The Future of Belief – “How Science and Exploration Raise the Belief Barrier”

By Bob Chernow
Summer, WFS Convention/Minneapolis 2001

 

If God is that which we cannot conceive, what happens to belief when technology and science open our intellectual conceptions to a higher level?  What happens when the “bar” to belief and what we conceive rises?

In ancient times, man used god or gods as a way to explain the weather; now some see “faith” as a way to cure disease.  Today some believe that life is a game of good or evil.  A few believe that logic leads to Truth, and provides us with an ethical system, irrespective of what the gods approve or not.  Goodness, not theological abstraction is their key.

 The big debate now is between those who believe that God or a transcendental being created the universe and those who believe that we have a natural world with universal laws.  But does one exclude the other?  Does a universal law of nature exclude a transcendental being?  As Kenneth Miller says (in “Finding Darwin’s God”), “If the Creator uses physics and chemistry to run the universe, why wouldn’t he have used physics and chemistry to produce it, too?”

 Charles Hartshorne, the philosopher who shaped process theology, died recently at age 103.  He rejected the doctrine of divine unlimited power and postulated that God is a participant in the cosmos’ evolution and not an all-powerful bystander. He believed that God adapts in response to human actions.  He has decided which came first, the chicken or the egg!

 In this discussion, I wish to exclude the case for religion, which I believe is based upon both faith and community culture – usually one that has exclusivity to it.  Religion is a social phenomenon and therefore is not a question (in my sense) of “belief.”  Belief is not ethics, which is essential to society and which may be born from religion.  It can, but it does not need to be, part of religion.

 In any given society, there’s some recognition of a common good beyond natural law.  This is not compulsory, since compulsory morality is a contradiction of terms.  Rather it is, per T. H. Green (“Lectures on the Principles of Political obligation”) organic and individualistic. Green’s idea is “self-perfection, acting as a member of a social organization in which each contributes to the better being of all the rest.”  Personally, I believe that the intricacies of the community lead to the altruistic need of the individual to be and do for that community.  This is Walt Whitman’s idea that self-perfection is found not in the self, but in the self-expanding into that common good.

 In Goethe’s Faustus, Faust resists all temptations until he decides to forgo his soul to reclaim land for the Dutch from the sea. This is a project, which will bring good to many, but brings little direct benefit to Faust.  Yet this “sacrifice” brings him fulfillment…and eventual salvation.

Regardless of what insights one possesses, the key to spiritual fulfillment is through others.  That is the lesson that brings peace.  What will change is how we can measure that insight in ourselves and learn that the moral road is based on doing right for its own sake or reason rather than the fear of damnation or social retribution.

Now, I wish to discuss several “discoveries” and technological trends, which have and will change the bar to what and how we believe. These are changes, which may be as mind shaking as Newton’s Princpia that illustrated to him God’s perfect order (from the vantagepoint of the 17th Century).

Science is discovering how our brains manipulate our behavior.  We should, for instance, be able to “harvest” the healing powers of certain Eastern religions and we should investigate the teachings of Christian Science as contained in Science & Health (by Mary Baker Eddy) because of the healings claimed by the readers of the book.  Scientists already know that so-called controlling chemicals are secreted in the brain, often by prayer, meditation, and/or “will” of the subject.  Faith based meditation, prayer, and mind control may be more universal than we expect. [1]

We know that the pleasure center of the brain is in the septal area and that ecstasy can be stimulated there.  Neuberg and D’Aquill studied the posterior superior parietal lobule that gives patients the feeling of divine presence.  This is also that part of the brain where epilepsy dwells.  25% of those whose epilepsy involves the brain’s temporal lobes develop a distinctive religious fervor.  Epilepsy was known in ancient times as a sacred disease.  This “god centered” part of the brain was also studied by Saver and Raskin, who pointed out that many founders of religion suffered from epilepsy – St. Joan, Mohammed, and St. Paul.  They all had a divine presence and sense that they were in direct communication with God.  For them, everything was imbued with cosmic significance.  Is God programmed in our heads?

Elsewhere I have spoken on the “Eureka Process in Spiritual Revelation.” This is the phenomenon of how people obtain religious enlightenment.  

You all are familiar with the story of Archimedes, who was challenged by Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse, to see if a golden crown was adulterated with silver.  He knew the specific weight of gold (that is its weight per volume).  But to “weigh” the crown, he would have to melt it down.  He could not conceive of a solution until he took a bath and saw his body displace the water in a tub that had several dirt “rings.”  It came to Archimedes that he had “melted” down his own body and could do the same with the crown.   Eureka!

In science, the act of discovery is at once disruptive and constructive.  It disrupts the rigid patterns of mental organization to achieve a new synthesis.  Perhaps discovery means simply uncovering something that was always there but which was hidden by habit.

The process is more important than the results.  The question is more vital than the answer.  Is this because the process prepares the mind and the spirit for the acceptance of an idea?  E. E. Morison wrote in his, “Case Study for Innovation” how new ideas or inventions are introduced.  There is a natural instinct to protect oneself and one’s way of life against that which can change that life.

Often the essential idea for change occurs, in part, by chance, but in an environment that contains all of the essential elements for change and to a mind prepared to recognize the possibility of change.  Thus original thinking – revelation or enlightenment – comes from the interaction of fortune, intellectual climate, and the prepared, imaginative mind.

