tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post7378203980868094331..comments2011-08-20T12:06:09.214-07:00Comments on The Believing Agnostic: Shane Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05459626233009798112noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-6858918872344004722010-04-06T21:09:53.111-07:002010-04-06T21:09:53.111-07:00I am currently reading Finding Darwin’s God by Ken...I am currently reading Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller. I highly recommend this book. He very astutely shows how evolution stands the test of time, but he also shows sensitivity to religion. For instance he said the following: “I’d like to be able to claim that the anti-religious writings of Wilson, Dennett, and Dawkins, as well as the more refined slights of Gould, were aberrations. These folks are supposed to be scientists, and one might think that science-dealing with the material-should have nothing to say about religion-which deals with the spiritual. Their personal views on religion are just that-individual opinions on questions of faith that reside outside the sphere of science. But the reality of academic life is different.” However, he also states the following: “By definition, a god is a nonmaterial being who transcends nature, so why should science, which deals only with the material world, have anything to say about whether or not a god exists. In the rigorous, logical sense, it shouldn’t. But we are a practical species interested in getting results. Humans like to feel that their beliefs have a link to reality, and here’s where science has it all over religion: You can go to the witch doctor to lift a spell that causes your pernicious anemia, or you can take vitamin B12. If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. If you’re interested in the sex of your unborn child, you can consult plumb-bob danglers all you want (left-right, a boy: forward-back, a girl-or maybe it’s the other way around), but they’ll be right, on average, only one time in two. If you want real accuracy (here, 99% accurate), try amniocentesis and sonograms. Try Science. Trying Science makes sense because science comes with a track record. Science works because it is based on causality. Once you understand the process, even a complex one, you can reduce it to the mechanistic sum of its parts. Then, everything that happens becomes an obligatory outcome. That, to paraphrase the title of Carl Sagan’s final book, is why science serves “as a candle in the dark” in this “demon haunted world.” Scientific materialism rules out the influence of the divine from a particular phenomenon by the application of what we call “deterministic reductionism.” We can exclude the spiritual as the immediate cause for any event in nature by showing how that event is determined in material terms. All the levels of nature connect according to well-defined rules. Science has shown that material mechanisms, not spirits, were behind the reality of nature. It had found that each level of analysis was connected to ones above and below in the same way that the function of a clock is connected to the gears and shafts and springs within. And it had given mankind a new view of ourselves as material beings. Could there be anything left for God to do?” Miller goes on to say that there are still some lose ends, however, he makes it clear that, as we get scientific answers, the belief in a supernatural cause melts away.wdunlapnoreply@blogger.com