as stated in the book of John:" I agree - indeed this is the faith/belief that can not be proven that we all discuss - and it even exists, in my opinion, in the atheist confidence that there is no God.

When swapez says he has a " firm knowledge that God exists through my own life experiences and I am happy to share that with this forum.", again I agree - and indeed reject the atheist view that life experiences that may lead to faith are just artifacts of brain malfunction or dying or any lesser cause.

When he says "In a free society allowing individuals to decide their belief is nothing more than a mere argument leaving those happy in their faith understanding and experiencing a greater Existence. For me it is a joyful hope for the end of all suffering.", I am with him saying, "right on" - Even if that decision is to endorse the atheist view!

:toast:

:-)

[charlie]

88. Sure, of course

In so far that it's an explication of his faith and you roundly support where it concords with yours, I can't quarrel with that. How can I?

But, anyhoo...

"With God at least a person is trying to find a better reason for existence (putting fourth an effort knowing that we are not perfect), accepting a life that is plentiful and full of love, loss, hope, sorrow, passion, joy, hurt, excitement, tragedy and mystery-for one self and for children and millions of families."

Life is full of love, loss, etc, etc, for everyone. Non-belief doesn't inure you to the tumult and passions of living, nor does belief prevent a constrained, controlled, dry worldview. We're all in the same boat.

"In a free society allowing individuals to decide their belief is nothing more than a mere argument leaving those happy in their faith understanding and experiencing a greater Existence."

Who here argues otherwise? With his preface warning about communist/fascist nations and the destructiveness of atheism, it can be taken his point is larger than a plea to be left alone. He'll be hard put to find anyone here who supports compulsory atheism/religion in government.

[papau]

89. I agree - his plea includes a request not to be thought as uneducated or

irrational I believe - but if so I am afraid there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids others from having such thoughts about you. As he will find out here at DU :-)

Perhaps tolerance covers this area - but probably not.

But I agree that atheists have ethics and love and the whole gamut of life that we all have.

But he - and I - just know God makes that gamut better - :-) - and he is perhaps being a bit Evangelical about it - rather like the atheist that knows societies ills would be reduced if there was no religion - and indeed gets angry and talks of imaginary men in the sky.

[moobu2]

90. You said this

---"helps us cope and one we can not prove but only through a testimony of God-through his son as stated in the book of John:" I agree - indeed this is the faith/belief that can not be proven that we all discuss”

Science can prove that there is no such thing as an immaculate conception (a key component of Christianity) where a virgin women conceives when there was no seminal fluid transferred. There was no "Virgin Birth"..... That story is not possible.

Also, the story about Jesus dying on the cross ‘is’ possible, but Jesus coming back to life after several day’s is not. Because, when death occurs, decomposition starts almost immediately. The bacteria in the body start eating it from the inside out. After 3 day’s in the heat of the Middle East, maggots would have already consumed much of the soft tissues. The cerebral cortex, where all our thought process take place, starts rotting within minutes, after 3 day‘s in the heat, it would have been mush. Jesus never came back to life - it isn’t possible. Jesus rising from the dead is the central core Christian belief and it just isn’t possible.

Science can prove most if not all Biblical stories can not possibly be true, starteing with Genisis all the way through. So where’s the religion then? All you’re left with is the possibility that some higher being kicked started the process -as in the big bang. But, Scientists are working on solving that too.

Some, maybe most of the characters in the Bible probably lived at one time, but the religious aspect is pure fairy tale on the level as Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny or the Titkitty Barn Finch.

[okasha]

91. Rational discussion of religion

Someone asked, a few days back, how religion could be discussed rationally. Here's a start: it can be discussed rationally if proponents of all viewpoints know what they're talking about. This, for instance:

"Science can prove that there is no such thing as an immaculate conception"

is categorically false.

[BurtWorm]

94. It would be helfpul if you explained why.

I agree with you, but it would be helpful if you didn't just leave it at that.

