Taking Sides? (Dick pt III)

(a continuation of my Dawkins series)

Something I would like to point out, regarding the whole God vs science-debate, is that I'm not exactly taking sides in it. Rather; I think both sides are wrong. More precisely; I think both sides are taking their competence out of the context where it's useful. I have already made clear how Richard Dawkins falls short in my eyes. But equally so, it's a question that should be directed towards all "fundamentalists" (a word I use as commonly used, although I could go into detail about its origin and meanings).

For instance, if we study science in school; exactly where and when does it help us to change the curriculum so that we have a creationist version of science onboard? I posed the question to Richard Dawkins; why kill religion, when he is offering no substitute (see the post "Richard, Richard, Richard...")? Equally; how have creationists been able to help study and understand the human genome project, how have creationist perspectives had an impact on scientific cures for cancer, and so forth?

I think one key question here is competence. Are we changing x for y, even though y doesn't have the competence of x? Dawkins wants to make it look like religion is Windows XP and science is Windows 7, in other words: the replacement. Equally, creationists are sticking to their guns saying there's nothing wrong with "XP", and it needs no replacing. I think both these perspectives are mistaken. Also, when Dawkins wants to make it look like faith and science equals theism and atheism and must be at each others throat. Funnily enough, he doesn't care to let more moderates elaborate on how they see the connection. In his Darwin series, for instance, he cuts the archbishop of Canterbury short. Hardly a man you can ignore in an instance like this. He also completely ignores the fact that the Pope already in the 1960ies made the official statement to the world that there is no conflict between what the catholic church says and what Darwinism says. If I were to ask what christian person's opinion would be hard to ignore policies on belief and shaping or influencing faith all over the world. One good answer would definitely be the pope.

Dawkins' problem in this killing-religion-mission of his, is that he doesn't know very much about religion. Many important thinkers, especially political ones, have struggled over how politics and religion should coexist or what kind of religion is acceptable or compatible with politics etc. All too many times, however, the tendency has been to select a too narrow perspective on what religion is to be able to tacle the interesting and important question of religion and politics' position towards each other.

Equally, something that different parts of the church has done in all times, is to be too sceptical about the competence of sciences - both of nature, social sciences and humanities. There are innumerous examples, and it's just pointless to mention them as more people tend to know about them than about the holes in Dawkin's theories. And in that respect, they also help to fuel each other's fires: Early sociology for instance was dead certain that by the beginning of the 21st century, religion would lead marginal existence - a mere curiosity that most people didn't think much of. Not exactly what the global religious landscape looks like today. But surely, one of the reasons was probably that the church tried to rule out that any of the new sciences could actually have an impact or help better the world; a projection that can also easily be falsified.

Evidence? (Dick pt II)

(This is a continuation of my Richard Dawkins and atheism vs theism-thread.)

Evidence. A fav word for Richard Dawkins. But what does it mean? What can it mean? According to the correspondance theory truth is something that can be said to exist in nature that can be "objectively observed", and ones statement about this thing can be checked against the original. This is more or less the version of truth Dawkins adheres to.

What he does not address however, is the question of: how can I investigate this object objectively and not merely subjectively? Is it possible for one person to investigate something without any preconception about what it is he or she is about to observe or investigate? The critique against the correspondance theory is that it's impossible to rid yourself of your preconceptions, prejudice and choices made along the way if you are to observe this object and understand anything of it.

When communicating back what you've seen, this too has to be done in a fashion where you put the observation into a language, a contextual framework to make your observations of this object - investigated with the help of your previous experience and concepts of language, nature, science, history and whatnot - graspable to anyone but yourself.

The idea of objectivity is seriously under critique and constant scrutiny. One of the early postmodern contributions to philosophy of science was to demonstrate how this objective state of all things somehow always ended up benefitting the same group of people; white middleaged men, funnily enough.

It's a good thing to want to rid yourself of preconceptions - ethnocentricity included - and try to overcome the obstacles they pose. It's quite another one to pretend that the preconceptions don't exist. This is what Dawkins does, and is also one of the points where he should be justifiably criticized.

Yours philosophically

Jonatan

PS. One of the tags for this post is "theology". Which may strike you as odd, as my text says nothing about God. What I'm writing about here is philosophy of science. That said, Dawkins is not being explicit about his philosophy of science, and it is partly therefor his entire thesis falls short.

Richard, Richard, Richard (stop being such a Dick)

I've browsed the web for some clips of Richard Dawkins after seeing his confused Darwin TV-series. What I've found - to little surprise - really is a formidable war between fundamentalist atheists and theists. This is much likely a topic I will expand on, or come back to now and then, so this is not a final addition to this debate. However, this is very much my point: there should be no final argument that settles this debate. Instead we ought to discuss the ingredients that makes such a debate reasonable or unreasonable. Suffice it to say, I find it to be the latter.

One of the highlights of my youtube-athlon of Dawkins and "counter-clips" was when he said that he is out to kill religion. This is quite interesting I think. It's kind of a white man's burden perspective on religion. We who art enlightened (Dawkins confused philosopher friend Daniel Dennet has labelled themselves "brights" as in enlightened, and "supers" goes for all the superstitious people) ought to save the... "supers".

I find it interesting why someone who is in a position where his life is not influenced more by religious statements or bodies, than by adversary political parties to the one he prefers himself.

As you may or may not know my theology studies is primarily focused on the connection between religion and politics. What I find is that they are both pretty similar in character in many respects. The starting point may vary, but both then go on to have immediate effect on the society in which they occur. Religion and politics emanate from a view on what the good life (and good way of life) consists of and how we ought to get there. "Love thy neighbour" or "from each other after their capacity, to each one after their needs", is attempts to put adjust injustices and say something about how we ought to live together. I could go on for a long time here making comparisons, but I will leave it at this.

My point is simply this: If pre-scientific ideas is the root of ideologies, politics and religions alike - why should religion be excluded from a conversation regarding he we can reach the good life? I'm asking myself: is science (the science Dawkins intends when he talks about science) presenting some clear cut ideas about what we ought to do with the world? What does science say about the implications of natural selection for instance? Should natural selection be allowed to run its course? One conclusion that could (I'm not saying it's the only logical conclusion that can be reached) be reached is that we should premier stronger individuals and care less about those in need, the handicapped, children, old people etc. Even from a Dawkins standpoint where science has tremendous competence and engulfs "purpose of life"-type questions, science still doesn't give us the answer to what we should do with our scientific evidence. Should we invest billions in mapping the human genome or give these billions to starving parts of the world? This isn't a scientific but a moral question.

So, if we really should kill religion, as Dawkins admittedly is setting out to do, shouldn't we (or Dawkins) present something that can replace its (contested) competence?

Yours theologically

Jonatan