[FRIAM] God in Science and Religion (was Re: why some people hate cops)

[Stephen Guerin]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 5:47 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> I took Marcus statement to be primarily hyperbolic with a dash of
> rhetoric...  or vice-versa?   I also took Stephen's strong statement
> against it as a primarily rhetorical mode of bringing focus to the topic I
> think he really wants to talk about...
>
> Yes, I recognize Marcus's "I hate religious people"  for what it was.

I also saw it as an opportunity freeze it in the spotlight to be studied.
There is a hatred and disdain of religion by many in the "scientific"
community. I find it misplaced and hope this dialectic tension between the
religious and scientific may soon resolve in a modern synthesis of Science
and Religion.

Marcus, consider the following from Max Planck:

*"Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is
in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all
considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the
crown of the edifice of every generalized world view."*


As the father of Action in quantum physics, can you glimpse where he might
be pointing with "every generalized world view"? Even if you can't follow
him, could you tolerate those that do? Here's more context for the above i
from Planck's Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck#Religious_views>. Please give it
some reflection - it's only 7 paragraphs :-)

Planck was a member of the Lutheran Church in Germany.[36] He was very
tolerant towards alternative views and religions.[37] In a lecture in 1937
entitled "Religion und Naturwissenschaft" (Religion and Natural Science) he
suggested the importance of these symbols and rituals related directly with
a believer's ability to worship God, but that one must be mindful that the
symbols provide an imperfect illustration of divinity. He criticized
atheism for being focused on the derision of such symbols, while at the
same time warned of the over-estimation of the importance of such symbols
by believers.[38]

Planck was tolerant and favorable to all religions. Although he remained in
the Lutheran Church, he did not promote Christian or Biblical views. He
believed "the faith in miracles must yield, step by step, before the steady
and firm advance of the facts of science, and its total defeat is
undoubtedly a matter of time." [39]

In his 1937 lecture "Religion and Naturwissenschaft", Planck expressed the
view that God is everywhere present, and held that "the holiness of the
unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of symbols." Atheists,
he thought, attach too much importance to what are merely symbols. He was a
churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty,
all-knowing, beneficent God (though not necessarily a personal one). Both
science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and
dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward
God!"[39]

Planck said in 1944, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most
clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of
my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter
originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle
of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom
together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and
intelligent spirit (orig. geist). This spirit is the matrix of all
matter."[40]

Planck regarded the scientist as a man of imagination and Christian faith.
He said: "Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers,
God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all
considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the
crown of the edifice of every generalized world view".[41]

On the other hand, Planck wrote, "...'to believe' means 'to recognize as a
truth,' and the knowledge of nature, continually advancing on incontestably
safe tracks, has made it utterly impossible for a person possessing some
training in natural science to recognize as founded on truth the many
reports of extraordinary occurrences contradicting the laws of nature, of
miracles which are still commonly regarded as essential supports and
confirmations of religious doctrines, and which formerly used to be
accepted as facts pure and simple, without doubt or criticism. The belief
in miracles must retreat step by step before relentlessly and reliably
progressing science and we cannot doubt that sooner or later it must vanish
completely."[42]

Later in life, Planck's views on God were that of a deist.[43] For example,
six months before his death a rumour started that he had converted to
Catholicism, but when questioned what had brought him to make this step, he
declared that, although he had always been deeply religious, he did not
believe "in a personal God, let alone a Christian God".[44]
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