OK I am a Christian, after a fashion, and I know I'm setting myself up for a flaming by joining this group. But I'd like to explore a unification of science and religion.
1. Let's characterise god as that activity, as a whole, which creates knowledge.
I imagine no scientist would say that this god does not exist. It clearly involves consciousness. My belief is that it is one and the same activity working through all human beings. The first prerequisite of knowledge is that there is something to know. This something is generally accepted to be experience and perceptual experience in particular. The activity of knowledge is second prerequisite. Knowledge itself would be a unification of the two.
If this god is a creator god, in the sense of creating out of nothing then it would have to exist prior to all experience. Therefore it cannot be a designer - for design needs a material to be designed and this material would co-exist with my god. Therefore if it creates it begins as Absolute Ignorance. And this is compatible with evolution.
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edgar - "Is it possible to unify science and religion?"
No, not without making fundamental changes to at least one of them; such large changes that it would probably be inappropriate to continue to use the old name for the changed version.
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edgar - "1. Let's characterise god as that activity, as a whole, which creates knowledge. I imagine no scientist would say that this god does not exist."
Defining god as an activity? Why not just define god as a kitten; everyone believes in kittens.
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edgar - "[god] would have to exist prior to all experience"
edgar - "Therefore it cannot be a designer"
edgar - "And this is compatible with evolution."
Those conclusions do not seem to follow.
edgar - "Is it possible to unify science and religion?"
Nyarlathotep - "No, not without making fundamental changes to at least one of them ... "
It is religion which needs to be changed. All religions do change but only slowly. Religions take the world to be the manifestation of the goodness of the creator and so they are highly conservative. Even so when Greek philosophy made its way back into western Europe it took the genius of Thomas Aquinas to bridge the difference from the established religion. Again, Galileo and Newton seriously threatened the religious order but religion accommodated science to a divine mechanic. Science significantly modified the 'common sense' of religion.
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Evolution demands that there is no designer. The activity of knowledge is that which creates all knowledge, all definition and therefore must itself be utterly indefinable. (Therefore it cannot be a kitten.) Experience is the raw material of knowledge. My metaphysical speculation is that the activity of knowledge must exist prior to experience. The speculation is religious and falls outside the realm of knowledge. It is not demonstrable. A scientist would have free choice to accept or reject the speculation. Since the activity is speculated to be prior to experience then, at this point, there is not even possibility of knowledge. And as design is form of knowledge then, if the activity is the creator, then the only possibility is that the activity puts forth its own being and gives birth to experience.
Hence the activity is originally ignorant and not a designer. Therefore it is compatible with evolution. Surely on this basis religion and atheist evolution can cohabit peacefully.
That seems to be just word salad.
"I'm setting myself up for a flaming by joining this group"
Well, flame throwers do come out on occasion...usually when someone says something ridiculous. However, that is not restricted to theists...plenty of atheists have has a volley of flame come thier way as well. This is a debate forum, Intelligent debate is welcomed.
"Is it possible to unify science and religion? "
Why would one want to do so? What purpose would it serve? They are completely different things. Seems to me it would be like trying to merge a cat with a block of granite.
Perhaps what you are after is actually reconciliation or collaboration, not unification. However, none of those things is actually very likely. There are too many religions claiming too many disparate things. There are too many religious people who completely eschew science.
As to the balance of your post, a great deal of it just didn't make any sense to me.
A reconciliation is what I would be after. At heart I am a monist so the separation of the two upsets me. I realise it is extremely difficult. If a religious person wishes to challenge science then it must be done on the ground of science for to claim something is just god's doing is to stifle all further thought and investigation. But if my god is the activity of knowledge then that would be to deny my own god.
Edit: It upsets me because it disintegrates humanity as a whole and this is anathema to my monist views.
It is entirely possible to unify science and religion: you just subject both to critical scrutiny, proper investigation, and the pursuit of evidence.....then of course you are left with only science....
well, i guess i wouldn't call that a unification...i'd call it a riddance of silliness. :-)
"1. Let's characterise god as that activity, as a whole, which creates knowledge.
I imagine no scientist would say that this god does not exist. It clearly involves consciousness. My belief is that it is one and the same activity working through all human beings. The first prerequisite of knowledge is that there is something to know. This something is generally accepted to be experience and perceptual experience in particular. The activity of knowledge is second prerequisite. Knowledge itself would be a unification of the two."
Edgar - Are you assuming in this claim that every human beings consciousness is the same consciousness ? I think most neuroscientists would disagree with that. Do you know of any scientists that propose such a thing?
edgar - "Is it possible to unify science and religion?"
Edgar, regardless of which religion you follow, a religion is based upon believing without evidence in something.
Science does not work in that way.
You never start from the conclusion and try to fit science for that conclusion by ignoring all the other evidence/logic.
Science is an unbiased honest attempt at finding the truth after considering ALL the evidence/logic.
Religion is simply the opposite of that.
It asks the individual to believe something with the promise that it MUST to be the truth regardless of evidence/logic. = BIAS
The only exception to this is maybe Deism which does not even claim to know what god is.
Science is the proper way at finding the truth.
Religion is demanding you to have a bias even if you care to look for the truth. It is brain corruption basically.
The way of thinking is different and you can only accept 1 way of thinking as valid.
