Scientific dogma
For some, science is a dogma, as much as Christianity or Buddhism is for the people that believe religion is a fact.
Science is based on faith as all human beliefes are and when that is forgoten and we confuse beliefs with facts, science turns into dogma.
The fact is that every event in this universe is unique.
No experiment can be duplicated twice exactly unless you some how could go back in time. And even then you couldn’t surely and truly predict the same outcome of the experiment.
You can not step in the same river twice!
And that is not of matter of principle it is a matter of fact!
The way that science experiments work is the same way a magician pulls out a rabbit of his hat.
It is all smoke and mirrors. It is all in the setup. Just because the magician can repeat his trick a hundred times it doesn’t mean that he makes rabbits appear from nothing.
Here how “scientific” experimenting works:
A kid named Newton is playing with bricks in his back yard.
He puts a brick on top of another – what does he get? – A two brick stack. Cool!
He puts another brick on top of the two what does he get? – A “scientific” law.
Here is the “brick” theory: H = B x N
The height of the stack “H” equals the height of the brick “B” times the number of the bricks “N” Cool!
Can you duplicate that – of course you can – you take a couple of bricks to your back yard and it works like magic every time… until……
A kid called Einstein comes along and imagines an infinite tower of bricks and suddenly the brick theory falls apart because according to his new “relative brick” theory at a certain point the brick stack will shrink under its own weight and collapse. Brilliant!
All scientific experiments are the result of cunning setup. You take away the limitations of the setup – like Einstein did with Newtown’s laws – and voila the experiment and the laws are not true any longer! What was held for hundreds of years as “scientific fact” becomes history.
This is the problem the scientific world is facing right now.
All the scientific laws broke down at macro or micro cosmic level.
So while the adoring, ignorant disciple of the “scientific dogma” are screaming “we hold the truth” at the top of their lungs, and are ready to nail to the cross anybody that dares to think any different - behind the closed curtain the scientist are building more and more complex instruments - see CERN – hopping that will help them understand and find the truth about the universe and finally figure out the UTP(unified theory of physics) - which is the holy grail of scientific dogma - something like the “ark of the covenant” of Christianity.
So before ridiculing anybody for their faith look at what your dogma is based upon; a half baked pile of contradictory laws, hypothesis and theories.
Oh and don’t forget your bricks…
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16 comments:
True. We just respect the belief of others. In my case, I believe in a higher power but not what the church describes how God is or how he was described in the bible.
You've already hinted at this topic but as important as unifying the laws of physics is, I think the greatest and most important mystery of science (at least in terms of what is empirically available) is the presence of subjective experience or consciousness flavored with emotion, intentionality and rationality.
Far more important than the fact that the laws of physics can be unified is the notion that there are entities that can even be aware of such a concept that can know it rationally and emotionally. It is my expectation that this will never be fully explained merely in terms of neurons and brain structures because all though we can find correlation with subjective experience and brain structure, correlation is not the same thing as sameness. And whatever you can say about the experience of the color blue, it most certainly is not a brain structure.
As for your first paragraph, I agree that science is based on faith. All knowledge is based on faith, and what I mean by faith is epistemic risk. What I mean by epistemic risk is that all kinds of knowledge at some level are dependent upon notions that could concievably be wrong, or if it is not concievable that they could be wrong, they nevertheless cannot be proven. Sciences rests on many such notions such as the soundness of math and logic, the idea that the universe when properly understood is mathmatically and logically coherent, the notion of uniformity, cause and effect, the notion that our brains are even wired to give us the ability to understand the universe as it is and so on. And of course science is dependent upon communal epistemology because no scientist can confirm absolutely every principle of science himself because of the limits of time, ability and so on. Science cannot function fully without community.
Science has been one of the most epistemically successful endevors and has been greatly beneficial, but some people need to be reminded of the limits when they want to take certain tools of science and make them so absolute as to rule out other kinds of knowledge.
Science is based largely on theories. The concept of a theory is that is is not 100% proven, or it would be a law. Even the laws we have maybe disproved under certain conditions. We can then ask, "Is it really a law?"
Long story short, science is a great investigative tool as to how our universe works, but there will always be more to find out. Science really is a belief. And it will continue to change as we learn more. Watch for the next huge paradigm shift.
Peace
A Mooji quote to throw into the mix:
"'Nothing is happening except if the mind says that something is happening... If the mind does not say something happens, then effectively nothing has happened...Its just where you point your attention and what you choose to register that appears as an event. There is only the unbroken flow of the unfolding play of manifestation that is taking place in the presence of that.'"
