[Buddha-l] science #3

[Bob Zeuschner]

Hi Dan --
You misunderstood my point.
I wrote "incomprehensible."
You interpreted it as "capricious" or "arbitrary," and those are not 
synonyms. "Incomprehensible" does not mean "irrational."

You mentioned that science cannot ground itself.
The "ground" of science for Christianity (and I assume Islam) is a 
supreme being who chooses to make the universe, and this is the "ground" 
for all scientific laws and principles that science has overlooked.

My point:
When you provide an "explanation" for stuff, and the cause is 
INCOMPREHENSIBLE, then we have no explanation at all.

Consider the sacred ultimate divine being: can any human understand the 
mind of such a being? No. Not even after we have died and gone to heaven 
(because we are not infinite and we are not god, therefore we cannot 
understand the infinite divine even in heaven unless we become gods).

Can we understand the motives of such an incomprehensible being (they 
may well be logical and not capricious)? We are not infinite.

Can we understand the infinite powers (omnipotence) of an infinite 
supreme being? Our non-godly minds can never measure up to understand 
the infinite sacred ultimate.

Thus, the religious explanation provides a "ground" for science which is 
ultimately incomprehensible (although it may not be capricious, etc.).
Thus, the "ground" that science is supposed to be missing, and the 
ground that is supposed to be supplied by Islam or Christianity, is no 
ground that any human could ever comprehend.
I don't consider that an explanation.

Best,
Bob

Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Bob,
> 
> Please reread my previous description of Islamic (and Jewish) science as its
> self-understanding was articulated throughout the middle ages -- and in some
> Islamic quarters still today, especially their foundational axioms (in #2).
> God's miracle is precisely that there are logical, rational orderly
> principles in the universe, which, with our intelligence, we can discern and
> learn from and about. In other words, that two molecules of hydrogen

> the mind and activities of the creator. God is intellect (not capricious).
> The more one can think these natural laws, the more one moves (in the
>