Science and Religion: Final Exam

Joseph Angel-Field
Satchmojoe@yahoo.com
http://puppyj.blogspot.com
Movie:You can’t blame the youth, made it on windows movie maker (admittedly a little more difficult than it ought to have been), got pictures on the internet and used inspiration from a songs lyrics, and the ideas of scholars we had used in class, namely Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins. You can find the movie below on the blog, and on both youtube and google videos.
Attendance:I really only missed classes when I was excused (beach band travel to the Big West Tournament in Anaheim) and when I was in Italy after spring break (which I’m not sure if you excused). I really tried to make it to all of your classes, and on time. If I was tardy it was only once or twice by a couple of minutes, though once in the past couple of weeks I was about 30 minutes late because I was swamped with work in yours and other classes as well as under the weather.
Midterm Grade: you said I was on “the ‘A’ track.”
Posts: http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/sciencereligion/msearch?date=any&DM=------------&DD=----&DY=----&DM2=------------&DD2=----&DY2=----&AM=contains&AT=satchmojoe&SM=contains&ST=&MM=contains&MT=&charset=utf-8

1. I read (or listened to) The God Delusion (don’t recommend it to future classes cause it was hard to quote it in the midterm without having it written). I read The Language of God. I read the Antichrist. I read 1/3 – ½ of Mere Christianity. I read The Pleasure of Finding Things Out with the exception of a couple chapters that didn’t seem relevant to course material. I skimmed a couple of chapters of Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. If I could make a criticism, I think your workload was a bit unreasonable (though I recognize this is an upper-division course), and if your intent was for us to skim the books, you should let us know, that would’ve helped out. Even more helpful would be to whittle down the readings to some important excerpts.
2. Hmm, Mere Christianity was a great exploration of philosophy. The Antichrist was a little abrasive, but terrifically interesting, and provided a good insight on a different worldview. The Language of God, had problems: too much about Collins, commenting outside his scope on the validity of the gospels, etc. I think however that the thesis of The Language of God, of Biologos, was a very satisfying and plausible model for life. Although Dawkins was a bit aggravating and abrasive with his arguments against religion, his book was very good, as it provided the sort of paradigm shift that I love so much. Although he may or may not be right, providing people with an opposing idea that might open the mind is a noble cause, and it is clear in an age with growing fundamentalism that opened minds are increasingly necessary. Unfortunately, Dawkins tends to become a little fundamental himself. As is it is easy to see, The God Delusion is a campaign by Dawkins for Atheism. Although I might disagree with his purpose, I can understand the cause, even necessity, for his campaign, and I think he did a good job with it. Upon reading Feynman, I decided my favorite book would probably be a tie between Feynman’s and Dawkins. Feynman does a great job of explaining his scientific worldview through witty anecdotes and poignant analogies. His worldview can be used to explain a lot about life, and although I don’t completely fall in with Feynman’s views, I can see that he changed the way I think in a way that I see as positive.
3. The transvaluation of values is in Nietzsche’s words, “[when] the concepts "true" and "false" are forced to change places.” He refers to transvaluation in his critique of Christianity in The Antichrist, as a downward transvaluation, calling bad things “good,” and good things “bad.” It is important to keep in mind Nietzsche’s peculiar worldview about evolutionary morals, whatever is good for life and survival is good, and whatever is weakening or deadly to humankind is evil. In general the movement is from the mediocre majority to make it feel powerful by making its “lower” values transvaluated upwards. When you think of moral and values as connected, you realize that there is a ever shifting system of power according to the transvaluation cycle of what gets the moral upperhand.
4. The ultimate moral value is the ultimate cliché, “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” The infamous golden rule is sometimes phrased on the opposite, like in the Confucian idea of not doing to others, as you wouldn’t have them do to you. It has been popularized as the ultimate moral value and proliferated through direct and unconscious means across world religion and philosophies. We will invoke the ideas of Friederich Nietzsche as we say, ‘What if: the golden rule is actually bad?’ But we must really consider the possibility that the golden rule is an equalizer of an innately stratified society that cannot have equality. Once again we can see that Nietzsche’s worldview is a radical one, even if not a negative one. In his world equality is not equality, life is a fight, dog eat dog, with natural castes as a part of cosmic law.
5. In short, Bertrand Russell is not a Christian, because in his eyes the Christian “God” is appalling. He cites the Old and New Testaments and Christian doctrine as evidence that the God, the Christ, and the religion that follows are appalling and generally negative. Christianity harbors fear, excludes itself, retards progress, and above all is morally wicked. Bertrand feels that anybody who buys into a notion of “eternal damnation” is essentially damaged goods, or just wrong.
6. C.S. Lewis’ argument for Christianity is founded on a core belief in the Moral Law as a true, tangible, and absolute thing. Lewis believes that the Moral Law represents a form that suggests, or points to the existence of a God. Lewis also makes an argument based on his proposed “god-shaped void,” an innate natural void in human beings for a higher power. His analogy is that we crave sex and sex assists, just like we crave food and nourishment exists, and it would follow that a “god-shaped void” would point to the existence of a god. This is of course is an a priori argument, in that you have to believe the premise of a “god-shaped void” to follow his rationality to God’s existence. Lewis’ less unique argument is the claim that the human conscious mind, and the universe were all just too amazing and special to be only natural selection.
7. The theory of evolution by means of natural selection as manifested in nature, written by Darwin and constantly confirmed and improved by science is a set of glasses through which one can look at all rational things. Through the frame of evolution it is easy to see that the human questioning mind is an improvement on life that helps our mind observe the world and learn to interact with it. Science, when functioning properly, observes the manner of the nature of the world, and helps (for our purposes we will limit it to) humans to survive. In Lane’s three-layered model for the human mind, science helps fulfill the needs and duties of the rational mind. It follows that religion came as a response to the transrational level. It is true that over time religion has been misused in the rational or pre-rational realms, but in its true and pure form, as we are also assuming with scientific rationality, religion was originally meant to be an approach to what was beyond reality. In their innate forms, science exists where religion should not, and religion exists where science should not.
8. Richard Feynman’s warning of cargo cult science is explicit in examples it gives, suggesting that there needs to exist an honesty, an integrity, almost a moral code for science. He also makes sure to point out that this expectation is no difficult, restrictive, “bending over backwards,” just a conventional, proper way to live. It is easy to deduce that this sort of open-mindedness, but mostly the lack thereof, is the root of the downfall of religion, just put into words through the of a shaman of science (bad analogy). One of his examples is sociology and such “pseudosciences,” in his words or, “soft sciences,” in the words of others. We will examine here for example the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Although he was presenting an idea that sounded scientific, he was not examining with the sort of sincerity that Feynman understands as being necessary to science. Freud never considered other possible explanations for the sort of results he was observing, sticking rather to explain the ideas that he believed, and therefore favored. Religion, at least in the mind of some scientists, can and should be held up to this form of inquiry. For instance, the idea of miracles makes them at first to be a scientifically observed thing, but we realize that no effort of integrity or the subject to change nature is used in retelling and selling miracles. In the story of the Guru with wax under the fingernails as an example of miracles, we see that the Guru is being dishonest about the causes of his miracle, and the audience to his miracle is to some degree fooling itself, in ignoring alternate explanations once the mind is made up on the “truer,” or favored explanation. The third example is a myth we have heard in our elementary years, and one that was actually a held superstition at some points, that the moon was made of cheese. From where we stand, the moon has randomly strewn holes on a glowing white orb, and we say, “well I’ve seen round balls of cheese with holes in it, just like that.” We don’t bother thinking about all the other things that look similar to cheese that might be the actual matter of the moon. And this is the trap of cargo cult science; we make assumptions that we have completed a definition of reality or the true explanation, ignoring the ever-changing nature of evidence-based rationality. This really captures Feynman’s attitude towards science in general, that it is a responsibility towards the human mind to use the complete functionality of the mind to inquire and control itself to be completely rational towards everything.
9. In the philosophical frame, normative science includes “aesthetic, ethics, and logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_science).” Normative simply means the norm, or accepted way. Normative is sort of like proto-religion, and every follower of science follows the norm to a different degree. Richard Feynman’s view of science fits into normative science to a certain degree. He believes that rational inquiry leads to an expansion of the mind and nature of human beings, individually and socially. But as discussed above, he wants to keep up a norm against the “cargo cult science.” This scientific moral code also acts in the way that religion would dictate proper behavior to people like Francis Collins. It is this culmination of ideas about interpersonal relating and relating to other “selfs,” that completes Feynman’s scientific worldview. As scientists, Feynman says, “We are at the very beginning of time for the human race,” appealing to the idea that humans are only now reaching their wholeness through scientific rationality. Feynman feels that the ideally scientific man is never sure; he only sees possibilities and probabilities.
10. Intelligent design as an umbrella term, characterizes a range of ideas from a creationist universe directly designed by a divine creator in 6 days 6 thousand years ago, to a view that combines evolutionary science with a “god of the gaps.” Richard Feynman’s issue with this would be, something that Richard Dawkins has repeated, that these a priori arguments assume that the premises are true, a cycle that depends on a lack of evidence. Feynman believes that doubt is the highest virtue of rational mindfulness, and one must explore alternate explanations, rather than assuming a favored response that overshadows results and necessary experimentation. It leads us back to the cargo cult science, a deficient science, which forces a true science of rationality and inquisition.
11. Simply, from the worldview of atheism, religion is wrong, and atheism is superior and truer than religious thought. If one sees religion as a bound, a limitation on life and one’s perception of life and reality, then atheism is seen as liberation. For Dawkins, whose rational worldview is so overarching, atheism makes him feel intellectually superior to religious points of view, which he simply deems as unsatisfactorily intelligent. The best analogy is the platonic model of reality. If man in his natural state, is bonded inside an enclosed cave with higher figures mysteriously imposing reality on the wall before us, then there is a dichotomy between the limited cave reality, and the unconditioned reality which exists as a true world outside the cave, with trees and bushes that aren’t merely conventional designs suggesting trees and bushes, but actual “real” trees and bushes. In the platonic point of view, the atheist feels that religion is the bondage and shadow images on the wall. It is hard to generalize what the unconditioned reality is; for some atheists life is unconditioned reality, but without religion it is without restrictive limits; for others unconditioned reality is scientific rationality, simplifying all reality, and believing that higher reality is not SUPERnatural, just natural (in a almost supernatural way? It gets complicated). It comes to that all-important question, do you think this world, this life, this existence, is “it?” Or might there be something more?
12. Professor Lane’s aforementioned three-rational levels of the human mind is an ideal analogy to express how he believes Religion can, “survive the onslaught of reason.” If we equate reason with rationality, then we see that on the one hand lies pre-rationality, and on the other hand lays post or trans-rationality. Lane perceives religion undergoing an attack of scientific rationality, and resorting in defense to rationality and pre-rationality. It brings to mind the Buddhist model of the finger pointing to the moon, the pointing finger acting as a conventional design. Science works with conventional designs, depends on them, like time and space, but religion must be the moon, the “above.”
13. Pierre Laplace is famous for having said that he had no need for the hypothesis of religion (http://www.tothesource.org/5_1_2007/5_1_2007.htm). This is like what I was discussing at the end of question 11, that for some people life as we know it can be complete without anything outside of our consciousness. This is the sort of trend suggested by atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, however, argues this point even further; god is not only unnecessary but also a negative thing. I will point it out here, that I feel like it is not difficult to rally a good set of arguments for and against both religion and science, operating on the sort of models like Lane’s, or Gould’s NOMA, or Collins’ BioLogos. That said, an intelligent man like Hitchens would mount an attack like God is not Great with emotion. Hitchens confessed in a radio interview that his book was arising out of frustration with the growth of religious orthodoxy, saying, “enough! (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/1919949.htm)” Hitchens has no problem arguing against conventional designs of rational or pre-rational religion, proving that the “great god” that man has put in his scriptures and doctrines is faulty, and simply not great. He, however, runs conspicuously into the problem that lies in all science religion battles, that they should operate in immunity from the other. Although many faults can be pointed out with religion as it exists, one will have difficulty attacking “the beyond,” the Tao, whatever cosmic life force made existence possible and exists as the absolute unconditioned truth. It is frustrating for scientists, and hence the cause of books like God is not Great and Dawkins’ The God Delusion, that religion has been clashing with science, creating unnecessary problems. The battle between science and religion is most definitely a man made illusion like Francis Collins and I believe.
