Arguing the Affirmative: RANDAL THE CHRISTIAN
Arguing the Negative: JOHN THE ATHEIST
Randal’s Opening Statement
In his book Consilience, respected scientist, well-known authority on ants, and father of sociobiology E. O. Wilson wrote that “preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is another way of satisfying religious hunger.”[4] Wilson is hardly alone in the view that scientific endeavors can double as sources of religious meaning. Consider Chet Raymo, who in his book Skeptics and True Believers comes off at some points sounding less like a respected science writer for the Boston Globe and more like the latest New Age guru:
Let your soul go free for a moment into that scene outside your window, into the vistas of cosmic space and time revealed by your physics, and there encounter, gape-jawed and silent, the God of birds and birth defects, trees and cancer, quarks and galaxies, earthquakes and supernovas—awesome, edifying, dreadful and good, more beautiful and more terrible than is strictly necessary. Let it strike you dumb with worship and fear, beyond words, beyond logic. What is it? It is everything that is.[5]
Did you get that? There is a God according to Raymo, and apparently that God is . . . the universe. In case you were wondering, Raymo is not a pantheist—at least not of a traditional sort. Rather, he seems to be so intent on re-enchanting the de-godded universe as a means to satisfy that deep existential, religious hunger that he speaks without a blush of worshiping creation. Elsewhere in the book he adds:
A universe of 50 billion galaxies blowing like snowflakes in a cosmic storm is astonishing, but even more astonishing are those few pounds of meat—our brains—that are able to construct such a universe of faint light and hold it before the mind’s eye, live in it, revel in it, praise it, wonder what it means.[6]
The superlatives just keep piling up, but what should we make of them? I think it’s time for a gander at the dictionary to take a closer look at one of these religiously loaded terms. So let’s consider praise. This verb has two basic definitions:
Now when Raymo says we should praise the universe, I don’t think he intends the milquetoast first meaning as in, “Mummy praised young Billy for using the potty.” On the contrary, Raymo’s invocation of praise more closely approximates the second religious meaning: he believes we’re on sacred ground. With that in mind, note the striking comparison between the following two propositions:
As Chet gazed at the icon of the cross, he fell to his knees and praised Jesus.
As Deiter gazed at the images of the Hubble Deep Field, he fell to his knees and praised the universe.
This raises all sorts of questions: What sort of liturgy should one use when praising the universe? Should one read Lucretius? Henry David Thoreau? Perhaps Stephen Jay Gould (with a dollop of Chet Raymo)? And what is the appropriate temple of worship? A virgin rain forest? Maybe the site of the Mauna Loa Observatory? Finally, do we still have to tithe?
Carl Sagan offers yet another possible outlet for the sophisticated secularist in search of some old-time religion: aliens. Yes, you heard me right. When Sagan passed away in 1996, his name had already been associated for years with SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Sagan put much effort, and much hope, into looking for alien intelligence in the universe. And more than a few commentators have observed that this search functioned for Sagan like a quasi-religious quest. Sagan hoped that we could one day establish contact with creatures of a high moral character and super intelligence:
To me, such a discovery would be thrilling. It would change everything. We would be hearing from other beings, independently evolved over millions of years, viewing the Universe perhaps very differently, probably much smarter, certainly not human.[7]
Sagan hoped not only that these super intelligent aliens could increase the speed of our computers and the fuel efficiency of our cars but that they “might play a role in unifying our squabbling and divided planet.”[8] Hmm—a means to resolve all those interminable human conflicts and perhaps introduce an age of world peace? It kind of looks like salvation, doesn’t it?
Satisfying religious hunger? Responding with worship and praise? Bringing a divided human race together to sing “Kumbaya”? When considering these secular versions of spirituality, I cannot help but recall the old saying that the person who ceases to worship God does not worship nothing but rather is liable to worship anything. When you attempt to shut down the impulse to worship the Creator, you end up looking for another suitably praiseworthy entity. And so we see a litany of new objects offered for worship and devotion: the scientific method, the entire universe, or perhaps even Marvin the Martian from the old Warner Brothers cartoons. And to think that some people call the doctrine of the Trinity strange.
John’s Opening Statement
The point of this assertion is that if we don’t worship God we’ll find something else to worship and that science is the god of atheists. In addition, the claim is that religion has something to offer that science cannot deliver.
Worship is an act of religious devotion directed to one or more deities involving prayer, praise, and obedience. Worship involves faith. Science involves doubt, not faith, based on sufficient evidence and the principle of methodological naturalism, which assumes every effect has a natural cause. This is a method that keeps it from being sectarian (i.e., there is no separate science for the various religions), and it continually delivers the goods.
