I read an interesting debate on the subject, "God vs. Science". It was the first time I got a chance to dig into this matter and read the views of both sides. I was surprised to see that the arguments were not very convoluted.
Perhaps I was expecting a lot of theological and philosophical terminology which would eventually make me feel out of place but I found it very riveting.
The participants of debate were F. Collins and R. Dawkins.
Dawkins main argument I think was that people with a belief in an infinite being cop-out and evade questions thus putting an end to scientific investigation/struggle. He was of the opinion that whenever something comes up which can’t be explained at that moment, the people of faith label it as the act of god. Just like in the ancient times falling of rain or the determination of child’s sex was considered to be an act of providence but today we have a scientific explanation to it.
“To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. All kinds of things may happen which we by the lights of today's science would classify as a miracle just as medieval science might a Boeing 747.”He disclaims the possibility of miracles altogether.
“If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle.”
Similarly he believed science possibly will find the answers to the creation of earth, proving that at some point in time something can come from nothing and from very humble beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, and more adaptive perfection without any divine intervention.
On Collins comment that the book of Genesis should not be taken in literal sense,
“St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.”
And that evolution and religion don’t have to be at opposing ends,
“By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation”.
Perhaps I was expecting a lot of theological and philosophical terminology which would eventually make me feel out of place but I found it very riveting.
The participants of debate were F. Collins and R. Dawkins.
Dawkins main argument I think was that people with a belief in an infinite being cop-out and evade questions thus putting an end to scientific investigation/struggle. He was of the opinion that whenever something comes up which can’t be explained at that moment, the people of faith label it as the act of god. Just like in the ancient times falling of rain or the determination of child’s sex was considered to be an act of providence but today we have a scientific explanation to it.
“To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. All kinds of things may happen which we by the lights of today's science would classify as a miracle just as medieval science might a Boeing 747.”He disclaims the possibility of miracles altogether.
“If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle.”
Similarly he believed science possibly will find the answers to the creation of earth, proving that at some point in time something can come from nothing and from very humble beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, and more adaptive perfection without any divine intervention.
On Collins comment that the book of Genesis should not be taken in literal sense,
“St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.”
And that evolution and religion don’t have to be at opposing ends,
“By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation”.
Dawkins replied
“If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in”.
Dawkins is ready to agree that there is a phenomenon far more great and vast but is reluctant to call it god.
“I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. What I can't understand is why you invoke improbability and yet you will not admit that you're shooting yourself in the foot by postulating something just as improbable, magicking into existence the word God.”
I do agree with Collins as I have personally experienced it
“Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to is not likely to help your case.”
And I also appreciated his comment
“The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.”
Another interesting part of the debate was from where the humanity’s moral sense comes. To me arguments from both sides were unconvincing. Collins believed,
“..if you believe, and Richard has been articulate in this, that natural selection operates on the individual, not on a group, then why would the individual risk his own DNA doing something selfless to help somebody in a way that might diminish his chance of reproducing?... the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes. We see less dramatic versions every day. Many of us think these qualities may come from God”
Dawkins puts forward the following argument.
“Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups. But that seems to me to be a highly plausible account for where the desire for morality, the desire for goodness, comes from.”
Concluding remarks of Collins and Dawkins are as follow respectively,
“..Science isn't able to provide about the natural world--the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist.”
“I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up…If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed”
“If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in”.
Dawkins is ready to agree that there is a phenomenon far more great and vast but is reluctant to call it god.
“I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. What I can't understand is why you invoke improbability and yet you will not admit that you're shooting yourself in the foot by postulating something just as improbable, magicking into existence the word God.”
I do agree with Collins as I have personally experienced it
“Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to is not likely to help your case.”
And I also appreciated his comment
“The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.”
Another interesting part of the debate was from where the humanity’s moral sense comes. To me arguments from both sides were unconvincing. Collins believed,
“..if you believe, and Richard has been articulate in this, that natural selection operates on the individual, not on a group, then why would the individual risk his own DNA doing something selfless to help somebody in a way that might diminish his chance of reproducing?... the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes. We see less dramatic versions every day. Many of us think these qualities may come from God”
Dawkins puts forward the following argument.
“Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups. But that seems to me to be a highly plausible account for where the desire for morality, the desire for goodness, comes from.”
Concluding remarks of Collins and Dawkins are as follow respectively,
“..Science isn't able to provide about the natural world--the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist.”
“I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up…If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed”