14. Fundamentalist religion refers to “strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist).” Fundamentalism essentially refers to orthodoxy, and sometimes can be poised opposite the open-minded mystical approach to religion. The reason evolution is a contentious issue for fundamentalists, is simply because it is not written in. A fundamentalist depends on all of their scripture and doctrine to be right; otherwise it breaks down their strong religious foundation. Because evolution was not written in, and actually defies a literal interpretation of the scripture of ancient religions, evolution lies in opposition to religious ideas about the creation of life on earth. In the battle between science and religion, evolutionary science also threatens fundamentalist religion that believes it will lead towards atheism. For people who combine evolutionary thought and creationism, advances in science continue to chase away god from evolutionary “gaps.” If religion is dependent on ancient scriptures and a literalist translation of them, then evolutionary science will lead to atheism, and will succeed.
15. As we have discussed time and time again in this course, religion can only flourish if it operates on a transrational level. Science will help religion in a “tough love” sort of way, forcing religion to be transrational, by disproving religion in rational and pre-rational realms. Science through its exploration and inquiry will lead to a more awe-inspired view of life, the kind of awe that makes one adore life on a concscious level and can lead to a “higher” consciousness. Like Collins’ BioLogos, science will help contribute to a complete worldview by helping to understand our nature and the nature around us. If science learns more about human consciousness and the human mind, it will probably help to understand religion and adjust unconditioned and altered states.
16. Most importantly, a belief in the unconditioned, whether a god, or enlightenment, or cosmic law, helps one to set a standard for what a positive and moral life is personally, and with interaction to others. Religion is simply an eye for the “beyond,” and will continue to be a positive thing for any one who needs, wants, or is interested in the beyond. It leads us to a similar conclusion to Gould’s NOMA, science will aid religion in realms that religion cannot reach, and religion will do the same for science in the realm of the beyond.
17. In the first chapter of Paramhansa Yogananda’s autobiography he refers to a miracle, where at his sister’s doubting he would both make a boil on her arm double in size and a new boil would appear on him, “by the power of will…(http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/ay/1.html)” Such medical “miracles” are particularly impressive and also particularly hard to rationalize. In this example we don’t even have any sort of first-hand evidence like photographs or medical records. If we grant that he really did double the size of a boil and made another appear, then we must look at his premise that it was caused by his will power. With will power he hit the nail on the head. We don’t know much about functions and abilities of the human mind, but we are well aware of its tremendous ability to control and alter the body, so it would not be far-fetched to believe that his mind, as well as the mind of his sister, worked together to create a phenomenal effect. In class we discussed a “miracle” of creating scents from one’s fingers, and although this one has a more scientific explanation, about the trickery of melting waxes under fingernails, the mental aspect still exists in the mind of the believer. Skepticism, like belief, all results from mental effects. If one has a skeptical frame, then it would be extremely difficult to get them to budge on their opinions, and show them something that would be a ‘miracle.’ For the believer, however, it is an irrational open-mindedness that helps the believer sees ‘miracles’ in natural phenomena and human trickery. Miracles DO happen, both naturally and supernaturally, and it is up to our limited psyche to organize and decide about them.
18. Before I proceed to contravene the requirements for this question, let me explain why I have not chosen a historical episode, but rather the modern day clash of science and religion. I feel like my options for historical periods are limited to evolution vs. creationism, and Galileo’s confrontation with the church. Realistically, science and religion clash on a constant basis, as society’s Zeitgeist shifts, science and religion are put back in the arena with a new grudge and new weapons and proceed to fight it out again. However, for a 600-word research paper, I feel like I’d pretty much be stuck to the two aforementioned episodes. Choosing the modern era, I feel, gives me a chance to sum up what I have learned in this class, as this class has been both a pawn in the modern-day battle, as well as a lens with which to look at it. It will also be a good way to unify my thoughts on science and religion, and will be a last chance to convey my thoughts, propose my model, and try to reconcile science and religion. It will provide me some help and some hurdles that I have chosen to examine a period I live within. Still, it is a necessary examination of a growing schism between science and religion, within the individual, and in context of the individual’s interaction with the world. We can let this growing battle become history, and examine it in hindsight, or we can look at it now and try to improve it now.
I am going to begin this examination of the battle, not by proposing that one party or the other started it, but merely proposing that fundamentalist religion is the most difficult view in this spectrum. In the Islamic world, fundamentalism has come in the form of suicide bombs, bomb-strapped baby, and terrorism in general. This was never the fundamental intent of Islam, merely bastardization by certain fundamentalist Muslims. Fundamentalism in Christianity has also resulted in terrorism, for instance the bombing of abortion clinics. Fundamentalist Christianity has always resembled other movements of radical ideas, like the Ku Klux Klan and other similar organizations. Fundamental Christianity is also probably the single most direct cause of the growing schism between science and religion. Dawkins has proposed that Christian fundamentalism is the greatest form of child abuse, raising children to live in fear, ignorance, and close-mindedness. It is also important, however, to note that Dawkins wants to fuel this schism by insisting that religious people should be fundamentalists. Because fundamentalism exists in different religions, it is surprising the sort of unity they have on issues of things like dietary restrictions, sexual restrictions, taboo of homosexuality, opposition to birth control, literal interpretation of scripture. The results of fundamentalism range from terrorism to a general close-mindedness. The latter is the issue that is both the cause and the effect of fundamental religion.
On the other seat of the see-saw lie science, scientism, materialism, evolution, and rationality. Religious fundamentalism is accused, by Dawkins and other atheistic scientists, as the environment that gave rise to the growing scientific rationality in the 21st century. It is important to differentiate, however, between atheism and scientific rationality. Scientific rationality is really the result of a huge expanse of scientific discovery over the past couple of centuries. We have learned so much to bring our minds from a naïve, unaware state, to a knowledgeable scientific existence. Fundamental religion does not work in this environment because fundamentalists are not open to changing their ideas. This has resulted in backlashes like the Scopes Monkey Trial, or Galileo’s episode with the church, or the bombing of abortion clinics. The growing belief in creationism, and the instilling of the creationist view on children is truly the hot-button topic for the scientific debate in the modern day. We can see this in books like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which is truly a campaign against religion, based on evolutionary science. Richard Dawkins is a scientist whose worldview is completely focused on evolution, and in his latest book, he has put more effort and more bluntness in trying to spread his view, just like the religious virus, or meme, he describes. Francis Collins, a Christian scientist, who is deeply involved in the discussion of evolution with his work on the Human Genome Project, uses this position to try to boost religion, while he must use the backside of his argument to condemn religious fundamentalism and the irrational belief in creationism. Agnostics, Richard Dawkins postulates, are polite Atheists. The growing population of Atheists and Agnostics represents a shift in values; where Atheism was once unacceptable, it is now becoming quickly more acceptable, possibly even more tenable than religion in some settings. Richard Feynman points out in his arguments about scientific education and cargo cult science, that science is prone to the same, or similar mistakes of close-mindedness and dishonesty as religion.
The shifting Zeitgeist has made it acceptable to talk about religion and science in social settings where it once was unheard of. As religion and science have come to the forefront of the human psyche, a polarization has appeared and directed them in opposite directions, religion more and more toward fundamentalism, and science more and more towards scientific rationality, even sometimes to the point of scientific fundamentalism. In the middle lies the confused individual with battling ideas in his or her mind. How can this cultural and personal conflict be avoided? There are many ideas about this, from Gould’s NOMA, to Collins’ BioLogos. It is not difficult to reconcile these ideas into a cohesive worldview, but what it requires is an open-mind, and ample research and experience. Science has obviously proved its usefulness in explaining the rational universe and even being applied for human benefits. For Feynman, the void of morals in science need not exist, for Collins it insists on religious morals. Religion has a harder job ahead of it, to sell itself to open-minded worldview that accepts both science and religion. Religion must first prove to individuals, that there is more to this universe than can be perceived or understood by our senses and science. Religion, after proving that there is more to this existence, must prove as well that it is the satisfactory means for approaching the unconditioned reality. Richard Feynman’s opposition to philosophy and religion represents a reluctance to follow his own ideas about open-mindedness. Feynman’s ideas, however, are the most satisfying in light of what we are talking about. Our minds must always be opened and inquisitive about things around us, but in Wilber’s model, this includes an exploration of mystical and philosophical dimensions. Whether these dimensions are real or not, it is not difficult to open the mind to them and explore them. Richard Feynman believes philosophy should be able to laugh at itself, and I would say that all of human existence and all realms of thought should be able to exhibit a certain playful open-minded enjoyment about everything. The study of religion, I will conclude, is a valuable exploration of a realm that cannot be reached by science, and this is why our school has a religious studies department, and a course in science and religion. (information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_religion, Lane’s class and class materials)
19. Mystical religion can mean a broad range of things. Mystical religion in some contexts is a deviation from normal life, like asceticism or sexual experimentation. In other contexts mysticism can be a sort of philosophy where whatever unconditioned reality exists in the universe, exists in some form within the individual and can be attained through practices of the mind and body. Ken Wilber is an individual whose worldview is mystical and who has campaigned a lot for mysticism. Let us then, clarify Wilber’s argument about mystical religion in regards to a scientific age. For starters, Wilber feels science is being practiced in the wrong, “narrow,” way. Wilber feels that ideally science will expand from stimuli of the 5 senses, into deeper levels of consciousness. As we have already discussed, an idea that is clearly agreed upon by most of the authors we have read as well as our professor, is that the opposite of mystical religion, what I will call fundamentalism, is easily toppled by science. Wilber’s “pre/trans fallacy,” resembles Lane’s model of the three states of rationality. Wilber proposes that religion and science and expand into transrational dimensions, including evidence from logic, symbolic, hermeneutical and other levels of consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber). It is a strong argument, if your frame is one of mysticism. If you buy into philosophy, and think it valuable to your life and the life of others, then Ken Wilber’s model of trans-rationality, of broadening science and religion makes a lot of sense. He is right in saying that if both religion and science broadened their views they could both exist more purely. However, Dawkins chides, “There’s this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out.” For rationalists the universe that our senses show to us is enough, they have no need for the hypothesis of something higher if their senses don’t even provide the means to see the higher. It leads us back to the epistemological, existential, philosophical question: “what is real? What is ultimate?”
20. William Paley’s argument was for many, including Darwin, convincing philosophical evidence for intelligent design. The inference often goes, if you see a complex creation, you must assume it had a complex creator. What Stephen Wolfram discovered with his work on cellular automata, is that with simple lines of programming, could lead to incomprehensible complexity. So suddenly rather than a complex creator for a complex result, we have a simple, non-intelligent creator for a complex result. This lead to Stephen Wolfram’s complexity theory, that infinitely complex systems can be the result of simple computations. If one is to expand this to the universe, the suggestion is that perhaps some infinitely simple, natural equation set up all the complexity and mystery of the cosmos and life within it. There are two issues with this argument. For starters, I think perhaps Paley’s watch argument is taking too literally. Rather than looking at a watch, lets look at a human being. Rather than saying he is complex, we will use a vague word like, divine. If this man is “divine,” Stephen Wolfram’s theory does not really address the possibility of a divine creator. Stephen Wolfram’s theory does not really conclude a simple design to the universe, only makes the suggestion that it need not necessarily be complex because its result is. The other problem is with overusing Stephen Wolfram’s complexity theory. We cannot say for a fact that his theory is true, much less that it applies to something as big as the universe. And if we assumed he was right and the whole universe was the result of some mathematical program, how does that preclude the divinity of that program?

