ReCreation :: Faith and Science

ReCreation

words=>reality | thought=>action | ideas=>life

Faith and Science

Nov 2, 2005

tagged as: Christianity, Community, Discoveries, Philosophy, Science, Theology, Travel, World of warcraft

I'm in Orlando this week for a seminar we're putting on with Alister McGrath as the lecturer. We're filming the whole experience in an insanely-designed soundstage at Disney's MGM studios, and just being in such a cool place every day is pretty fun. The lectures themselves, and more importantly the interaction that I've been able to have with Alister both on and off camera, have been incredible.

The content is basically science, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, theology, and where we can find a healthy and fruitful convergence of these disciplines. Of course, I'm all about that, so I'm finding myself taking more notes and asking more questions in three days then I did in most whole courses at Stanford.

Best of all, I was able to convince Nick, Jenna, and Justin to come to Orlando, stay at my house, and attend the seminar as well. We are having great times of hanging out at night, chilling in the hot tub (look, a joke!), cooking, maybe a little beering, whatever. It's meaningful for me to have them here especially today, since it's one year exactly since I took a hindsightedly fateful flight from Orlando to California, and met up with people there for the first time since graduation. This of course spawned that whole series of discussions on faith and community that lasted months, and culminated in my eventual (and gradual) move back to Palo Alto, which was a decidedly big switch in life trajectories. I'm still in the middle of the fruits of that decision, but I've already seen so many wonderful things come of it. I'm only hoping for more, though I have no idea what it might or might not look like.

So, even though I haven't been getting a lot of sleep due to, ahem, World of Warcraft with my brother, and there's no doubt lots of things I could complain about in various areas of my life, it would be a supreme travesty to feel anything but a profound sense of gratitude at this moment. That gratitude also conveniently enables me to put aside my perennial worries about the future and girls and so on (mostly girls), at least for a while, and it's a welcome relief! I can always pick those worries up again when I get tired of being at peace (which will probably be in about 5 minutes...never had much luck with the stuff).

» updated by Jonathan Lipps on November 2, 2005, at 10:10 pm

« Things I Like 10-2005 (Oct 28, 2005)

(Nov 8, 2005) Life, Love, and Why 2005 »

0 Trackbacks

» Trackback URI: http://www.teleios.us/trackback/137

Comments - Log in to comment

Michael Durand:

November 3, 2005, 1:17 pm

i'm insanely jealous...

Anne Nyffeler:

November 4, 2005, 2:55 pm

I thought of you guys in florida today when i heard President Jimmy Carter being interviewed on the radio while i drove to work. He talked about how he doesn't like people mixing politics and religion, but then he got into science (saying that bringing religion into science shouldn't be done). it was interesting and i wihs i had one of you there for commentary. see you saturday!

Jonathan Lipps:

November 4, 2005, 3:50 pm

I've sat through enough lectures by now that I know what Dr McGrath would say to Carter: yes, let's not bring religion into the methodology of the natural sciences. But then of course, let us neither bring atheism into it! (Since it has the same epistemological status, in relation to the sciences, as Christianity). Both are metaphysical worldviews which can make sense of science, i.e., spin science in a certain way, but neither are science's sole companion.

Brooke Costa:

November 5, 2005, 6:55 pm

yay for beering.

If you being any journey of scientific discovery with religious assumptions already taking precedence, it's not really science in my mind. I'm not of the opinion that any religious belief (atheism included) can be "proven" by science. Also, people who ignore science because they fear it contradicts their religion... really bother and scare me.

Jonathan Lipps:

November 5, 2005, 7:13 pm

Brooke, hello and welcome!

I find your statements interesting but the first one is hard to understand. What is it to "begin a journey of scientific discovery with religious assumptions already taking precedence"? I don't know what you mean by "a journey of scientific discovery" or "take precedence". But depending on what you do mean, I may be inclined to agree. However, I would certainly class atheism as a "religious assumption", along with Christianity, Islam, and all the rest.

I certainly agree (I think) with your opinion that religious/anti-religious beliefs cannot be "proven" with science (your use of quotes around "proven" make me wonder if we have the same concept in mind, but let's assume we do), and that it would be unwise to claim to do so. However, it seems obvious that science can indeed be spun, by the appropriate scientific spin-doctors, so that it appears to support one or the other metaphysical claim. We have Dawkins on one hand, and the ID theorists on the other, as examples of this very tactic. But I say, forget such strident scientism and do science! We might actually learn something that way.

I also agree that people ignore science at their own peril, and doing so for the sake of a perceived conflict with certain religious beliefs seems even the more perilous. Our attention to science must always be critically tentative, however--at one point science held that light moved through the ether! But an appreciation of the ability of a critical methodology of the natural sciences is warranted, given that we do seem to be ever-nearing a truer grasp on reality through it. Are there other ways to come into contact with reality than the scientific method? Very probably.