Has Science Replaced God?

I want you to imagine a world where there is no God.

A world where no one is oppressed by religion.

A world where truth and morality evolved.

In this world, you can shape it into your liking.  You can mold it to fit just how you need it to be.

Let’s be honest: In this world, right or wrong has no anchor but is only there to guide us on our evolutionary path.  Or possibly it’s a figment of our imagination.  Something we hold on to in order to make ourselves feel better.  To give us comfort through a life of meaninglessness.

And it brings me to this question…

What rights do those who live in that world possess?

And who grants such rights?

Utilitarianism is a theory of ethics that bases decisions on bringing about the largest amount of happiness (or least amount of suffering) for the largest amount of people.  Are utilitarian ethics our best guide?  And if so…who has the right to say?

Because to accept that as a virtue, we’d have to answer this question:  What makes our evolution important in the first place?  I’d like to know.

Wow, that was a lot of questions.  And forgive me if all this seems too serious or melancholy……but it’s 5 a.m.  and I’m only on my first cup of coffee.

Now back to the story….

In this world we live in, science has replaced God.  But science does not care.  Science is not a mother to give warmth or a father to guide truth.  Science does not create but only examines.

Science teaches utilitarian virtues but yet denies the Principe of virtue.  It might claim that truth is virtuous but then it remains speechless as why “truth” holds any weight in the discussion.  It might claim rational views as a moral precept, as if it had any right to speak of precepts at all.

In this world there is no moral difference in throwing a disabled child in a river or going fishing.  In fact, fishing would provide more resources for the group and disposing of the child would decrease the strain on the group and, therefore, be more utilitarian.

Now any sane person would say “we aren’t teaching to throw children in a river”.  And I’d agree.  I’d say that most of the atheists I know are extremely moral people.  Possibly more righteous than many of the Christians I’d know.   But what of it?  Because even in that statement, I made a claim that there was a standard that should be lived up to.

What makes a “should” or a “should not”?  Who defines an “ought”?

Science can make no such claims.  It cannot lay down a foundation of ethics.

Science can teach us how to build a bridge, but only philosophy can teach us why the bridge should be built in the first place.

So what about freedom?

Does believing in an all-knowing, all-powerful God negate our freedom?

Shouldn’t we have choice?  Isn’t it our bodies?  Our lives?

Yes.  You have choices.  Decisions to make.  A free will to carve out of your hardened stone.

Talk to someone that has broken free from addiction and they will tell you…..”freedom” can be a prison.  But TRUE FREEDOM is born from discipline, service, and love.

Some people think that to believe in God is silly, and that to be religious is not for “freethinkers”.  (And so at this point, I’ll remind you that the real religion explained in the Bible is taking care of orphans and widows and not falling for the world’s lies. James 1:27)

For atheists, the world is simply matter.  Atoms and molecules.  Blind chemistry in a soup of potential.  This view leads to the assumption that all can be eventually explained via materialism and science.

Theists believe in atoms and molecules and blind chemistry as well.  But they also believe in an immaterial world.  They don’t believe in the immaterial world on faith alone, but through logic and reason.

But what can we know of the immaterial world?

What can be said of it?  Surely it exists.  Here’s why….

I’ll give you 7 examples:

1. Prudence
2. Justice
3. Temperance
4. Fortitude
5. Faith
6. Hope
7. Love

These 7 virtues exist as certainly as you or I.  We know they do, but we cannot see them.  They are as foreign to our eyes as the atom.  And yet they are real.   Not only are they real, but they appear to have a type of goodness to them.  Which of course implies goodness exists.

Has science replaced God?

I can’t answer this question for you.  I can only answer it for myself.

I know that some people are ready to move on to another world.  One without God.   A world without troublesome religion, creationists, and hypocrites.  One of science and reason.

And yet they have no reason.  Because in their worldview, truth is illusive.  It’s not a guide to be considered good.  It’s just a tool.

In their freethinking freedom, they have become lost and blind.

Skeptics of the very world that makes life worth living.

p.s.

May we pray for those so numbed by the despair of the fallen world that they no longer know what it is they lost (Christians and atheists alike)

“The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him.”

Acts 17: 24-27

p.p.s.

Okay, so this post was a little different than most.

Just remember that the greatest of the virtues is Love and that seems to be the one we forget the most often.

Peace