[Buddha-l] science #3

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Dan Lusthaus schreef:

> Stefan,
>  
> You only address half my point -- the intention or motivation. The 
> second half is the telos, namely the reason to do science is to 
> uncover and try to understand the mind of the creator. That the 
> "truths" of science have their resonance in Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, 
> etc., forms of "revelation" (to echo the Islamic model and discourse) 
> is not in spite of their religious associations, but precisely because 
> Allah (or whatever name given to Al-Haqq) has revealed itself to 
> everyone, and is the universal truth accessible to all, even atheists. 
> Natural law, denuded of that frame, is hubris and dangerous, they 
> would argue. Whether one feels the need for that framing of science or 
> not is not the issue. It simply indicates that "Islamic science" is 
> not an oxymoron -- unless one wants to patronizingly explain to 
> everyone who disagrees with that characterization that they are 
> deluded. If so, that's just another form of parochial missionaryism, 
> and a type of scientism, i.e., making "secular science" the root 
> metaphor of which the other types of "science" are deluded facimiles. 
> The debate would then turn on which science is deluded, the 
> religionists arguing that secular science is misguided science because 
> it prohibits itself precisely from those aspects of its subject that 
> make it universal (while claiming universal validity), while the 
> secularists argue that the religionists go beyond the evidence. That 
> impasse leaves both alternatives as oxymorons or untenabilities.
>  
> It is precisely the lack of such epistemological grounding in the 
> secular sciences that prompted Husserl to write his last major work, 
> _The Crisis of European Sciences_.
>  
> One can take the attitude which most 20th c. scientists took toward 
> their work, i.e., a kind of pragmatism that said it's good enough if 
> it seems to work for now, whether or not we can articulate solid 
> grounding principles or not. We can then shift our attention to 
> methods, rather than grounds, as many scientists have also done. But, 
> whether addressed or not, that does eventually lead to a crisis -- 
> such as the obvious lack of philosophical ability that contemporary 
> scientists -- evolutionists, physicists -- demonstrate when challenged 
> by Rightwing Christians employing epistemological challenges to their 
> discipline. The best the scientists usually muster in their defense 
> are arguments from authority ("the consensus of scientists we consider 
> legitimate today agree that..."). They are in crisis.
>  
> Dan Lusthaus

You have been missing a lot Dan. Maybe you should stop listening to mullahs and rabbi's and read a book about science. Medieval times and Enlightenment are over, we live in the postmodern era now. The theory of a creator is not scientific anymore. The concept of god is dead. Science doesn't produce thruth or true statements about the world, it just produces theories and explanations. Religion produces stories, metaphors. You can look at the world as if there's a creator if you like, but that would be your personal hobby. You may join a god-fanclub, but that's still no more than a personal preference. It has nothing to do with any kind of truth. You cannot pretend that the stories of your religion are litterally true because the computer you use works according to scientific laws and no religious book tells you how a computer works, not even how to make coffee. The main reason why many intelligent people still are members of a god-fanclub is that they are very clever with language, but don't realise how language works. They are blind to the 'as if' structure of the religious discorses.
This is not such a big deal as looks like. We never have much with truth anyway. Most of the time we live with illusions. We watch TV and video's, live as if we never die, tell ourselves we live in a democracy, a free country even, that our religion is the best of all etc. All these thoughts are illusions, a fact which a little scientific investigation easily could prove. We actually never think about truth. Even if we're doing puja's or sing psalms or spirituals, we never tell ourselves 'hey look this is really true', we just go with the flow, we imagine nice things and the fact that it looks like our neighbour imagines the same, makes it less vulnerable for doubt. In fact doing something together with others and not having to think, is one of the great joys of practicing a religion. But it has nothing to do with science.

Erik


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