I’ve seen quite a few posts in this forum which espouse the evils or failures of religion, and some which then myopically equate those failures to the impossibility of a creator. The implication that I perceive, put forth by the originators of these ideas, is that people would do better to discard their religious beliefs. But, what then does that leave us? Should we only allow ourselves to put faith in the religion of scientism? Why is this different than putting our faith in any other religion? How are the crusades of the materialist different than the crusades of the theistic?
When the unsubstantiated paradigms of the religious are challenged, do they not cry: “Heretic! Unbeliever!”
When the unsubstantiated paradigms of the materialist are challenged, do they not cry: “Heretic! Unbeliever!”
Do the followers of various religious ideologies not find fault with the followers of differing ideologies and urge conversion to the true ideology?
Do the followers of materialist ideologies not find fault with the followers of differing ideologies and urge conversion to the true ideology?
Is the heart of both science and religion not true and good? Yet, are there not those who twist and abuse both for their own gains and in an effort to lay credence upon their own ideals? Was Tomas de Torquemada not a religious man? Was Josef Mengele not a scientist? Was Stallin not a materialist? If you wish to urge an abandonment of religious adherence, that’s fine. But should you not provide an alternative? If you do, then what is this alternative? Is it materialism? If so, would this alternative not simply be just a switch over to another realm of faith? Would you then not be arguing for the abandonment of religion, but merely a conversion to what you hold to be the one, true religion?
“The history of science shows that a paradigm, once it has achieved the status of acceptance (and is incorporated in textbooks) and regardless of its failures, is declared invalid only when a new paradigm is available to replace it. Nevertheless, in order to make progress in science, it is necessary to clear the decks, so to speak, of failed paradigms. This must be done even if this leaves the decks entirely clear and no paradigms survive. It is a characteristic of the true believer in religion, philosophy and ideology that he must have a set of beliefs, come what may” – Hubert P. Yockey
“Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.” – Hubert P. Yockey
“We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.” – Jeremy Rifkin
“Science … is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as “truth” is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time … [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm, so it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it hard to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get their research published; they’ll find it very hard.” – Prof. Evelleen Richards
“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint — and Mr [sic] Gish is but one of many to make it — the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. ‘… Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.” – Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph
“It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing).’ – Shallis M.
“We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it’s good, we know it is bad, but because there isn’t any other. Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation. . .’ – Professor Jerome Lejeune
“It is futile to pretend to the public that we understand how an amoeba evolved into a man, when we cannot tell our students how a human egg produces a skin cell or a brain cell!’ – Dr Jerome J. Lejeune
“Anyone who questions man’s reasoning, particularly on the origin of the physical world, faces an arrogance almost beyond comprehension. Many scientists realize the weak underpinnings of scientific models but the spokesmen of naturalism and their media advocates will not abide anything that questions either the supremacy of man, his reasoning power or his conclusions.” – Dr Emmett Williams
“A religion is essentially an attitude to the world as a whole. Thus evolution, for example, may prove as powerful a principle to co-ordinate men’s beliefs and hopes as God was in the past. Such ideas underlie the various forms of Rationalism, the Ethical movement and scientific Humanism.” – Sir Julian Huxley
“Humanism: An outlook that places man and his concerns at the centre of interest. Modern Humanism, which does away with traditional Christianity, is characterised by its faith in the power of human beings to create their own future, collectively and personally.” – Sir Julian Huxley
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” – Richard Lewontin
“Since Darwin’s death, all has not been rosy in the evolutionary garden. The theories of the Great Bearded One have been hijacked by cranks, politicians, social reformers—and scientists—to support racist and bigoted views. A direct line runs from Darwin, through the founder of the eugenics movement—Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton—to the extermination camps of Nazi Europe.” – Martin Brookes, ‘New Scientist’
“Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.” – Molecular biologist Dr Michael Denton
“Big bang cosmology is probably as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in the history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and in some cases untestable, assumptions. Indeed, big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.” – Burbidge, G., Scientific American
“I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.” – Aldous Huxley
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.” — Albert Einstein
What I am saying is not that science equals religion, (although I believe ‘scientism’ may) but more that science alone does not fill the shoes that an abandonment of religion would leave empty. So, if we abandon religion, what do we adopt in place of it? Most people, who advocate the abandonment of religion, push for a move towards materialism. However, materialism is merely a mirror image of religion. To suggest that materialism should be adopted in an attempt to abolish religion is to absurdly state that adopting religion can abolish religion. (If one uses the word religion to denote an adherence to unsubstantiated dogma)
My question is, to those who speak out against religion, what are your true wishes? Is it to keep religion and refine it; to abandon religion and instead adopt materialism or scientism; (both other religions) or, to completely give up a search for higher spiritual meaning altogether and only concern ourselves with that which can be observed and tested? (Which is really just materialism anyway isn’t it?) Is agnosticism the only answer? What are your thoughts?
Science has limits. There are things which science will never be able to tell us about the human experience. So, it would seem to me that one who believes in the ultimate, potential of omniscience through science and materialism alone is one who has adopted religious dogma. So, what’s the alternative? If you wish to speak on the failure of religion, what is your remedy?
