Ex Uno Fonte, Part III: Faith in Science

XKCD says, "Science doesn't ask for your faith, it just asks for your eyes". Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy exults in scientists' fact- and experiment-based approach to life. The popular image of science is of something that's based firmly in fact, that doesn't require faith to see the objective state of the world.

I say otherwise. Here's three quick areas where, to believe in science's conclusions, the ordinary person has to have faith:

Faith In That Which Is Beyond Me 
I have no choice, if I want to believe in science, than to believe in a body of knowledge that I will probably never see and couldn’t understand even if I did. I take it on faith that Stephen Hawking wrote a paper somewhere sometime that says black holes exist. If you actually asked me to read it and understand his arguments, I wouldn’t be able to. Faith is required. This holds for scientists, too, in different disciplines; a marine biologist probably can't explain astrophysics, and vice versa. Be you a scientist or a lay person, you rely to some extent on the conclusions of others in understanding the universe, which means that you have to have faith in their honesty, transparency and reasoning abilities.

Faith In That Which We Have Already Discovered
There has to be faith that our universal laws will hold anywhere. Bill Anderegg, who I interviewed for a global warming note awhile back, explained it to me this way: We could argue forever over whether the data indisputably, beyond the slightest particle of doubt, show the planet to be warming up. But at some point when there’s a reasonable level of consensus, we have to be able to look at our results and say “Okay, we think this is good. Now we can extrapolate from these results and build on what we’ve found.” We have to have a certain amount of faith in what we’ve already discovered, be it universal laws or the pattern of spots on the bellies of East African toads, so we can build on that data and move onto the next thing. That’s faith, faith in our own discoveries, faith that they hold everywhere and all the time. If we didn’t believe that the luminosity of a star is proportional to the (temperature to the fourth power) times the (radius squared), every single place in the universe, we wouldn’t be able to draw any kind of conclusion from the stars. As it said in my physics textbook, we have to take it as a given that the laws of physics hold everyplace, and that, too, requires faith.


Faith In You, Me and All Of Us Together
You may have seen where I’m going with this third one based on the second one, as the second one is really a consequence of the third one, but whatever, it sounds better if I put this one last. The last thing we have to do is to believe in ourselves. That’s the biggest difference between religion and science. Religion asks us to believe in some external entity. I’m speaking from a predominantly Jewish background, and my culture is speaking from the Abrahamic tradition through me, but it doesn’t take a rabbi or a Thai monk to realize that all religions around the world believe in some higher power than humanity (with the possible exception of Animism). Whether it’s God, Jehovah, ancestral spirits, the spirit world or what, religion looks to the heavens for guidance and trusts that, by that guidance, the world will make sense.

But here’s why if I had to choose I’d go with science over religion: science asks us to believe in us. We’re supposed to believe that we—little dumb hairless apes that we are--have the capability and capacity to understand the world and the laws that make it up. We have the temerity to say that we can understand this huge, implacable, incredible, beautiful universe. And you know what science says to that? “Fuck yeah, we can.” Science tells us to believe in ourselves and in the whole human race, and in our ability to make the world make sense. And I believe the shit out of that philosophy.

God As Father, Not As Lord

The traditional view of the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an has been to believe that they are sets of heavenly laws, handed down by God to man to show us the proper way to behave. This corresponds to the Old Testament-style God of rewards and punishments, and accords with God’s revealed word in the Qur’an. God is the Lord, and we are His subjects. It is because of this mindset that religious fundamentalists (of whatever stripe) seek to follow every command of their respective religious texts with as much narrow-minded zeal as they can muster, and to convince others to do the same.

But there are many names that we ascribe to the Judeo-Christian God. One of those names is Father. A stern Father, at times, yes; perhaps God is a former drill sergeant, who expects his offspring to snap to and salute before saying grace at the family dinner table. But a father nonetheless. If we start to think of God in this way, and take His commands as “more like guidelines than actual rules” (to quote Pirates of the Caribbean) we come up with some interesting ideas.

When a child is young, his father or her father does not tell the child everything about the adult world. How could he? The child is not ready; he is too young for certain topics. He is too young to know how babies are made, or about the smoky mysteries of drugs and alcohol. On a more social level, the child does not yet know how to act around other human beings. He is not ready. So the father does not tell his child everything, but he tells the child what not to do, to keep him safe. Do not play in the street. Don’t touch hot objects, don’t do this, that or the other action that might hurt you. He doesn’t always tell the child why it should avoid these things, only the prohibitions. Of course, the child will sometimes do these things anyway, and come away with bruises and scars. But with those injuries will come lessons. And when it is time for the child to become an adult, the father will begin to tell him—as he has been doing, by example, for years—what it means to be an adult. The child will begin to understand why the father told him not to do things, and learn to avoid them or to make them safer on his own.

"Do not touch!"