I agree with C.Om for what it is worth. Science has limitations of our limited knowledge/understanding and time. You would have to be there at the beginning and be there at the end to empatically say, this is a scientific fact.
My dogma is a doozy, but at least it's useful.
This pots gives me a lot to chew on. Whether science or spirituality the world is big and the possibilities are infinite. I'm okay with not having all the answers but it is fun learning new concept that help broaden the horizons of my mind. People have so many definitive views about belief and values. I appreciate this blog because I have to open my heart and mind to entertain the concept you speak of. Not because they are completely new to me but because you articulate it in a way that is easy for me to make the leap of faith.
It feels a little scary to express my personal comprehension of things that I hold near and dear to my heart in a place where others might dismiss it as juvenile crutch. Still I feel only feel empowered and more discerning after reading your words. I am glad that you seem to be a humble man because it gives me the courage to say that your impact on my heart is immense. Not just your post but people's reactions to them. Thank you Buddha.
When my boyfriend and I have the science/spirituality debate yet again... I will remember this post. You have a gift!
You can take the profound and repeat it simply so that others may understand. xoxo Buddha
This is helpful for my religion:
The Science of Love
Science and religion give us answers to questions on our spiritaul journeys, but I don't think those answers give us faith. As you said, something can be proven as fact in one experiement and proven false in another. I think its experience that creates faith. But just like science, what one person experiences, another may not. Therefore our spiritual journey may be a search for the experience of god, or a journey of godly experience.
Science endeavors to explain how things work.
Religion and philosophy endeavor to explain why things work.
Okay Christian Apologist, why does your car work then?
Nevermind, Christian Apologist, the reason why your car works is because there are angels that run on invisible hampster wheels that turn the driveshaft of your vehicle but that it only works when you have faith....no, wait, it's because the human designed car runs on fuel which has an energy density that allows for heat to be transferred to mechanical energy and that's why it works. See, science can answer why.
Look, I have no quarrel with anyone professing to experience things which lead them to either suspect or avow the existence of a supreme being. My argument is with those who claim to possess knowledge about that which does not suffer reason and rational examination well.
"But there is much that rational examination and reason themselves cannot quantify," you say. Maybe so. But if such is the case, knowledge of god - for the here and now - is an unattainable pipe dream. As an atheist, I do not claim to know whether or not god exists, and there is not a theist in existence who can claim otherwise. One may certainly believe; it is quite another thing to know.
Bill Cooney ,
Reason or at least logic in the technical sense in and of itself doesn't tell us anything about the world. It is an assumption that the reality we live in is a logical one. There is no way to prove it.
It is also an assumption that I enthusiastically embrace.
That said, in philosophy (in the world of profesional philosophers) it is said that any view [even religious ones] can be made logically coherent at a price. The rest of philosophy consists of haggling over the price.
It is my experience that those who insist upon the irrationality of faith generally have not formally studied the vareities of religion very far (nor the varieties within specific religions) nor have they formally studied logic (or if they have studied them, they have primarily studied it from skeptics who aren't necessarily commited to studying it on the best possible terms). So in reality, the insistence that religion is irrational is itself a faith commitment.
As for the insistence that we cannot know that God exists, well that presumes that your view of knowledge is the correct one. The last few hundred years of philosophy have demonstrated that there is no knowledge without some degree of epistemic risk. In other words, some iota of uncertainty is always at the root of all kinds of knowledge. So if uncertainty or epistemic risk is not at odds with knowledge, then clearly, it is possible to know that God exists.
All that said, I and a large portion (albeit not all) of the Christian tradition agrees with you that reason should play an importan role in our understanding of God and/or the supernatural if we are to take it seriously. God is truth and reason is an intrinsic feature of truth. (and Martin Luther was very wrong in his pronouncement on logic... amongst other things... and that's coming from a protestant)
Bill Cooney said...
Look, I have no quarrel with anyone professing to experience things which lead them to either suspect or avow the existence of a supreme being. My argument is with those who claim to possess knowledge about that which does not suffer reason and rational examination well.
"But there is much that rational examination and reason themselves cannot quantify," you say. Maybe so. But if such is the case, knowledge of god - for the here and now - is an unattainable pipe dream. As an atheist, I do not claim to know whether or not god exists, and there is not a theist in existence who can claim otherwise. One may certainly believe; it is quite another thing to know.
I disagree with you. I know that God exists. I may not be able to prove it to you imperically but that is of no consequence to the truth of my claim. I know He existed because when I accepted on faith the claims of Christ, the dead spirit which is in me became alive and I was able to finally see into the spiritual realm. Those things which our physical minds and bodies find foolish are actually true, and those who are alive in the spirit know it. It is like trying to explain a sunset to a man born blind.
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