Science and Religion: Nature of the conflict (VIII)

The Phenomenon of Revelation
Suppose that a certain phenomenon occurs in our corner of the universe precisely every two billion years. What is the chance that we will ever discover the rational basis for this phenomenon and the principles which govern its occurrence? Clearly the chance is small, almost non-existent. If we happen to be the generation that observes the phenomenon, then it will appear to us as a miracle since we will have no record of its having occurred in the lifetime of any man in our recorded history. We will be able to do no more than record the phenomenon ourselves. If our record survives for two billion years until the next occurrence, then perhaps some scientific genius will begin to see some relationship and even intuit an answer to the question. But more than likely the tendency will be to doubt the validity of a two-billion-year-old record. Moreover, we ourselves, as observers of the phenomenon, will probably begin to doubt that it ever happened. Since the infrequency of the phenomenon will not allow us to incorporate it easily into our existing rational and scientific framework, our natural tendency will be to attempt to explain away or to discredit the phenomenon. Of course, if this recalcitrant phenomenon is itself the cause of other important phenomena, then we will have to find some way to integrate it into our model of reality or we will fail to be scientific in our approach.
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Though this example of a periodic phenomenon having a period two billion years in length was hypothetical, it is quite possible that there are certain important phenomena which occur regularly at long intervals and whose pattern we have not succeeded in understanding.

If we consider the great religious systems of which there still exists some contemporary expression or some historical record, we will see that most have been founded by an historical figure, a unique personage. Islam was founded by Muhammad, Buddhism by Buddha, Christianity by Christ, Judaism (in its definitive form) by Moses, Zoroastrianism by Zoroaster, and so on. These religious systems have all followed quite similar patterns of development. There is a nucleus of followers gathered around the founder during his lifetime. The founder lays down certain teachings which constitute the principles of the religion. Moreover, each of these founders has made the same claim, the claim that the inspiration for his teachings and his influence was due to God and not to human learning or human devices. Each of these founders claimed to be the exponent on earth of an invisible, superhuman reality of unlimited power, the creator of the universe. After the death of the founder, an early community is formed and the teachings of the founder are incorporated into a book (if no book was written by the founder). And finally a great civilization grows up based on the religious system, a civilization which lasts for many centuries.

All of the statements in the above paragraph are statements with high empirical content and low theoretical content. These are a few facts about religious history. Of course, these facts are based on records and observations of past generations. We can try to dispute these records if we choose, but we must be scientific in our approach. In particular, the records of the older religions are of validity equal to any other record of comparable date. If, for example, we refuse to believe that Jesus lived, we must also deny that Socrates lived for we have evidence of precisely the same validity for the existence of both men. The records of Muhammad's life are much more valid than these, and are probably beyond serious dispute. Moreover, if we choose to posit the unreality of the figures whose names are recorded and to whom various teachings and influence are attributed, we must, at the same time, give an alternative explanation of the influence which these religious systems, elaborated in the name of these founders, have had. This is more difficult than one may be inclined at first to believe.

The major civilizations of history have been associated with the major prophetic religious systems. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the “glory of ancient Persia”, the Persia that conquered Babylon, Palestine, Egypt, and the Greek city-states. Judaism was the basis of the great Hebrew culture which some philosophers, such as Jaspers, regard as the greatest in history. Moreover, Jewish law has formed the basis of common law and jurisprudence in countries all over the world. (It seemed very hard for a Russian to answer when I asked why they closed some shops on Sunday. Certainly, I surmised they did not believe in the nomadic stutterer named Moses who proclaimed the principle three thousand five hundred years ago to a bunch of ignorant wanderers in a desert.) Western culture, until the rise of modern science, was dominated by Christianity. The great Muslim culture invented algebra and preserved and developed the Hellenistic heritage. It was the greatest culture the world had seen until the rise of the industrial revolution began to transform Western culture.

We are, however, very much in the same position with respect to past revelations as we would be with regard to our phenomenon having a period two billion years long. We were not there to observe Jesus or Muhammad in action. The contemporaries of these people were certainly impressed by them, but these observations were made years ago and are liable, we feel, to embellishments. Even though it may be unscientific to try to explain away the influence of these religious figures, there is still a certain desire to do so. We are put off by certain obvious interpolations, and we are not sure just what to accept and what to reject.

