REASON VS. FAITH
"What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem"? So asked the early Church father Tertullian; himself a dedicated reason-hater.
This is the question of the ages - perhaps the ultimate metaphysical conundrum of human thought and life, in my view. It will be a theme of my blog throughout my writing, as it has been throughout my entire life.
Often, I have found my scientific views in conflict with my religious views. Both are ingrained in my life, my experiences, my family life, etc. Perhaps conflict is inevitable, as it surely is endemic to human life and what we experience in our universe. Stars form, grow, blow up and die... Galaxies collide. Planets accrete matter, form, revolve around a star, and perhaps support some type of life here and there in the cosmos. Life evolves through conflict, natural advantages, and suffers extinction. There are more species that have become extinct than there are species alive on earth today. Conflict, conflict...
The glory is that we, as percipient and reasoning human beings (cf. Aristotle's "the rational animal") can at least understand some of the parameters of our existence and the physical workings of our universe. To paraphrase Einstein: the most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it is comprehensible.
The gateway to our understanding is our collective sensory apparatus. Through this, we perceive. Ah, but "appearances" alone can sometimes be deceiving, as we have found out and as we know. However, our reasoning powers enable us to make sense of the physical world. Hence, reason "fills in the blanks," as it were. To quote Ayn Rand: our "percepts" become "concepts."
Can all of religion be subsumed under the murky heading of "mysticism," as Ayn Rand would have it? Here is where I disagree with her - I do not believe that is a valid assumption. There is indeed a basis for faith in a "prime mover," since we humans cannot fathom how "something comes from nothing." (Ayn Rand would detest this proposition - and I love her - she would be in the "steady state" universe camp, which is fairly roundly discredited by today's astrophysical standards.) A prime metaphysical question: "why is there something rather than nothing"?
For me, the domains of reason and faith are like a binary star system - both are luminous physical objects locked in orbit around each other - neither is "dominant" (necessarily); they both revolve around each other for an eternity (figuratively speaking) and shed their light to their surrounding percipients.
In my own epistemological system, this is where the human paradigm stops - one at the expense of the other (reason or faith), historically, has always lead to horrible conflict and human destruction. Theocracies on one hand (which have never worked - anywhere - at any time), and the colossal, all-powerful "State" on the other extreme (think Communist countries - all founded on their own interpretation of reason, Plato's Republic, and anti-religion).
The USA, on the other hand, has both freedom of and freedom from religion. Its Constitution promotes science (Article 1, Section 8) and commerce. Americans have the freedom to question, reason, ponder, and be skeptical. This is probably the best that we humans can do in trying to make sense of an ever-fascinating existence.
Much more to come...
TTC
"What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem"? So asked the early Church father Tertullian; himself a dedicated reason-hater.
This is the question of the ages - perhaps the ultimate metaphysical conundrum of human thought and life, in my view. It will be a theme of my blog throughout my writing, as it has been throughout my entire life.
Often, I have found my scientific views in conflict with my religious views. Both are ingrained in my life, my experiences, my family life, etc. Perhaps conflict is inevitable, as it surely is endemic to human life and what we experience in our universe. Stars form, grow, blow up and die... Galaxies collide. Planets accrete matter, form, revolve around a star, and perhaps support some type of life here and there in the cosmos. Life evolves through conflict, natural advantages, and suffers extinction. There are more species that have become extinct than there are species alive on earth today. Conflict, conflict...
The glory is that we, as percipient and reasoning human beings (cf. Aristotle's "the rational animal") can at least understand some of the parameters of our existence and the physical workings of our universe. To paraphrase Einstein: the most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it is comprehensible.
The gateway to our understanding is our collective sensory apparatus. Through this, we perceive. Ah, but "appearances" alone can sometimes be deceiving, as we have found out and as we know. However, our reasoning powers enable us to make sense of the physical world. Hence, reason "fills in the blanks," as it were. To quote Ayn Rand: our "percepts" become "concepts."
Can all of religion be subsumed under the murky heading of "mysticism," as Ayn Rand would have it? Here is where I disagree with her - I do not believe that is a valid assumption. There is indeed a basis for faith in a "prime mover," since we humans cannot fathom how "something comes from nothing." (Ayn Rand would detest this proposition - and I love her - she would be in the "steady state" universe camp, which is fairly roundly discredited by today's astrophysical standards.) A prime metaphysical question: "why is there something rather than nothing"?
For me, the domains of reason and faith are like a binary star system - both are luminous physical objects locked in orbit around each other - neither is "dominant" (necessarily); they both revolve around each other for an eternity (figuratively speaking) and shed their light to their surrounding percipients.
In my own epistemological system, this is where the human paradigm stops - one at the expense of the other (reason or faith), historically, has always lead to horrible conflict and human destruction. Theocracies on one hand (which have never worked - anywhere - at any time), and the colossal, all-powerful "State" on the other extreme (think Communist countries - all founded on their own interpretation of reason, Plato's Republic, and anti-religion).
The USA, on the other hand, has both freedom of and freedom from religion. Its Constitution promotes science (Article 1, Section 8) and commerce. Americans have the freedom to question, reason, ponder, and be skeptical. This is probably the best that we humans can do in trying to make sense of an ever-fascinating existence.
Much more to come...
TTC
posted by thoughtful conservative at 4:45 PM
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