Science, Religion and the Assumptions We Make

[hrmjustin]

Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ

One of the great advantages of being a Jesuit astronomer at the Vatican Observatory is that, since we are supported by the Church, we don't have to worry about writing proposals, sitting on committees or even teaching classes. We can concentrate on doing interesting, long-term scientific projects.

Of course, we do have our own personal commitments. I live in a community of a dozen Jesuit priests and brothers (most of us with doctorates in astronomy or related fields), and as a community we care for each other... picking up a fellow Jesuit at the airport, or taking an elderly brother to a doctor's appointment. But generally our vow of celibacy means that we're free to go where the work calls us, whether it's traveling to conferences or staying late in the lab. We don't have to worry about a child with the flu or a spouse's job search.

There is one call on our time, however, that my married colleagues don't face. It's the emails and letters we receive, regularly, asking us about our lives of science and faith.

Of course, the whole reason the Vatican established a Vatican Observatory was to show the world that the Church supports science. Answering that constant stream of questions is an essential way we "show the world," even if it is just one letter at a time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/br-guy-consolmagno-sj/science-religion-and-the-_b_6023362.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

[rug]

1. Good article.

But notice what that question assumes. It acts as if the big questions of life -- Love, Beauty, God -- can be solved with the kind of answer you'd find in the back of a physics book. But Love is not a puzzle that can be "solved" with "evidence"; it is a reality that grows, in beauty and complexity, the longer you live with it.

Even worse, that way of asking the question presumes that God is something you can finally arrive at on the basis of "evidence." Besides the obvious fact that evidence can be misleading -- we tend to find only what we expect to see -- God is not something that comes at the end of a logical train of thought. Rather, my faith in God is my basic foundational assumption, the axiom that I start with when I do my logic. In fact, mathematicians remind us that all logical systems require starting assumptions. What you conclude, depends a lot on what you assume.

So what do I assume?

I assume we live in a real universe -- we're not in the Matrix, or figments in the imagination of some computer gamer.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. That is, in itself, a troubling starting place.

Pretty good chance, the universe is, in fact, a hologram.

(But not in the sense of a piece of software running on some giant computer outside the known universe. Rather, in a particle physics sort of way)


"But Love is not a puzzle that can be "solved" with "evidence"; it is a reality that grows, in beauty and complexity, the longer you live with it."

I would like to know more about this. What does that mean? Does it suggest love is an emotion apart or somehow different from other emotions? We've got all that mapped out pretty good, actually. Not only can we tell you what and where in the brain that sort of thing happens, but what sort of damage might impede or even eliminate it. How we might restore it by various therapies.

Love, and all emotions I experience can, in my judgment, be quantified very precisely. So I don't understand that point.

[rug]

3. Neurology does not even begin to encompass it.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. I respectfully disagree.

[el_bryanto]

5. This is a one of the fundamental faultlines between believers and atheists

It's not something that can be bridged easily. Basically you are coming down on the side of a material universe - everything can be quantified scientifically. Fair enough. Believers generally, but not always, come down on the spiritual side - that there are planes and understandings beyond us. There is a spiritual world that can be felt and experienced but cannot be scientifically measured at this time.

There's no simple way to bridge that gap and probably no real reason to (at least in the context of this room). For a believer to admit that if you can't prove it scientifically it doesn't exist is, for the most part, to let go of belief. For an Atheist to admit that there might be things beyond scientific understanding is to acknowledge at least the possibility of the spiritual world.

I will say, though, that simply believing there are things that science can't explain or can't explain yet, isn't a rejection of the many things that science has explained - i've noted that in other places it is suggested that a belief in God means one rejects all science, which isn't the case.

Bryant

[AtheistCrusader]

8. I certainly agree that belief in god does not signal abandonment of all things scientific.

[goldent]

6. "Love, and all emotions I experience can, in my judgment, be quantified very precisely."

I don't know where you get that. Perhaps it will be true someday, but not in our lifetimes.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emissive tomography disagree.

As I said, we have very closely mapped out what parts of the brain are responsible for, or work together to produce these effects. It helps us find therapies for people who suffer from some forms of traumatic brain injury, inhibiting normal expression or experience of certain feelings. There's still tons to discover and learn, but to think we can't nail down the remaining details in our lifetimes is overly pessimistic, I would say. And I'm a pessimist.