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Re: "Natural Law" vs Religion

Not to worry, John (K.), I doubt anyone was accusing or offended at the mention of God. Speaking for myself, while I'm not at all religious in the traditional sense, I don't have any problem with other people making different choices from mine. I also want to say that I understood what you were talking about, and my comment on the danger in mentioning God was merely my admiration for your guts in doing it! Sorry if I didn't get that across...
 
On the actual subject matter below, I've had some exposure to some of these attitudes (baby and bathwater, etc) when I lived in Texas for a year and the big controversy at the time was that "Creationism ought to be taught in public schools along with Darwinism, because they are both just theories" with the explanation for the fossil record being that God created it too-- as an explanation for the universal laws that He brought into being, so they would be consistent. I just shrug and say, "They can have their churches teach the countervaling theory if they want to. Public school is run by the State and church must not be mixed into that. It limits the religious choices of everyone." The proscription on mixing religion and science is actually an important thing, in my view.
 
[Warning; Related topical news issue below, somewhat angst-ridden]:
On the news this morning, Ohio is banning not only "same-sex marriage" but is saying they won't legally recognize any marriage that doesn't conform to their own state laws. The separation of church and science is just as fuzzy as the separation of church and state. They even suggested a constitutional ammendment defining marriage as being one man and one woman, only! What no one in the press seems to have realized is that civil law is not the same thing as what individual religions decide on as their own religious law. When Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, they did so in civil law-- NOT religious law. They aren't imposing that law on any church doctrine or insisting that the Catholic Church, for example, MUST perform same sex marriages. So all the people who are saying that same sex marriages are wrong, can just remember what country they are living in-- this country was founded on freedom of choice and freedom of religion. The separation of church and state was mandated in our constitution for very good reason. For any single religion to say that their definition of marriage ought to become the constitutional law is an outrage to me. Why is freedom of choice such a frightening thing to people who are living in the midst of a country built on that tradition??? Freedom of choice means you don't have to marry someone of the same sex if you don't want to. ARG!
 
Sorry Folks: That was just related enough to get me going a bit off-topic.
 
Judith
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Kineman" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] "Natural Law" in Rosennean Theory

> Hi Judith and all,
>
> at the risk of writing too much on this subject, I'll make one more
> attempt to clarify...Please don't misunderstand my intent. Physicists
> always talk about how much God agrees with their theories. They intend
> it as I'm writing here -- metaphorically, not theologically. I'm very
> sorry if the metaphorical lisence caused a problem: it was not meant as
> a discussion of God.
>
> It is a common statement in physics that a
> [metaphorical]God/creator/creation "set the universe in motion" and then
> did not intervene. That is the unofficial way of saying it is now fully
> mechanical and no Divine will is required to explain all we see. This
> was their way of distancing science from theology and religion, for very
> good reasons at the time. Most physics could care less if we say God
> only acts before the big bang, that doesn't bother any theory. I bring
> it up to point out that it  has been carried too far. They also said
> there can be no intervening will or purpose in nature, no teleos at all;
> and yet our very selves contradict that idea, and of course RR's view
> explicitly claims that purposes can exist as anticipatory systems and
> can be explained in terms of functions and relationships. This is not
> about God, but about will and purpose, which mechanistic science threw
> out along with God -- baby with the bathwater sort of thing. If one
> attaches the ideas of will and purpose to a theology or religion (which
> can be done with RR's view as easily as with any other), that is another
> matter -- and an unpreventable one. Just as one could create a religion
> around genetic determinism or worship money (anybody you know?). That
> becomes their theology, but it is a different matter from their theories
> about genetics and finances. I said all this in the paragraphy cited,
> but perhaps more cryptically.
>
> Also, some coments below:
>
> Judith Rosen wrote:
>
> > It's always dangerous to bring "God" into discussions about science,
> > for many reasons.  Regarding the excerpt of John K's below:
> > John K. wrote:
> > Traditional physics allows creativity only at the beginning of reality
> > itself, and thus supports the division of science and theology. God
> > had to act, according to physics, but He acted once and then remained
> > silent. If we allow local creativity, then we can't get rid of God as
> > well as was wanted back when science and religion parted ways. So,
> > then you have the fear of losing science again to the creationists.
> > But it is an unjustified fear for two reasons. First, it is system
> > wholeness that supports creativity, not a separate and distant God
> > that intervenes in systems. Second, there is no actual incompatibility
> > with discussing God in terms of living creative experience, and
> > describing a system in terms of objective events. I have used these
> > arguments to dismiss even the latest version of creationism,
> > "intelligent design theory" on the grounds that it proposes a separate
> > intervening God rather than a systemic one. If it is a systemic one,
> > in our case, He is indistinguishable from us in principle. Religion
> > can deal with the difference between the actual and the ideal
> > (specific system models vs. the ultimate "best" ones or ultimately
> > unified one), while science works to explain what is happening in
> > present experience.
> > The aspect of this worth discussing, in my view, is the notion that
> > traditional physics "supports the division of science and theology"--
> > with the view as stated above. I think it's the other way around. To
> > say "God acted once and then remained silent" is to support and
> > reinforce the notion of "creationism".
>
> Well, if we are talking historically and philosophically about what
> these camps actually say;  Physics says all creation occurred once, in
> the big bang, which was a mess. Then everything developed and evolved
> from that, passively and mechanically without any further "creative"
> event. Creationists say a Divine being created all we see today, exactly
> as we see it. That the paleontological record is a hoax, that the world
> was created about 4,000 years ago, and Man was created in the Divine
> image directly, not through evolution. They also believe that the
> Creator can intervene in natural laws at any time. These are very
> different ideas, and naturally the Creationist idea is untestable, so it
> is not a concern of science, nor is it an alternative explanation for
> what we see. It is a claim that there is no explanation. But mechanistic
> science and Western theollogy actually agreed to create the dividing
> line between mechanism, which could be studied by science, and other
> things, which would be the province of spiritual matters. It is that
> legacy - that over separation of the turf - that is now becomming a
> problem as we find that some "fuzzy" things seem to be inextricable from
> natural science in this manner.
>
> There is nothing for it but to accept the challenge and go forward,
> finding new ways to distinguish between what can be known from empirical
> evidence and what people wish to believe based on their inner feelings.
> The idea that human will can intervene to alter physical systems sits
> uncomfortably between these two ideas. It can be treated scientifically,
> and yet it can also do what some theologins want, to explain where
> creativity, love, etc. come from. But it was to agree with the science,
> theology would have to give up the idea of any intervening agent acting
> from outside the system, and that would not do for them, I'm sure. So,
> yes, there is a clear separation and always will be; and RR's
> perspective helps, I believe, to see the boundary all the more clearly.
>
> > The "big bang" theory of how the universe was created that is so
> > prevalent nowadays makes no sense to me and doesn't hold with the way
> > complexity works either. I further suggest that my father's idea (with
> > complex systems) that each system contains, in a sense, its own beginning
>
> I fully agree. The universe model I built is based on this and also
> proposes that each system will build its own internal universe, as you
> say here.
>
> > is the one scientific explanation that truly DOES allow the complete
> > separation of science and theology.
>
> Well, I wouldn't extend hope that far. We will probably never separate
> science from the problem of origins, which is what theology also
> discusses. The paper I alluded to in the paragraph cited above attempts
> to destroy the "intelligent design" theory using Rosennian system views.
> I think it works. But theology can be as adaptive as science. It will
> come up with something else. The real difference is testability.
>