You can't blame the youth

The midterm, finally

1.Joseph Angel-Field

2.satchmojoe

3. http://puppyj.blogspot.com/

4.I would say that I have only missed one or two classes and when I did it was excused for a school activity (pep band). I also missed two classes directly following spring break because I was in Italy. I discussed this with Professor Lane, but I am not sure whether these qualify as excused or not.

5. http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/sciencereligion/msearch?date=any&DM=------------&DD=----&DY=----&DM2=------------&DD2=----&DY2=----&AM=contains&AT=satchmojoe&SM=contains&ST=&MM=contains&MT=&charset=utf-8

6. UGH, working on it.

7. I read (or listened to) The God Delusion (don’t recommend it to future classes cause it was hard to quote it in the midterm without having it written). I read The Language of God. I read the Antichrist. I read 1/3 – ½ of Mere Christianity. I didn’t read the other 2 online books, sorry.

8. Francis Collins, a brilliant scientist who lead the public Human Genome Project converted to Christianity, from an Atheism that he describes as, in C.S. Lewis’ words, “willful blindness.” In Collins’ book, The Language of God, Collins intends to show the way that he culminated a, “richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews.(pg.6)” Collins’ arguments for God are keyed namely on Lewis’ argument about the Moral Law being evidence for God, and that the “God-shaped vacuum” in his life and the life of many other religious individuals as a, “pointer to something beyond us.(pg.38)” Richard Dawkins supports the idea that Moral Law can be an evolutionary development in human nature. His argument is that Moral Law is much like a vestigial organ, which was appropriate when our ancestors lived in small groups amongst family with the same genes and extended families who would reciprocate the deeds. Moral Law would have acted to further the common genes. Dawkins analogizes it with sexual lust, where it would have acted in the past to further human genes, in the present day sex with contraceptives denies the evolutionary purpose. Although Moral Law had an evolutionary purpose, Dawkins argues that it is malfunctioning and unnecessary in modern society (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-7,00.html). Dawkins also makes the argument in his book The God Delusion, that religion need not be the backbone for Moral Law. “Why not cut out the middle man,” he offers, “and go straight for the moral choice without religion? (pg.57)” To Collins’ argument about a void for God, Dawkins would reply as he often does, “it could be any of a million gods.(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-6,00.html ).” The argument for a void is not a convincing one, and could fit into Dawkins’ argument as God as a delusion, as humans often crave things that are unreal or even harmful to themselves. Also, why do some people feel a void for a supernatural God, while others like Dawkins, feel no such void? God fitting a void would be much like the “God of the gaps” that both Collins and Dawkins argue against in there books. Dawkins proposes that, “a proper understanding of the magnificence of the real world, while never becoming a religion, can fill the inspirational role that religion has historically – and inadequately – usurped.(pg.3)” He would point out that as soon as the supposed innate void for the supernatural could be filled, in nature by evolution, by evolutionary or direct morals as proposed above, and other ways, the need for a God would cease to exist.

9. Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, is an elaborate argument against the existence of a theistic God, and against popular monotheism as it exists. His book is a series of “consciousness-raisers” to help the reader see why atheism is tenable, moreso than religion. On the side of religion, Richard Dawkins states that, “the argument from improbability is the big one.(pg.113)” Being an expert in evolution, Richard Dawkins shows how Darwinian natural selection defies the improbability argument for a god, and, “raises our consciousness in areas outside its original territory of biology.” Dawkins states confidently, “the factual premise of religion – The God Hypothesis – is untenable. God almost certainly doesn’t exist. (pg.158)” Dawkins’ argument seems to be rooted in an anger that religion has interfered in the realm of science, a realm which Francis Collins argues, cannot touch the realm of God. Dawkins regularly argues that the existence of god is of paramount importance, and he adds, “I think that it is a scientific question.(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-3,00.html)” It is here that we run into our greatest difficulty between Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould’s “Non-Overlapping Magisteria”, and Francis Collins’, “richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews.(pg.6, The Language of God)” The best way to approach this divide is to use Collins’ model of worldviews. Collins’ worldview he calls BioLogos (Greek for life-word=godlife), and says, “Biologos expresses the belief that God is the source of all life and that life expresses the will of God.(203)” He believes in rational scientific endeavors, but also believes in a god who exists outside of nature and natural laws. God in his mind exists outside of time, and therefore set in motion the big bang, and exists at all times in the universe. Like Gould, Collins concludes, “science can not be used to justify discounting…religions.(169)” Collins argues, in the name of Bayes Theorem, “for the committed materialist, no allowance can be permitted for the possibility of miracles in the first place.(pg.50)” In the interview with Times, Collins points out again, that Dawkins presumption of the supernatural is zero. Collins’ worldview is not that science and religion are separate realms, but rather, complementary worldviews that help him operate in the world. Although Dawkins grants in his book, “we can all agree that science’s entitlement to advise us is problematic, to say the least,” he contends how can religion contribute to the Moral discussion with, “the fact that it has nothing else to contribute to human wisdom.(pg.56)” This, of course contradicts his arugment later in his book that, “an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible and other sacred books out of our education,” something he goes on to call a “treasure heritage.(pg.344)” This is not Collins argument, just a weakness I found in The God Delusion. Neither of these two men buy into NOMA, and yet both have to reconcile spiritual and scientific worldviews in their life. The significant difference is that Collins’ overarching belief is that in God, so that his scientific worldview is still rooted in a belief in a supernatural God of everything. For Richard Dawkins, science and evolution is his overarching worldview, so that he must put any supernatural deity into his worldview of science and comes up with Atheism as his only choice. Collins puts it eloquently, “the God of the Bible is also the God of the genome.” He accurately points out that any battle between science and religion is futile, and as humans started such battles, “only we can end them.(pg.211)”

10. Littlewood’s theory of large numbers shows that with a gigantic set of possibilities, a small amount of extraordinary events is bound to occur merely by chance. The hypothetical monkeys on typewriters, given an infinitely large amount of monkeys and an infinitely large amount of time, infinite complexity like the complete works of Shakespeare or the Bible is bound to arise in the frame of Littlewood’s theory. In the context of one’s life, amidst a huge amount of insignificant events, seemingly miraculous or “divine” events are bound to arise on occasion. Chance and coincidence fully capture the causation of such events, but when our miracles are compared to everyday insignificances, they appear to be too miraculous to be the result of chance. We ignore the humongous number of times our lotto ticket amounted to one-dollar-less in our pocket when we finally win one jackpot, something IFTF calls flawed logical perception (http://future.iftf.org/2004/09/littlewoods_law.html). When we believe that a miracle is like this is a result of prayer, we must remember the great number of people who probably prayed for this event to occur to them in vain, posits Francis Collins, a believer (Language of God, pg. 52). It is however a problem to call Littlewood’s theory a law, as it cannot be absolutely applied as an explanation for all extraordinary phenomena, it is merely a standard by which miracles and everyday life can be evaluated and compared by.

11. Pseudosciences are, as the name suggests, is a false science. This is not to say that every pseudoscience is wrong, but rather that the claims that they are scientific are false, as they do not measure up to the scientific method. Sometimes a pseudoscience simply cannot be tested scientifically, as in the example of super-string theory. Pseudosciences are, like all sciences, on a theoretical level, just explanations for things in life. People turn to them to explain things in the world in a way that they see fit, or perhaps explain things that science cannot explain, or has not explained satisfactorily to the believer. When applied, a pseudoscience becomes more questionable as it makes decisions with a lack of rationality. In these cases, the believer is looking for changes and actions that sound scientific, but are outside the rules and boundaries of science.

Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor is a standard by which multiple explanations are measured up to one another. The hypothesis is that the simplest answer is the one that makes the fewest assumptions and depends on the smallest amount of hypothetical causes. According to the Razor, the best answer is the simplest one that shaves off the aforementioned. (Wikipedia – Occam’s Razor)

Astrology is a popular example of a pseudoscience, shrugged off by many and followed by many others. Astrology is a study of galactic bodies and how they effect the lives of human beings based on their positions. Astrology has a foundation in science where it was once linked with astronomy. Astrology accurately charts the courses of planets of stars. Astrology’s biggest assumption is in the belief that celestial bodies will directly effect the events in one’s life on earth, and that it will effect everyone born within a certain grouping of birth times in the same way. The latter provides for the most amusing assumption of astrology, as a 19 year old like myself might look at a star reading for the month, and hear lots of advice on what to do with my job (I don’t have one), my wife (I don’t have one), my finances (I don’t really have any), and so on. If one day a link between celestial bodies and human life could be substantiated scientifically, astrology would no longer be dependant on hypothetical circumstances and would pass the test of Occam’s Razor.

Super-string theory is a new idea in scientific thought trying to shift ideas about fundamental physics to change ideas about quantum physics and dimensionality. Thus far, no scientific tests have been created to test the theories of super-string. On the small level the theory suggests that particles are not 0-dimensional points but rather 1-dimensional “strings” extending infinitely. On a larger level the theory tells us that there are a multitude of extra-perceptional dimensions existing in other universes. Since this theory cannot be disproved it can claim to be theoretical science, but the only proof for the theory comes in assuming that the theory is valid. If we use the Razor to shave off assumptions, we break down the complete theory on its level. Until the hypotheses of super-string theory can be tested, it will have to remain a pseudoscience.

Occam’s Razor can effectively rationalize and measure the validity of things both theoretical and applied that claim to be science. Occam’s Razor will never be able, nor try, to disprove any pseudoscience, but will rather point us in the direction of rationality allowing the critical thinker to see what is believable and what is far-fetched.

12. Darwinian evolution is both a simple and complex concept about how life on earth has shaped and changed and grown. Richard Dawkins reduces it to one sentence: “the non-random survival or randomly varying codes” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx5RsxHbiZg). Darwinian evolution depends on the fact of mutation in animal life, and a theory called natural selection, sometimes called “survival of the fittest”. As exact as DNA replication can be, we know and see on a regular basis, examples of small mutations that affect an individual. We can call this a result of the same chance as Littlewood’s law of small numbers. While most mutations can be a one time occurrence and quickly routed out at the death of the carrier of the mutation, certain mutations provide for an advantage to that animal. Survival of the fittest is often misconceived as a mutation that causes that creature to outlive its fellow species. This is not far from the truth, but the true factor here is what mutation is passed on to the most fertile offspring, who will be able to pass it on in turn. Sometimes a long life provides for more procreation, other times it will be a reproductive mutation, and sometimes it will be seemingly irrelevant to the process. Over a long period of time, on rare occasions there is a jump, these mutations will work into the species until eventually it becomes a normal characteristic of the species who has now changed and evolved. Darwinian evolution provides for events of chance in the universe, and basic laws of nature to determine the future of animals. This fills in a space where god once existed for people, as the creator of the universe and all the plants and animals on planet earth. The creation theory of popular monotheism (Judeo-christianity) provides for an earth that has been around for approximately 6000 years. Using only the theory of evolution, we see that the earth has been around for significantly longer to cause the amount of evolution that has occurred. In creationism, god specifically planned out all the animals on the earth and put them on the earth as we see them, but the evidence shows that every creature has evolved leaps and bounds from its origins, which probably lied in countless ancestor species that lie before it. Atheism has many definitions and varieties, but is simply a lack of belief in a god or gods as described by the many religions of the world. Atheism does not, generally, outright reject god, but simply states that the lack of evidence for such a being is conspicuously unavailable. Henry Drummond coined the term “god of the gaps” to refer to the believers who put god in a realm above the explanations of science. As more and more explanations exist for nature, god’s role as creator dwindles (Wikipedia – God of the gaps). Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion proposes a model for ethics and morals as a part of Darwinian evolution. Should this explanation be valid god and religion’s usefulness is significantly drawn away. As the science takes away god, atheism as a scientific stance of doubt becomes more tenable and more respectable. Although the world has not shown this shift in census, it is becoming clear that atheism is creeping into the rationale and worldview of many individuals who might call themselves religious.

