Posted on 03/26/2013 8:53:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the March 25 issue of The Weekly Standard, the lead article entitled "The Heretic" deals with philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has abandoned his long-held perspective on philosophy and religion. This has caused consternation and alarm among contemporary philosophy professors, the great majority of whom are strongly committed to an atheistic world-view. A recurring assertion by members of that profession is that they are being very scientific, because science disproves religion.
The question arises, "Where did the idea come from that science disproves religion?" It didn't come from within science; rather, it's the province of non-scientists making statements about science. To understand its origins, the foremost thing to note is that academic philosophers are by and large a group with limited understanding of science -- having passed their science requirement in college, most haven't gone deeper to investigate real science and discover the limits of science. Their familiar claim that science supports atheism result from their misunderstanding of science. Here is my scientific perspective about what happened over the past century:
As the 19th century was coming to a close, classical physics was in very good shape (Newtonian mechanics plus Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism). There was a strong belief in determinism, the notion that absolutely everything behaved over time according to the exact laws of physics. Quantum Mechanics and the uncertainty principle were still decades in the future.
Accompanying that belief in determinism in nature, the philosophers wanted their system of thought to be deterministic too, with every valid philosophical statement following logically from a previous one, all the way back to some "mathematical proof" at the basic level. Bertrand Russell advocated that way of thinking.
In the first quarter of the 20th century, the system of "logical positivism" gained dominance among philosophical schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Interesting. I see the adherence to the global warming dogma as a religious belief and not at all a scientific understanding.
Science doesn’t have much to say about religion. It can describe the mechanism behind how stars are created, but not the identity of the creator of that mechanism.
They just noticed? Nagel has taken this position for a long time. Very much worth reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Nagel/e/B000AQ6R56/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1364313591&sr=1-2-ent
If you only have time for one, I’d suggest “The Last Word.”
This is to be expected given that science is limited to the empirical while reality isn't.
Exactly.
The center piece of Christianity is the life, death and resurrection Jesus. Science has no more to say on the on the events of the life of Jesus than any other historical figure. IOW, science can't confirm George Washington lived. Nor Plato or any other figure.
The true treat thinkers (e.g., physicists, not mere philosophers) were not exactly against religion.
One very good book on this is “Quantum Questions” edited by Ken Wilber. Check out some of the philosophical writing of some of the greats of quantum physics who appear to have much more ability to think in terms of philosophy (and even religion) than philosophers appear to have in terms of modern physics.
Oops, that’s “true great thinkers,” not “true treat thinkers.”
Sorry, my fingers had an Obamadork moment.
The thing that really disturbs me about the global warming true believers is that, beyond the science, they believe that humanity is harmful and has no right to be here.
I also can recommend a book entitled, “Does God Believe in Atheists?”. It does a great job of setting the stage going back to ancient times and how philosophical paradigms strongly influence what we would ordinarily consider “objective” research and analysis.
I don’t know about that. There have been some interesting scientific studies of the Shroud of Turin that strongly indicate that a supernatural event caused the image of Christ on the Shroud. These studies are explained in detail in the History Channel’s documentary “The Real Face of Jesus.”
I have been watching a british tv series on Netflix called “Primeval.” It is about time anomalies opening up and creatures from the past and future coming through them into modern times. Its a cool show and devoid of the usual PC and smut garbage pervading most tv shows.
In one of the episodes a woman who believes that humans are evil goes back in time to try and kill the first humans so as to prevent mankind from ever spreading across the globe.
Of course not, but maybe some skeptics might see that evidence and cause them to re-think their skepticism. The bodily resurrection of Christ as a historical fact is also supported by the 500 witnesses who saw the resurrected Christ after his death, and of course, by the fact that the Apostles were willing to be martyred in the most painful and gruesome ways. They would not have done that for a hallucination.
Christianity is a religion based on historical facts that can be investigated. This is the foundation of all Christian apologetics.
The great thing about the show is that she is the villain. Cool!
If science could provide convincing evidence for God then faith wouldn’t be needed. Faith is the evidence of things unseen and without faith it is impossible to please God. God wants us to have faith and to seek him. He doesn’t say HERE I AM, NO NEED TO SEEK.
Science is a tool, a mechanism. Saying science is godless makes about as much sense as saying a hammer or computer program is godless.
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