The Bahá’í Faith offers the hypothesis that man's social evolution is due to the periodic intervention in human affairs of the creative force of the universe. This intervention occurs by means of the religious founders or Manifestations. What is most significant is that the Bahá’í Faith offers fresh empirical evidence, in the person of its own founder, that such a phenomenon has occurred, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892) claimed to be one of these Manifestations and He reaffirmed the validity of the past revelations (though not necessarily the accuracy of all details recorded in the ancient books). Here is a figure who walked the earth in recent times and whose history is documented by thousands of records and witnesses. There are, at the time of this writing*, persons living who knew Bahá’u’lláh. Of course, even the death of these people will not make the historicity of Bahá’u’lláh less certain. Moreover, the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are preserved in His manuscripts and so we are faced with a record of recent date and one of which there can be no serious doubt.

The only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh's fascinating hypothesis that social evolution is due to the influence of the Manifestations is the way we judge any proposition: scientific method. This is the only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh's claim to be one of these Manifestations. We must see if these assumptions are consistent with our knowledge of life as a whole. We must see if we can render these assertions considerably more acceptable than their negations. In the case of Bahá’u’lláh, we have many things which we can test empirically. Bahá’u’lláh made predictions. Did they come true? Bahá’u’lláh claimed Divine inspiration. Did He receive formal schooling and did He exhibit power or knowledge not easily attributable to human sources? He insisted on moral purity. Did He lead a life of moral purity? In His teachings are found statements concerning the nature of the physical world. Has science validated these? He also makes assertions concerning human psychology and subjectivity and invites individuals to test these. Do they work? He engaged in extensive analysis of the nature of man's organized social life. Does His analysis accord with our own scientific observations of the same phenomena? The possibilities are unlimited.

Of course, the same criteria can be applied to other Manifestations, but the known facts are so much less authenticated and so restricted in number that little direct testing is possible. This does not disturb Bahá’ís because they believe that, essentially, there is only one religion and that each of the successive revelations is a stage in the development of this one religion. The Baha’i Faith is thus the contemporary form of religion and we should not be surprised that it is so accessible to the method of contemporary science. Christianity and Islam were probably just as accessible to the scientific methods of their day as the Bahá’í Faith is to modern scientific method.

Each religious system has been founded on faith in the reality of the phenomenon of revelation, and those people associated with the phenomenon felt fully justified in their faith. But as the influence of religion declined and the facts of revelation receded into history, the sense of conviction of the truth of the phenomenon subsided, and this was only natural, as we have seen. It is therefore important to realize that the Bahá’í Faith offers much more than new arguments about the old evidence for the phenomenon of revelation. It offers empirical evidence for the phenomenon and it is frank to base itself on this evidence and to apply the scientific method in understanding this evidence. So much is this so, that I would unhesitatingly say that the residue of subjectivity in the faith of a Bahá’í is no greater than the residue of subjectivity in the faith one has in any well-validated scientific theory.

*1980

(All above are excerpts from an article “The Science of Religion” by Dr. William Hatcher which I liked very much so to share it here with you.)

(To be continued…)

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VI)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(V)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(IV)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(III)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(II)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(I)"
Ref.: The William Hatcher Library

Science and Religion: Nature of the conflict (VII)

Knowledge and Faith

We need a good word to sum up this process of organizing our emotions around our assumptions, and religion has provided us with the word: faith. We can define an individual's faith to be his total emotional and psychological orientation resulting from the body of assumptions about reality which he has made (consciously or unconsciously). Of course, his faith may change with time as he has new experiences and modifies his concepts.

We can see from this analysis that faith is not some vague thing possessed only by a few religious mystics. Every human being has faith just as surely as he has a mind and a body. We are not free to choose not to have a faith any more than we can choose whether to be born. However, the quality of people's faiths differs considerably depending on the degree to which the basic assumptions on which a given faith is based are justified. Faith is the process of organizing our emotional life around our assumptions, and so the quality of faith is directly proportional to the validity of the assumptions (again, conscious or unconscious) on which faith is based. We can see, now, why the Bahá’í Faith enjoins a scientific outlook on life as being essential. The scientific approach does not guarantee us absolute knowledge, this being beyond the possibilities of man in any case, but it does guarantee that our concepts will be as functional and as close to reality as possible.

