Very good treatment of an eternally intriguing topic, Baird. And yes, I agree with the best wishes of Neela that your SoCal winds die down soon, but I understand that they shan't, mores the pity. Upper air wind patterns will favor offshore flows for many days to come. My PhD in chemistry niece lives in OC. Many years ago she also was accepted into the divinity school at Harvard and contemplated a career as a minister with the UU. She has feet firmly in the camps of both science (organo-metallic chemistry) and religion. As do I.
The Santa Ana winds are blowing over both the church steeples of Orange County and the science buildings of UCLA alike. There is the unification. What is it that ruffles the pages of both church hymnals and chemistry dissertations impartially? God's will? Fluid dynamics? Boethius? Boltzmann? What's the Container that contains all containers including itself?
Thank you Michael. Yours is one of the kindest and most generous comments I have received here. I appreciate those qualities more and more as i recognize their rarity on the human scene. You'll know exactly what I mean if/when you read my summary essay tomorrow about our old friend homo sapiens.
You're my equal or better in all good qualities and I surpass you only in the number of bad ones! Nonetheless we both muddle through. 🙂. Writing is progressively getting harder for me as you might guess. Reading seems as easy as ever. A conundrum.
As someone who sits somewhere in the middle, where neither faith nor science holds all the answers, I find this discussion interesting.
From my agnostic point of view, I don’t claim to know the ultimate truths about creation, the universe, or our place in it. But I do appreciate the power of questioning (of welcoming the unknown with curiosity rather than fear).
Happy New Week Baird.
PS Are you still safe from smoke and dust? My sinuses are being wrecked, ugh.
I find the best scientists and people of faith are those who are humble about what they don't know. It's the arrogance that does a lot of the harm.
We"re fine "up here" though the Santa Anas are rippin' again now. 😖 I can just imagine how much particulates you're breathing in every day and how tough that must be. I hear those saline nasal irrigators are very helpful:
Great discussion, Baird. The more writers like yourself highlight this tension, the better. Many of the greatest minds recognized this tension (EO Wilson- one of my favorites!). It saddens me when people on either side of the debate are unwilling to acknowledge other truths.
At the risk of doing a little bit of word recycling, I made this comment on another article that went down a similar route, however my sentiment is very much the same:
I’m not religious, and when I was quite a bit younger, I struggled with the (simplistic) notion that Christianity (or any other religion) had already established ‘the truth’. My thinking at the time was that if the truth had already been discovered, then where was growth? Why push ourselves to learn and evolve if it was all within the bounds of the Bible?
I contrasted that with science in its quest to understand the universe (the one equation), and that the vast lack of knowledge pushed scientists to continue to explore, to challenge, and to understand more.
It wasn’t until I thought about ‘God’ as essentially ‘unknowable’ that I was able to reconcile growth within religion. That what might separate a pastor / religious person who ‘knows it all’ versus another who ‘is continuing to seek to understand’ is where I found there could be space for growth and evolution.
Thus it is impossible to understand ‘God’ or ‘The Truth’, and just as it may be impossible for us to discover 'the one equation', it is in the constant searching and understanding of its ideas, of maintaining curiosity and holding lightly our understanding of whatever we think is ‘right’ that we can continue to grow.
Irrespective of religion or science, I agree that there are more overlaps than there are differences between both!
Baird. I love how you frequently return to the subject of science and religion, one that i am also very interested in. But, I think that the 'debate' between science and religion is perhaps misnamed. For the vast majority of scientists, there is no interest in incorporating God into their science. It is not a question of believing or not believing. Science and faith are two separate realms that really have no need for each other. As a scientist, I study physical phenomena and draw conclusions based upon the facts I observe about physical systems. I also hold a belief that there was a creation of what we are and that there is a creator. I have no idea how that came about or 'who' caused it to happen. I feel no conflict between my beliefs and the facts I discover.
I agree that when framed as a "debate", it's a hot mess! But when a huge portion of humans believe they have nothing to gain from science, or see it as enemy action, problems ensue. That's where changing the metaphors might come in handy.
Good discussion of a timeless tension. Religion is bounded by human frailty/imperfections, and our inability to truly describe things (The Tao that can be talked about is not the Eternal Tao, or some derivation for each faith). And then science brings powerful tools of illumination into the darkness of reality, but is imperfect because it can only see/describe/test material things.
The problem is not religion. The problem is humans who become convinced they have unique access to the intentions of an invisible god, and others who follow them. The problem is hubris. Science will presumably always leave gaps within a creator/creative-force could exist as a (non-)explanation. No scientist today (AFAIK) claims to know what happened a microsecond prior to the "big bang."
Lovely. Thank you.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Kenny!
Very good treatment of an eternally intriguing topic, Baird. And yes, I agree with the best wishes of Neela that your SoCal winds die down soon, but I understand that they shan't, mores the pity. Upper air wind patterns will favor offshore flows for many days to come. My PhD in chemistry niece lives in OC. Many years ago she also was accepted into the divinity school at Harvard and contemplated a career as a minister with the UU. She has feet firmly in the camps of both science (organo-metallic chemistry) and religion. As do I.
