The God Question
May 24, 2008 Maui Curmudgeon, Reviews No CommentsYES! Next Question
The Templeton Organization (http://www.templeton.org/belief/) has begun a series of full page advertisements in newspapers such as the New York Times which publish a debate centering around this question:
“Does science make belief in God obsolete?”
Here are the quick answers given by the recent writers (the full answers can be found on the website):
- “Yes.” - Steve Pinker, Harvard University Psychology Department, author of The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)
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- “No, and yes.” - Christoph Cardinal Shonborn, Dominican Friar.
- “Absolutely not.” - William Phillips, Nobel Laureate, Physics.
- “Of course not.” Mary Midgley, authoer of Evolution as a Religion(Routledge Classics)
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- “No, but it should.” Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
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- “No.” - Keith Ward, Church of Englad Priest, author of The Big Questions in Science and Religion
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- “Yes.” - Victor Stenger, Professor, University of Hawaii, author of God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
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- “Not at all.” - Jerome Groopman, Professor of medicine, Harvard, author of How Doctors Think
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- “It depends.” - Michael Shermer, author of How We Believe, 2nd Edition: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God
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- “Of course not.” - Kenneth Miller, professor of biology, Brown University, author of Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.)
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- “No, but only if we continue to develop new notions of God” - Stuart Kauffman, author of Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion
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Excepting Pinker’s The Language Instinct, I’ve read the books mentioned. As always, we can learn something by what is NOT mentioned. For example, none of the writers, whether or not they believe in a god, mentioned strict texts such as the Bible or Koran or Torah. It is as if the debate has moved beyond these minor issues. The participants recognize that the fairy tales can’t be supported anymore. The idea of a god has to be redefined (as Kauffman posits).
Yet, those like Kauffman miss the point. Either there is a god with certain characteristics, or there isn’t. Whether or not humans adjust their concept of this god is immaterial to and ineffectual on, this idea of omniscience. It is, however, understandable that many fall into the trap laid by the question.
To illustrate the trap, let’s take a simpler example. Let’s say there’s a word, we’ll call it Gynyx. We know that there is no such word in the English language, nor any other language which can then be translated into English. Thus, the object, creature, motion or hypothetical which every word must represent, does not, in this case, exist. There is no such a thing as a Gynyx.
Now, let’s ask the question: “Do you believe in Gynyx?”
The first understanding the answerer has to come to is what is a Gynyx? And when the word cannot be defined, then the question becomes moot. It is so with the notion of a god.
NOT ONE of the responders to the question examine how to define a concept of god as put forth by the questioner, and so cannot really answer the question. As an English construct the question is illogical, makes no sense, and so the answers can’t illuminate the issue very clearly.
Not many people know that Christians invented the word “atheist”. The classic definition - one who does not believe in god - neatly makes its point. The person the word refers to chooses not to believe in god - it says nothing to the issue of god not existing. So it is with the question put forth by Templeton.
But still, to take a crack, using the broad definition of science - rational thought applied to an experience to explain it - the answer is immediate and easy. No one of rational thought and moderate intelligence thinks any god exists as defined by any religion yet fabricated from man’s mind.
And yes, the antithesis of the last sentence is also true.
– Mauiu Curmudgeon
Graduation Day
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — 
May 20th, 1905:
May 18th, 1959: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the statehood of Hawaii. On the same day, in its last act, the Territorial Legislature decided to adopt the slogan “the Aloha State.” Thus ends badly, since 1893, a 66-year struggle for the independence of a country first taken over by a pineapple baron and some marines. Where there’s greed and a will, there’s usually a way.
May 17th, 1982: Pesticide Maui Milk Recalled