Midterm Exam

Midterm Examination for Religion and Science Course

1. Jennifer Granneman

2. curiousdiver

3. http://curiousdiver.blogspot.com/

4. Classes missed: 1 (but I was at my grandma’s funeral L) Classes late to: 0

5. My grandmother died today. All around me my family says "She's in a
   better place." All of a sudden this whole not believing in God (and
   an afterlife) thing hit hard. Is death really the end? Is there
   really nothing more? I understand why it is so tempting to cling to
   religion...

6. Yes and no. I have partially watched all of the videos posted online. In other words I gleaned what information I could from them, but I didn’t take the time to watch every entire video. Some were more interesting than others and I watched those in their entirety.

7. Yes, I have read both of the required reading books completely.

8. The overall theme of Evolution and Christian Faith is Joan Roughgarden’s attempt to show how the teachings of evolution and Christianity can be compatible. She is primarily reaching out to Christians to try to convince them that there is no conflict in the teaching of evolution in classrooms across America. Because her intended audience is the Christian public, she relies primarily on biblical scripture to prove her case. In her book Roughgarden does not address the issue of the existence of God because she is writing for a Christian audience that does not need this type of explanation. Thus, I believe that if she were asked to prove the existence of God she would point to biblical scripture to prove her case. Throughout her book she repeatedly quotes scripture and apparently does not have a problem accepting scripture literally. If this is the case, then there is ample justification for the existence of God as shown through the scripture. I am absolutely certain that Richard Dawkins would rather vehemently oppose such an argument. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins devotes about 50 pages of his book on a discussion regarding how poorly written and unreliable the Bible is. In his book, Dawkins points to the many blatant inaccuracies of the Bible, such as the contradictions between Matthew and Luke as pointed out in the story of the birth of Jesus. He discusses further the fact that the New Testament gospels were chosen somewhat arbitrarily and are not considered by reputable biblical scholars to be a reliable record of what actually happened in history. He concludes this discussion with, “…I shall not consider the Bible further as evidence for any kind of deity.” That pretty much says it all.

9. Richard Dawkins offers many explanations for why belief in God is delusional and detrimental to society. In addressing the issue of why there almost certainly is no God, he spends most of his time refuting widely accepted arguments. These include: the argument from improbability, irreducible complexity, God of the gaps, and the anthropic principle (planetary and cosmological versions). He does offer a few explanations for why God probably doesn’t exist. The argument from large numbers is one of the strongest of these arguments. It has been estimated that there are between 1 billion and 30 billion planets in our galaxy, and 100 billion galaxies in the universe. In other words, there may be a billion billion planets in the universe. Even if the odds of life arising on a planet are approximately 1 in a billion, life will still have arisen on a billion planets (one of which is Earth). In response to such an argument, Joan Roughgarden may point to the fact that the Bible said God created the world and that’s just the way it is. Perhaps God created life on other planets too, but she would ask why that’s even relevant. If she wanted to be more sophisticated in her argument, she might state that God uses the natural laws of the universe (which he created) to set into motion the creation of life spontaneously in the universe. She would state that God initially designed the universe, including all the physical, chemical, and biological principles contained within it, and then left it alone to change according to those initial principles. However, this theory would conflict with the Bible, which shows God intervening many times with his creation.

10. In order to discuss the issue of Littlewood’s theory of large numbers and how it relates to the occurrence of “miracles” I have decided to call on the testimony of Father Ben Hawley from the “Good News Blogspot.” The good Father Hawley took a road trip crossing the Great Plains, specifically Winona, Minnesota to La Crosse, Wisconsin with his Jesuit friend. When they arrived at their destination they were surprised to learn that the area they had just crossed had been hit by a snow storm, dropping 15-18 inches of snow and causing 50 cars to drive off the highway! Father Hawley then rightly asks his readers and himself, “Was our good fortune just a coincidence, or was God at work in our lives to help us complete our journey safely?” After quoting scripture to support the view that God is looking out for us, Father Hawley ends with the following quote, “When these remarkable events occur in our lives, we can choose to deny God and call them coincidences, or to recognize the Divine Synchronicity of the God who loves us, fulfilling His Good News in our lives. I know how I choose. And you?” http://thegoodnewsofchrist.blogspot.com/2007/02/coincidence-or-divine-synchronicity.html

