timeimmortal

Nicholas writes in to correct a mistake I made in this article, and to comment on it as well.

“[R]ecent discovery that the Amazon molly fish reproduces asexually”. Er, no. It was discoved in 1932. That’s why it’s called the Amazon molly, after the legendary female warriors. The news is the publication of a paper attempting to quantify how long it should have taken to become extinct, and wondering why it hasn’t.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/88

But I agree that human science is unlikely ever to explain everything. On the other hand, none of the big Religions explain anything. “This or that god did it” is not an explanation. It’s a cop-out.

I’ve corrected the origninal article, although I observe that the error did not substantially damange the point being made.

As to Nicholas‘ second point, in a way it is a cop-out to claim that God “did it” is a satisfactory answer to questions about origins, if in fact one is advocating God’s activity in contrast to what the evidence suggests took place (i.e. evolution). If one is preaching a dichotomy, then certainly one’s invocation of divine action is a cop-out.

But of course, that does not mean that God is not the artist behind all creation; it simply means that instead of adopting an “either/or” stance toward evolution and faith, one must adopt a “both/and” stance. Yes, humanity evolved, and yes, evolution was “guided” (if the Reader will permit the use of a somewhat clumsy term for it) by God.

Nicholas may feel compelled to argue against my having said that, and may feel the need to label even the “both/and” stance as a cop-out. And maybe it is. Equally, then, it is a cop-out to argue that evolution was unguided, which most atheists do.

As to whether religions explain anything, I think the first question that has to be asked is what we expect a religion to explain, and then what a religion really should explain. Galileo said it best, I think, in his letter to Christina, when he observed that the purpose of the Bible (and, by extension, the Church, of which he remained a faithful member until the day of his death) is to teach one how to go to Heaven, and not to teach one how the heavens go.

I think there is merit in looking to Scripture and coming away with the generalized understanding that God is responsible for all creation, but certainly there can only be folly in looking to Scripture and expecting to come away with a complete understanding of the methods and means by which anything — planets, plants, humans, whatever — arose. The Book of Genesis communicates important truths, but does so through the context of an origins legend.

Conversely, if one is looking at Scripture in the hope of better knowing the mind of God, or if one is seeking out the road to salvation, or if one is looking to discover what sanctifying grace is behind — and, indeed, enables and makes fruitful — a truly moral life, then religion has a lot to offer, and explains much.

Update: Mark Shea muses on a related topic:

in a universe governed by a supernatural God, it’s not at all odd to suppose that, now and then and for his own purposes, God may choose to fulfill the Harvard law of animal behavior and, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, do whatever the heck he wants.

The main thing that irks materialists is that God appears to have no reverence at all for carefully controlled laboratory conditions. He eats with tax collectors and sinners, not to mention granting miracles to unkempt shepherd kids and French peasants with no standing in the community of those determined not to believe. He has the gall to miraculously heal people at Lourdes and cause the sun to dance before countless thousands and Fatima, but since these documented events are not sufficiently reverential of the rules of the scientific game, they are tossed out by the high priesthood of materialsts.

All this merely means that lot of reality is not subject to scientific examination. Science can (and does) take a look at miraculous claims. But even in the fact of something spectacular (like Peter Smith’s regrown eyes after they were destroyed by silver nitrate solution) all it can do is say, “Yep. The eyes sure are healthy. Don’t know why.” For the “why”, you need to apply to the nuns who asked for Mother Cabrini’s intercession. (By the way, I have a friend who actually had lunch with Fr. Smith.)

Some people, who mysteriously pride themselves for being “rational” reject supernatural explanations out of court, no matter how bleedin’ obvious the miracle is. That’s because they confuse “reason” with pig-headed committment to shallow materialism no matter what. I prefer to actually use my reason for thinking. So when a paranormal claim is shown to be bunk, I have no driving need to believe otherwise. But similarly, when a supernatural claim gives ever indication of being supernatural, I have no driving need to reject it.

Not all claims of the supernatural are claims of the divine. Some of them bear strong earmarks of the demonic. Unlike many moderns, I find nothing a priori ridiculous about that either. The Church’s ancient claim that there are non-corporeal intelligence (angels) and that the some of them have chosen to rebel against God has much to recommend it in both scripture and in human experience. So I see no particular reason to doubt it (beyond the knee-jerk materialism of the present age). I think such agents can have effect in our world and I think the wisest thing to do when you encounter a person of intelligence and good will who claims an encounter with such a being is to take them seriously, just as you would such a person if they claimed to see a plane crash.

The skeptical answer to all such claims is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That slogan is, to put it kindly, rubbish. Extraordinary claims require evidence. Period. It is extraordinary to claim that light is both a wave and a particle. But the evidence point to the fact that it behaves that way anyway. Physicists did not have to perform seven Herculean feats to show this. They simply had to show that light behaved like a wave and a particle. In the same way, the evidence for the Marian apparitions at Lourdes don’t have to consist of proofs so incontrovertible that every last person on earth is compelled to accept it. It simply has to be sound enough that it’s bloody hard to explain it any other way.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is simply a psychological justification for saying, “I will refuse to accept anything that challenges my comfortable materialist worldview.” You can do that. But don’t insult my intelligence by calling it “rational”. Rational people follow the evidence where it leads. Pig-headed ideologues ignore inconvenient evidence…

I wonder, O Reader, if perhaps Nicholas falls into the category Mark Shea is describing above? There is, after all, a certain sort of person who confidently asserts that religion has nothing useful to tell us precisely because s/he refuses to regard as useful those things which religion does indeed tell and explain to us.

~ by Kenneth on April 24, 2008.