Relax, don’t worry! We are not trying to start a movement but simply reporting on another point of view relating to religion or in this case lack of it. We begin by noting a film opening in Manhattan just before Christmas (2013). The documentary follows two scientists, who apparently have quite a following, on a speaking tour.
The film is entitled “The Unbelievers.” “The Los Angeles Times called it ‘a high-minded love fest between two deeply committed atheistic intellectuals and their rock-star-like fan base.’”
Richard Dawkins, a recently retired professor of public understanding of science at Oxford University and Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at Arizona State University, are both part of a cohort called the “new atheists.” Perhaps we can come to understand what makes them “new” although we should remain somewhat skeptical of that claim. Atheists and agnostics have been around a while.
Both men have authored books questioning religious worldviews and are also promoting their books on the tour. Dawkins has written two books, The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Dr. Dawkins, labeled by some as the world’s most famous atheist, seems to delight in provoking the faithful. “‘Science is wonderful; science is beautiful,’ he says in that irresistible English accent, ‘Religion is not wonderful; it is not beautiful, it gets in the way.’” We cannot argue with him on either of those points; but gets in the way of what? Let’s follow our two provocateurs a little farther.
Dr. Krauss would probably like to sell more copies of his A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. What follows is an example of a rock-star-like riff emanating from the stage; this one with a little built-in humor. Dr. Krauss is obviously experienced in entertaining university students. “‘I’ve told you that you are far more insignificant than you ever thought,’ he tells an audience, after explaining that the universe can spring from nothing, with no recourse to a God or a miracle. ‘And that’s what I want you to celebrate,’ he continues, to laughter. Instead of being depressed or looking to God to give your life meaning, ‘You create your own meaning and enjoy your moment in the sun,’ he says.” Again, tongue in cheek we say, what could be controversial about that?
The other side in this battle between the believers and non-believers has its own “star” performers or in this case, a star-gazer. George V. Coyne is an astronomer, Jesuit priest and former director of the Vatican Observatory and now a professor of religion at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. In his book on religion written in 2000, Coyne uses a completely different strategy in defending religion. “‘We know from Scripture and from tradition that God revealed himself as one who pours out himself in love and not as one who explains things.’ God, he goes on, is primarily love: ‘Even if we discover the ‘Mind of God,’ we will not have necessarily found God.’”
Coyne, of course, generally finds himself preaching to the choir, whereas Dawkins and Krauss are appealing to the non-conformists and reactionaries, both unconscious segments of a distressed human community. We find that all of these authors and self-styled experts on science and religion are expressing much ado about faith and nothingness, and nothing to do with Simple Reality.
However, it is true that we create our own meaning in creating our worldview and our false-self survival strategy. The trouble with that meaning, whether we are worshipping at the foot of an altar or a test tube, is that it is based fundamentally on illusion.
Science appeals to the human intellect which was not designed to answer the profound questions related to ultimate reality. The mind can solve problems in the world of form and cannot, by its very nature, venture beyond the realm of the senses and creative speculation.
Religion comes closer in approaching answers to profound questions by trusting “feeling,” inner wisdom or intuition. However, without a more profound context than we find in today’s religions, humanity will never attain the identity necessary to “celebrate” the “wonderful” and “beautiful” experience of life in the present moment.
Atheists and agnostics have no more chance of creating a sustainable human community with their alternative worldview than those advocating the various religious myths. Those advocating a paradigm enamored of science, Stephen Hawking’s “godless” universe, for example, are just as clueless as to the nature of reality as those claiming that their religion is the only true belief possible. Both the “religious” and the “irreligious” contenders stand in the way of humanity awakening to the experience of “the heaven that is spread upon the earth.” And indeed, unless they wake up, they won’t even know it is here.
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References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in books by Roy Charles Henry:
Who Am I? The Second Great Question Concerning the Nature of Reality
Where Am I? The First Great Question Concerning the Nature of Reality
Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival
