God, Belief, Science.

God, Belief, Science.

From eons there is a continue debate between God believers and atheists. Some believe God, some not. Since the advent of ‘Science’ some people have accepted it as their God and rejected the conventional God. What about the stand of scientists, who have attained very high rank; by their performance, in the world of science? Here too we find that some believe God, some believe Science and some respect and believe both. Anyway, God or no God, belief is unavoidable. Let us try to understand the views on this.

How a Scientist can believe God?

I am a serious scientist who seriously believes in God. But to many more people, I am someone just like them. A scientist can believe in God because such belief is not a scientific matter. By contrast, religious statements are not necessarily falsifiable.

Why do I believe in God?

As a physicist, I look at nature from a particular perspective. I see an orderly, beautiful universe in which nearly all physical phenomena can be understood from a few simple mathematical equations. I see a universe that, had it been constructed slightly differently, would never have given birth to stars and planets, let alone bacteria and people. And there is no good scientific reason for why the universe should not have been different. I believe in God because I can feel God’s presence in my life, because I can see the evidence of God’s goodness in the world, because I believe in Love and because I believe that God is Love.

Does this belief make me a better person or a better physicist than others?

I know plenty of atheists who are both better people and better scientists than I. (however) I do think that this belief makes me better than I would be if I did not believe.

Am I (theist) free of doubts about God?

Hardly. Questions about the presence of evil in the world, the suffering of innocent children, the variety of religious thought, and other imponderables often leave me wondering if I have it right, and always leave me conscious of my ignorance. Nevertheless, I do believe, more because of science than in spite of it, but ultimately just because I believe. As the author of Hebrews put it: “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Being atheist how do you recognize belief?

Despite the fact that I’m an atheist, I recognize that belief offers something that science does not.

Why along eons the religious belief remains relevant?

It might be argued that religious belief remains relevant because of the comfort it can provide.  But this one doesn’t do much for me. Solace; is not benign when reality proves the solace to have been misplaced, nor are beliefs that reduce anxiety when the belief system is so often what generated the anxiety in the first place.

So why is belief still relevant?                                                                
To this I’d offer a very a-scientific answer. It is for the ecstasy. I mean those instances where you’re suffused with gratitude for life and experience and the chance to do good where every neuron is flooded with the momentness of feeling the breeze on its cellular cheek.              A scientist or a  consumer of science may feel ecstatic about a finding—that it will cure a disease, save a species, or is just stunningly beautiful—but science, as an explanatory system, is not very good at producing ecstasy. By contrast, the potential for ecstasy is deeply intertwined with religiosity, where the mere possibility of belief and faith in the absence of proof is where it can be an ecstatic, moving truth.

Does scientific attitude require any faith?                                              

Science itself employs a kind of faith, a faith all scientists share, whether they are religious in the conventional sense or not. Science is built upon a faith that the world is understandable, and that there is logic to reality that the human mind can explore and comprehend. It also holds, as an article of scientific faith that such exploration is worth the trouble, because knowledge is always to be preferred to ignorance.

Is there a genuine place for faith in the world of science?

Indeed there is. Far from standing in conflict with it, the hypothesis of God validates not only our faith in science, but our sheer delight at the gifts of knowledge, love, and life.

Is the belief in God a delusion?

We do not abandon science because our human efforts to approach the great truths of nature are occasionally hampered by error, greed, dishonesty, and even fraud. Why then should we declare faith a “delusion” because belief in God is subject to exactly the same failings? Albert Einstein once wrote that “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” Today, even as science moves ahead, that mystery remains.

Did science make belief in God obsolete?

It depends. The answer turns on whether one emphasizes belief or God. Science does not make belief in God obsolete, but it may make obsolete the reality of God, depending on how far we are able to push the science.

On the question of belief in God, the answer is clearly no. Surveys conducted in 1916 and again in 1997 found that 40 percent of American scientists said they believe in God, so obviously the practice of science does not make belief in God obsolete for this sizable group. Neither does it make absolute for the hundreds of millions of practicing Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and members of other faiths, who both believe in God and fully embrace science.

Of course, reality does not bend to the psychology of belief. Millions of people believe in astrology, ghosts, angels, ESP, and all manner of paranormal phenomena, but that does not make them real.

Has faith has any relevance in our scientific age?                                             
In the end you have no answer to why science works, why the physical logic of natural law makes life possible, or why the human mind is able to explore and understand nature. And I agree that there is no scientific answer to such questions. That is precisely the point of faith–to order and rationalize our encounters with the world around us. Faith is human, and therefore imperfect. But faith expresses, however poorly, a reality that includes the scientific experience in every sense, and therefore

 

Here is my honest problem with your position, the same problem that drove me from believer to nonbeliever: if God is, in your words, "without form, immeasurable" and exists "in a dimension that cannot be quantified or depicted by science," how do you know God exists? How can I–or anyone else for that matter–know God exists?  As corporeal beings who form beliefs about the world based on percepts (from our senses) and concepts (from our minds), how can we possibly know a being who by definition lies outside of both our percepts and our concepts?

Indeed, it is not possible to prove that God exists; we cannot be sure, and people of faith do doubt. Such doubt is not restricted to my own tradition. Paul Tillich, a Protestant theologian, asserted that the basis of true faith is doubt.

So I have one final question for you: why believe in God at all? Why not just be an agnostic?

Why believe? I have no rational answer. This is the cognitive dissonance that people like me live with, and with which we often struggle.

Atheists assert God does not exist. How do they know?

It is a matter of assumption, just like blind faith. That blind faith is what drives people to fly planes into the World Trade Center or to launch Inquisitions.

CONCLUSION: Atheist or theist; objection is not to the rational belief in God or Religion, but to the extremists’ superstitious attitude on both sides, which has potential to harm.

‘This stimulating conversation has moved from the question of whether science has made belief in God obsolete to the question of whether, on balance, society would be better off with or without religious faith’.

“If only religious believers throughout the world were as thoughtful, open-minded, ecumenical, and tolerant then, indeed, we could imagine no 9/11, no 7/7 bombings in London, no suicide terrorists, or abortion clinic bombers.”

“We want people of religious faith and without religious faith to act with genuine concern for the well-being of others. In the end, I think we should agree with Charles Darwin that in matters of faith all of us must make our own decisions”.

This is an abridged summary of the essays and debate on 'Does science make belief in God absolute?' with respect to 'Belief'.

Source: A series of conversations among leading scientists and scholars about the "Big Questions." John Templeton Foundation. (http://www.templeton.org/belief/)

Vijay R. Joshi.