I had a look at Lipton's paper. Here's an only-slightly-unkind executive summary:
1. Science and religious belief are in conflict.
2. We could deal with this by abandoning one or the other, but I don't want to.
3. Instead, what we can do is to preserve the *content* of religious belief but change our *attitude* to what it says. In particular, I'll keep all the religious teachings but adopt an attitude of disbelief instead of one of belief to some of them, thus solving the problem.
4. More specifically, I'll interpret the Bible literally and "immerse" myself in religious attitudes and activities, while understanding that much of what the Bible, and my religion, actually say is quite wrong.
5. You might think this is hypocritical, but it's the nearest approach to integrity I can find while preserving my attachment to both science and religion.
Lipton writes well, and he's obviously a clever chap and a pretty clear thinker. That he finds this sort of stuff acceptable seems to me an example of how religion can corrupt an intelligent mind by fostering an acceptance of the unacceptable.
Here's a representative quotation, the very end of the article.
Some of the claims of religion may conflict with the claims of science. The immersion solution does not aim to remove that inconsistency, but by distinguishing acceptance from belief it finds a way to achieve consistency of belief with out effacing incompatibility of content. On this approach, we preserve content by adjusting our attitude towards it. We have literalism without fundamentalism; inconsistency without irrationality. There is conflict between some of the claims we invoke, but not in what we believe.To some this may smack of hypocrisy, but in the context of the relation between science and religion I myself think it is one route to personal and intellectual integrity, a route which tries to preserve as much as possible from both religion and science without ignoring the tensions between them.
Lipton frankly characterizes what he's offering as "religion without belief". He wants to preserve the rituals and traditions and (some of) the values of his religion while not actually believing in (what someone more conservative might consider) its key teachings. Well, OK, but it seems very implausible that the best way to live is actually to immerse oneself in a tradition founded on falsehoods.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 09:56 am (UTC)1. Science and religious belief are in conflict.
2. We could deal with this by abandoning one or the other, but I don't want to.
3. Instead, what we can do is to preserve the *content* of religious belief but change our *attitude* to what it says. In particular, I'll keep all the religious teachings but adopt an attitude of disbelief instead of one of belief to some of them, thus solving the problem.
4. More specifically, I'll interpret the Bible literally and "immerse" myself in religious attitudes and activities, while understanding that much of what the Bible, and my religion, actually say is quite wrong.
5. You might think this is hypocritical, but it's the nearest approach to integrity I can find while preserving my attachment to both science and religion.
Lipton writes well, and he's obviously a clever chap and a pretty clear thinker. That he finds this sort of stuff acceptable seems to me an example of how religion can corrupt an intelligent mind by fostering an acceptance of the unacceptable.
Here's a representative quotation, the very end of the article.
Lipton frankly characterizes what he's offering as "religion without belief". He wants to preserve the rituals and traditions and (some of) the values of his religion while not actually believing in (what someone more conservative might consider) its key teachings. Well, OK, but it seems very implausible that the best way to live is actually to immerse oneself in a tradition founded on falsehoods.