Science has a method for arriving at the truths that religion has failed to give us. It is self-corrective as scientists try to replicate the same experiments and test various hypotheses. Its hallmark is doubt, and it focuses on that which is detectable, for we cannot detect the undetectable. Science hasn’t solved everything yet, and it may never solve it all. But it has solved a lot and has much more promise of solving more.
While philosophers debate the minutiae of what makes for science, science continues to advance our knowledge of the world.
There are debates within each of these scientific disciplines, of course, but inside them are bedrock ideas the practitioners all agree about. Where is the agreement among religionists?
When it comes specifically to the Bible, archaeologists have shown us there was no worldwide flood as told in the tale of Noah and his ark. They have shown there was no exodus by the Israelites from Egypt, that the reign of King David was not as extensive as recorded in the Bible, and that there was no worldwide census at the time when Jesus was born. Philologists and historians have shown us that Moses did not pen the first five books of the Bible, that Daniel is a book filled with postdated prophecies about events that had already happened, that the Gospels were not written by contemporaries of Jesus, that the Pastoral Epistles were not written by the apostle Paul, and so on.
Science answers questions and solves problems. Religion has never answered one single question or solved one single problem. The Christian God didn’t even tell us what causes lead poisoning or that drinking polluted water could kill us. He never told us which creatures would kill us if we got bitten by them or how to discover penicillin or a vaccine for tuberculosis or polio. We had to discover these things ourselves, and in the process people—mostly children—had to die before we learned about them on our own, thank you very much.
If anything, religion has always been against creative science by stalling it with censure and threats of violence.
Scientists do not worship science. They continue to check and recheck their conclusions—and their results produce wonderment. Carl Sagan, for instance, stood in awe at what science has produced. Looking at the results of astronomy in the universe evokes wonder, much like looking at an incredible piece of artwork or listening to a wonderful song. The universe is amazing to behold from the stars above to the deep oceans below. But truly seeing this for what it is comes from scientific discovery, not religion.
There is no worshiping science; we just trust its results. It has continued to produce the goods. I cannot trust religion to produce anything comparable by far. Why bet on religion? It’s a bet against the overwhelming odds. It’s a bet against reason itself.
Randal’s Rebuttal
I once heard of a woman who was so enamored with her Harley Davidson that she decided to marry it. Unfortunately, while a motorcycle provides a great mode of transportation, it was never intended to serve as a marital partner. I think of that as I consider secularists who have become so enamored with science that they have elevated it to be the source of transcendent meaning and purpose. While science provides a great mode of enquiry into the natural world, it was never intended to provide transcendent meaning and purpose.
Of course, John doesn’t think these secularists are worshiping science or the natural world because he defines worship as “an act of religious devotion directed to one or more deities.” But worship doesn’t require a deity. Worship is simply honor or deference paid to anything one regards as sacred, worthy of veneration, or one’s ultimate concern. As a result, while God can be the object of worship, so can the scientific method, the natural world, or even super-aliens. Needless to say, the fact that you can worship the universe doesn’t mean you should any more than the willingness of a magistrate to officiate at unconventional weddings means you should ride your Harley Fat Boy down the aisle.
John’s Rebuttal
Our brains evolved from the lower species of animals, so we have a built-in agency detector inherited from them. Animals that survived were the ones that saw faces in the leaves and the trees of the forest. This created a lot of false alarms, but because of it they had time to escape real predators. Likewise as agency detectors, the ancients saw divine agents behind strange events in their world. They did this with thunderstorms and with the sun rising or the birth of a boy. So they began to worship what they thought were divine agents behind these phenomena, and they gave over their whole lives in obedience to these agents without question.
Science is the antidote to this, not its counterpart. The word worship must mean something specific, otherwise it can mean anything. Sir Isaac Newton discovered the three laws of motion. If we want to throw a ball the farthest, we must release it at exactly 45 degrees from the ground.
Do we worship Newton for his amazing discovery or for this particular result? No, just as I do not worship my mother even though I love and trust her implicitly.
Randal’s Closing Statement
Does John disagree with Wilson and Raymo’s panegyrics to science and the natural world? Does he eschew Sagan’s existential longing for little green men? He doesn’t say. John is right; worship is directed to something specific. And Wilson, Raymo, and Sagan all have very specific objects to which they ascribe maximal worth-ship.
John’s Closing Statement
Randal is playing a meaningless language game over the word worship, but it changes nothing. We don’t build cathedrals for people to congregate for prayer to long-dead scientists, nor are their words authoritative unless we can verify them. Nor do we do this for the universe science has discovered.