13. A meme, a term coined by Richard Dawkins himself, is a “unit of cultural information” that passes on from one mind to another in a way similar to that of genetics passing from one life to the next. Dawkins’ theory says that a meme will be passed on, not according to its beneficence to the host mind, but like natural selection, according to its ability to replicate and spread effectively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_theory). He says in The God Delusion, “as with genes in a gene pool, the memes that prevail will be the ones that are good at getting themselves copied.(pg.196)” In his book, Dawkins describes Religion as a species, and points out that, “because Darwinian natural selection abhors waste, any ubiquitous feature of a species – such as religion – must have conferred some advantage or it wouldn’t have survived. (pg.191)” The mind’s “predilections and biases,” provide the background for memetic selection to occur. Dawkins sees religion as a viral meme, infecting minds in a negative way, and spreading rapidly through entire cultures. Religion begins as a set of simple memes, which, “survive by virtue of their universal appeal to human psychology.” The later stages of religions, he says, “are quite well handled by the theory of memeplexes – cartels of mutually compatible memes.(pg.201)” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_theory)argues that meme theory cannot be used to apply to “personal and intangible experiences.” Dawkins says that although, “organized religions are organized by people…the strong possibility remains that the detailed form of each religion has been largely shaped by unconscious evolution.(pg.200)” Where the Judeo-Christian religions have claimed to be the result of revelation from god, Dawkins would argue that certain memes were passed to the founders and developed into a memeplex and religion. Although they may claim to have had truths “revealed” to them, Dawkins would argue that their set of previously-held memes would set up an environment to accept, or possibly even catalyze (see Faqir chand’s sociological view of religion), the religious meme. Richard Dawkins is quoted on his website as saying, “the meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry. (http://richarddawkins.net/quotes)”

14. In a video on youtube, which I can no longer find, Richard Dawkins calls the question about god and god’s existence the most paramount question in the world. Working under this assumption, we can immediately shrug off the pacifist who wonders, “who cares?” or “why bother?” The problem with Richard Dawkins’ attack on god, is that it is a rational and scientific argument. It would only lead to an argument for one to say that god is beyond rationality and science, and yet it is the only way it can be approached. God need not exist in gaps, like places in evolution we don’t understand, or in the mysterious fuzziness of quantum physics. Looking at god must be seen like looking at an extra dimension, as described in the 1884 book Flatland. From a 2 dimensional perspective, one can only perceive things in 2 dimensions, and ventures into a theoretical world when postulating a 3^rd dimension. We live in a 4 dimensional world Albert Einstein tells us; 3 spatial dimensions, and 1 constant (or inconstant) dimension of time. From our perspective, how would we be able to comprehend a god who exists in no dimensions of space and time? Or a dimension of, for lack of a better word, godliness? Freeman Dyson says god can be thought of as, “mind beyond the scale of our comprehension.” The fact that Richard Dawkins is thinking and calculating god in our universe, means he is extremely limiting god. It is no wonder, then, that Richard Dawkins comes up with a 4 dimensional god that simply does not exist. It is a cyclical argument that will continue to be swallowed up in the fact that god is beyond our perception, so skeptics will scoff, and believers will believe. Richard Dawkins has done a very fine job of picking out all the problems with human religion, much as you’ll find flaws in all things human. If nothing else, god is simply an unflawed being that is inhuman.

15. It is difficult to deny the theory of evolution by natural selection as it has presented us. The only argument the “young-earth” creationists can provide to dispel evidence for evolution, is that god is merely fooling humans with this evidence. An interesting argument, but for the sake of rationality we will shrug off young earth creationism as, irrational. To argue for intelligent design to the universe requires a leap of faith. It has, thus far, been absolutely impossible to empirically prove an intelligent designer of the universe, as we know it. Therefore, to proceed to argue for an intelligent design, one uses philosophy and analogies, as is often the most rational way to proceed in such metaphysical realms. The anthropic idea is that our universe is extremely improbable, almost to insurmountable odds. At the macro level, because no evidence exists outside the scope of our universe, it is possible to place a god outside of our universe, and believe that god was responsible for fine-tuning the quantities that make our existence a reality. Collins has also proposed at this cosmic level of theory, that because time and space do not exist in science before the big bang, theology can place a god before the big bang, even as a creator of such an event. On the level of human beings, we have already postulated the validity of evolution by natural selection. It is easy to see that we evolved from apes that evolved from less and less evolved forms, going back to the primordial ooze, and back further to the random combining of atoms. The interesting thing to note about humans, however, is their conscious, rational mind, which has not shown concrete evidence as an evolved feature, and which often leads people to a supernatural god. God has often, of late, been placed in the gaps of evolution, that god might have caused the spark from the primordial ooze to life, or that god exists where fossil records don’t, or that god can be used to explain “irreducible complexity” in certain features of nature. We simply know that this is a faulty argument that leads to problems, and although we can perhaps say that the god of the cosmos might exist in a gap, this is a problem we will discuss later. Freeman Dyson made the argument, like Owen Gingerich, that the process of DNA replication which leads to mutation and eventually to natural selection, suggests a certain decision making model. Following this model, if we are able to make decisions, and cells are able to make decisions, then we can propose a logical third decision making force, which exists on the opposite side of us from cells. Theistic evolution has used the idea that, although the world may have evolved according to Darwin’s theory, a god may still be responsible for setting up the process of natural selection as we know it, even a timeless creator, like Collins suggests, that could foresee all the implications of the seemingly random process of evolution before it happens. The difference between, I will use Collins’ term, Biologos and a “god of the gaps,” is that of the gaps. Questions of theology as we have discussed previously, and will continue to discuss, in this midterm, are outside of the range of science. God can always exist in a gap that is unreachable by science, perhaps quantum weirdness, or before the big bang, or the anthropic principle. If science will be able to disprove it, then this is a gap that god will eventually be chased away from. The question becomes, what can and can’t science do?

Rather than re-explaining the complexities of our universe, and the simple scientific nature of evolution, we will use scientific theories here to provide a model where no intelligent designer exists. Although we have seen that the universe is extremely unlikely, probability theory has provided us an answer. Simply put, in a large enough number of chances, anything can happen. Yes, the age-old question of monkeys on typewriters comes to mind. Probability theory says that given enough time monkey and typewriters, eventually they will come up with Shakespeare’s complete works, or the Bible or The God Delusion, who knows? We do not know whether a multiverse exists, nor the expanse of time that may expand before the big bang and beyond the end of this universe, but we do know that science is not impressed by amazing complexity. Stephen Wolfram, with his work in cellular automata. He found that given a simple computer program, incomprehensible complexity was popular given enough time. If we said then, that in place of a god, a simple computer program existed that provided the complexities that made our universe exist, habitable to life, and eventually spawned us, it seems not so far-fetched. Although science has not reached all the answers of the universe, theoretical mathematics shows us that all of the most improbable things are possible just by – well, probability.

16. I will, first off, have to take a stance against the question; I do not necessarily think that Gould believes that science and religion can ‘get along.’ Gould’s idea of NOMA, is that science and religion are different realms of knowledge that exist in different planes. This is not like two subjects getting along, but two subjects coping with each one’s existence by living in separate rooms or on separate floors. Richard Dawkins, however, argues that religion and science do not exist in separate realms, and that religion should be subject to scientific criticism, as it has tried to use and manipulate and justify science. Francis Collins agrees with Gould in his book, The Language of God, quoting Gould as saying, “science can not be used to justify discounting…religions (pg.196).” He however says that NOMA, “sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-3,00.html).” Collins brings up this argument in his book, elaborating on the fact that he sees separating science and religion as an unsatisfactory way of reconciling the apparently opposing forces, as discussed in question 9. For Collins, his studying science has provided him awe in the world that he sees as divine, and religion has helped to guide him to moral and philanthropic practice of science. Richard Dawkins believes that Gould’s idea of NOMA is, “a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-3,00.html).” Dawkins has argued that if a divine god were to be proven, or disproved, those who had instilled NOMA as an idea to appease and separate the battling worldviews would throw it out. Dawkins has made the argument in his book and in numerous interviews that Religion does not practice a NOMA separation, with stories like Genesis, religious people have directly commented on the scientific realm. Miracles are also an irreconcilable issue for Dawkins, who believe they are heresy in the face of scientific rationality. Religion has also been used to oppress scientific thoughts and experimentation. This is why Dawkins believes that religion has broken down the sort of wall that NOMA would set up, and allows religion to be prone to scientific scrutiny. The Gould – Dawkins debate has raged on for a long time. Dawkins has made some solid arguments against the ideas of NOMA, but I will have to say that Gould’s idea of NOMA is a more rationally solid idea. I will refer back to Collins’ analogy of pure water in rusty cups: although NOMA should be in theory, a solid way to approach religion and science, people of science and religion alike have extended both far outside the reach of scope of the subject.