Father Hawley may be content with accepting the divine synchronicity of God, however he may also be surprised to learn that Littlewood’s theory of large numbers practically predicts the event he has just described. Littlewood, a Cambridge University Professor, proposed that essentially we are expected to witness about one miracle every month. To prove this seemingly outrageous claim, Littlewood explains that on the average humans are awake for 8 hours every day, although I would argue it’s more than that, and that during this time we witness about thirty thousand events. Littlewood then defines a miracle as a highly improbable event, specifically an event that occurs every one time in a million. If we accept this definition, and take into account that the average human experiences 1,008,000 events every 35 days, it can be concluded that we should witness a miracle approximately every month! Apparently miracles are a rather commonplace event.

It would be reasonable to assume that Father Hawley would probably disagree with Littlewood’s large number theory and insist instead that in his particular case, God Himself had intervened. It’s also possible that Father Hawley might argue that miracles are supernatural events that do not follow the particular laws of nature that we understand and therefore Littlewood’s definition of a miracle as a highly improbably event is wrong. However, that statement would be calling on us to assume that there are some events that are not “natural” and that again is something that cannot be proven. In any event, my final question to Father Hawley is this, what about those poor suckers in the other 50 cars that got caught in the storm? Did God simply forget about them or did they simply not deserve to be protected as much as a Roman Catholic priest (perhaps it was a caravan of Muslims)?

11. The pseudosciences are any beliefs or practices that do not have scientific status due to the fact that they lack supporting evidence or don’t follow the scientific method. Pseudosciences may appear to be scientific, but upon closer examination it is discovered that they are fraudulent. These sciences are often vague in their claims which enables naïve people to believe the claims when they are ‘validated.’ An example of just such a pseudoscience is known as creation science, which attempts to prove the Genesis account of creation using scientific means. Here are just some of the claims of creation science: sudden creation from nothing, catastrophism accounts for the earth’s geology (world wide flood and ice age), relatively recent inception of the earth, they reject unifromitarianism (the concept that the same physical and geological laws observed on earth today can be used to explain earth’s past), they reject evolutionary biology (there is a separate ancestry for man and apes), and they support the inerrancy of the Bible. In order to determine if a belief or practice is some form of pseudoscience, it is useful to include Occam’s razor in the equation. Occam’s razor, also known as the law of parsimony, is simply a principle that states any explanation should make as few assumptions as possible. Pseudosciences usually fail to provide an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions; in other words, they are not parsimonious explanations of the natural world. First of all, creation science asks us to assume that the world was suddenly created from nothing due to a supernatural event. This explanation can not be tested or falsified and creates more questions than it answers. Catastrophism lacks scientific evidence and failed as a science as its assumptions were based in religion. The recent inception of the earth blatantly contradicts carbon dating and is not explicable by natural law. Generally, the claims of creation science while seemingly scientific were primarily generated from scripture and lack scientific proof. These claims ask us to make more assumptions, such as the assumption that all scientific data regarding the age of the universe is incorrect, in order to accept the proposed explanation. Thus creation science does not successfully pass under Occam’s razor.

Another pseudoscience that fails to meet the specifications of Occam’s razor are crop circles. Amazingly enough there are many people that believe crop circles, the geometric designs of flattened crops in a field, are the result of paranormal activity. Here are some of the various explanations for crop circles: aliens are trying to communicate with us using ancient Sumerian symbols or symbolic representations of alien DNA, vortexes, ball lightning, plasma, and Satan. In fact, there is an entire field, called cerealogy, that is devoted to the serious study and theorizing about crop circles. The explanation that aliens are coming down to earth and leaving messages for us or any of the other ridiculous explanation proposed ask us to make more assumptions than the most obvious explanation. This is the explanation that crop circles are most likely the result of people with way too much time on their hands. The alien explanation asks us to assume that there are aliens in this universe and that they choose to communicate with us by squashing some crops in random fields. In fact, it has been discovered that most crop circles were made by pranksters that have come forward and admitted their guilt. It’s interesting to note, however, that people still cling to the paranormal explanations to describe the crop circles that haven’t been claimed by a particular prankster.