Why, for example, did God tell us to abstain from premarital sex? Someone who believes in the Lord might answer, “Who cares why? It is forbidden, and that is enough!” But someone who believes in the Father might say, “God told us not to have sex before marriage because, in the time and place when He gave that command, unwed mothers were scorned and looked down upon. Worse, in God’s view, it was bad for the community as a whole. So God warned us against premarital sex, not because it is intrinsically bad, but because it can have a bad result. But now we have condoms, we have IUDs, we have the pill and we have vasectomies. We are old enough to understand how we work, and we’ve figured out how to avoid getting pregnant. Because it is not wrong in and of itself, it is not a sin.”  In other words, God isn’t concerned with some higher right or wrong. God is not Law. God wants what is best for His children, and in that particular place at that particular time, that command was what was best. Now, we’re old enough—in a species- and technological sense—to know and avert some of the risks.

Lest this note begin to sound like I’m merely defending teenage licentiousness, you can apply this sort of thinking to dozens of commands. Why shouldn’t you lie with a man as you would with a woman? God might say, “If you do not procreate, your community will die out and that will be the end of you.” This is another danger we are no longer in. Why shouldn’t we drink alcohol? God might say, “In a desert environment, can you really afford to dehydrate yourself?” Why should we go forth and preach the gospel to nonbelievers? “To spread the word of our religion,” God might say, “for the more ears you reach, the less chance you will die out.” Why did God give us all these laws anyway? “To unite your people under one set of rules and help bind your community together.”

If we assign pragmatic motivations to each individual command, if we assume that his commands are paternally intended for the good of the community, we find that many still apply-the Ten Commandments, for example-and many are no longer necessary.

I know that assigning motivations to God is the height of arrogance. But in my view, the choice is between believing that God gave His commands just because, and we should follow them just because… or that God gave His commands to protect us, and we should follow the ones we need to follow and discard the ones we no longer need. Not because something is intrinsically right or intrinsically wrong, but because it’s a good idea or a terrible idea, like adultery. God gave us brains with which to think, and He gave us maturity so that we may think critically about the world. I believe that He wanted us to decide, in time, which of His commands we should follow… just as a parent eventually allows their child to see the world for themselves, and decide for themselves what to make of it.*

*I’m a pragmatist, and this is generally how I see the world. Instead of judging, I ask “Does it work?”

"In The Temple And Marketplace"

Atheism doesn’t bother me, in and of itself. It’s a weird world, and occasionally a cruel one, and I guess I can understand how one can look at it and conclude, coldly and rationally, that there isn’t a God up above. The multitude of gods that we as people are privileged, for the first time, with easy access to must seem a bit like a cosmic buffet to the discerning atheist. The hubbub in heaven and the crowds in Paradise, the wealth of a dozen dozen omnipotent entities stretching across the skies, leaves me feeling rather disillusioned when I think about it. As a culture, we are dealing for the first time with the idea of living in a global community, where everyone’s beliefs are thrust nakedly into the public sphere for all to see and gawk at. I can’t say that I would malign anyone for choosing, in such a crowded marketplace, not to buy into anything at all.

I guess what I have a problem with is militant atheism, the sort of belief that seeks not only to repudiate all forms of faith in a higher power, organized or otherwise, from one’s own heart, but strives towards a larger goal. This sort of atheism, it seems to me, is dedicated to cutting away at and tearing down the sanctity and the holiness that generally goes along with religion, and stripping it of every veneration that it is possible to take away. It is a philosophy of unrelenting cynicism, not just about the present day and the value of religion in it, but about whether the institution of religion might ever have had value. You know these people, just as I do; those who mock Christians for venerating a man two thousand years dead, and those who cackle gleefully whenever a new religious scandal breaks, for whom it has become fashionable to scoff at God and those who pray to Him.

I sometimes wonder what our generation, of which I am indelibly a part, of pampered, disaffected, agnostically inclined middle-class American children will look like when middle age sets in. Will we have come around and reluctantly accepted the religions of our parents? Will we maintain our aggressive atheism, and eventually become the first generation to insist en masse that no crosses be raised over our headstones? Or will we create something entirely new out of this mishmash of beliefs we are confronted with?

It would be rather impolite of me, somewhere in all this polemicizing, to fail to mention my own beliefs. I am a Jew, and I am proud that I was raised as one, and there is very little about the holidays and the culture and the assorted mishegas of the most cantankerous religion of all that I do not hold close to my heart. At the same time, I don’t hold strictly to all of Jewish belief, and feel that it doesn’t violate the spirit of Judaism to accept and consider all other beliefs that I come across. Above all, I don’t believe that you have to accept a particular belief system, nor to conform to ideas that are thousands of years old, to call yourself a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew. Sticking to the basics of kindness and understanding towards the people you meet, I believe, is enough. The religion of today is individualistic, and the role of our spiritual leaders has changed from shepherd to wilderness guide. Instead of herding a passive group of souls to one particular vision of Paradise, I prefer to think of today’s rabbis and priests and imams as giving us the skills to find our way in the wilderness, and trusting that each of us will end up in time at the spot that is best for us.

Hypothetical Situation: God, Wishes, And The Ability to Know Anything in the Universe

Suppose that when you die, you get sent to heaven or hell or wherever, but as a sort of parting gift from God, you get one request.