We have already indicated that change and reappraisal characterize knowledge and faith. But what is also true is that we seem to be more suited to gradual, smooth transitions than to sudden, violent, cataclysmic ones. The latter tend to over stimulate us to the point of shock, rendering a new and pragmatic response difficult. This is to say that living is basically a serious business, and that it behooves us always to maintain a certain alertness in order to be able to modify our conceptions gradually, thus avoiding rude awakenings where we find that our faith has been totally blind and misguided.

In short, when our concepts are grossly unscientific, our faith becomes blind and unreal. We come to expect the wrong things and to be upset when they do not happen as we wish. We become hardened and adamant in our faith. Even when presented with clear contradictions in our conceptions we resist change, for we sense that even though the purely intellectual effort necessary to reconstitute our thought may be small, the emotional reorientation necessary to assimilate the new truth will be great. Thus, we may be led, by our emotions, to act against our own interest. The more we persist in our blind faith the greater the inertia against acceptance of a truer picture of reality, and the greater the pain when the larger conception forces itself upon us, and we can avoid it no longer.

Our discussion here touches upon yet another common misconception about science and its relationship to religion. This is the idea that there is an intrinsic opposition between faith and reason. Rather than being in opposition, the two are part of the same process of knowing and living, as we have seen. Faith must be rational, and reason always operates within the context of our basic assumptions, that is, our faith. Our assumptions, when made explicit, are the purely intellectual component of our total faith.

I wish to close this section with two brief comments. The first is for the philosophically minded individual who may feel he sees a contradiction in that I make an absolute principle of the relativity of truth. This, I do not do. The reason for accepting scientific method is that it works. The statement “the scientific method is a good one” is to be evaluated by the same pragmatic criterion as any other statement. I admit the possibility that later experience may force me to revise my evaluation even of that statement. I thus do not make an absolute out of relativity.

The second comment is this: Though the nature of knowledge and of man's own limitations makes relativity an essential feature of knowledge, it may be that in practice most statements can be rendered either very acceptable or very unacceptable, thus reducing the existential component of “undecidability”. The theoretical uncertainty remains even with the surest of statements, but it is our explicit awareness of this uncertainty which is our greatest asset in adapting to our human situation. Once we accept humbly the limitations imposed on us, it becomes practically possible to resolve a good many issues and to make real progress in formulating a meaningful and practical understanding of reality.

(All above are excerpts from an article “The Science of Religion” by Dr. William Hatcher which I liked very much so to share it here with you.)

(To be continued…)

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VIII)"

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VI)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(V)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(IV)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(III)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(II)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(I)"
Ref.: The William Hatcher Library

Grew up as atheist

A friend sent me this link (http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html) written by a once atheist talking about several reasons of believing in God. I really like the first 5 points about our marvelous world. It never stops amazing me that our universe operates not only on a lawful base, but also in an unbelievably beautiful way. The world, as the author has said, doesn’t have to be orderly and beautiful. It actually has much more chances to become chaotic. Nevertheless it is highly ordered and harmoniously gorgeous. These points may not be a direct proof of the existence of God, but very valid points to invoke one’s deep thoughts.

I grew up also as an atheist in communist country. But people who believed in God never bothered me, they were just irrelevant to my life. Till I left China in late 1980’s and went to Europe, I realized that many people and many intelligent people in the world believed in God. I remember clearly that a question popped into my head one time “How come we (Chinese) are so smart that we have figured out there is no God, but the rest of the world are so ignorant that they still believe in God even in this modern age?” But not until I was trapped in utterly desperation and completely out of option in life that my heart became softened and I started to think seriously about the issue of God. I was fortunate, very fortunate to meet a couple of highly intelligent and enormously loving people to guide me on my journey of seeking answers in a way that was most suitable to my understanding. How utterly despair I would have felt if they were not there to answer my questions when I needed them the most. Every time when I read the quote by Baha'u'llah: ‘What "oppression" is more grievous than that a soul seeking the truth, and wishing to attain unto the knowledge of God, should know not where to go for it and from whom to seek it?’
my heart sorely testifies the truth of these words.

