Certainly others have put forth some putative psychosocial hypotheses to explain the tenacity of most people's core commitments to the theistic and nontheistic hypotheses.

Might there be a neurocognitive substrate for what I often call a "rush to closure" by fideism and scientism and other isms, in
between? that would, perhaps, be a maladaptive artifact of the gestalt process? as hunches and inspirations and epistemologies lead to worldviews, resisting both modification or nonclosure? especially
in a system which is internally coherent, externally congruent and logically consistent? notwithstanding the existence of other such systems with equal epistemic and ontologic footings?

My hypothesis is that it could be that it is in the manner of articulation of the God hypothesis, that is, in its grounding, in its hypothesized foundationalism, that it demonstrates its scientific methodology, both in its core commitment and auxiliary hypotheses, and that it thus derives its cognitive consonance and tenacious mass
appeal, and

that it might be that it is in the manner of articulation of the Sagan hypothesis [ (primal) nothingness, as a system, is unstable and has a tendency to decay into something ] , with its lack of grounding, in its inherent nonfoundationalism, that it generates just enough cognitive dissonance, seeming paradox and apparent arbitrariness with its unjustified fundamental trust in uncertain reality, to keep the masses confused and skeptical, this notwithstanding its unparalleled contributions in so many disciplines of human endeavor (which conversely keeps the masses engaged) and
perhaps, even largely due, no doubt, to the *counterintuitiveness* of such phenomena as non-telic progress, emergence and complexity
theories, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, chaos theory, etc

I don't offer the Sagan hypothesis as a straw man for every other nontheistic and atheistic formulation, those which would be more heavily nuanced and which would more successfully evade any logical fallacies. I offer it in the spirit of Emerson, such that, *when the half-Sagans depart, the Sagans will appear*. [And I accept anyone's
additional nuancing of what cosmologists like Sagan say, including him, but I do think I have the essence of it *ontologically* and metaphysically.]

If ontology models epistemology and if it is not how things are but that things are which is the mystical and if reality can give no
account of why there should be something rather than nothing,

then, in principle, there can be no a priori supposition which grounds being and, therefore,

ontology, as a branch of metaphysics, is thwarted at its very foundation from urging forcefully and irresistably any solutions to
metaphysics' most salient problems, urgent concerns and irresistable questions and, furthermore,

since these problems of metaphysics are insoluble in principle and these ontological questions are unanswerable in principle,

then, the great theistic hypothesis which conjectures the existence of God and the great atheistic hypothesis which conjectures that (primal) nothingness, as a system, is unstable and has a tendency to decay into something, both admit to no a priori presuppositions and can offer no self-evident propositions and

since they are insoluble, preeschatologically, in principle, then
temporally, they can not be submitted to a posteriori testability.

[Ergo, I reject legal rules of evidence-type paradigms, deontological imperative apologetics, parsimony and Occam's Razor applications, consensus gentium appeals, etc as somehow logically coercing a new
paradigm for theology and belief-systems --- only partially because the phenomena under study are distinctly different even if the
methodology is common and, especially, since metaphysical claims don't make themselves available, in principle, to such paradigms in the first place.]

Now, however relevant, intelligible and meaningful its predictions, explanations, interpretations and insights may be, in order to be scientific, an hypothesis must be testable, open to confirmation, subject to verifiability and falsifiability.

The eschatological theistic hypothesis meets these criteria, open as it is to direct confirmation, eschatologically, and further, can be tested indirectly by the verification and falsification of its assertions based on its implications for understanding the whole of finite reality.

The nontheistic hypothesis, that (primal) nothingness, as a system, is unstable and has a tendency to decay into something, does not make eschatological assertions and would never advert to the possibility of atemporality and, furthermore, excludes, in principle, the nonspatial, the atemporal, the immaterial or nonenergetic and, hence,
coupled with the reasons cited above, remains untestable and insoluble, in principle, both a priori AND a posteriori..

While the auxiliary nontheistic hypotheses can be tested indirectly by the
verification and falsification of their assertions based on their implications for understanding the whole of finite reality, their very core commitment does not meet the criteria of a scientific hypothesis [not that this bothers me].