17. Neurology and ontology are simply different things, different studies in different fields. Neurology is a scientific study of the human brain, a system of neurons and chemicals and impulses interacting as a central controlling system, a central nervous system. The brain has involuntary functions such as helping us breath and making us feel pain, and the brain helps us voluntarily walk. Our brain gives us language, studied in the field of neurolinguistics, and our brain gives us memory. The most abstract job of the brain, is to think, to imagine, to comprehend, and it is here that the reach of neurology is very limited. Ontology is a philosophical field, one that attempts to describe reality. Ontology is the study of conceptions of reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology). Neurology and ontology are different fields, but there is more to be said about confusing the two. To confuse neurology and ontology suggests a misunderstanding of the human mind. Being limited within our brain’s structure, we often forget or ignore that our perception of reality is limited what our brain can take in. For an example, we can break down one of our senses, the sense of vision. The electromagnetic spectrum describes a measure of all the possible electromagnetic radiations, as we know them. They range from infinitesimally small wavelengths to gigantic wavelengths, and they exist all over our universe. Visible light is the small increment of radiations on the EM spectrum that our eye’s structure can perceive, and passes on to our brain as a visual sensation. As one can see in the EM spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum), what is visible to humans is a very small range, typically between 400 – 700 nm. Because we can only perceive this small visible light, we may doubt the existence of ultraviolet or infrared radiations, as they are outside the range of our eye’s physiology and our brain’s neurology. This doesn’t mean they aren’t real, and if there were some supernatural force that floated around outside of the visible light spectrum, perhaps out of the entire EM spectrum, we would not be able to comment on its reality either. This is not to postulate the existence of a god, but merely exhibit the difference between our neurology and our ontology. This is the reason that philosophers and other scholars separate the conditioned and unconditioned realities. The conditioned reality is what is perceived in the limits of the human neurology. Unconditioned reality, we assume, is extra-sensory, but our understanding of it is limited by our anatomy.

18. Quantum has been described as weirdness, as spooky, as uncertain. Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty theory states that the more accurately one knows the position of a quantum object the less accurately one knows its momentum, and vice versa. In simpler terms, we cannot know both the position and momentum of a quantum object (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle). The extension is that much of Quantum physics is based on measurements of probabilities and statistics. The question is how such a scientific view of physical world (one based on randomness and chance and chaos) can be reconciled with a theological view of the world (as designed and purposeful). Simply, a theological view of the world can trump natural definitions of the world. If one poses the universe as seemingly based on randomness, it is not difficult to propose that a divine creator has a purpose/design that is beyond the abilities of the human mind and scientific rationality to perceive. It is possible to see this reconciliation as a god of the gaps, but the question becomes whether we can draw conclusions from quantum statistics or if the randomness of it is a weirdness that is natural and a fact of the scientific universe. If the randomness will always be randomness, then god can always exist in this gap of scientific knowledge. But if we draw rational conclusions from quantum statistics, then god will have to exist in a, in Professor David Lane’s words, ‘post-rational’ realm. Collins sees through the weirdness, simplicity in equation form. He quotes Eugene Wigner in reference to the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Language of God pg.62).” He even proposes that Heisenberg was encountering the divine in quantum chaos. Collins wonders, “is mathematics…another language of God?(pg.63)” By trying to make God scientific, Collins is treading on thin ice. Such questions depend on philosophical musings and intellectual conflict, but from them we are able to better reconcile our scientific and religious worldviews.

19. Faqir Chand’s revelation about religious visions is best summed up in his own words: “This entire game [of religious visions] is that of your impressions and suggestions which are ingrained upon your mind through your eyes and ears and of your Faith and Belief.” Faqir chand postulated that because people claimed visions of him in places that he was not, that something else must be responsible for these mental visions. He came to the conclusion that these religious visions were the result of sociological mental effects, and that people projected visions based on their worldview. Simply put, certain people have religious experiences because their worldview is religious, while others don’t have religious experiences because of their lack of religiousness. The more simple analogy usually given is between two religious people, one from India and one from America; it makes sense that the person in India would see the Buddha, or Krishna, or another deity or guru, while the person in America would likely see a familiar American religious figure such as Jesus. It follows however, that the person who is not religious will simply not have a religious vision, in much the same way that a Christian would have a Christian vision and a Hindu would have a Hindu vision. This logical model fits into the sociological view of religion as a cultural force. We see how one’s culture shapes religious expressions, such as mystical visions. With regards to function, multiple examples occur throughout all sorts of religious traditions of people being cured by their religious faith, clearly a useful, even evolutionary, function of religion. The question is the manifestation of religion, and how it is both an extension of social forces as well as a personal instrument.

20. C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity presents his argument for Christianity. He was a noted scholar who converted from Atheism to Christianity in his 20’s. Lewis’ argument is framed around the idea of the ‘moral law’ as an entity of the human existence. Lewis provides us with a convincing philosophical argument about the Moral Law, it cannot be natural law because humans break it, and it cannot be a random desire as it is often against our will. Lewis postulates a greater existence in the universe that instills a Moral Law in us, as well as the free will to break it, and he notes that this is a peculiar state of circumstances. While his arguments for a Moral Law that seem to suggest a higher power, and lead him towards Christianity, the problem with his philosophy is that it is based almost completely of analogies, as is quite often the case with philosophy. Though his words are eloquent, and even seem to yield a fair amount of accuracy, we have to assume that his conditions are true, and that the analogies he makes are valid connections. Most of his arguments are a priori, and not a posteriori, meaning that instead of using evidence to prove the argument, the premises are assumed to be sufficient to prove the argument. All in all, the premise of his argument is that there is a moral law, and that it is evidence for a greater being.

“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe- no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house.” 

This is an argument that convinced the scientist Francis Collins, and one he mentions in his book. The argument can be expanded upon but it shows us the basic weakness and strength of the argument. His analogy is strong in that it makes sense and fits rationally with ideas we have, but the premise is still “if there was a controlling power.” Lewis in one of his analogies says that despite the usefulness of a traitor, he or she is seen, “as human vermin.” The premise of his argument makes sense, and yet we do not know for a fact that the people using the traitor’s information actually see that person so lowly. Many times, the traitor is seen as a hero defending the ideas that the nation holds as true, even though the traitor is now forsaking the values of his or her home. Lewis presents a convincing argument, but is limited by the fact that philosophy can only theorize about what is real, and not prove it.

21. Friederich Nietzsche’s condemnation of Christianity comes from a perspective very different from ours. To quote him, “What is good?-whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is evil?-whatever springs from weakness. (2.)” Nietzsche’s standpoint is a very naturalistic point of view, and he goes on to condemn Christianity repeatedly as unnatural. His stance is, that in the world of evolution, man must do what is must to survive and thrive: “Life itself appears to me as an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power: whenever the will to power fails there is disaster.(6.)” It is somewhat a hard view to capture, as it is so cold and different from our own, especially clear when he espouses stratification of society, and condemns equal rights as evil and unnatural. He is also concerned completely with life in the ‘here and now,’ and sees reaching for something beyond it as false and useless. If we can vaguely look through his glasses, we can proceed with his argument. Nietzsche states in his work that Christianity is a religion for “the botched and the weak…”(2.). He sees this pity as counter-natural; where natural selection and natural stratification of society would route out these lesser individuals, Christianity embraces them and embraces an evil vice. He claims that social stratification or the order of castes, “is merely the ratification of an order of nature, of a natural law of the first rank.(57.)” He proposes that this system, where he classifies individuals in 3 ranks, 2 minority ranks as higher in intellect or brute strength, and the 1 majority rank as weak and “show only mediocrity, (57.)” as a system that progressively separates the ranks, but where the ranks mutually condition one another. In Nietzsche’s view, it is evil that Christianity rises up the meek, but even more that it instills an anarchist idea of envy and revolt in them. Nietzsche clearly has issues with theologians; he sees them as enemies to thought and to truth. He even quotes bible passages, like this one where one senses a pitting of Christianity against wisdom and might: “But God hat chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hat chosen the weak things of the world confound the things which are mighty. (45.)” Nietzsche is outraged to no end by the lies (as he sees them) of Christianity and its theologians, and its ability to tear down wisdom and natural truths. He does not explain his meaning of decadence, but continually brings it up as a rottenness of humanity, and decadence values as ones to which, “mankind now fixes its highest aspirations,” a fault of the majority of Christians no doubt. As his writing progresses on and on his arguments seem to be more and more colored by a confused rage against Christianity, but to take his views in summary: -Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the faculties of those natures that are intellectually most vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation.(5.)

