I enjoyed this Carl Sagan video on the existence of God (Link below).
Note the use of the capital “G” in God. It makes no sense to discuss small letter g’s.
In the video, an audience member off-camera asks Mr. Sagan if we shouldn’t start giving more credit to the existence of God before we blow ourselves up. Mr. Sagan turns the tables on his questioner by asking a question that leads in the opposite direction. Paraphrased, the question Carl asked was: If we blow ourselves up, does that disprove the existence of God. The questioner had to admit that it did not.
Mr. Sagan then asks his questioner what he means when he invokes God. The questioner had some difficulty formulating an answer, because, of course, God means many things to many people. We can perhaps all agree that God is not an elderly white-man sitting on a golden throne.
Mr. Sagan was much too wise to dismiss the idea of God fatuously by making fun of some of the more ridiculous ways men and women have chosen to portray God, some as a Him and some as a Her.
The questioner then presses Mr. Sagan as to his own, personal conception of God. Mr. Sagan favorably alludes to descriptions of God by Einstein and Spinoza, who portrayed God as the sum total of all Natural Laws in the Universe. We are a long way from there, although we have made a start. Scientists like Kepler in the Enlightenment proved that there is Order in the Universe. Every day we learn more about our Universal Orderliness.
However, until we have full discovered the driving force (or forces) behind our Universal Orderliness, we should leave discussions of God to people who have more time on their hands.
Or we could spend many, many hours trying to pin each other down about what we actually mean when we invoke the word.
Video Link
A philosopher said that there are three types of questions: 1. What is real? 2. How do we know? 3. What is morally right and wrong? Science is the best for answering 1. What is real? How does nature work? 2. Modern science works by systematic analysis of observable, measurable phenomena, and hypothesis testing and re-testing. Science is severely limited to that which can be observed and tested. Science does not deal with the essential question 3.
Religion is great for Question 3. Its methods are experience, trial and error, intuition (science has these too) and especially revealed truth (science, like any communication mode, includes some reliance on authority).
People can be arrogant at times and humble in other circumstances. Ecclesiastes says we are like blades of grass in the field. Science demands humility before the facts and it appears that we cannot know everything, new discoveries lead to new questions.
WinLoseorDraw applauds your comment in response to the Carl Sagan post. WinLoseorDraw is, in fact, doing a mental standing ovation. Since the Enlightenment have wrong-headedly focused on the differences between science and philosophy/religion. A few wise people, like you, Carl Sagan, and the unnamed philosopher you mentioned, put the emphasis on the correct side of the equation. Thank you!
In addition to arrogance alternating with humility, there is always varying degrees of uncertainty, i.e., ignorance.
Jim:
You mentioned Ecclesiastes. Here is the rest of that quote:
Psalms 1:03 New King James version
V 15 and 16
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
As for the last line, I read it as a pretty dire prediction of one possible fate for mankind, as in, “Beyond the deaths of all who knew us, all traces of our passing will eventually be obliterated.” I prefer, “Always keep the sunny side up!”