An intelligent Person by Daniel Harbour

Author:Daniel Harbour
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Atheism, Religion / Atheism
Publisher: Bristol Classical Press (June 15, 2001)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Individuals and Intuitions

Believe in His prophets - Chronicles II 20:20

In this chapter, I will consider three types of people whose existence might be considered to challenge the atheist position that it has been the aim of the last four chapters to support. The first are religious scientists. As I have been arguing religion and science to be the fruits of opposite worldviews, scientific experts who believe in God may seem to threaten the conclusions drawn so far. On the other hand, there are spiritualists, psychics, and so on, 'spiritual experts' whose specialness may be thought to confer extra weight on their belief in God. The purpose of this chapter is to consider these walking, talking arguments for God. In the course of the discussion, I fulfil one of the aims of the preceding chapter, mentioned also in Chapter 1. I detailed the successes of applying Spartan, meritocratic ideals to the investigation of the world as well as to the pursuit of morality, etc. I also detailed the failure of Baroque, monarchic ideals in the search for morality, etc. The possibility of Baroque, monarchic ideals applied to the investigation of Nature has not yet been considered. This occurs below.

Religious scientists

In the previous chapter, I considered whether we need a compromise between the two opposite worldviews that I have been calling the Spartan meritocracy and the Baroque monarchy. Of course, the two positions are in friction and it would be very confusing if we were forced to adopt both. Yet, it appears that some people both understand them and accept them. They are religious scientists, who believe in the efficacy of the scientific method and yet believe in a deity. As scientists, they adhere, in practice, to the Spartan meritocracy. As believers, they adhere to some Baroque monarch. What are we to make of this accommodation? Does it undermine the position I have been arguing for, in which rational atheism and theism are not merely different answers to the question of God's existence but rather diametric opposites?

Religious scientists are inclined to take a wide variety of positions. On the one hand, there are the likes of Einstein, who believe in a personal deity, defined in a way that suits their personal tastes. On the other hand, there are the likes of Mohammed Abdus Salam, joint recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize for physics, who adhere to an established religion - Islam in Salam's case. And there are other positions. In all cases, such men and women would disagree with my claim that theism and science belong to incompatible worldviews and that one must choose between them. Am I really going to say that such erudite people as Einstein were outright not right?

In brief, yes, I believe they were wrong. A certain reticence sets in when it comes to criticising Einstein. That is hardly surprising given his genius. However, like any scientist, he made errors. Essentially, he was an intuitionist: he had hunches and his hunches were good. But, at the crunch, some will be off.

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