What’s New About The New Atheism?
Victor Stenger answers the question.
Sure, as long as the discussions unfold in a series of intellectual contraptions, scientists and theologians can speculate endlessly about their “domains”. One working from one end, another from the other. But sooner or later both have to weigh in on extant sets of circumstances in which some insist that one set of behaviors bodes well for the soul down the road while others insist it is an entirely different set of behaviors. And, as well, they both have to come together to announce any actual evidence that “down the road” includes immortality and salvation.
Until then we are left only with more or less intelligent speculations in assessments like this.
That’s certainly how it can all unfold for any particular scientist or theologian. A mental construct is anchored to a mind such that both can fall back on the possibility that science and religion are two sides of the same coin. As long as the actual reality of human interactions is kept to a minimum up on the pulpit and in the lab. Theoretically, morality and immortality can be conceived as intertwined in any number if “assessments”. So, let’s just leave it at that.
Then this in itself becomes embedded in an intellectual contraption:
You know where I would take this particular “world of words”.
Seriously, what point is he making that someone here might find applicable to their own life in regard to God and religion? What scientific matters do those who are faithful to the Abrahamic religions constantly deal with? And if scientists are not prohibited from delving into “ultimate meanings and morals”, cite some examples of this. Whether as a scientist, an ecclesiastic or a philosopher, we all have our own reactions to “observable phenomena” day in and day out.
But not all of us share the same reactions. That’s the part that interest me. Why this “I” and not that “I”.