God has been invoked many times throughout history. When humanity was temporarily confounded by natural phenomenons, we invoked god as the explanation. As time went past, some curious mind decides to investigate, finds the real answer and removes god from his gaps. This is seen time and time again in history. And it happened to the greatest minds in science as well.
Having finally gotten off my lazy arse and watched Session 2 of Beyond Belief 2006, I now understood the history of the God of the Gaps better. In the first 40 minutes of the video, Neil deGrasse Tyson gave that presentation.
The religious seem to have the idea that when scientists study the natural world, they would find god. In reality, the opposite is true.
As scientists discovers more and more about the universe, god is relegated to a smaller and smaller role. Every instance in history where god was invoked to "explain," he was eventually removed when predecessors decides to seek for the truth. I believe Neil deGrasse Tyson makes this point really obvious in his presentation.
Are we not reasonable in being cautious about (if not hostile towards) invoking god as an answer at all?
Renaming our ignorance god does absolutely nothing for our pursuit of knowledge. It leads to an end for our intellectual pursuit if we are to remain satisfied with god, the massive non-answer. This, without a doubt, is actively harmful to our survival and well being.
0 comments :
Post a Comment