Now I look back after twenty years of experience in the world where there is God that my life has been so enriched beyond any wild imagination. The horizon of my life and my perspective about life has changed from a few limited decades to eternity in duration, from a meaningless and hopelessly imperfect random product to a purposefully designed human reality with a potential for perfection. I lived through the two worlds for almost equal amount of years. Often I thought that growing up as an atheist has certain advantages: I have seen both sides of stories. The most striking difference which matters to me is that in the world where there is God, being good actually counts. It is a great feeling to know that there is a foundation for everything to be built upon, a standard to strive towards and a purpose in everything that exists. And above all, there is a Power in control and that Power represents goodness and perfection.

Science and Religion: Nature of the conflict (VI)

Knowledge and Conviction
The reader who may be reflecting on these things for the first time might well have an immediate reaction of the following sort: “If knowledge really is relative, as you say, then where does the sense of certitude which I possess come from?” The fact is that we do have seemingly deep-seated “feelings” of certitude about many things. In particular, the sense of our own existence or self-identity, and the sense of the objective reality of the physical world are two feelings which seem to be quite universal. Yet, the mentally ill frequently lose their sense of identity and existence. Even normal people have moments in which they have a sense of “unreality” about things. After all, we really could be dreaming and the world may be a monstrous illusion. The belief in the unreality of our existence or of the physical world is unscientific since scientific inquiry has led us to feel that the assumption of the reality of these things is considerably more acceptable than the contrary. Yet, if we are honest, we cannot rule out the possibility of having to revise our assessment in the future. How far it is from our everyday common-sense experience of matter (from which our sense of physical reality is largely derived) to the rational and scientific view of matter as energy, protons, electrons, etc.!

Thus, the “feeling” of certitude which we have is a psychological state. Our convictions may not really be as deep as we perceive them to be, and we may lose them in the future even though such a thing be inconceivable to us at the present moment. The feeling of certitude is not equivalent to knowledge, for knowledge is the process we have described in some detail above, but a sense of certitude can be had even when there is no knowledge.

I think that we can say something like the following concerning the relationship between knowledge and conviction: If our intellect accepts a concept as true, then our emotions begin to organize themselves around the idea, focusing on it, and “depending” on it. When this happens, the concept ceases to be a mere intellectual hypothesis or assumption. It becomes part of the way we live and expect things to behave.

Of course, an intellectual concept may be new or it may be an explication of a principle previously assumed on an unconscious level. Thus, there may already be considerable emotional orientation around a principle before we are able to make the principle explicit even to ourselves. Progress in knowledge frequently occurs when unconsciously assumed hypotheses are made explicit.

For example, from infancy our experience of the world leads us to expect unsupported objects to fall. This common expectation which we make in a more or less unconscious way can be explicitly formulated in the theory of gravitation. But the purely intellectual part of this theory does not express the emotional upset we would feel if suddenly it happened that an unsupported object did not fall. It would be only the most objective scientist who, observing an instance in which a dropped object did not fall to earth, could overcome his natural emotional reaction to the event and consider it merely as an intriguing counterexample to the present theory of gravitation.

There is nothing unscientific about this emotional and subjective dependence on our assumptions. Psychologists have shown this dependence to be so great that even a slight physical environmental change, such as being plunged into total darkness, can result in psychotic behavior in a short period of time. We are so constructed that dependence on our assumptions is an inextricable part of our makeup. Our freedom lies in being able, through independent inquiry, to obtain knowledge and thus modify our conceptions and ultimately our emotional orientation.

The very depth of this emotional attachment to our concepts serves as a pressure to force us to keep our concepts as close as possible to reality, because we are in for emotional shocks if our expectations are not fulfilled.

(All above are excerpts from an article “The Science of Religion” by Dr. William Hatcher which I liked very much so to share it here with you.)

(To be continued…)
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VIII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VII)"

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(V)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(IV)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(III)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(II)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(I)"
Ref.: The William Hatcher Library