The Santa Ana winds are blowing over both the church steeples of Orange County and the science buildings of UCLA alike. There is the unification. What is it that ruffles the pages of both church hymnals and chemistry dissertations impartially? God's will? Fluid dynamics? Boethius? Boltzmann? What's the Container that contains all containers including itself?
Thank you Michael. Yours is one of the kindest and most generous comments I have received here. I appreciate those qualities more and more as i recognize their rarity on the human scene. You'll know exactly what I mean if/when you read my summary essay tomorrow about our old friend homo sapiens.
Sending you best regards as well. 🙏🏻
You're my equal or better in all good qualities and I surpass you only in the number of bad ones! Nonetheless we both muddle through. 🙂. Writing is progressively getting harder for me as you might guess. Reading seems as easy as ever. A conundrum.
Easy does it. Go with the flow.
(and other vapid but well-intentioned aphorisms!)
As someone who sits somewhere in the middle, where neither faith nor science holds all the answers, I find this discussion interesting.
From my agnostic point of view, I don’t claim to know the ultimate truths about creation, the universe, or our place in it. But I do appreciate the power of questioning (of welcoming the unknown with curiosity rather than fear).
Happy New Week Baird.
PS Are you still safe from smoke and dust? My sinuses are being wrecked, ugh.
I find the best scientists and people of faith are those who are humble about what they don't know. It's the arrogance that does a lot of the harm.
We"re fine "up here" though the Santa Anas are rippin' again now. 😖 I can just imagine how much particulates you're breathing in every day and how tough that must be. I hear those saline nasal irrigators are very helpful:
https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/risks-and-rewards-of-nasal-rinses-what-you-need-to-know
Hang in there my friend. Things WILL get better! 🙏🏻☀️🌱
Great discussion, Baird. The more writers like yourself highlight this tension, the better. Many of the greatest minds recognized this tension (EO Wilson- one of my favorites!). It saddens me when people on either side of the debate are unwilling to acknowledge other truths.
Thanks Jesse. Fewer hot and unproductive debates seems like a good idea these days!
At the risk of doing a little bit of word recycling, I made this comment on another article that went down a similar route, however my sentiment is very much the same:
I’m not religious, and when I was quite a bit younger, I struggled with the (simplistic) notion that Christianity (or any other religion) had already established ‘the truth’. My thinking at the time was that if the truth had already been discovered, then where was growth? Why push ourselves to learn and evolve if it was all within the bounds of the Bible?
I contrasted that with science in its quest to understand the universe (the one equation), and that the vast lack of knowledge pushed scientists to continue to explore, to challenge, and to understand more.
It wasn’t until I thought about ‘God’ as essentially ‘unknowable’ that I was able to reconcile growth within religion. That what might separate a pastor / religious person who ‘knows it all’ versus another who ‘is continuing to seek to understand’ is where I found there could be space for growth and evolution.
Thus it is impossible to understand ‘God’ or ‘The Truth’, and just as it may be impossible for us to discover 'the one equation', it is in the constant searching and understanding of its ideas, of maintaining curiosity and holding lightly our understanding of whatever we think is ‘right’ that we can continue to grow.
Irrespective of religion or science, I agree that there are more overlaps than there are differences between both!
Yes. I find the most credible people are always the ones who are humble enough to admit how much they don't know!
Baird. I love how you frequently return to the subject of science and religion, one that i am also very interested in. But, I think that the 'debate' between science and religion is perhaps misnamed. For the vast majority of scientists, there is no interest in incorporating God into their science. It is not a question of believing or not believing. Science and faith are two separate realms that really have no need for each other. As a scientist, I study physical phenomena and draw conclusions based upon the facts I observe about physical systems. I also hold a belief that there was a creation of what we are and that there is a creator. I have no idea how that came about or 'who' caused it to happen. I feel no conflict between my beliefs and the facts I discover.
I agree that when framed as a "debate", it's a hot mess! But when a huge portion of humans believe they have nothing to gain from science, or see it as enemy action, problems ensue. That's where changing the metaphors might come in handy.
Good discussion of a timeless tension. Religion is bounded by human frailty/imperfections, and our inability to truly describe things (The Tao that can be talked about is not the Eternal Tao, or some derivation for each faith). And then science brings powerful tools of illumination into the darkness of reality, but is imperfect because it can only see/describe/test material things.
Thanks for reading and commenting Adam.
I understand why people feel there must be a god: a minute of this is enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6lmRD4FgKQ
The problem is not religion. The problem is humans who become convinced they have unique access to the intentions of an invisible god, and others who follow them. The problem is hubris. Science will presumably always leave gaps within a creator/creative-force could exist as a (non-)explanation. No scientist today (AFAIK) claims to know what happened a microsecond prior to the "big bang."
Hubris indeed.