The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"

[trish]

It is coincidental that in the latest Times Literary Supplement (October 23 1015) Martin Kemp reviews Frank Wilczek's A Beautiful Question. Finding Nature's Deep Design and calls it 'a magnum opus on the secular theology of modern physics', refers to Wilczek's discussions of bosons, muons, gluons, leptons and electrons as being part of a 'Noah's Ark of particles', perhaps inevitably referring to Pythagoras, Plato, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Einstein as 'prophets'.

I hope its coincidental! I confess to not knowing who Martin Kemp is but it makes me cringe to see anyone speak of science in this way. My skin crawls! No one should hold science in such awe. Reverence toward nature is fine. Feeling humility when confronting the vastness of our ignorance is natural. But I do not see how the analogy between subatomic particles and the creatures Noah brought onto his ark is supposed to work. Scientists model nature and attempt to predict (in order to test the model) the outcomes of designed experiments; they do not prophesy. But your point is well taken: obviously some people (like Martin Kemp) look to science as a new religion. I think they are terribly misdirected. I do hope Wilczek did not encourage him in this comparison.

Taking your points here somewhat out of order:

Perhaps the other issue is how do core theories in science change, if at all, compared to core theories in religion? Is it so important for a Christian to believe in the Virgin Birth that not do believe it disqualifies one as a Christian? Is String Theory a core theory in science or a sham?

Newtonian Mechanics (not including his theory of gravitation) was certainly a core theory for three centuries. Although Descartes, Leibniz and Mach had philosophical differences with it, classical mechanics was not only self-consistent, its predictions were incredibly accurate. Not only was classical mechanics self consistent and consistent with observation, Laplace was serious in his suggestion that it was complete. But it wasn’t complete. A separate theory had to be developed to describe electrostatic phenomena and another to model magnetic phenomena; although it was fully expected those theories -when developed- would be consistent with classical mechanics. Unfortunately for classical mechanics, they weren’t. It was Einstein’s theory of special relativity that sorted out the inconsistencies. Classical mechanics is now seen to be an approximation with a known domain of application; it is not universally true. Is special relativity universally true? Probably not, but we don’t know.

Is String Theory a core theory? It’s a class of theories. Currently general relativity (Einstein’s theory of gravitation) seems to be at odds with quantum field theory. Various string theories resolve this conflict. However, computational difficulties make string theories difficult to deal with. This makes it difficult to use any string theory to make experimental predictions. To my knowledge, no feasible experiments have been proposed that would put string theory on the map or even distinguish one from another. If this situation persists, either the number employable string theorists will diminish or fundamental physics will become a more speculative and abstract endeavor.

...I am trying to suggest that reverence is a factor here, that the reverence that is shown to science and what it has achieved, and what people believe it can achieve, can replace religion as a form of emotional and intellectual security. If not in 'the certainty of the resurrection', the certainty that these pills will stop the pain, that if I contract a disease, there will be a cure.

I would encourage people to revere one another and have a little less reverence toward science or religion. What I would ask people to do is take less on faith and attempt to understand the issues that matter to them. It’s difficult. I’m not a medical doctor: but I have one and I usually wind up taking her advice...not without question and not without doing a little research on my own. Even in my own field, I have to have faith in my colleagues: that they have done the experiments they’re reporting precisely as they have described and have made exactly the observations described.

The spate of crime scene investigation shows on U.S. television glorifies scientists, portraying them as geniuses with nerdy glasses and geeky tastes who work crime solving miracles. In real life the Washington Post (on April 18, 2015) ran the headline “FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades,” (you’ll have to google it - for some reason I can’t link it).

Historically, the claims of science are outstanding in our times, not least because since Thomas Aquinas was charged with refuting science in favour of the word of God, science has proven to have practical solutions to practical problems that in the same period religion has failed to deal with in the same way. Thus more people put their faith in science, or should the word faith be banned as being inapplicable? It is perhaps not the core beliefs that interest, but the modalities of thought and feeling that mark the transfer of allegiance from a supernatural condition to one more humble and, dare one say it, temporary. None of which proves or disproves the existence of God, but may retire the fear.

If it isn’t blind, faith is a perfectly reasonable attitude one may have toward a person or even a principle. When I drive through the Tuscarora Mountain Tunnel in Pennsylvania I have faith in the principles of classical physics and geology (but not blind faith -you don’t have to have a Ph.D. or even a B.S to understand and enjoy learning a little bit about the physical world). But most of all I have faith in the geologists, surveyors, architects, engineers and workers who are directly responsible for the construction and continued maintenance of the tunnel -not that I know any of those people personally or professionally. I have faith that all of those people brought and continue to bring the same integrity to their jobs as I bring to my job. That faith, however, is also tempered with the knowledge that there are many pressures, political and financial, to cut corners, slacken maintenance schedules, etc. I see the growing fractures in the walls and hear the drops of water splattering on my roof and wonder if it isn’t time to reassess.

