Letters to the Editor
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After you get over your irritation with John Haught, consider what he is saying
It seems that people were offended by the admittedly both condescending and simplistic answers that Mr. Haught gave during this interview. However, I think just as he speaks of layers, we need to address the point of view he presented from a layered perspective. I would suggest that one reason his answers were as noted is that he may very well be one of those condescending bright people who feel they have to explain things so those below understand. However, on another level (layer) what he said was important.
Any "framework", when it is adopted unquestioningly (or almost unquestioningly) becomes an obstacle to new learning, new information. Thus, when one exalts Science and the scientific method to the extent that one demands that everything sensed, felt, perceived, be forced into their framework, one is blocking exploration, forward movement if you will. I think this is one of the things Haught is trying to say. There are things (for lack of a better word) that can't be proven or unproven by science. He hopes that someday we will find the means to better understand them.
Western thought springing from the Enlightenment has certainly lain paths of discovery that have led us a good distance in our understanding of the world around us. They have left mysteries. If we refuse to acknowledge that, we are rather like flat-earthers who refuse to admit that new ways of seeing things are needed and provide critical new insights. Sometimes these insights are terrifying because they turn the world we are comfortable with upside down.
You all would find the work of Teilhard de Chardin very interesting indeed and perhaps framework shattering, or at least the framework into which you put your ideas about theological thought.
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bernbart
Atheism IS a classified as in a religion in philosophy.
I don't think so.
If atheism is a religion then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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buddenbooks
You all would find the work of Teilhard de Chardin very interesting indeed and perhaps framework shattering
Teilhard de Chardin was a perpetrator of the Piltdown fraud.
Can you recommend somebody who hasn't been exposed as a con man?
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This entire letter thread is utterly predictable and depressing. I hoped for a spark of original thought from Salon readers, but this seems to be too much to ask for from the slightly educated but excessively pompous Salon crowd.
The motley crowd lurking around the bar:
The rashly arrogant, generally dumb-as-stumps and undereducated evangelical atheists who proudly strut their belief system as though it were an Ivy League Ph.D. without realizing its total philosophical bankruptcy. You will see them talking over each other loudly up at the bar while waiting for the agnostics to pay the bill. But, tweed-clad dime-store anti-theologians, cling to your fragmented and empty language of "proof" and "evidence" and proclaim everyone else in the world to be "irrational." The depth of your ignorance is stunning and also peculiarly Western in its utter narcissism and grandiose arrogance (not to mention total lack of nuance).
The "agnostics" -- generally narcissistic baby boomers who want to be friends with the pathetic atheists, not realizing that the atheists are the "cool kids" in grad school who (one discovers twenty years down the road) are actually pathetic losers who never accomplished anything of substance but will weave very convincing narratives of their mediocre intellectual feats while sporting black "indie film director" plastic glasses. The agnostics buy drinks for the poor tweed-clad atheists and listen rapturously while the atheists cite carelessly assorted French theorists, paperback versions of evolutionary science, and generally attempt to sound superior to all other humans beings and future colleagues.
Over in the corner you will spy the few believers: a sad, stray pack that wandered over to the unfriendly Salon pseudo-intellectual pub with their vacant puppy dog eyes and inability to articulate and mousy apologies.
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Investing in God
Theology is a metaphor for coping with the world around us, not a method by which we are able to examine the world. A theological mindset inhibits rather than encourages exploration because in the beginning and at the end is not a curiosity to banish ignorance, but a renaming of the unknown as the unknowable. More confusingly, postulating an omnicient God creates a tension between God and the universe He (always "He") created.
Prayer is the coinage of theology; inquiry. especially scientific inquiry, is the currency of discovery. Prayers, by Mr. Haught's own explanation are made intended to be answered, but are made to be denied for the greater, invisible to the individual, good. That dynamic denies the very personal relationship Haught espouses as basic to religious belief.
Although Haught denies it, investing in prayers or miracles separates and elevates believers over heathens. Yet the preponderance of historical evidence provides more examples of theology excusing cruelty, encouraging ignorance and injuring those Haught says it serves. Acquinas and other philosopher scientists always came up against the power of established religion and the mythology of God.
Hope doesn't need the justification of theology; it may, like theology, simply be a coping mechanism. It is not a question of belief in the ineffable - athiests understand that knowing the molecular structure of water is not the same as sensing water's motion. Religion positions an intermediary between us and experience.
Therein lies the tension. We can't know the universe without God, but we can't know God. God defines and creates the physical world, spritual existence and morality, yet God is above and outside all those spheres. This means for us to allow evil to happen without acting upon it is morally wrong, say allow creationists to misapprpriate theology for politcal power, but for God it's not only OK, it's the core of His being.
Although being or doing good might require some faith, it does not require God. It does require asking some really good questions.
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In defense of religious science
In a universe full of infinities, we have absolutely no idea about virtually anything. We, as a species have been conscious a mere 10k years, we have hardly discovered the basics about how the universe runs.
We have hints, of course, and have discovered that time and space are infinite. We have some inkling that knowledge might be infinite, also. Given these infinities it is hard not to imagine godlike beings who can make use of the greater knowledge available.
As I see it, the idea that religion fills the holes science leaves behind hardly touches the chasm which lies before us in the infinities. For me it is not too hard a stretch to imagine a universe full of powerful beings having fundamental interests in life, even our life.
"To deal with [life] means to abandon oneself to chaos and yet to retain a belief in the ordination and the meaning. It is a very serious task." (Herman Hesse, Das Glasperlenspiel).
I find myself religious in the belief in the ordination and the meaning and in the existence of the infinities. There is plenty of room for both science and religion.