22. Richard Dawkins paints an elaborate picture of god as a harmful delusion. He proves that god is unscientific, irrational, and unnecessary. Owen Gingerich is a brilliant research professor at Harvard University, who alongside with a great knowledge of the universe, integrates a strong Christian ethic in his life and conscious. His argument involves both the anthropic principle on the macro level, that without certain fine-tuned quantities in our universe, it would be impossible for our kind of life to be sustained. In his interview with Robert Wright, he brings up Martin Rees’ famous book, Just Six Numbers, which gives six quantities in our universe that make life possible as we see it in our world. Atheistic scientists like Dawkins would argue that this is not proof of a design but merely an infinitely improbable event to occur much like under Littlewood’s Theory or Wolfram’s theory of computational complexity. One argument people refer to here is the multiverse, in which our universe is one of any number of universes that all exist with the different variations on the six numbers, but because we are here living as we do, we must be living in the (at least) one universe that got the quantities right. This, however, is impossible to prove, and has led to cyclical arguments much like an extra-perceptional god. Gingerich does not claim that this proves a god, but points out accurately that it suggests a possibility of god, and one he is inclined to take. On a smaller level, Owen Gingerich is of the opinion that the DNA replication errors that lead to mutations and evolution are much too magnificent to be merely chance, and suggest, much like the fine-tuned numbers of our universe, that there exists a possibility and place for god in this universe. Freeman Dyson, a British-American physicist and mathematician, places much less effort on combining scientific fact with religious theology. He considers religion something much more than theology; religion is a moral and ethic code, an artform of beautiful literature, art, and music, and a form of community gathering. Unlike Owen Gingerich who sees Christianity as the only possible religion for him, Dyson recognizes that he is affected by sociology and could just as soon be any other religion based on where and to whom he was born. Freeman Dyson for the most part, separates religion and science in his life, calling science merely tinkering around with numbers and laws of nature, and religion being a structure for living. He does not attempt to combine the weirdness of quantum mechanics that he works with, with a model of a mysterious creator or suggestions of higher meaning in the universe, saying rather that, “it is probably only making it (the nature of the ultimate material fabric of the universe) more obscure.” Dyson’s models for religion are all hypothetical, like his idea of the 3-minded universe. He proposes that natural selection on the micro level suggests a decision-making ability for DNA to decide where errors should be made (recall Gingerich’s argument on this). Since we know that on our human level we have consciousness and the ability to make decisions, and Dyson believes that below our consciousness there is another kind of mind making decisions, he proposes a higher mind than ours, with super-human consciousness. Dyson’s favorite analogy of science and religion is one of two separate windows, “that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside.” While Dawkins insists that religion must exist within the constrains of our newly scientific society, Dyson proves that it can be separate (like Non-Overlapping MAgisteria), and that religion can provide a useful way to live in this universe. In response to Steven Weinberg’s stab at religion, one that Richard Dawkins uses in The God Delusion, that, “for good people to do bad things- that takes religion,” Freeman Dyson points out that while a small portion of good people do bad things in the name of religion, a portion of bad people repent and do good things in the name of religion as well.

23. I think I’d have to say I enjoyed the taped lecture of Freeman Dyson most of all. He did not inundate me with hard to swallow facts, but rather told me where he stood. He is clearly a bright man, and rather than closing himself, he clearly has a very opened worldview. I liked his philosophical models for the universe, including the 3-minded universe and the idea of gaia, but even more because he accepted that they are only theories of the mind, and not scientific fact. He provided for me an enjoyable thought exploration, as well as exhibiting an ideal reconciliation of religion and science.

24. Hmm, Mere Christianity was a great exploration of philosophy. The Antichrist was a little abrasive, but terrifically interesting, and provided a good insight on a different worldview. The Language of God, had problems: too much about Collins, commenting outside his scope on the validity of the gospels, etc. I think however that the thesis of The Language of God, of Biologos, was a very satisfying and plausible model for life. Although Dawkins was a bit aggravating and abrasive with his arguments against religion, I think his book was my favorite, as it provided the sort of paradigm shift that I love so much. Although he may or may not be right, providing people with an opposing idea that might open the mind is a noble cause, and it is clear in an age with growing fundamentalism that opened minds are increasingly necessary. Unfortunately, Dawkins tends to become a little fundamental himself. As is it is easy to see, The God Delusion is a campaign by Dawkins for Atheism. Although I might disagree with his purpose, I can understand the cause, even necessity, for his campaign, and I think he did a good job with it.

25. Metaphysical “shit.” If I have not already made this point enough, science and religion both have limits. Science is out of its element when it tries to extend itself to questions of unconditioned reality. Admittedly, religion and metaphysics fails to match up to experimentation, making its factuality questionable. Professor Lane provides a good example of where science cannot comment in his model of the “Waking” state. Like the multiverse, we can no more prove it than disprove it. It however provides fertile ground for philosophical thought and metaphysical practice. Science cannot disprove Buddhist enlightenment, perhaps comparable to the Professors model of the waking state and death. Enlightenment cannot even be proven to practitioners of Buddhism, but like death, you’ll know when you get there.

26. As far as learning, I would say the biggest thing I learned was evolution. I already knew the theory of evolution, but the class provided me a much better understanding of theory of evolution, and its implications, manifestations and expressions. But rather than learning, what I have enjoyed most in the class has been the brain busting exercise of battling religion and science within my mind and the mind of others.

The yin and yang of sex: a paper i wrote on sexuality in asian religions

The yin and yang of sex

Looking at things from another perspective is the best way to get a view of one’s own perspective. Sexuality is both a natural necessity and a mental anomaly. In our own society, it is at the forefront of the temporal lobes of the culture, and yet completely shunned, taboo, and unspoken in most scenarios. Observing our sexuality can only give as much insight as a fish’s life can give on water and wetness and it’s fishbowl: it is hard to get information about our worldview while looking from within our worldview. It is from this fact that we proceed to a comparative look at Asian religious thought. Through analysis and observation of these pieces of Asian sexuality, we will be able to look back on our own sexual worldview, and see in which way to proceed.

P. Thomas calls Hinduism, “a growth of ideas and beliefs, which while differing widely, have sufficient fundamental unity to be known as a single culture (Thomas pg.111).” The wide variety of roots and influences to Hinduism in ancient religions matches the outgrowth of many cults and sects and divisions, and is the reason why Hindu thought is wide-ranging on sexuality. The ancient Aryan and Vedic religions that sparked Hinduism, and Hinduism itself, are all very concerned with the theme of fertility and regeneration (Hawkins pg.14). In a town called Puri, we see the Hindu culture connect sexuality with nature, in a festival celebrating the coming monsoon (Carmody pg.59). In Hinduism, sexuality is a cosmic force, even a divine power, uniting gods, nature, and humankind. The importance of sexuality made its control in the forefront of Hindu minds, through the institution of marriage and the religious asceticism of celibacy. Without these sorts of holds on sexuality, there was a fear of unbalance or deterioration of the cosmos (Carmody pg.50). Although probably not a tradition of Rig Vedic religion, sex worship arose in the post-Vedic period when Hinduism was starting to solidify as a religion. Although the Saivite worship of Lingam appears to be a sexual topic, it is not permissive of sexual promiscuity, even the opposite, that Shiva is the enemy of Kama, the god of sensuality (Thomas pg.114). Hindu philosophy here takes on the guise of deities whose concepts battle within the mind of the Hindu beholder. Lord Krishna, one of the most popular deities in Hindu culture is symbolized, “as the divine lover whose intimate caresses satisfy the deepest desires of man (“In Praise of Krishna” pg.64 ff.)” In some Hindu poetry sensuous and religious imagery are interwoven and, “how beautiful the deliberate, sensuous union of the two (Dimock pg.64).” From the very mystical religion that Hindu is at its foundation, arises the well-known and widespread sex-worship. Sex-worshippers see the sexual impulse as an expression of a vast Primal Power that exists invisibly in the universe (Thomas pg.112). Tantrism grew out of Hinduism and included many sexual practices and doctrines, which will be discussed in our exploration of Buddhist sexuality. The world’s most popular sexual literature, the Kama Sutra was an obvious result of Hindu views on sex and religion. The Sanskrit text prescribes positions and rituals of sex, in combination with the personification of deities. By observing the ways that deities and great humans perform sex, one is able to access the divine connection achieved in sex. The ancient texts of the Mahabharata have been interpreted as encouraging sexuality as necessary and auspicious. In the generally mystical forms of Hinduism, a very positive and enlightening environment for sex exists.

