http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKkOSMaTk4

Now, I am all for violating that agreement, but it must be done in an intellectually honest fashion. That means acknowledging that Western science has operated at the exclusion of metaphysical concerns; it means reopening the great Western tradition of metaphysical critique to non-Western knowledges; it means acknowledging the dark side of colonialism and imperialism that accompanied the rapid rise of Western rationality. It does not mean using faith healers from corporate-structured mega-Churches as straw men.

As for Kant, his long-respected separation of science from religion has (as perhaps you already know) evolved into the more recent concept called Non-Overlapping Magisteria (aka NOMA). enhabit kindly gave us some relevant Gould in the last few post of the Morality thread:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists. If some of our crowd have made untoward statements claiming that Darwinism disproves God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and have their knuckles rapped for it (as long as she can equally treat those members of our crowd who have argued that Darwinism must be God’s method of action). Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example).

—Stephen Jay Gould – http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/darwin.html

Which prompted this response from me:

I’m a big appreciator of Stephen Gould the paleontologist, who has written some of the best books on evolution I’ve yet read. Conversely, I’m not a big fan of Richard Dawkins the reductionist ‘life is a machine operated by selfish genes’ zoologist, who feuded frequently and famously with Gould. However, the same zoologist Dawkins I’m so un-enamored with has some starkly salient points to offer my old fave Gould, specifically regarding the Non-Overlapping-Magesteria would-be peace-treaty between science and religion Gould tried to foster.

What follows is Dawkins’s response to the Gould quote offered above:

Despite the confident, almost bullying, tone of Gould’s assertion, what, actually, is the justification for it? Why shouldn’t we comment on God, as scientists? Any why isn’t Russell’s teapot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster equally immune from scientific skepticism? (A) universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?

Dawkins, The God Delusion, p.55

Pretending that age-old concepts that can’t be found anywhere outside of human imaginations should be given a special exemption from scientific inquiry doesn’t seem to me to very objective at all. I admire Gould’s compassion for believers – but I can’t admire his timid conclusion. I score that round for Dawkins.

Science investigates the universe. If ‘God’ is in anyway involved in our universe, it’s a scientific issue. Many scientifically educated Christians understand this too – which is exactly how and why Intelligent Design pseudoscience originated: from Christians determined to find “God’s fingerprints” at the cellular level. Their attempts – heavily funded by multi-millionaire believers – have not succeeded.

I’m hoping to contribute a more detailed post on NOMA on the forthcoming Hitchens thread. Because, conventional wisdom or not, a “supernatural” origin of the universe is a scientific matter. As would be the putative ongoing existence of the self after death (were it discernable in any manner or venue beyond of the wondrous human capacity for imagination).

Anyway, your other point about Hitchens’s lack of respect is certainly worrisome. Yet I’m hoping it won’t be as bad as that. The excerpts of his book that Mary links us to at the end of this thread’s billboard are more well-reasoned than nastily incendiary, and his 45-minute stint on “On Point” was sharp but not rude – well, mostly. [He sees claims of faith-healing as charlatanism (and I tend to agree), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the claimants are consciously defrauding their parishioners. I’ve no compelling reason to think that they don’t believe the that their deity answered their prayers (although I think they’re operating under a logical fallacy – but I’ll save that for later).]

Enough out of me for now. I look forward to your thoughts on Angier.

As for the answer to her question “what keeps scientists quiet about religion?”, [what she really means is 'what keeps scientists quiet about the improbable elements of the Christ myth'] I would again have to direct any interested parties to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Theodore Adorno’s recently published lecture smooth the difficult task of absorbing that mammoth philosophical work.

Now, I am not saying that Kant is without his flaws. What I do think is important, however, it that if we are to continue this public debate about the intersection of religion and science within Western rationality, we should at least know the HISTORICAL origin of the split.

I recently returned to the foundational texts of modern Western reason, and I was quite surprised with what I found. Kant, in his First Critique, brackets off the ‘god’ problem so that science (i.e. reason) does not have to deal with it. Scientists (like Dawkins), philosophers (like Dennett) and literary critics (like Hitchens) ignore the fundamental philosophical move that Kant makes when they say that Western science can give a definitive answer to questions of metaphysics. Kant GAVE Western science its philosophical/disciplinary foundation when he said that reason cannot answer questions of immortality, god etc.; scientists could then go about their work AS IF the god question didn’t matter. As all three of the contemporary writers I mentioned argue from within Western rationality, it seems a bit unfair that they ignore one of Kant’s key philosophical projects.

Dyson seems to understand that “nature may include many more things than we can grasp with the methods of [Western] science”. That alone seems a worthwhile point to make. As Hitchens shows little respect for any argument made from outside a Western modern/colonial mentality, I thought Freeman Dyson would be the next best thing.

I’ll read Angier over the weekend. And Lazare.

You wrote: “Each guest was on another planet. I request dialogue. This is not a simple choice because you have to get the right voice/s and they have to be available.”

My response must begin with this, from this thread’s billboard: “…to fill out a discussion about why this religious conversation — pro and con — is so fervent at the moment.”

Natalie Angier’s My God Problem answers that question. Nontheism is a defense of reason against irrationality. Angier’s essay details this beautifully; “neo-atheists” (!!!) Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, and Hitchens (and many more than these, who I’ll list later) detail it even more exhaustively. This is why Angier – already on a book tour for The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science — would offer an ideal secondary voice for the show. In fact, the more I consider it, the more perfect she’d be. She smoothly answers the question in the billboard. And without resort to contempt.

The reason I mentioned the YouTube of Dawkins/Bishop of Oxford exchange is because it was an exchange or dialogue and there was respect on both parts. The Bishop seemed evolved, open yet still a believer. it was not so much his “bishopness”. I don’t think Hitchens (or Dawkins, or Dennett or Harris or for that matter E.O.Wilson) pairs successfully with an essentially closed mind. That makes a sideshow/spectacle.