Can’t Darwin and God get along?
Of course they can, argues physicist and theologian Karl Giberson, if only many believers were more sophisticated and atheists less dogmatic.
July 1, 2008 | With biologist Richard Dawkins leading the way, many scientists today are locked in an unending match of whack-a-mole with Christian creationists, who insist that God created heaven, earth and humanity in its present form, and with disciples of intelligent design who want to expel evolution from its scientific prominence in public schools. If you’ve been following the battle, you might be inclined to believe that Americans are faced with a choice between believing in God and scientific fact.
In his new book, “Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution,”
Why does Darwin need to be saved?
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Comment by will on 1 July 2008:
It is frustrating because Gilberson admits to his own cognitive dissonance. Ultimately he uses the same the reasoning as the creationists he condemns.
The sum of his argument seems to be that there is a God because I need for there to be a God.
This need is the insanity that is at the heart of the human condition. In a nutshell the cause of this insanity is:
1. Both the experience and belief that self is unitary, autonomous, central and disembodied.
2. Both the experience and belief that self has the absolute ability to choose between two courses of action (free will).
The results of the above are:
1. Existential malaise - feelings of aloneness, alienation, and the feeling that life has no meaning.
2. Existential terror - existence is perceived as self and not-self. The cessation of self is perceived as a void. This is the nameless terror that can grip a person when they contemplate their own death.
The supernatural band-aid solution is to believe in a god. This offers relief from the feelings of aloneness and alienation. In addition an immortal soul offers relief from existential terror. A soul is simply the self imbued with the characteristic of immortality.
But this is a false solution. It can only work in so far as the person can maintain a certain credulousness. The person also has to be able to endure some cognitive dissonance i.e. contradictory ideas. Most of the time this involves compartmentalizing reality. Keeping supernatural beliefs with its own set of rules in one section of reality and everyday reality in another section.
The real cure for existential malaise and terror is to embody the mind. Embodying the mind changes the experience and perception of self. It means changing the perception and experience of self from unitary and autonomous to diffuse and interconnected.
But this is a big step. It means changing the fundamental psychodynamic structure of the mind. Buddhists have been making these psychodynamic changes with varying degrees of success for millenia. They call it enlightenment. You can think of Buddhist enlightenment as a sort of psychological therapy for existential malaise and terror.
Short of enlightenment, I don’t ever see people like Gilberson ever giving up their belief in the supernatural. Or objectivists giving up their strident belief in Free Will. etc, etc.
This is the impasse we find ourselves at. It is a chasm between people that can never be bridged by rational arguments alone.
Will