12. The development of Darwin’s theory of evolution was arguably one of the most important scientific developments of the 19^th century and, for that matter, in the history of science. Although Darwin was himself an agnostic, his work eventually allowed atheism to become more accepted by society because it provided more justifiable reasons for rejecting the explanation of God and creation to many scientific questions. Ernst Mayr, a professor of zoology at Harvard University and known as the ‘Darwin of the 20^th century’ put it well when he stated, “The Darwinian revolution was not merely the replacement of one scientific theory by another, as had been the scientific revolutions in the physical sciences, but rather the replacement of a world view, in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant explanatory principle, by a new world view in which there was no room for supernatural forces.” (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/may1bio-1) The primary reason that the theory of evolution is extremely controversial in terms of its conflict with religion is that before Darwin’s time the multitude of diverse forms observed in nature were thought to be entirely the result of an intelligent creator. However, the “new world view” proposed by Darwin showed that there was possibly an alternative way that life on earth had come into being; that is, life on earth was not created but rather had evolved. Darwin provided the mechanism of natural selection thus replacing the need for a supernatural explanation of how life was created and in doing so, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”- Richard Dawkins.

However, it is interesting that Darwin himself did not pursue the natural thought progression implied by evolution that often leads to atheism, but instead was a self-described agnostic. This was most likely due to the fact that at one time in his life he almost became a clergyman in the Anglican church. In fact, he stated that he clung to his religious views, despite obvious and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, until he was 40 years old. Although Darwin lost his faith due to the development of his theory, he was not strongly opposed to Christianity. In fact, he stated one reason for this in a letter to the secularist Edward Aveling in which he said, “It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.” I myself can sympathize with Darwin’s conundrum. It seems that although Darwin agreed that Christianity was not justified by the evidence, he was not in a situation to aggressively oppose religion.

13. Meme theory describes the idea that certain sets of information, such as a particular idea, theory, term, practice, etc, are better at propagating themselves and can thus infect cultures better. Thus memes are comparable to viruses which have varying ability to propagate and infect their hosts. Richard Dawkins take this concept of memes and applies it to religion, thus describing religion as a “virus” of the mind in his book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins thinks that religions is one of the most successful memes that has been replicated, mutated, and evolved many, many times throughout all of the different cultures of the world. One proof for memetics in religion is the fact that successful religions constantly modify their theologies as the moral values and belief systems of cultures change over time. For example, in the middle ages it was an accepted fact of life that people could become possessed by demons. In Roman Catholicism, therefore, priests were often employed to oust these pesky little supernatural critters from their hosts. In more recent history, however, the majority of society does not believe that mental illnesses are caused by demons. Thus, while the Roman Catholic church still offers exorcism for those who so desire it, it is certainly not a fundamental part of the religion anymore. It is apparent then that this meme has undergone some modification and evolved to be more acceptable in current society.

One criticism of meme theory as it relates to religion is that certain revelatory religions contradict meme theory. In a revelatory religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the concepts are based on personal experience and spiritual insight. The fact that revelatory religions incorporate the aspect of personal experience is the main contradiction with meme theory. It is easy for ideas to be passed on from generation to generation, mutating and evolving along the way. However, a personal experience cannot be transmitted from one person to the next and is not defined as a meme. It is something that is experienced separately and repeatedly by different people of these revelatory religions, thus confirming their belief in the religion. However, I would argue that meme theory could be used to explain these personal experiences. The fact is that memes are so deeply entrenched in our brains that they are also in our subconscious. Thus what we feel to be completely personal and unbiased is probably being strongly affected by the memes that we can’t get out of our heads, aah!

14. One of the strongest arguments that I think a religious believer could make in response to Dawkin’s notion that religion is a virus of the mind is that disbelief in God could also be an equally compelling meme. The advantages of this meme are that one is not constrained by the rules and regulations of religion and thus it is extremely appealing. In this case it would be Dawkins himself that has a virus of the mind. Although he doesn’t have a problem saying that about other people, he might just have a problem with them telling him he has a mind parasite.