I would like us to have measured faith in each other and the projects in which we are engaged; a little less blind faith in gods, heros and their substitutes.

[Stavros]

I hope its coincidental! I confess to not knowing who Martin Kemp is but it makes me cringe to see anyone speak of science in this way. My skin crawls! No one should hold science in such awe. Reverence toward nature is fine. Feeling humility when confronting the vastness of our ignorance is natural. But I do not see how the analogy between subatomic particles and the creatures Noah brought onto his ark is supposed to work. Scientists model nature and attempt to predict (in order to test the model) the outcomes of designed experiments; they do not prophesy. But your point is well taken: obviously some people (like Martin Kemp) look to science as a new religion. I think they are terribly misdirected. I do hope Wilczek did not encourage him in this comparison.

Martin Kemp is well known over here for his research and writing on art and science, I suspect the language he used which you don't like is in fact playful in a nice way, Martin does have a sense of humour and is generally urbane and well-dressed. You can read more about his work here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin...t_historian%29
http://www.martinjkemp.com/welcome.html

I think on the more substantive issues, the end result is that however we think of faith, of religion and science, we do not, or we no longer fear God. It is a negative element in that theology which concerns punishment rather than reward, which claims the 'wrath of God' is to be feared lest all manner of plagues be unleashed upon us. It may have once worked as a supernatural explanation of the plague, and some Christian and Muslim preachers still believe in it, but in fact knowing what we do diminishes God as a power as one wonders why the same God who loves us also wants to punish us in a most cruel way -rather like wondering why science has invented chemical and nuclear weapons with which to destroy human life in a disgusting, if near total manner.

[trish]

I think on the more substantive issues, the end result is that however we think of faith, of religion and science, we do not, or we no longer fear God. It is a negative element in that theology which concerns punishment rather than reward, which claims the 'wrath of God' is to be feared lest all manner of plagues be unleashed upon us. It may have once worked as a supernatural explanation of the plague, and some Christian and Muslim preachers still believe in it, but in fact knowing what we do diminishes God as a power as one wonders why the same God who loves us also wants to punish us in a most cruel way -rather like wondering why science has invented chemical and nuclear weapons with which to destroy human life in a disgusting, if near total manner.

Knocking on wood, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, blessing one who sneezes, making sacrifices and offering prayers seem like superstitious rituals performed not so much to ward off evil as to calm one’s anxiety about the evils the future might hold.

I suppose fundamentalists still have Satan as an out: God loves and Satan hates. God creates and Satan spoils. At least science never claimed to love us. In fact popular culture is filled with deranged scientists who are either bent upon mankind’s destruction or unwittingly engaged in an immoral project that will bring devastation upon us all.

Was Oppenheimer comparing himself to Lord Krishna when he exclaimed, “Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds?” To what extent was Lord Krishna giving unconscious voice to the author of the Bhagavad Gita?

In the end we are ones to be feared and the ones who need to be loved.

[fred41]

Knocking on wood, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, blessing one who sneezes, making sacrifices and offering prayers seem like superstitious rituals performed not so much to ward off evil as to calm one’s anxiety about the evils the future might hold.

Probably, in the western world, people usually learn these traditional habits in childhood. We do most of these things automatically without thought. Our parents (or parents' parents) may have learned to practice these things to ward off, what may have felt like, a more palpable evil to them at the time, but to us it may be more of a routine to bring us the comfort of 'belonging'...belonging to family or community, even if those ties are tenuous. In the case of saying Gesundheit after a sneeze...I think at this point it's just out of politeness without the recognition of reason.
I think religion and cults in the modern world are the same...a reason to belong to a group or community, with a built in social life...and if you follow the rules, you never really die.

In the end we are ones to be feared and the ones who need to be loved.

...and I take this out of context, but it certainly seems true that, quite often - the ones that need to be loved the most always need to be feared the most.

[trish]

...and I take this out of context, but it certainly seems true that, quite often - the ones that need to be loved the most always need to be feared the most.

Perceptive, and not out of context at all.

[martin48]

Just wondering where we had got to with this one

[broncofan]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbuck...-on-christmas/

Apparently not featuring Christian symbols on a cup during the holiday season is a war on Christmas. I can't say this is the only reason I'm an atheist, but viewing this nonsense does make me happy to be one. More pathetic, chauvinistic nonsense....when not giving preference to one group, even the majority is considered discrimination we are dealing with the expectation of hegemony.

[trish]

I dunno. Seems to me the blank red space stands for the absence of God and the obscenely burning passions of Lucifer...not to mention the Mermaid belongs to a ancient pantheon of Pagan creatures and demons that lured Greek sailors to their deaths. The swirled mountains of rich, thick, viscous, cream surmounting the brim in all defiance of gravity entice one and all to lick, slurp and devour its satanic virility. Get thee back Satan. I say: GET YE BACK IN THE NAME OF JESUS!

