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We come here for similar reasons. We share concerns. We're asking the same kind of questions.
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What is the fundamental nature of reality? What is humankind's role in the Cosmos?
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And this is why i will always remain stubbornly optimistic that through discussion, and reason and rationality
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we can actually make progress towards at least understanding, if not agreement.
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Having said that...
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Religion and science have gone their separate ways over the years. 500 years ago this debate would not have been held;
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there was no demarcation between what we would now call science and what we call religion,
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there was just attempts to understand the world.
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And what happened is that science came about by developing techniques, methodologies for gaining reliable knowledge about the world,
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and the reliable knowledge that we got was incompatible with some of the presuppositions of religious belief.
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The basic thing that we learned by doing science for 400 years is something called 'naturalism'
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— the idea that there is only one reality, there are not separate planes of the natural and the supernatural,
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there is only one material existence and we are part of the universe, we do not stand outside it in any way.
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And the way that science got there is through basically realizing that human beings are not that smart.
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We’re not perfectly logical; we as human beings are subject to all sorts of biases and cognitive shortcomings.
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We tend to be wishful thinkers and to see patterns where they’re not there, and so forth.
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And in response to this science developed techniques for giving ourselves reality checks,
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for not letting us believe things that the evidence does not stand up to.
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One technique is simply 'skepticism', which you may have heard of.
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Scientists are taught that we should be our own theories’ harshest critics.
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Scientists spend all their time trying to disprove their favorite ideas.
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This is a remarkable way of doing things; it’s a little bit counter-intuitive, but helps us resist the lure of wishful thinking.
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The other technique is 'empiricism'.
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We realize that we are not smart enough to get true knowledge about the world just by thinking about it.
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We have to go out there and look at the world.
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And what we’ve done by this for the last 400 years is realize that human beings are not separate,
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that the world is one thing, the natural world, and it can be understood.
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This is very counter-intuitive; it is not at all obvious, this naturalism claim.
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When you talk to a person, they have thoughts and feelings and responses.
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When you talk to a dead person, a corpse
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— hate to be morbid here — but, you don’t get those same responses, those same thoughts and feelings.
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It’s very natural, very common-sensical to think that a living person possesses something that a corpse does not.
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Some sort of spirit, some sort of animating soul or life force.
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But this idea as it turns out does not stand up to closer scrutiny.
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You are made of atoms.
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You’re made of cells which are made of molecules which are made of atoms, and as physicists, we know how atoms behave.
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The laws of physics governing atoms are completely understood.
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If you put an atom in a certain set of circumstances and you tell me what those circumstances are, as a physicist, I will tell you what the atom will do.
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If you believe that the atoms in your brain and your body
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act differently because they are in a living person than if they’re in a rock or a crystal,
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then what you’re saying is that the laws of physics are wrong.
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That they need to be altered because of the influence of a spirit or a soul or something like that.
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That may be true — science can’t disprove that — but there is no evidence for it.
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And you get a much stronger explanatory framework by assuming that it’s just atoms obeying the laws of physics.
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That kind of reasoning is a big step toward 'naturalism'.
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Now of course, I could go on. We could talk about modern cosmology and the origin of the Universe;
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we could talk about neuroscience and what consciousness is, and so forth;
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but i don't want to do that right now, we can maybe talk about it later...
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But, I don't want to do it right now basically because it's kind of boring.
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And the reason why it's kind of boring is because the argument is finished; the debate is over. We’ve come to a conclusion.
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Naturalism has won.
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If you go to any university physics department, listen to the talks they give or the papers that they write,
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go to any biology department, go to any neuroscience department, any philosophy department,
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people whose professional job it is to explain the world and come up with explanatory frameworks that match what we see
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— no one mentions God.
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There’s never an appeal to a supernatural realm by people whose job it is to explain what happens in the world;
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everyone knows that the naturalist explanations are the ones that work.
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And yet — here we are. We’re having a debate. Why are we having a debate?
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Because, clearly, religion speaks to people for reasons other than explaining what happens in the world.
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Most people who turn to religious belief do not do so because they think it provides the best theory of cosmology or biology.
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They turn to religious belief because it provides them with purpose and meaning in their lives,
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with a sense of right and wrong, with a community, with hope.
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So if you want to say that science has refuted religion, you need to say that science has something to say about those issues.
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And on that I have good news and bad news for you.
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The bad news is that the universe does not care about you.
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The universe is made of elementary particles that don’t have intelligence, don’t pass judgment, do not have a sense of right and wrong.
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And the fear is, the existential anxiety is, that if that purpose and meaningfulness is not given to me by the universe, then it cannot exist.
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The good news is that that fear is a mistake. That there’s another option.
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That we create purpose and meaning in the world.
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If you love somebody, it is not because that love is put into you by something outside;
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it is because you created that from inside yourself.
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If you act good to somebody, it’s not because you’re given instructions to do so, it’s that’s the choice that you made.
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This is a very scary world.
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You should be affected at a very deep level by the thought that the universe doesn’t care, does not pass judgment on you.
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But it’s also challenging and liberating that we can create lives that are worth living.
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I’ve never met God;
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I’ve never met any spirits or angels. But I’ve met human beings, many of them are amazing people.
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And I truly believe that if we accept the universe for what it is,
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if we approach reality with an open mind and an open heart,
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then we can create lives very much worth living.