The following is an excerpt form Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons", in which the camerlengo address the cardninals. It pretty much sums up what I've been trying to get across on these forums myself: "Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.” “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning … and all it finds is more questions.” …(you claim that) ”The ancient war between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests-all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.” “Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species . . . moving down a path of destruction.” “Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea. “To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning. “And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God! “You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?” “Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith … all faiths … are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable . . . With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do … looking beyond the ritual of these walls . . . they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control. . . .” Dan Brown, "Angels and Demons", pgs.341-344.
wow he's a sad individual. if it was'nt for science, we'ed have never flew, never looked at things smaller than the eye can see, never seen or heard things simply on a wavelenth, we should be in awe of the wonder of science, it is not what is lost, it whats gained. a flower is beautiful, and now we know why it, so beautiful. the sun is warm, and gives life, and now we know why it does what it does. there is alway more to wonder at and strides to be made.
Blaming a loss of spirituality in society on science is just as fallacious as blaming sectarian violence on religion. There is nothing about the practice of science that forces you to discard your sense of awe and wonder; in fact, for many students of science (including myself), that sense is only amplified. No interpretation of a field of knowledge, no religion, no worldview, and no sense about the universe chooses itself for you. Your conclusions, or your decisions to uncritically accept the conclusions of others, are the ultimately the products of your thoughts alone.
Science does have the effect of inducing cultural changes which impact human nature though; however it is hard to formulate ethical policies related to scientific advancement because we cannot predict the effects of the advancements on society, whether material or human. Nick Bostrom has written some good stuff on this.
Oh man... you always come through for me ggazoo. You always give me a good laugh. I've never read such double standard nonsense! May I just point out that these are YOUR problems with science, and not actual problems with science. HAHA! Right from the very first sentence...I hate to state the obvious, but this is far from the truth. Which is exactly why we remain in a world with plenty of wonder. Speak for yourself. Again, speak for yourself. Although I would have though that the great plague would've had people on a bit of a downer, or perhaps the religious crusades would've sucked too. LOL! But believing that Jesus is the son of god and rose from the dead to ascend (bodily) to heaven is reasoned logic? Or that we will get an eternal afterlife... this is NOT unashamedly irrational? That is seriously laugh-out-loud funny! Where was this sign post when once upon a time the church was up to all sorts of nasty tricks? The church was defeated, and might I say thank fuck for that! We are reaping the benefits of a rational society in which religion has been diluted. For the alternative, just take a look at the history books in Europe, or the present day in the Middle East. Yes, he also forbids that people in Africa use condoms, because the sin of contraception is apparently more important than millions of deaths due to AIDS. Does that not just sum up the way the church itself devalues life? So don't go pointing the finger at science for devaluing life. Again, the double standards here are obvious. Shall we take a history lesson on the morals of the church? What research is this? I guess he is talking about embryonic stem cell research, in which case, no babies (or any living things) are harmed. Imagine we could not see any other stars or planets. We would think that there must be a god because our single planet could not have existed purely by chance. But of course, there are trillions of other planets and stars, and most are barren of life because the conditions are not right for life. So since there are trillions of planets, suddenly our little bubble no longer seems impossible. With the universe we don't have the luxury of peering beyond it's borders, but just like our existence on Earth and NOT on Mars, the answer is best found in the anthropic principle rather than an extravagant god, who's existence would have to be far more improbable than the existence of the universe itself. Really? Either in the past, or in the present, I don't see the most religious parts of the world setting a good example of this. This whole article was complete bullshit from start to finish.
Yeah, that's a load of crap. But since it is in a novel, I won't assume it represents the feelings of the author. I suggest that people need to grow up. Big Daddy Church isn't going to cradle you in your intellectual infancy anymore. If you don't understand science, learn about it. If you don't like how science is being used, speak up about it. Science itself cannot decide the direction of human society. To you find anything contradictory about these two statements? 1. "...it has left us in a world without wonder..." 2. "...and all it finds is more questions..."
Thread topic accused science, hence my reply. If you are content with religious shit, all the best, don't blame science for all the ill.
Science has removed much of the factual basis for religion, and people that like religion blame it for not replacing their crutch with something similar. Science is just a way of finding things out, not a way of life. Do you blame science if it can't show you how to play soccer? You don't learn how to kick a ball by studying the physics of objects in motion. Neither do you live life purely on the basis of science.
ggazoo, Science is a process. Religion is a method of human relationship. One seeks to ask reality questions. The other seeks to satisfy human psychological needs. It seems that if religious members used a little science to understand their psychological needs and abandon their fairytales then religion could be adapted to be compatible with reality and meet the human psychological needs it was intended to.
