Category Archives: Physics

Cyclops, Open Your Other Eye

cyclops_science copy

Below is a link to a nerd-riffic, truth-filled interview with philosopher and Notre Dame professor Alvin Plantinga about the purported conflict between science and religion. LISTEN HERE; nerd out.

Plantinga gives a great response to the interviewers question: “Is there not a big part of your own personal, religious doctrine that depends on faith, taking a leap of faith, philosophically, and believing in certain things that can’t be scientifically proven?”

“… It’s not as if whatever is true, or sensible to believe has to be provable by virtue of science. Science is absolutely wonderful, but it’s a limited endeavor. It doesn’t cover the whole of the knowledge enterprise you might say.”

Cyber-fist-bump to Prof. Plantinga for not buying into the interviewer’s premise that having faith puts him in an untenable position. Science’s job is to chase down mystery and hogtie it with a lasso of understanding…or whatever. Science is useful when it’s applied to help understand and describe our world, but it becomes oppressive when it seeks to define our world. There is a subtle, but critical difference there old chums…just like the difference between wisdom and knowledge, confidence and arrogance, chapstick and glue stick. Confuse them at your peril.

Science, like art, or any subject, is just one lens on the world. But…

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Science & Spirituality Get it on Between the Covers

Scientific Approach

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist. I am not even particularly bright.

Regardless, one reason I think Mere Christianity is such a compelling book is that Lewis took a fairly scientific approach to a spiritual subject. The reader can test his claims because the reader is an intrinsic expert on the subject being examined; he is the subject:

There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know. – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

From this intrinsic point of departure, Brother Clive sets out to step the reader through a series of logical paces. Granted, there are critics of these paces who argue that they aren’t logical and would likely say that they’re far from scientific. In the academic sense, they may be right. Who knows; I’m no academic. I suppose some would argue that academic sense is an oxymoron. Anyway, back to what’s important: logic, science, and how to impress the ladies…

This brings me to the next logical subject: Goodwill. Not good will. Goodwill. Where I source all of my yellow-armpitted Reebok t-shirts with stretched-out necks and that…

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