Article 4 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete?
Absolutely ! Claimss an eminent scientist :
I do mainstream research; I publish in peer-reviewed journals; I present my research at professional meetings; I train students and postdoctoral researchers; I try to learn from nature : how nature works is the question I always ask myself. In other words, I am an ordinary scientist. I am also a believer in the fictional religion. I shamelessly attend church; I blindly sing in the gospel choir;; I routinely pray regularly to I don't whom ? I try to do justice and walk humbly with my fellow humans. In other words, I am an ordinary person of a fictional faith. To many people, this justifiably makes me a contradiction
As an experimental physicist, I require hard evidence, reproducible experiments, and rigorous logic to support any scientific hypothesis. How can such a person base his belief on the mere fiction of a supernatural faith? In fact there are two questions here: "How can one believe in an Allah/God without evidence ; and, why do I, of all the people, believe in such absurdity ?
On the first question: can a rational scientist believe in a fictional Allah/God without any rational or scientific proof ? Scientific statements are exact and are based on facts. Einstein's theory of relativity correctly describes the behaviour of visible objects in our solar system. Extremely careful measurements have proved that this statement is correct. By contrast, religious statements are not provable. I might say, "God created us and wants us to make love with one another." I cannot think of anything that could prove that statement rational as the very idea of an Allah/God is mere an irrational fiction. The general statements like "She sings beautifully." "He is a good man." "I love you," are all, in one or the other sense, scientific statements which, scientifically speaking, express our feelings and value judgements. One must conclude then that an attitude of scientific observations with philosophical rationalism and common sense/reason is, indeed, the only sane and useful way of looking at life.
What about the second question: why do I believe in God? As a physicist, I look at nature from a particular perspective. I see an orderly, balanced universe in which nearly all physical phenomena can be understood from a few simple mathematical equations. I see a universe that, had it evolved slightly differently, would never have given birth to stars and planets, let alone bacteria and people. Many good scientists have concluded from these observations that a set of circumstances and forces must have been at work in the evolution of the universe with such a wonderful, complicated, and life-giving properties. Many of these good scientists are atheists, while others are agnostics. I, hypocritically believe in God because I do not have the courage to do otherwise.
Does this mis-belief makes me a better person or a better physicist than others? Hardly. I know plenty of atheists and agnostics who are both better people and better scientists than I. I don't think that this belief makes me any better than I would be if I did not believe. Am I free of doubts about God? Hardly. Questions about the presence of evil in the world in the very presence of the so-called omnipresent loving God, the suffering of innocent children, the variety of religious thought, and other imponderables often leave me wondering if I am in my right mind, and always leave me conscious of my ignorance, if not of outright stupidity. Nevertheless, I do believe, more because of my ignorance of rationalist science than anything else ; but ultimately just because I don't know what else to believe. Believing since childhood has created a space in my mind which must be filled with some hotchpotch, of this or that religion !
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Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ?
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Article 2: Yes, of course - speaks a psychologist
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