Yes. But Christians do not believe inanimate objects have spirit, or everything has a spirit or soul. That is pantheism.
Rejection of materialistic philosophy Is not the issue with Sheldrake. It is the rejection of materialistic science.
Christians are fine with materialistic science. It comes from our world view as set forth in Biblical understandings. Christianity gave birth to materialistic science.
It is science, not philosophy or religion.
I know there is a new trend toward using science as a materialistic philosophy, which is a conflation - purposeful to my mind - by the likes of Richard Dawkins and acolytes.
I think you are responding to that. But Sheldrake is not any sort of guard or opposition to the New Atheism, but rather a competing brand.
I didn't say that I believed everything has a spirit, I didn't even say whether or not I agreed with him — just that it sounded like he was questioning the materialistic philosophy.
Rejection of materialistic philosophy Is not the issue with Sheldrake. It is the rejection of materialistic science.
Christians are fine with materialistic science. It comes from our world view as set forth in Biblical understandings. Christianity gave birth to materialistic science.
It is science, not philosophy or religion.
And, in about the first eight minutes he's addressing this: many people treat science as a religion.
Many people embrace the materialist philosophy in the name of science
as a portion of their religion.
I know there is a new trend toward using science as a materialistic philosophy, which is a conflation - purposeful to my mind - by the likes of Richard Dawkins and acolytes.
I think you are responding to that. But Sheldrake is not any sort of guard or opposition to the New Atheism, but rather a competing brand.
I think we're in agreement: there has bee a purposeful conflation of science/materialism/atheism.
Christians should not be “fine with materialistic science”. That position denies the existence of our creator, God. They posit that there is no spiritual world and work overtime to build models which obscure the evidence of His existence.
I would suggest this video:
http://www.meta-library.net/cosmcrea/newcosm-frame.html
Stephen Myer gives a history of cosmology and how Einstein and Hubble concluded that the conjecture of an infinite universe is wrong. He also talks about how scientists railed against that finding since it left them unable to exclude the possibility of a created universe.
Good post!!
I’d add: Science doesn’t do “God”. Among the base assumptions of science is methodological naturalism. That is, material effects must have material causes. The methods of science simply do not work otherwise. Supernatural causes cannot be falsified, they do not follow natural laws. God can’t be limited to following the lakes of nature. Science by design must be agnostic, not atheistic but agnostic. Questions outside the realm of science, in addition to the existence of God, include values, aesthetics and moral judgements.