Introspection for those who take science as ultimate reality over religion. The common underlying worldview is known as "scientific materialism" or "scientism." As defined by twentieth century philosophers William James and Alfred North Whitehead, for instance, scientific materialism is the belief that physical reality, as made available to the natural sciences(physics) is all that truly exists .If we fully accept scientific materialism, we would also have to discard art, literature, and many other fields of human endeavor that are essential aspects of our modern world. But if faith in God requires independent scientific confirmation, what about the colossal faith our new atheists place in science itself? Exactly what are the independent scientific experiments, we might ask, that could provide "evidence" for the hypothesis that all true knowledge must be based on the paradigm of scientific inquiry? If faith requires independent confirmation, what is the independent (nonfaith) method of demonstrating that their own faith in the all-encompassing cognitional scope of science is reasonable? If science itself is the only way to provide such independent assessment, then the quest for proper validation only moves the justification process in the direction of an infinite regress. The scientist and the theologian both work by faith, a realist trust in the rational reliability of our understanding of experience. Literature
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 07:55:07 +0000
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