[Stavros]

The Mermaid is there to seduce people of faith and people of reason, to make them weak and compliant to the desires of a woman grieving over her role in the death of her lover, seeking revenge through the sacrifice of willing victims. At one time the siren would position herself atop the mountain or a hill overlooking a river before a weir or a waterfall, beguiling sailors who, mesmerised by her beauty would ignore the peril ahead and tumble to their death.

Starbucks in America is thus the anti-Christ, the goddess of chaos holding out her blood-stained cup in mockery of Christ's sacrament, willing all to tumble into darkness.

I mean, have you tasted that stuff they call coffee?

Do not fear God, fear Starbucks.

[Stavros]

The death of Rene Girard prompts this useful summary of his ideas in the Telegraph obituary today (link with photos at the end). For some the argument that Jesus offered a quite different route out of the cycle of sacrificial violence is a key argument and though he was a Roman Catholic the idea does not emanate from the Church whose own history of violence is anything but what the master ordered.

"René Girard, the French-born philosopher and anthropologist, who has died aged 91, was once described as the “most compelling Catholic thinker of the age”; he was best known for his “mimetic theory” in which he elaborated a sweeping anthropology of religion.
Set out in his first major work, Deceit, Desire and the Novel (1966), the theory holds that human beings learn by imitating those around them , wanting to have what others have. This “mimetic desire” operates pervasively in all cultures, at once reinforcing social ties, but also fomenting envy, rivalry and conflict. “Mimesis,” Girard wrote, “is an unconscious form of imitation that invariably leads to competition, and desire is the most virulent mimetic pathogen.”

The idea was hardly new , but Girard went on to examine how societies at different times had sought to accommodate this destructive urge, while keeping the community together.

Primitive societies, wrote Girard, were rife with rivals struggling to outdo each other in terms of status and material possessions. This often produced tribal antagonisms that fostered cycles of revenge lasting many generations. But our ancestors also sought to maintain order through the occasional sacrifice of a collectively identified “scapegoat” or scapegoats – chosen, perhaps, because they looked different or thought differently from others.

The scapegoat would become the focus of communal hostility and would be sacrificed, often ritually, to rid the community of its fears. “There is an irresistible urge in human communities from time to time to purge themselves by choosing an innocent victim from among their ranks, on whom to blame all of their own faults and vileness,” Girard wrote.

In Violence and the Sacred (1972), however, Girard showed how once they are killed and peace returns, such sacrificial victims often become seen as “founding figures” of a society or religion, owing to the powerful mix of guilt and shame that remains in the collective memory: “The victim of a mob is always innocent, and collective violence is unjust.”
Girard described sacrificial violence as “the dark secret underpinning all human cultures” and the basis for many works of fiction and drama. In recent history this has been played out in the horrors of communism and fascism – and Islamist terrorism, a phenomenon Girard described as “mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale”.

But democratic societies, too, have their scapegoats – with elections often serving as a communal purgative. It is at least notable that the two British prime ministers who have acquired almost mythic status in the past century, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, were both victims of political “sacrifice” – Churchill in his 1945 election defeat and Margaret Thatcher in her deposition by her own party in 1990.
Girard saw religion not as the cause of violence , but as an often desperate attempt to resolve it, with biblical texts representing the development of a new consciousness which rejected scapegoating as an answer to society’s ills. Guided by their mimetic desires into rivalry with God, Adam and Eve set humanity on the path leading to Cain’s murder of Abel.
But the tenth commandment tells us not to “covet”, and in the story of Abraham and Isaac, an animal replaces the human sacrificial victim. In The Scapegoat (1982), Girard developed the idea that the Christian scriptures inaugurated a long process of questioning this founding violence. Jesus’s sacrifice is presented not as a means of appeasing an offended deity, but as an example of a loving God offering human beings liberation from this destructive cycle. The resurrection of the forgiving victim offers human life new foundations.
René Noël Théophile Girard was born in Avignon on Christmas Day 1923. His father was curator of the city’s Musée Calvet and later its Palais des Papes.
Following his father, Girard was educated at l’École des Chartres, a training school for archivists and librarians, writing his dissertation on marriage and private life in 15th-century Avignon. After graduation in 1947 he and a friend organised an exhibition of paintings at the Palais des Papes, which eventually turned into the annual Avignon Festival.
The same year, Girard moved to the United States to do a PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington, on “American Opinion on France, 1940-43”. He remained in America for the rest of his life, publishing more than a dozen books in French while teaching at American universities, most recently Stanford, where he became a professor.
A striking-looking man with deep-set blue eyes and a mane of grey hair, Girard wrote some 30 books, was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the Académie Française in 2005. He was also a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.
Girard is survived by his wife, Martha, and three children.
René Girard, born December 25 1923, died November 4 2015 "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-obituary.html