This is more fully explored at Saganism

Be well and pax tibi,
QuiQui

Fides et Ratio in Theology AND Science

In previous essays and correspondence I proposed that some theisms are more scientific than some nontheisms. I think I made it clear that I did not intend my "Sagan Hypothesis" to be a "straw man" by which all nontheistic hypotheses could be invalidated. I should also point out that my "God Hypothesis" was not a straw man by which all theistic hypotheses could be invalidated.

I also recognized and pointed out that nuanced versions of these hypotheses do exist and I explicitly (and dialogically) invited such nuancing. In this invitation was my implicit acknowledgement (even presupposition) that not all "fides" is fideism and not all "ratio" is rationalism. For example, a nuanced scientism might be that of Drees but not that of Dawkins. A nuanced fideism might be that of Hans Kung but not that of some traditional Catholic scholasticisms which invoked Aquinas (wrongly). But I want to be clear in my position: it is only through this nuancing process that the pejorative ism-suffix can be etymologically dropped.

In a sense, we are talking about fundamentalism, whether in religion or in science. Some scientists bristle when "accused" of having "faith" in science. I think it is only the non-nuanced form of faith whose label most scientists would positively eschew. I would still maintain that the core-commitment of the theistic and nontheistic hypotheses IS faith, even as some of the major premises of their auxiliary hypotheses are not. I will explain further.

I have explored whether or not there is a "rush to closure" dynamism that accounts for fundamentalism (even if in some scientisms we are dealing with a radical [non]fundamentalism). Is it a maladaptive artifact of our gestalt mechanism which coerces closure on Wittgenstein and Heidigger's insoluble metaphysical question? Is it an artifact of our holistic and reductionistic operators (D'Aquili and Newberg) which prevents the collapse of our conjunctive-disjunctive dualism? Is it an artifact of our imaginative faculties and our trial and error conceptualizations which sends us into infinite loop regressions when "looking for something in a place where we are simultaneously assuming there is nothing at all" (Luther Askeland)? Is it an artifact of our linguistic processes which hinders our dissolution of paradox into logical and efficient causal operations?

Are these evolutionary artifacts maladaptive failures of the gestalt and/or failures of the imagination? Are they, phenomenologically, a failure to nuance? Do we need to transcend the neurocognitive substrates of our gestalt apparatus individually? Is it a Kuhnian paradigm shift on the order of a new axial period we need to experience collectively? Perhaps we can neither countenance nor fathom being part of an "untellable story in which we are all being told" (Askelande)?

The recurrent theme that I propose, for our individual and collective failures in the un-nuanced theisms and nontheisms, is a "failure to go meta".

I also propose that both the God and Sagan Hypotheses, even in their highly nuanced formulations, as explanatory accounts for existence, only "postpone and complicate the dillema" (Askeland).

Neither hypothesis, at a certain level (the mystical) gives me a satisfying accounting. In my previous essays, I was really making an attempt to stand in others' shoes to see why those accountings possibly satisfy them and, perhaps precisely because of this exercise, from these accountings, my epistemological holism emerges.

Does my standing back amount to collosal epsitemic hubris? I am prepared to be both misunderstood and accused of metaphysical arrogance. At the same time, be patient, for "uncertain Reality" isn't finished with me yet! Take solace in the endproduct of my hubris: epistemic humility. It is surely the obverse side of the epistemological coin of the ontological realm.

In all humility, it is out of this depthful encounter of the consonance between faith and reason that my fides et ratio hermeneutic emerges, that my acute sensitivity to the excesses of fideism and rationalism is sustained. Through this encounter, with this hermeneutic, I pragmatically "justify" my Roman Catholic faith and attempt to "ground" my pluralistic epistemology, both paradoxically. We will further explore why "paradoxically" is okay.

Karl Popper: "Rationalism appreciates argument and theory and verification by experience. But this "decision" for rationalism cannot in its own turn be justified by argument and experience. Although it can be discussed, it rests ultimately on an irrational decision on FAITH in reason." He also wrote: "A self-sufficient, comprehensive, or uncritical rationalism as supported by Descartes and many modern scientists is logically untenable." In a real sense, Popper condenses into those two sentences what the mystical preoccupation with suchness, thusness and thatness is all about.

Karl Barth might support my thesis that some theisms are more scientific than some nontheisms: "For me, rationalists ought to be more rational."

Our fundamental trust in "uncertain Reality" (I combine the lower and upper cases out of deference for our collective apophatic and kataphatic endeavors), is described by Hans Kung as neither rationalistically demonstrable nor irrationalistically unverifiable but as being more than reasonable: "super-reasonable".

