Nicholas Kristof's most recent NYTimes Op-Ed lauds the many advantages of believing in God. Says he: "A propensity to faith in some form appears to be embedded within us as a profound part of human existence, as inextricable and perhaps inexplicable as the way we love and laugh."
This is, well, a laughable conclusion. Based solely on the many positive effects that believing in God may have, and some scant evidence that faith might be "embedded in our genes," he claims that faith is an important, essential part of the human experience.
But Mr. Kristof completely denies the large implication of science and sceintific reality: they've made us face the fact that man is not at the center of the universe. We get a certain number of years--signifying nothing--and that's it. There is no more to us than DNA. There is no gene for the human spirit (as the movie Gattaca claimed) because there is no human spirit absent the bag of chemicals and electricity in our brain.
And, that sucks. It's depressing. So sure, people can make themselves feel better about it by turning to faith. But let's not put faith on a pedestal and call it some profound part of the human existence. While faith may be around for a very long time, let us recognize for what it is: a cop-out, a system that denies the hard truths of the human condition, and not a celebration of--instead a complete nullification of--the realities human existence.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
on Faith
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2 comments:
In my opinion, scientific findings do not nullify the premises of religion. Sure, at one point religion advocated the view that the universe was created in 7 days, and that Earth was the center of the universe - and these things have been proven false by scientific inquiry. But you have to remember that before that, religion asserted lightning was God, and that inanimate objects such as rocks had "spirits." As these beliefs began to be more and more primitive, they were phased out in favor of more modern beliefs. Religion is the story of primitive beliefs that were gradually phased out as these became less plausible. This doesn't mean religion disappears. Likewise, recent contemporary scientific findings don't mean that religion is made obsolete, just that it must change some of its beliefs.
Also, you somewhat overstate the implications of scientific findings. You take the position that there is no such thing as the spirit, in favor of a completely reductionist, materialist view. This is probably the predominant view, especially in scientific circles, but it is not the only accepted one. Dualism is still a debated philosophical stance, as are other views that do not amount to the conclusion that there is nothing beyond chemicals and electricity to humans.
If you're interested, I wrote some more about this editorial here:
http://kriskraus.blogspot.com/2005/02/nicholas-kristof-has-written-editorial.html
On the last point, I don't mean to say that science doesn't provide much evidence suggesting a materialist view of the human spirit. But I mean to point out that it hasn't settled the matter. Philosophers of mind are still completely split between dualist and materialist views, and even some cognitive scientists espouse the view of something beyond biology to explain mental life. Just keep these things in mind.
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