The Only reconciliation possible is for religion to stop being a religion and become something which is not.
Unbiased and logical.
Edgar, religion follows evidence... the ancient texts. The question is do we question the evidence? It is when we follow the evidence that we realize that the interpretation of that evidence may be faulty. Science too has a fundamental premise. Philosophically, science is trying to work backward to prove its premise. Who or what is behind the first day of creation.
Ancient texts are not evidence, they are ancient texts written by people who had little knowledge. You should question the 'evidence' and would find it lacking if you had any intelligence.
Science is not working philosophically, it is working scientifically. Everything you do is because of science, including typing into this forum.
There may not be a day of creation at all, as you could find out by studying science instead of reading ancient texts.
Ancient texts provide evidence? So, the Egyptian Book of the Dead is evidence?
Religion does not follow evidence. The word "evidence" did not exist until the dawning years of the scientific revolution. That was when began to realize that there were new discoveries to be made , that criminal trials and scientific claims require something more than casting spells , having visions , divinations. Religion follows fairy tales and gullibility.
No. They are at present fairly much unified. Both hold for primary premise a universe that began either at the hands of a God or a of Force. A First Cause created a wave of effects... carrying the will and design of the creator... travelling in a linear fashion until the wave reaches us today. One seeks the will of the God... the other seeks that first instant. Neither exists.
Utter nonsense.
anaturalphilosophy.com - "travelling in a l̲i̲n̲e̲a̲r̲ fashion until the wave reaches us today"
Why did you use the word "linear" here?
Linear simply means that under the God created universe we are stuck in a linear space time. God was cause, everything else the effects. A succession of effects that reaches this moment ... we are effects of that cause. Unless reality is something completely different. Then, science has its hands in its pocket...
what is the difference between 'linear space time' and say 'non-linear space time'?
for that matter what is the difference between a wave travelling in a 'linear fashion' vs a 'non-linear fashion'?
All good questions. One space time is causal. The other is instantaneous.
well that isn't what the word linear means...it all seems like word salad.
And what is the conclusion of science regarding the creation of the universe?
Go read some books, or google it...
Oy.
Science makes no conclusions...about anything.
"And what is the conclusion of science regarding the creation of the universe?"
Science concluded that we currently do not know yet since we haven't gathered enough data to make any speculation without being called arrogant.
Science found out that there was a massive explosion that explains most of the things we see from our tiny planet and called it a big bang, gave it an estimate date of explosion and came up with many hypothesis about what might have caused it.
That is where science is at, right now.
No paper there said that the big bang was the beginning of everything that existed as a fact as you seem to imply.
Science is not as arrogant as your holy books, to state things as facts, it just analyzes observable facts and tries to explain them with hypothesis of what MIGHT have happened supporting them with evidence.
"Science concluded that we currently do not know yet since we haven't gathered enough data to make any speculation without being called arrogant."- Religious people have the fear of going to hell... so they conform. Atheists fear being called arrogant, so they shy away from commonly asked questions. I"m not much into the big bang at all. And I don't think that there was any "beginning" at all. What is it that use to state that you are an atheist? And, what does it mean to you? There are answers, but coming up with one would be arrogant would it be? I refuse to wait for science to give me some answers.
" I refuse to wait for science to give me some answers."
You seem to assume that religion gives answers which is like claiming that Star Wars gives answers without supporting that ridiculous claim.
Just by believing that god did it, won't get you anywhere except being more vulnerable to brainwashing and mind control.
Only science can deliver answers, a theistic god never did and never will because it is a 2000 year old human invention.
Whilst science is a human discovery.
Jeff... click on this for a few moments: anaturalphilosophy.com (thanks)
Some 'interesting' phrases I took from a random page of what I can only assume is your website:
"and will of the Cause
a unifying (One) Source
as the One Source, as the Universal Oneness
as Principles, have always been
The Now is infinite.
in the Now produces
The Now always says
is about Oneness
the universal Source
the Source
captured (One)
To We have a higher self
The bottom line Infinite lows and infinite highs
an unknown Force
need of the Source
walls of the Imaginarium
and Creation
the God Imaginarium"
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http://i.imgur.com/PxoDD6q.png
So , science has yet to reach a "conclusion" about the creation of the universe and you refuse to wait. You use your primate imagination to form feel good mental constructs. No one can disprove what you say any more than you can prove there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster {Praise His Noodley Appendages!}. However , you have proven nothing.
Science observes, makes up a working hypothesis, a theory, that explain all the observations, and allow testable deductions. Once experiment has been carefully done, and replicated, then if the data do not refute the hypothesis, then that is what we report: The data DOES NOT REFUTE the hypothesis. If the data does refute the conclusion from the hypothesis, the hypothesis is modified so that it does explain the new results. the modified theory becomes the working hypothesis and MORE deductions are drawn and tested.
NO RELIGION I HAVE EVER SEEN SAYS "The third chapter of the book of Esau is null and void because of the results of this set of experiments." That is NOT the way of religion. Religion has REVEALED ULTIMATE TRUTH. IMMUTABLE.
Even the great Christian Apologist Augustine, in his time, said that when theology and science disagree the _theologian_ needs a new allegory. HE DID NOT SAY THE SCIENCE SHOULD BE CHANGED.