Buddhism has had a mixed relationship with sexuality. Buddhist philosophy has often divided over questions of doctrine and practice, which makes a generalized view of something like sex impossible. Vajrayana or the thunderbolt-vehicle of Buddhism is most famous for its practice of sex as a high form of ritual, while on the other hand sex is taboo and even forbidden in other sects of Buddhist thought. Sexuality itself has never been a topic for thorough discourse, much less scientific study in Buddhism (Faure pg.9). In the pratimoksa, the Buddhist code of monastic discipline, sexual intercourse is one of only four infractions that require expulsion of the monk or nun from the sangha, or monastic community. In addition, the code of monastic discipline only censures one opinion, “the view that sexual intercourse is not an obstacle (Gethin page 50).” This reflects the conservative thread of Buddhism, which maintains a celibate monastic community, and generally sees sexuality as a taboo, “The Buddha himself taught that enlightenment required celibacy (Sudo pg.15)”. Sexual misconduct is one of the five forbidden precepts for the lay people of mainstream Buddhism as well, but unlike the other four, it is the least clear in what it forbids (Gethin pg.171). It is this ambiguity, which leads us away from the sexual taboo in traditional Buddhism, and arrives at a variety of different takes on sexuality throughout Buddhism. One Japanese Zen master, Ikkyu Sojun, challenged the self-denial of monks and nuns, and broke the codes of discipline, particularly enjoying sexual intercourse. He founded a school of Zen called the “red thread,” which pointed out that we are connected to sex from birth, and that sex should be embraced rather than avoided (Sudo pg.5). Vajrayana Buddhism is a sect of Buddhism that extended from Mahayana, the great vehicle, claiming that it could achieve enlightenment faster, even instantaneously. Descriptions of sexual intercourse are a central feature of the writing of the Mahayoga (greater union) Tantras, and of some Yoga Tantras. In the mandala of Guyhasamaja (secret congress), all of the Buddhas are depicted in sexual union with their consorts. Yogini is a form of the Sadhana rituals that are central to Vajrayana, where one assumes the identity and characteristics of a deity. In many Yogini, or female union rituals, climax is often found in Mahamudra, or Great Seal, a nondual state in union with one’s consort. Due to the sexual nature of the Mahayoga and Yogini Tantras, the participation by monks has been debated. Scholastic monks argued the whole range, from Tantras being completely irreconcilable with Buddhism, to monks being able to participate in the sexual rituals of the Tantras (Robinson pgs.131-134). Female sexuality is a whole separate question in Buddhism. Amongst the numerous additional rules imposed on nuns in the pratimoksa, “a nun who, moved by desire, touches, strokes, takes hold of, or presses up against a man…anywhere between his neck and knees…is expelled (Strong pg.65).” Denise Lardner Carmody points out mixed attitudes towards females that arose in Hindu and Buddhist tantrism. Women profited from tantrism as it, “broke with sexual stereotypes and gave women equal footing with men.” In Indian tantrism, however, women were seen as having the key to men’s enlightenment, and were therefore seen as tools for the enlightenment of men (Carmody pg.83). The vows of Siddha, practitioners of Sadhana, require utmost respect and etiquette for women, yet scholars have pointed out that this can be a means of disguising oppression of women (Robinson pg.134). Buddhist sexuality has been both a blessing and a curse for Buddhist laywomen and nuns alike. The Buddhist religion represents a growth over time in Asia, from its roots in ancient Indian religions and texts, to its influence throughout Asia. Sex, as it is a part of human existence, has been a part of this shift. The trend is clear in Buddhism that while traditional forms see sexuality as a taboo, and a worldly desire to be avoided, mystical and spiritual forms embrace sexuality, even as a connection to the divine.

Although not an Asian religion, Islam has worked its way into the mix of South Asian Religious thought in Pakistan and India, including a Muslim occupation of India that effected the religious sphere (Thomas pg.40). In Islam sexuality is seen as involving rights that are directly within the jurisdiction of Allah (Carmody pg.191). Although extramarital sex is punishable under Islamic law by death, prostitution occurs in Heera Mandi, a red-light district of Pakistan (Brown pg.12). Because extramarital sex is punishable by death or prison sentence, the women in Heera Mandi call clientele husbands or even perform fake marriages for the sake of prostitution. In jail, the disproportionate number of women to men who are interned because of prostitution signifies a hypocritical oppression of women in this Islamic society. The burka, the famous veil with which many women in the Muslim world cover themselves with, represents a vein of oppression that stems directly from masculine sexual jealousy. The Muslim culture of Pakistan has picked up some pieces of Hindu sexuality. Ambiguous sexuality is a part of Hinduism, as deities in mythology have male and female spirits, which sometimes transform sexes. The bijra, or half-man-half-woman, is an ascetic who is usually linked with a goddess and with fertility. The Islamic khusras are similar to these Hindu roots. Although homosexuality is vilified in Islam, people of ambiguous sexuality played important roles in society and the courts of Muslim rulers (Brown pg.49). Lal Shabbaz Qalandar is an important Sufi, or mystical Muslim, saint, who brought the Hindu tradition of the Shiva Linga, a symbolic penis, into Sufism. In the 1840’s a girl was dedicated to the shrine of Qalandar every year, something Louis Brown sees as clearly a parallel to the prostitution of girls in Hindu temples (Brown pg.95-6). Sexuality in Islam, again is more a part of mystical religion, while being shunned by orthodox tradition.

Japan has culminated a sexual culture that was influenced religiously by Buddhism, Shintoism, and Protestantism. Protestant fundamentalism instilled a religious chastity in modern Japan (Johnston pg.4), and with growing capitalism and modernity in Japan came prostitution. We have already discussed the complex range of Buddhist thought on sexuality, and it is no different in Japan, which includes a range of Buddhism and offspring religions. At Shinto festivals in Japan, a subversion of traditional sexual rules is allowed, with the opportunity for extramarital sexual experimentation. Outsiders, however, are not eligible for the same openness, and outsiders have been killed for violating rules governing sexual behavior (Johnston pg.34). A small survey of sexuality in Japan helps us to continue painting a picture of attitudes towards sex in Asian religions.

Confucianism represents a strand of Chinese thought that leans heavily to the conservative side. A small literati novel by Xia Jingqu novel published in 1929 rewrote sexual ideas in Confucianism. Maram Epstein writes about Yesou Puyan, and how in it, the author paints an ideal masculinity that, “is anchored not in physical and sexual domination over others but in a moral order actualized through physical and sexual self-control (Epstein pg.74)” The main character, Wen Suchen, resolves the Chinese philosophical paradox of traditional masculinity, “the conflicting desires to achieve both autonomy and virture (also known as wen and wu) (Epstein pg.64).” The critical responses in China to the work, “have pointed to his [Jingqu’s] unusual use of sexualized details (Epstein pg.60).” In 1935 a scholar called Jingqu, “slightly unbalanced,” and in 1975 his work was dismissed as deranged by another. The latter, felt that the work, specifically “aberrant sexuality and scatological details,” suggested that the author suffered from an Oedipal complex (Epstein pgs.60-1). You get the sense from the critiques of Chinese scholars, that the Confucian thought is fairly straight-laced and orthodox about sexuality. Another Confucian spokesman, Hsun Tzu warns that without separating the sexes and regulating sexual relations, society will “return to savagery. (Fehl pg.214)” The general negativity towards sexuality is the result of the orthodoxy that is central to Confucianism.

On the other side of Chinese philosophic thought lies the collection of spiritual ideas called Taoism, or Daoism. Like in Buddhism with the many differing schools, Daoism has many divisions in thought on all issues, including sex. The most prominent Daoist philosopher, Laozi (formerly known as Lao Tzu), says nothing of sex in his most central philosophical work, the Tao Te Ching. Taoism was at its roots, a culmination of ancient roots of Chinese philosophy and Buddhism. In the tradition of Buddhism, some strands of Daoism adopted the practice of Yoga, as described by Carmody, “Taoist yoga sometimes sponsored intercourse along the lines of Indian tantra, urging men to draw from women the vital power associated with Menstrual blood. The object of the ritual intercourse was to prolong life, and by uniting with women Taoist men thought they could increase their power beyond what semen alone could give them (Carmody pg.105).” Although there is some scarcity in primary Daoist sources on the topic of sexuality, many philosophers and scholars have inferred sexual models from the literary traditions and philosophical framework of Daoism. Alan Watts has written many essays on sexuality in Eastern religions, and he believes that through studying Daoism one can find a higher meaning for sexual yoga, or union. This union is one, he says, “of man’s inner identity with Brahman or Tao,” as well as a union between the sexual partners which forms a new life or Tao (1.Watts pg.586). The Daoist connection with nature has also often been noted as connected with sexuality, as sex is at its roots a deeply natural process. Despite some appearances in Daoism of prescribed, “techniques or ‘practices’ of sexual relationship…these are...the ‘outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace (1.Watts pg.582).’” Daoism as a philosophy lends itself to a more spiritual, even mystical worldview, and this is clearly represented in the open-mindedness towards sexuality.

At this point the trend we are looking at becomes quite clear. We notice an absolute line of rigid fundamental religious traditions that disdain sexuality, and on the other side we find mystical and spiritual religious experiences that embrace and accept sexuality, even glorify it. From an objective point of view we fail to differentiate between what is good and what is bad, merely that there exists a clear spectrum of attitudes about sexuality in Asian religions. We might note that the shifting zeitgeist appears to be further separating fundamentalists and spiritual beings. Sometimes Eastern and Western philosophies are contrasted as opposites, but we find in sexuality that the attitudes seem to suggest a certain similarity between the two cultures. So our analysis leaves us with the question of what seems to be the right way to approach sexuality, with a mystical frame of mind, or a fundamentalist restraint. We notice a yin yang begin to materialize, with the two opinions like the two shades, opposing each other, and yet flowing into each other, and being a part of the same whole, a spectrum of two opposites. Alan Watts points out articulately, “a way of life in which sexuality is in some way put down or repressed is nonetheless an expression of sexuality (2.Watts pg.83).” He argues that sexuality has been separated from nature, or more so has been shrugged aside in the same way that nature has been trampled and mistreated. Because sex is nature, however, we know that to conquer it or control it is absolutely impossible. With a mystical eye, sexuality becomes a natural expression of beauty and union with nature, and with the other, and with the self. Because society seems to lean towards repression, a void for open-mindedness becomes obvious. In sexuality, as in all realms, we hope to find a natural moderation between opposing voices in the mind.