When we experience a sense of awe, this mood is likely to be mediated by the temporal lobes.  Studies of twins raised apart suggest that genes determine 50% of the extent of our religious interests (not beliefs).  Neuberg and D’Aquill believe that mystical sensations such as the sense of connectiveness with the rest of the universe have to do with decreased activity in the posterior superior parietal lobule.  Does this equal a “perfect” union with “god”?

If we are able to understand where the physical aspects of religious experience or sexual ecstasy comes from, and if we learn how to control this (or manipulate it), does this require us to go to a higher level of belief to make our comprehension meaningful?  In short, will the technology of science, eliminate the experience or will we learn that this is part of the greater puzzle?  If we understand how prayer affects us, will it lose its mystery?

Can technology help us individually to realize ourselves more fully and intensely?  Or is there a danger that self-realization will lead to selfishness – an internalized belief, which is self-centered and self-absorbed? For many, there is a need for the comfort of “answers” with little mental effort.  These people will always be with us.  For some, this is a wrong way to address religion or God.  But who are we to judge that which brings courage and comfort!

On the other side of understanding is the probability that (by 2030), computers will most likely make decisions that are in their self-interest, not ours (or their programmers).  Already programs contain human “common sense” and machines are learning “how” to learn.

There has been a great deal of discussion on the Turing test, and recently, John Searle’s Chinese Room discussed his new version of when artificial intelligence becomes “human.”  This debate claims that robots may do a lot of things like us, but they never will obtain the idea of god or have abstract conceptions or creatively use language.  Only people can think. But computers can (and do) write poetry and paint, and will shortly be capable of rational abstract thought. As for their ability to contemplate the universal, this is possible, if not acceptable by many. Robots should be capable of having their own thoughts and of conceiving of innate thoughts; these thoughts and conceptions just may not be like ours!

When this happens – and it most certainly will – who or what will be responsible for the action(s) of the computer?  The user?  The machine?  The programmer? And what will be our perceptions of “life” at that time?  What will it mean to be human?

If Kurzwell and others are “correct” we could well have neural implants that will improve our sensory experiences, as well as memory, creativity, and cognition.  Ian Peason projects a world where humans and thinking machines would co-exist and where people and machines become intimately linked.

As Peason points out, what we are doing now inside a computer’s memory reflects that of the designer.  But machines are “learning” and their thought process will be their “own.” Is this like “free will” given to man by God?  Peason says that “a machine that has evolved to fulfill a task without being restricted by human design” will have different rules.  Could we be creating a new life form that would eventually supplant the whole notion of carbon-based life?  Would we have improved bodies and brains?

The third trend is our ability, as Joe Coates phrases it, to start using the concepts of evolution to drive the future of our evolution.  This is not just the ability to prolong life (as per our work with diabetics and hemophiliacs) but our skills in manipulating our genes directly.  This is more than a moral or a social conflict (e.g. the dependency of the aged with the needs of their children).  Rather it is a matter of playing god through our ability to prolong life and/or to bring the pre-born to fruition.

The Darwinian in me asks if we are changing natural selection? Are we going to a new phase in the selection of the species?  What happens when we change or “mess around” with the human system where only God (or the universal law of natural selection) “has gone” before?

It is clear, as Coates says, that we will be able to start using the fundamental concepts of evolution, rather than be driven by them.  We now know that brain cells change constantly and that the brain maintains itself by adding new cells.  Could we change the decay of the brain? Most certainly, yes.

John Harris in Intimations of Immortality talks about cloned human embryonic stem cells, which could regenerate organs and tissues.  We also know about the gene that triggers aging and we may be able to “turn it off” and thus extend life past the 120 year “limit” of natural age.  If so, will our minds continue to expand?  Will we need to cleanse a generation in the future?

The external world is continuing to show us new worlds with the use of the Hubbell space telescope and our exploratory rockets.  We now know that many other planets exist with conditions readied for life.  The most imaginative science fiction writers can only imagine the effect of these explorations and how they change what we see and know.  Have we progressed only to where the Earth goes around the sun or where the Earth is round, not flat?  Perhaps so!

A team from Cambridge University suggests that 90% of the universe’s galaxies may not be a collection of starts, but clumps of matter or dark space.  If true, this will reshape our basic thoughts of existence.

Recently, the Christian Science Monitor reported a gas cloud (big enough to create 100 billion suns) located at the edge of the Universe.  Astronomers now must rethink their theories on galaxy formation.  Is it growth by accumulation that has formed some galaxies?  The point is that astronomy will make us question our basic precepts about belief, such as the big bang.

Are these merely questions, or do they boil down to a change in belief?

So what will be man’s new relationship to God?  As Dr. Maher Hathout of the Islamic Center of Southern California explains, “God is so great that He has no limits.  To try to imagine God is to impose limits on Him.” But man is not static.  His environment creates a moveable world in which he grows intellectually and, therefore, his beliefs change. While “God may be,” the way we conceive forms our belief.

Our knowledge is expanding to allow us to understand what makes us tick and how our minds work.  Science and exploration are also on the edge of discovery on what makes the world operate.  But as our understanding improves, what we believe will change as well.  Let us pray that those principals, which make us moral and good, remain with us.
 



[1] (A Harvard Medical School study of health practices of Christian Scientists showed a 71% versus 61% health benefit to incorporating faith based practices in the healing process.  The Christian Scientists were statistically similar to individuals in the general population with regards to levels of exercise, blood cholesterol, smoking, drinking, and refined sugar, vitamin, and prescription drug use.  The study concluded that there is a link between prayer/church going and well being.)