In yesterday's post (here), I offered some reflection on John Horgan's 2003 piece, "Buddhist Retreat: Why I gave up on finding my religion," which criticizes Buddhism as being "functionally theistic" and thus wanting. I accused Horgan of fuzzy thinking, my central complaint being that while he trusts in science to provide him with the measure of religion his posting is an exercise in ideological rhetoric that doesn't reflect a scientific approach or attitude.One sees the marks of an unscientific ideologue most especially in his concluding paragraph where he writes,
"All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d'être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can."To be brief, Horgan's first sentence passes over entirely the scientific challenge to understand why religion is an all but universal human trait that may be built into us genetically. The sentence asserts as fact a hypothesis, namely that religion is caused by a narcissistic wish, which when we think about it would require substantial, ground-breaking research to corroborate. Horgan also ignores the fact that many religions have been premised more on the fear that the universe is not our friend and instead is filled with dangerous spiritual presences. Moving on, it is not science that makes the claim that we are "incidental, accidental," but anti-theists some of whom happen to be scientists. Science is a learning tool whose subject is the mundane world of the senses. It eliminates beforehand metaphysical considerations. It doesn't tell us anything about gods or God nor can it. Thus, it can demonstrate that evolution proceeds by certain fixed natural processes, and it certainly doesn't have to posit divine intervention in the evolutionary system to explain it. Scientists cannot explain why there is an evolutionary process, and the fact is they don't know yet how it came into existence on Earth. And the larger question of why the universe exists is beyond the purview of science. We may in fact be a "sheer happenstance," but it is not science as we know it today that will establish that truth because however far back it goes in explaining the origins of natural processes there will still be the ultimate question of the origin of the origins of the origins.
And we must ask Mr. Horgan, where is the body of scientific data and evidence that demonstrates we are incidental and accidental? Science does not yet understand how life arose on this planet or how the evolutionary process originated let alone why. Scientists don't even understand why we can ride bicycles without falling off (more than we do!). And even when scientists finally figure out the hows of all of these questions, they still won't have dealt with ultimate questions of why.
Science is hardly radical when it comes to ultimate questions, and it is only uncomfortable because fearful, narrow-minded theists fail to see its utility for theological reflection. Science offers us important insights into the nature of created reality, fodder for reflecting on ultimate realities. It also offers a self-critical, self-correcting control on all forms of ideology including ones that try to turn science itself into the ultimate measure of truth. It's just a tool, folks—a good one but not at all god-like.