You can’t wish to be brought back to life, or have anyone else brought back to life. In fact, your wish can’t affect the physical world at all. Nor can you wish to have God’s powers or anything close. Your request can’t (and won't) change your designation to go to heaven or hell or wherever.

The only thing you can ask for is information. Specifically, thus:

You can go anywhere on Earth or anywhere in the universe and watch whatever you please. You can get any piece of knowledge you want. If you want to watch the Big Bang, you can do that. If you want to find out the mysteries of the universe, you can do that as well. God will make it possible.

Or, you can stay closer to home. You can go back and relive an experience from your past, sit in on something you didn’t witness, find out an answer to the question you’ve always wanted to have answered. You can literally know any one thing in the universe, or have any experience in the universe.   

However, you can't make something up that didn't happen in the real world. You can't relive dating someone you never dated in reality, or experience a fantasy world that doesn't actually exist. You're stuck with what happened in the universe you grew up in (no multiverse cheating!) 

And there are a few Really Important Rules here.

What you see is what you get. God will not sugarcoat anything for you. If you ask for a montage of the worst moments in your life, you will get the worst moments in your life.

You will get what you ask for. If you ask to watch the entire life of the universe in real time, starting at the Big Bang and ending whenever, you will watch the entire life of the universe, or however many billions or trillions of years that is. You will undoubtedly go insane. And if you lose your mind, you don't get pulled out of your wish early. You wished for it, you're stuck with it.

You won't just watch whatever you choose. You'll live it. Obviously you can choose how you want to experience your choice, but God will allow you to live it. You can be inside your own body as a spirit, or you can float in space and watch supernovae from close up, or do whatever it is you please. But you will get the full experience of whatever you choose. As with all of the Rules, this could be very, very good... or horrifically bad, depending on the choices you make. All of this is up to you to decide.

So....

What would you choose?

Assume that you're the person you are now, or that you're the person you'll be when you get to heaven, or anything you like. It's up to you. This is a humanistic question; God won't help you decide or stand in your way. He will simply grant... whatever you want. 

I don't have an answer. I have a few dozen. The point of this question isn't to settle on one answer, it's to figure out what are the few things nearest to your heart and upmost in your desires. It's an opportunity to chase otherwise unattainable hopes and dreams, or to absolutely screw yourself over, depending on how you use it. So purely in the spirit of inquiry...

what would you choose?

Also, insert your own concept of "God" here. :-)

"Filled Full of Everything We Need": Empowering or Needlessly Self-Deprecating?

One problem I’ve always had with Christian philosophy is that, to me, it implies that humans just aren’t good enough on our own. People talk about feeling fulfilled, or whole, or complete as if some part of them was missing before they allowed Christ to maraud into their thoughts. It’s always seemed oddly self-deprecating to me, as if you need some outside fulfillment—from God, from Jesus, from your peers—just to be yourself.

Take this blog post, for example. It quotes and then explains a passage from the Bible that tells us not to rely on “philosophy… based on human tradition” or “based on the elemental forces of the world”, which is taken to be the struggle for self-improvement. The passage urges readers not to “attain goodness by performance, exercising self-effort… to achieve ‘a good life’”. Apparently, everything that we call the temporal world is useless without Christ in it. We shouldn’t waste our faith on people, or the credo of self-improvement; Christ is the only thing that matters and the only thing we need.

I have a problem with that. I feel that a philosophy like the one I’ve described above is flawed. While it pays tribute to an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, it also seems to say that everything under the sun simply isn’t good enough when God is out there. “Don’t let the world cheat you by trying to make you think you lack,” the blogger says, but I posit that this philosophy is what’s telling me I'm lacking. It says that this world is simply not good enough, that Christ is the best and the only thing we should rely on.

I have more faith in people than that. I have more faith in the infinite diversity and goodness of the people around me than in a God I’ve never met in person. I’m not a Christian, and thus it’s a fair charge that I simply don’t grok the principles at work here, but I really don’t understand how someone can rely on an entity they’ve never met for support and guidance.

But then, I suppose that’s not really it either; the blog emphasizes that “all you need to do is to appropriate by faith this fullness that lives in you” (bolding mine). The author repeats the phrase several times, emphasizing that you should rely not on an abstract ideal of God, but of the power of Christ in yourself. “We are ships completely outfitted with everything we need”, says another Biblical passage, but apparently we can’t be relied on until Christ is captaining the ship.

So you yourself do have potential, but only through Christ can you realize it. It sounds like a continual self-affirmation to me, like you need Christ to tell you that you can perform any task you wish. It seems like faith in Christ almost replaces faith in yourself in this philosophy.

And speaking personally, I don’t need an external validation from Christ or anybody. I can accomplish whatever I damn well choose to accomplish. I don’t begrudge Christians their sources of solace, but it doesn’t seem to me that I need a spiritual therapist to help me at every turn, and I find the idea that you do—not just that I need one, but that everyone needs one, and that it’s absolutely essential that we all get the same one—more than merely disquieting.

(Disclaimer: My religious opinions are my own and are intended to apply to myself alone. This blog is not intended to proselytize, offend or be used as medical advice.)