THE POWER OF SCIENCE AND THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION!

THE POWER OF SCIENCE AND THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© April 15,2011

REFERENCE:

What I have here are copies received of a conversation between two people that have honored me with their thoughts.  Since I’ve been working on a philosophical-psychological novel for sometime, I thought I’d add my two cents for whatever its worth.

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A WRITER WRITES:

People keep sending me Londoner Pat Condell's stuff, and it's nothing if not provocative and entertaining. He has contempt for Islam, Christianity and a lot of other things bus his views are stated appealingly and with forethought. I'd appreciate your take. He seems to be a darling of the right wing as to some of his views, but to others as well.  They adopt the late Gilda Radner's injunction to "never mind." I'd appreciate your reaction.

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A WRITER RESPONDS:

Pat Condell cites Richard Dawkins frequently.  Here's a Dawkins' gem I found in my file:  

"If you live in America the chances are good that your next door neighbors believe the following:

"The Inventor of the laws of physics and Programmer of the DNA code decided to enter the uterus of a Jewish virgin, got himself born, and then deliberately had himself tortured and executed because he couldn't think of a better way to forgive the theft of an apple, committed at the instigation of a talking snake.  

"As Creator of the majestically expanding universe, he not only understands relativistic gravity and quantum mechanics, but also actually designed them.  

"Yet what he really cares about is 'sin', abortion, and how often you go to church, and whether gay people should marry.  

"Statistically, chances are that your neighbors believe all of that---and they can vote.  Even if your neighbors don't hold these mutually contradictory beliefs, they probably unquestionably respect those who do (even though in their heart of hearts, the educated must know it is nonsense)."

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DR. FISHER ADDS HIS OWN TWO CENTS TO THE DISCUSSION:

Many of the people who typically correspond with me or place comments on my blog have made their living through the application of scientific disciplines, while remaining quite or relatively religious.  I have respect for them although my writing often may seem otherwise. 

The protagonist in my novel (not yet published) is a deeply devoted Irish Roman Catholic who feels betrayed by his church, by its edicts, doctrines and dogma, and descends into what the church would call sin, but which he sees as losing his way, and in the process his mind as well. 

A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA is an earthy novel and the most honest thing I have ever written in my life, which I suppose was in part motivated by the fact that I’m in the afternoon of my life, if not its evening. 

The novel takes place in South Africa.  It represents the most important chapter in this young man’s life.  I attempt to show that he expected too much of religion, and failed, despite his scientific training to realize that religion is a human institution with the fallibility of human existence despite its protests to the contrary. 

We are increasingly coming to consider that faith, the act of believing in myths, ideologies, or supernatural legends are the consequence of biology.  Many see a "God gene" in our physiological make up.  This is no longer speculation.  Scientists are finding evidence that God and religion are a brain function.  One researcher in this arena is Antonio Damasio in his investigation of the importance of feelings relative to cognitive functioning.  Damasio was, at one time, a University of Iowa professor in the Medical School.

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Human nature is complex and part of that nature is to have an affinity for being deceived.  It is part of our survival mechanism.  What we fear we want explained, and what is explained we want some evidence to support it, spurious as that evidence might be.  Witch doctors did it thousands of years ago when people were cowered with thunder and lightning. 

They created supernatural explanations for this phenomenon and rode the deception to power and prominence.  Religious leaders have been doing so ever since with no interruption in the scheme of things.  This does not, however, lessen their prominence or relevance, as I hope to show here.

Faith is an instinctive response to what we cannot explain by any other means, be it the moral void we feel in the universe, the certainty of death, the mystery of the origin of life, the meaning of our lives, or the absence of meaning.  We want someone to step forward and reassure us so we can maintain emotional balance. 

Emotional responses to life are defense mechanisms.  All facts are tainted with feelings.  It is why once someone bridges the feeling void people are vulnerable to their devices. 

Religion, as my protagonist knew it as a child in A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA, was his life's anchor.  It allowed him to go forward confidently, that is, until he stepped into the world of South Africa apartheid and British colonialism.  The safety net of his first thirty years was shredded. 

