Friday, April 20, 2007

Empiricism, A Religious Experience.

In Blending and Religious Beliefs Carissa asserts that "the fact is that religion and empiricism are very different." But it is not really the case that religion is all intangibles and empiricism is all concrete. An example from science, the bastion of empiricism is electric field and electric potential. I am learning about these things in Electricity & Magnetism this term. Although their results are very tangible, we have matter, we can observe and move electrons, all sorts of electromagnetic wave based technology, an electric field itself is very intangible. I can't feel it or touch it or see it, yet I believe it exists because I see it's results. In the same way, one could argue that although you can see or touch or feel any god, you can see divine results. But an empiricist understands too that it is possible that the electric field does not exist! If it didn't, however, it would not deny the real phenomena that we observe and attribute to electric fields. Ultimately, we know that electric fields are a tool, and a model for us to understand these phenomena, and what we call it is arbitrary and (hopefully) conveinant. Religion can be viewed in complete the same way (it is the view that I take). It is absolutely possible, perhaps even likely, that there is no existing god, but god as a model can exist and explain the phenomenon around us. Naturally, physics explains fundamental natural phenomena, and god explains things that are much more complex and interweaved into society. We use god as a model to predict things in the world around us. How people ought to act, how we should expect them to act. How we should expect our society to function, and how successful it will be based on our dynamics. Occasionally, in science, a model will be disproven, contradicted by some observable physical phenomenon. But we cannot lose sight of our goal. The model was created to explain the phenomenon, and if it contradicts with what is in front of our eyes, then a new model is required. In the same way, as society defies and breaks the bounds of what religion can explain in human nature, religion evolves and reforms. In this way, religion and empiricism are absolutely the same: tools and models for understanding the world around us.

3 comments:

Carissa said...

You make a good point, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that when religion looks for explanations of phenomena, the explanations are very broad as opposed to restricted to certain situations like an electric field. Religious explanations involve spiritual beings who influence all types of phenomena. For example, in the case of evolution/creation, the scientific theory only deals with the evolution of animal species while the God "theory" deals with the creation of the entire universe. I'm not sure if that really proves anything, but I just thought I'd clarify a little.

Anonymous said...

You nicely summed up the issue. I would add that this doesn’t exactly concenplate often. xD Anyway, good post…

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