Without question, the best thing that's happened to me being here is being introduced to the thought and writing of John Gray, the British political philosopher. I can't think of anyone like him in the US. He is a secular atheist and philosophical pessimist who is a fierce critic of the Enlightenment and its idea of Progress. HIs book "Straw Dogs" argues that liberal humanism is iin all important respects a religion like any other, and that its "core belief in progress is a superstition, further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world's religions." To be sure, a believing Christian can only go so far with Gray, but his writing and his vision are powerful, and must be answered.
He takes for granted that Christianity's days are over, so he turns his critical attention to the false idea that science will save us. Here's a passage from "Straw Dogs":
Scientific fundamentalists claim that science is the disinterested pursuit of truth. But representing science in this way is to disregard the human needs science serves. Among us, science serves two needs: for hope and censorship. Today, only science supports the myth of progress. If people cling to the hope of progress, it is not so much from genuine belief as from fear of what may come if they give it up. The political projects of the twentieth century have failed, or achieved much less than they promised. At the same time, progress in science is a daily experience, confirmed whenever we buy a new electronic gadget, or take a new drug. Science gives us a sense of progress that ethical and political life cannot.Again, science alone has the power to silence heretics. Today it is the only institution that can claim authority. Like the Church in the past, it has the power to destroy, or marginalise, independent thinkiers. (Think how orthodox medicine reacted to Freud, and orthodox Darwinians to Lovelock.) In fact, science does not yield any fixed picture of things, but by censoring thinkers who stray too far from current orthodoxies it p reserves the comforting illusion of a single established worldview. From the standpoint of anyone who values freedom of thought, this may be unfortunate, but it is undoubtedly the chief source of science's appeal. For us, science is a refuge from uncertainty, promising -- and in some measure delivering -- the miracle of freedom from thought; while churches become sanctuaries for doubt.
Science as freedom from thought -- as a doctrine that can provide us with the same illusion of solidity that religion used to provide. Obviously Gray is not criticizing science per se, but the way we misuse it by interpreting it politically, philosophically and, yes, religiously.
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Modern technology relies on scientific discoveries. Without physicists, none of the applied science or technology that allowed the development of computers could ever have existed.
Nonsense, that's like saying without (classical) physics the wheel would never have existed. In fact, the technology often precedes the science, many of the laws of thermodynamics were discovered in distilleries, for instance.
What good is science if it doesn't claim to have the truth? It has facts. It develops knowledge.
So, I guess, the knowledge that science develops is not true? Again, I ask, what good is it?
I may agree that some Christians are responsible for some of the advances that Western civilization has managed to find, but it can hardly be credited to Christianity as a whole.
When things like hospitals and universities were created, funded and operated by the church, your claim falls apart. Would you also say "I may agree that some scientists are responsible for some of the advances that Western civilization has managed to find, but it can hardly be credited to science as a whole"? I suppose that its an accident that it is only within what used to be Christendom that many of these things have taken place? For instance it is only in those cultures that have a Christian heritage that you will find women being granted equal, or even near-equal, status with men. It is only within Christendom that slavery, which had been a universal human institution, was ended.
Since religions claim to have the truth, but cannot demonstrate that their claim is valid, what use is the claim?
Actually, they have no problem demonstrating the claim, but they cannot make someone see who refuses to see.
Still, the claim of religion is that it knows about gods and the afterlife. These benefits that you allege are unrelated to the fundamental claims of religions ...
You are again demonstrating your gross ignorance of religion, there is far, far more to religion than concern about an afterlife. That is only a very minor part of most religions, including Christianity, which are far more interested in the here and now. In fact, the idea of an afterlife emerged fairly late in the Judeo-Christian tradition, it doesn't really show up until the latest books in the Old Testament (which also contradicts your earlier assertion that religion never changes).
and the fundamental claims are completely unsupported and in conflict with those of other religions.
As the fundamental claims of Einstein's relativity contradict the fundamental claims of quantum mechanics, so obviously both are wrong!
What Gray points to is the constant need to remember that *misplaced trust* is the bane of human history.
In contemporary times that includes simply not overestimating the capabilities of science, including the social sciences, to move humanity toward ANY version of permanent Progress - and certainly not utopia.
So if Progress idolatry is bogus, so is the other side of the coin - jaded cynicism. Gray sometimes goes right up to the edge of that cliff.
BTW, the association of knowledge and morality is an empirical question. That correlation has varied in strength and direction, depending on the time and place, and the type of knowledge and ethical question.
Heck, even the correlation between knowledge and wisdom often can be low, but for my money I'll always go with the later.
Science delivers the freedom from thought? Not at all; try ignorance and laziness. The Vatican, the US military, and the Royal Society (UK) are philosophically quite different from each other, yet all fully embrace Science as the authority of Truth in the natural realm.
Among us, science serves two needs: for hope and censorship.
Is this whole premise of Gray's based on a straw man?
Who is this 'us' to whom Gray refers?
Rod: "Man's nature does not change"
With selective breeding, we could distort Man's nature in different directions, just like we do with dogs. In a science fiction world, we would first breed a race of Great Slow Kings, who would then have the patience to breed various breeds of Man.
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