15. In this question I will follow my own personal progression of thought about the origins of the universe that has led me to the view I currently hold. In other words, I will begin with the religious view of the creation of the universe and end with a scientific explanation. A scientific and yet religious person would most likely accept the fact that the universe is expanding and thus must have originated from a single point in the distant past. If they were somewhat free-thinking they would probably even accept the big bang theory due to the overwhelming amount of supporting scientific evidence. Furthermore they might accept that life spontaneously originated on earth and evolved into all the multitude of forms that we see today. However, where the religious person would bring a supernatural force into the equation is to explain why the big bang occurred. The initial spark that put the big bang into motion is a seemingly inexplicable event. Therefore, the “God of the gaps” jumps in to help us understand why we are and perhaps give meaning to life.

In the alternative view of the creation of the universe, that is the scientific view, the a revised model of the big bang theory is the most preferred explanation. Here is how the theory plays out: space and time exist forever and the big bang is not he beginning of time, but merely one explosion in an endless sequence of cycles of contractions and explosions with lots of time to evolve in between. In this new theory, the universe undergoes a slow cosmic acceleration and then which ultimately leads to a contraction and crunch. Some of the strongest support for this theory lies in the recent developments in superstring theory that suggests the universe many contain many different dimensions. The support lies in the suggestion that the big band and big crunch may be an illusion as the big bang and crunch may actually occur in one of the extra dimensions. This possibility allows the transition from big crunch to big bang to follow the laws of physics as it would be occurring in a different dimension. It is my opinion that the most persuasive argument is the last one because it doesn’t invoke the supernatural and thus is more acceptable.

16. Stephen Jay Gould has proposed that science and religion occupy “nonoverlapping magisteria”, known as the NOMA principle. He first defines the term magisterium as “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.” It is apparent from this definition then that the NOMA principle means that science covers one teaching domain (the empirical realm) while religion holds a monopoly on the other domain (moral values and the “ultimate” questions). This nice and tidy explanation allows science and religion to exist in harmony because they occupy two entirely different realms of knowledge. However, there are many questions that overlap in both of these magisteria and thus contradict this view of science and religion. For example, what moral responsibilities do we have as human beings towards other species considering that evolution made us the only organisms with advanced consciousness? The Pope tries to justify the coexistence of science and religion by claiming that a certain time in the evolution of man God simply injected our souls into us, thus separating man and animals. He’s essentially claiming that since that was the only time of intervention and it only involved the development of morals in human beings (remember that’s the religious magisterial), then there should be no conflict between science and religion. If that was the case then this class would be utterly unnecessary and entirely a waste of time because there would be no conflict between science and religion. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) this is not the case according to Richard Dawkins. He proposes that the fact that religions make any sort of claim about a supernatural presence in the universe is in and of itself fundamentally scientific claim. It is impossible to separate science and religion because a claim of supernatural existence would alter our scientific understanding of the universe.

17. The idea of confusing neurology for ontology means confusing your brain state for the real state of the universe. Essentially what this means is that the questions we ask about the universe may be completely naïve and irrelevant to determining the actual state of the universe. Just because we may think the universe is a certain way doesn’t mean that it is so. For example, a chipmunk may think that the universe exists to grow acorns and various nuts for it to eat. Thus, a chipmunk may ask itself, “Why does the universe grow nuts so that I may eat them?” The chipmunk may even postulate that there is a supernatural being that specifically aids in the nut-growing process and if the chipmunk prays to this being then the yearly nut crop will be better. Of course, as sophisticated human beings that know so much, we would laugh at the chipmunk’s narrow and naïve view of the universe. Yet, we fail to see that in fact our view of the universe may be just as skewed and naïve as the view of the chipmunk. Like the chipmunk, we too are very focused on our role and purpose in the universe. It is very likely that we are asking completely the wrong questions and confusing our brain state for the real state of the universe. However, I must add that even if this is the case, it is important for us to keep asking these questions. All of the important discoveries so far regarding our natural universe have only been made by asking important questions. True, these may have been the wrong questions and thus given us answers that are irrelevant to the true nature of the universe, but if we stop asking questions how will we ever reach the point where we begin to understand the universe? Thus, while it may be and probably is true that we confuse neurology for ontology, I think that as this does not lead us to any greater understanding of the universe it is almost an irrelevant point.

