[ExI] Fundamentalism and a Scientific Outlook (was Changing other poster's minds)

[Russell Wallace]

On 5/3/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, and, as I say, most well spoken.  One good sign, however, is that the
> post-modern crap is fading from view.  And even by 1980 I noticed that
> the "truth is relative" crowd had seemed to retreat a little.
>

I'm certainly not one of the "truth is relative" crowd, but I find myself in
more sympathy with the liberal theologians than with the fundamentalists of
either side.

First, it is not at all clear to me that there is a fact of the matter
regarding the existence of God. When the gods are said to live atop Mount
Olympus, there's data to be had: climb the mountain and see whether you
encounter gods or not. But the monotheistic God is typically placed outside
our universe. How do you propose to step outside the universe to see whether
you encounter God?

Okay, there is one known way to do that. But the word "afterlife" is
arguably a dodgy one if you think about the first part: "after". That refers
to time. But if you're talking about what happens outside our universe, you
can't be talking about the physicist's time, the imaginary dimension of
relativity, that which is measured by clocks. It's not that science says
there is no afterlife: it's that it cannot make statements about whether or
not there is, because there's no data and the very term is not a scientific
one.

If "after" can't refer to objective time, presumably it refers to subjective
time. So then we would say there is an afterlife if we have continued
subjective experiences after we die. Does science have anything to say about
that?

Well yes it does, at least to those of us who subscribe to the pattern
theory of identity. Science at least suggests the existence of at least some
levels of the Tegmark multiverse; and that means all possible continuations
of your subjective experience do indeed occur. So yes, in a sense there is
an afterlife. What does that mean in practical terms, for what we will
actually experience? Nobody knows - nobody from whom we have verified
testimony, at least.

And that's before you even get into things like the Simulation Argument. I'm
not saying SA is true, I'm not saying it's false - I don't know either way.
I am saying, let he who thinks he can disprove the existence of God have
that debate with the SA folk and let me know who wins.

So much for the material question. But an important point being missed here
is that there are different kinds of truth.

If the facts are all we're interested in, shouldn't we throw out all our
copies of Hamlet, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars? There aren't really any
such things as ghosts or elves or the Force, after all, so why waste time on
stories about them?

Because those stories contain profound moral truths, wisdom about the human
condition and how we should live; and this is a sort of knowledge that we
cannot live without, any more than we can live without knowing how to grow
wheat or make penicillin.

And that is the purpose of religion. Sure, Noah's flood didn't literally
occur any more than the War of the Ring did, but that doesn't make the Bible
valueless.

Do you not think he who sets out to destroy something that performs a vital
function, should provide a viable, proven replacement _before_ he begins the
task of destruction? Where, then, is your replacement for the religion you
would destroy? Perhaps you - most of you reading this list - find you
personally, as individuals, don't need to believe in God. But for most
people it's the only thing that's ever been enough. All attempts thus far at
creating a non-religious moral framework have been utter failures. Come up
with something that works first, or desist from attempting to destroy that
which already works, if you want to end up going anywhere except into the
fossil record.
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