Oh, God

Posted by Marc Hodak on May 18, 2008 under Patterns without intention | 3 Comments to Read

The debate between scientists and theologians continues. Actually, the link mostly recounts the surprisingly diverse opinions about God held by scientists. Here are the most common answers to the question: Does science make belief in God obsolete?

— Science has failed to find natural evidence of God. Natural evidence is all there is. No God. Case closed.

— Slightly softer is this line of reasoning: Science erases the “need” for God as an explanation of our experiences, and God either doesn’t exist or is at best a hypothesis (to the agnostic).

— And then there’s the view expressed in the title of University of Hawaii physicist and astronomer Victor Stenger’s new book, “God: The Failed Hypothesis — How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist.”

Then, we get into the more tortuous explanations attempting to reconcile science and religious belief. These are variations on common fallacies about science:

1. Science hasn’t proved that God doesn’t exist, so He might.

Weak. One can’t prove a negative assertion. Resting one’s case on the lack of proof negates reason. In fact, most serious theologians have long since given up on reason as a basis for God; they stipulate that it’s purely a matter of faith.

2. We can redefine “God” as the ‘wonders of science’–viola, no contradiction.

Super weak. I can define my shoe as your watermelon. It doesn’t make my shoe any more appetizing.

3. Biggest reach of all: “It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning … that makes science and religion look like competitors today.” The implication is that they don’t have to be, i.e., it’s just semantics.

Weaker than the gravitational field around a King James Bible. Science is not about meaning. It’s about relating X to Y. That relationship doesn’t mean anything, until someone invents that meaning, which is separate from the theories, hypotheses, tests, and conclusions that comprise the scientific process.

Inventing meaning is practically all we humans do, besides maybe grow food and make toys. Religionists must consider that science can be meaning-free. The debate is ultimately between a belief in meaning and an acceptance of meaninglessness.

In a way, the fallacy of science as a different kind of meaning is the most difficult to dispel in a debate about God. People who believe in God cannot imagine that anyone truly can’t. People who don’t believe in God cannot fathom that anyone really can. That’s the unconquerable divide.

I will finish by paraphrasing a believer who is also a skeptic: I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in the world. On the contrary. Observe the world around us. Observe the world through history. Does it look like God’s involved?