[okasha]

96. No problemo.

In order to demonstrate scientific proof that immaculate conception never took place, one would have to:

1. Formulate a scientific definition of original sin, i. e., a definition based on observation and experimentation;

2. Devise a reliable method of identifying original sin;

3. Further devise a reliable method of demonstrating the presence or absence original sin in persons;

4. Demonstrate that a young woman presumably born in Nazareth some 2000 years ago was in fact born with original sin.

Just for the record, the belief that Mary was born without original sin is not a central teaching of Christianity. It has been dogma of the Catholic Church for about two hundred years, which existed for a millenium and a half quite comfortably without it. The doctrine is also quite roundly rejected by Protestants of all stripes.

And it has nothing whatever to do with the virgin birth.

[BurtWorm]

100. It's clear that wasn't what was meant by "immaculate conception"

It's clear that what was meant was Virgin Birth. The poster's point was clearly that Virgin Birth is not possible.

But your point was that "immaculate conception" was not the right term for Virgin Birth. It's odd that you didn't elaborate on what you meant until prompted.

[okasha]

102. Odd? Not really.

Two reasons:

1. I didn't really have time to elaborate, and I'd apologize for a hit and run post; except that

2. My larger point here is that a rational, reasonable discussion of religion--or anything else, for that matter--depends on the participants' knowing what they're talking about. I've seen reams of posts in this forum with the premise that "To be a Christian you have to believe X," when in fact scads of Christians believe no such thing. The counterpart would be, say, "An atheist can have no ethical/moral principals." The first arises from uninformed assumptions about Christians--though you can substitute Jews, Muslims, Hindus, whatever--while the latter arises from uninformed assumptions about atheists. A discussion depends on shared definitions.

As for the virgin birth itself, you know as well as I do that it's impossible to prove a negative. What would be pertinent to a discussion on that subject would be to define those groups of Christians who retain a literal interpretation of some translations the Bible and therefore a literal, ahistorical interpretation of the virgin birth, and those who do not.

[BurtWorm]

103. Odd in the sense that you decried a lack of rationality in the debate

and then left your comment wide open to interpretation, exponentially increasing the chance it would be misinterpreted--which it was, even by those who thought they were agreeing with you. I, for example, thought you were going more for the point about the alleged impossibility of proving a negative. (My angle on the problem has more to do with the powerlessness of science to "prove" anything, let alone the possibility or impossibility of immaculate conception.) And who knows what Inland thought, but it wasn't what you were thinking. He just seemed to be enjoying the chance to agree that a DUer on the side of rationality was saying something "false."

Your first paragraph is very interesting in that it makes a point about how some atheists allegedly define Christianity in a way Christians don't want it to be defined. Maybe you're aware that many atheists are also annoyed by the insistence of some Christians to define atheism without wanting to hear how atheists themselves define it?

[moobu2]

104. I confused the issue

by using 2 terms (virgin birth and immaculate conception) interchangeably, when the 2 concepts mean 2 different things.

I was raised Southern Baptist and was taught that Mary was magically impregnated without natural human sex and that she had never had sex up to that point.

‘Immaculate conception’ is the idea that Mary was magically made to be without sin (her entire life I suppose) by an invisible force. In this superstition, the conception of the baby Jesus was perfect and without sin and so forth, but was conceived in a natural act, in that Mary and Joseph had sexual intercourse. Jesus would have been magically born without sin due to invisible forces working from some unknown dimension, from my understanding.

The ‘virgin birth’ is the idea that Mary was impregnated by magic. That Mary was a virgin, had never had sex and there was no human sperm involved etc..

In the end, both superstitions involve magic and invisible forces interacting in the natural world and are not possible etc..

[BurtWorm]

105. That's how I understood the term as well.

Oshaka's explanation sounds plausible, but I certainly didn't think he or she was criticizing your statement for purely semantic reasons.

I agree with your last sentence wholeheartedly. :toast:

[Inland]

95. Indeed, it is false.

What most in this section mean by "science" isn't science at all. Sometimes "science" and "rational" are terms used for a hodgepodge of epistemology concepts, but usually those terms have no meaning other than "atheism".

[papau]

99. Well said. :-)

:-)

[BurtWorm]

101. You're off base. That's not what okasha meant.

[Odin2005]

92. Darwin didn't become agnostic because of evolution.

After his favorite daughter died of (IIRC) scarlet fever he couldn't beleive in a god that would allow such a thing to happen.