The irony of belief systems and cultural idealism can be better explained by fiction than any other way.  I happen to believe most of life is fiction, in any case, and that we compound that fact by failing to see this.

For example, my protagonist doesn’t believe in or trust psychologists or psychiatrists because they are dedicated to explanatory models not unlike those of religion, which he sees has failed him. 

GREEN ISLAND is a serious novel and implies that all life and experience are founded in fiction because our interpretation of and observation of reality are necessarily fictitious.  How could it be otherwise?  Moral man has been abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate his species. 

My protagonist shows that it is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, and so he is constantly dreaming while awake, which is indicative of his biology controlling the day. 

Where I differ with Pat Condell and Richard Dawkins is that I have no contempt for any religion because in writing my novel I have come to appreciate how fundamental religion is in our lives, and even more so in this scientific age.  Why?  Because every mystery that science solves creates ten others.  Look at the wasteland that relativity and quantum mechanics has inadvertently left in their wake.

We need our fables to live by, and if some consider the major religions fables, so be it.  This does not illegitimate them or their efficacy. 

The protagonist of GREEN ISLAND, and I hope this comes through, was given a conscience through his religion although it failed him in every other way.  He cannot get comfortable in a draconian state where three quarters of the people are black and one quarter white, and the majority has no rights, while the minority lives in the lap of luxury. 

People constantly attempt to label him, seduce and manipulate him, but it is the African milieu that seeps into his veins.

Labelers want to dispense with him as an intellectual, which he scoffs at because he has little respect for intellectuals seeing them as people who aren’t exactly distinguished for their intellect.  He sees labelers compensating for their own inadequacies.  “Tell me what you boast of and I’ll tell you what you lack.” 

He sees the incompetent presenting themselves as experts (his company brass), the cruel as pious (his pastor), sinners as devout (assortment of characters), usurers as benefactors (his company brass and managing director in South Africa), the small-minded as patriots (Americans he meets), the arrogant as humble (the Brits), the vulgar as elegant (South African Anglo wives), and the well intentioned as devious (his own wife).

My point, and the reason I’m responding to this exchange is that we should take Condell and Dawkins no more seriously than anyone else once they step out of their limited worlds, as auspicious as those worlds may be, and look down on the rest of us.  There is no toxicity greater in our midst than experts that step out of their shoes and attempt to slide into some others.  Once they do, they become witch doctors of a kind.

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Nature is cruel and without conscience.  Nature simply is.  Man has a conscience, and yes, he is sometimes obsessed with sin, which I define only as waste, and in no other way, and yes, he cares about life and abortion because he can, because he knows Mother Nature has a voracious need to feed on the creatures she gives birth to in order to stay alive.  It is a continuing statistical cycle derived from our biology. 

On a more pragmatic note with the conflict in North Africa and the accelerating costs of petroleum products, an individual is slipping below the poverty level every second of every minute of every hour of every day.  What is the poverty level?

What do you think?  $30? $20 $10 $5 – the poverty level is $1.25 per person per day.  Our conscience tells us these are our brothers and sisters.  Religious and philanthropic institutions attempt to meet this need, not in sarcasm but with boots on the ground.  Often, scoundrels hoard the limited resources of their own people contributing to hunger and starvation, men without consciences. 

Religion attempts to give men consciences.  Where is science and scientists in this jungle of inhumanity?  No, I'm not much in to sarcasm of the religious, who are guided by their consciences, or of anyone else that is not comfortable with this picture of poverty.  

A final thought. 

I do believe that religion is biology. 

Something else in that biology is psychology, not academic psychology, but survival psychology. 

That psychology functions beyond politics and economics with the all-embracing concept of trust.  If part of our nature is to be vulnerable to deception, then the mountain to trust is not an easy one to climb.

Yet, without trust, and we have seen this throughout our history, we destroy each other and retreat into the so-called “seven deadly sins.”  The lack of trust finds people afraid to give to these people slipping below the poverty line because of corruption, which, again, is very real.  In the end, biology notwithstanding, we are ultimately, all of us in our lives, guided by faith, alone.

Be always well,

Jim