If there is a failure at the nexus between science and theology, science and religion, it is indeed what I have described: "failure to go meta".

There is no failure in paradigm-shifting that can be overcome by appealing to what is "non-meta-reasonable" rationale. Arguments for shifting paradigms in belief-systems are not philosophically operative, have no jurisdiction and are not dispositive in the temporal, pre-eschatological realm. The coin of the physical realm of materialist reductionism has no currency in the meta-physical realm, for all of the meta-reasons I've already stated with Kung, Barth, Popper et al. The nontheistic hypothesis has neither a priori nor a posteriori falsification or verifiability available to it in principle. The theistic hpothesis is, therefore, not a failure in logic, has not been stolen by the intelligentisia, is not a failure in Kuhnian paradigm-shifting, not a misapplication of Occam's Razor, not a mistake in parsimony, not an insufficient weighting of evidence but, rather, a meta-trusting, meta-reasonable "realization" of the radical possibility for fundamental certainty, a giving of one's self over to uncertain Reality, not without courage, never without risk.

Hans Kung: "I thus perceive the reasonableness of reason not as a premise "before" my decision (in this, Popper is right), nor even as a consequence "after" my decision (there Popper is wrong), but in the "realization" of my experience."

I would add that this realization does not have to involve an "infinite loop error" or an infinite regress. Kung continues: "Although we cannot attempt a logical justification of fundamental certainty, we are not dispensed from the obligation of rendering a rational account of it."

And, more from Kung: "If I commit myself trustingly to reality despite its uncertainty, I am not simply questioning in a circle, nor am I continually going farther back with my questions, nor do I dogmatically assume anything as obvious. I nevertheless commit myself to reality in all its uncertainty; in this very way, I experience, I know, the reality of reality, the reasonableness of reasonableness." And I see, in that quote, nothing that would bother Popper or Lorenz.

It may be that it is in the consideration of imagination and concepts, of the abstract and concrete, of logical and efficient causes, that some "failure to go meta" creeps into our consideration of ultimates. At best, there is an etymological piracy, at worst, a philosophical legerdemain, involved in defining "ultimate" as merely going back as far as one can go "for now". This attempt to foreclose on the ontological question-begging (that this consideration has been all about) cannot petition the Metaphysical Supreme Court where Justices Heidigger, Wittgenstein and Pseudo-Dionysius preside.

Neither can it accomplish a repossession of a suitably formulated God-concept inasmuch as ultimacy's debt to primal being is collateralized by a mortgage held as an asset in a blind trust of eschatological duration. A nuanced pragmatist's approach to ignoring classical ultimacy, and going back 'only' as far as one can go, in development of a hermeneutic is possible. If, however, it categorically denies Wim Drees' "open space", holds contempt for our metaphysical court, makes a priori ontological conclusions or uses a posteriori ontological arguments with the intent to logically coerce a materialist reductionistic paradigm-shift on worldviews, it must own up to its intrinsic unreasonableness and inherent irrationality.

After all is said and done, if I have tried to make a case that scientists are often irrational, nonrational and faith-filled, at the same time, they are not unlike true believers (Hoffer). As a pragmatist, however, I am not at all making a case that would suggest that scientism's irrationality (in its hypothetical core commitment) affects the efficacies of its methodologies. I am only pressing for their recognition that the integration of theology and science could be closer than many suspect; that the integration of science and religion would, then, not be far behind; that a global ethic is within our grasp.

It is at this "nexus" that the world desperately needs us to go "meta".

KiKi
QuiQui
jboy qui est
Fides Et Ratio in Science AND Religion

quote:

After all is said and done, if I have tried to make a case that scientists are often irrational, nonrational and faith-filled, at the same time, they are not unlike true believers (Hoffer).

Good essays, KiKi/jb! And I totally concur with the conclusion you draw above, having put in my time (9 years) in a university environment studying and teaching biology. The kind of atheism that characterized some of my teachers (and I know you know who I mean) was a much a matter of faith in what they thought the data was saying as the proclamation of the resurrection by the Apostles of Jesus was. And their refusal to acknowledge the rational evidence in favor of the resurrection was as stubborn a refusal to "face the facts" as they accused fundamentalists of doing concerning evolution. What else can we call this but hypocrisy?

Phil