18. It is quite simple to reconcile these views simply by saying that some type of supernatural being is behind the apparent randomness of the universe. This supernatural being designed the universe with its laws and then let it play out, knowing all along how everything would play out and in fact purposefully designing the laws that appear random in order to create a meaningful product (aka us). This belief system exists and is known as deism. Deists believe that the universe was set into motion by a supernatural force and then left to work itself out. Personally, I think that this reconciliation is quite unnecessary. If the universe can work according to its own laws and does not need the intervention of a supreme being, then why even have a supernatural being in the first place? At best, this supernatural being would have to be considered extremely lazy and unconcerned. I would suggest that the idea of a supernatural being could easily be taken out of the picture and the universe would then just be explained by the natural laws of physics, etc.

19. Faqir Chand come to his realization of why certain people have religious experiences when he learned that his followers were having miraculous visions of himself during times of meditation. He was perplexed by this because he was not himself aware of traveling anywhere during these visions and was not even aware that these miraculous appearances were occurring. This led Faqir to the conclusion that the visions he and his followers were having were simply “mental (illusory) creations.” The implications of this statement are profound. Simply put, it means that our subconscious projects these images during meditation (and/or the attainment of a different level of awareness). Because it our subconscious that is projecting these images, it is significantly influenced by our cultural upbringing. Thus, people who are brought up Catholic are more likely to see images of the Virgin Mary during meditation as opposed to images of Buddha. This means that these visions serve as a reflection of what our subconscious desires to see.

20. Nietzche’s notion of the myth of eternal return is a concept which says that the universe recurs and will continue to recur for the rest of time. This myth relies on the idea that time is not linear but rather cyclical. In fact, this concept of the universe has actually been supported scientifically in recent times by physicists Stephen Hawking and J. Richard Gott through the proposition of models of the universe that could undergo a time reversal. If people believed this concept of repeating the same events of our lives forever they would probably choose to act much differently. First of all, they would not believe in afterlife because this theory implies that our life on earth is the only life we will ever know. Secondly, if you thought you were going to have to repeat your life over an infinite amount of times, you would probably want to make sure that you lived life to the fullest. I highly doubt that someone who thought they were going to have to repeatedly live the same life would choose to be a nun or recluse of some sort. Instead, you would want to live a life without regrets and live an enjoyable life.

21. In his 1998 book Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge Dr. Edward O. Wilson argues for the synthesis of knowledge from the fields of the humanities and science. In fact, he coined the term “scientific humanism” to indicate the combination of these fields. Wilson thinks that a consilience between these fields is necessary because they are so interconnected. Wilson’s main argument is that human behavior is best understood from an evolutionary and scientific viewpoint.

22. Owen Gingerich is a theistic evolutionist, thus in response to the Beyond Belief conference he would most likely say that religion and science do not need to be in conflict with one another. Theistic evolutionists believe that God creates through the mechanism of evolution. Thus, Gingerich would argue that there can be compatibility between science and religion because evolution is the scientific part of the equation and God is the original rulebook. Freeman Dyson also believes that religion and science do not need to be in conflict. He describes religion and science as giving one-sided views of the universe that are incomplete without one another and equally true.

23. My favorite reading so far is the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Although he comes on a bit strong against religious people, I can appreciate his depth of knowledge on the subject he speaks on. His book cleared up many vague points for me on why religion is not only unacceptable, but detrimental to society. His arguments cemented by own reasons for rejecting religion and I enjoyed it immensely.

24. I don’t think there is anything that science will not be explain, if given enough time. If you think about it, throughout history people have always claimed that one “supernatural” phenomenon or the other was inexplicable by science. Slowly, one by one, science has been able to explain many of events claimed by believers to be supernatural phenomena or miracles. People will always point to the events that have yet to be explained by science, but given enough time there will be fewer examples for those with “faith” to cling to. The God of the gaps will eventually have to be given up as science allows fewer miracles to fall through the cracks.

25. I think the most interesting discussions I have heard so far in class were regarding quantum mechanics and the multiple-universe theories. I had never heard of that explanation of the universe before and I immediately went home and found out all the information I could on the topic. This class has certainly opened my eyes and unlike many people who claim that this makes them feel like there is no longer any purpose or meaning in life without religion, I feel entirely the opposite. I feel liberated and free no longer having to sit in church and force myself to perform the rituals so that I might feel like I believe in what they’re saying.