Okay, bear with me while I set this up. I was just watching a show on the Science Channel called “Light Fantastic”, a historical perspective on 19th and 20th century discoveries about light and related technologies (read: lightbulbs). The narrator is talking about the discovery of x-rays and describes how many people at the time thought x-rays had a spooky or supernatural source, and turned to “spirituality” (his word choice) to explain it. Now, of course, no one (maybe the outside lunatic fringe) believes that, but it got me to wondering if the change in physics from “clockwork Newton mechanics” to “vague and probabilistic Quantum mechanics” stopped the growth of the 19th century secularist movement. So here’s the question:
Imagine a Universe exactly identical to our own in every respect, save one: the laws of nature in this Universe are accurately described by classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics. In our Universe, at the end of the 19th century, many physicists believed the task of physics to be over, that everything had been solved except for a few decimal places. In this new Universe, they were right. Physics is completed in the year 1900.
Would Western society in this Universe come to rely entirely on the deterministic clockwork philosophy, content and correct in their belief that everything could be explained and predicted to the nth decimal place by natural law, and come to discard religion and spirituality altogether? Or would religion find some way to hang on and persist?
Personally, I don’t think religion would go anywhere. It would have to change and adapt, and people would see Religion as answering the Why, and Science the How. Religion would become more abstract, more about right v. wrong and where we find meaning and purpose in life, and those would be the things given to us by God or gods, rather than the material world. (This has happened to some extent for real; by comparison I think the transformation would happen on a larger scale and more completely in our model Universe).
What do you all think?
DISCLAIMER: I do not want this thread to become Science vs. Religion. Please refrain from comments about the relative veracity or worth of either. I do not intend this question to imply anything about the relative veracity or worth of either.
If anything, I’d say discovering that the universe is inherently unpredictable hurt religion far more than it did secularism. The notion of a perfectly orderly clockwork universe would be claimed as evidence of intelligent design, while dice-playing is anathema to God.
I think the bulk of religion has always been carried by people who were largely unaware of modern physics, so I think that altering or removing modern physics would have little or no effect on them, and similarly on religion.
We’d still have evolution without modern physics, which is a chink in religion’s foundation; cognitive science would be similarly unimpeded by the change, I think. Would we still have the big bang? Is the evidence for that detectable with 1900-level physics?
Heh, I remember an article in, I think, Popular Science about a world without Einstein (whose critical early work was in 1905, so arguably he is 20th century physics). Forget television and lasers, and the prevailing theory is that the Sun is made up largely of iron.
You make a good point. I would say maybe not unaware, but unconcerned with. Or perhaps too little aware to be impacted by the change? At any rate, there are enough scientists (at least today) who are religious or spiritual to make this an interesting question, I feel, if only among that population.
Bryan makes a good point too - maybe religion would have begun to favor a Clockmaker-type God, one who sets everything in motion and then lets it run with maybe only the occasional tinker?
Religion, historically, hasn’t had any problem with the idea of predestination. There’s all sorts of ways religion could adapt to such a world. Including by denying it; I have no trouble imagining people making the claim that humans, alone, aren’t ruled by clockwork determinism because we have souls. Or going the opposite route, and telling people to accept their place in society because it was all predetermined by God at the beginning of time. Or any combination of the two.
What do you mean by “secular” since you seem to imply it means no religion…
Next, religion is more than a quest for original cause. It’s a search for purpose, validation of intuitions, socializing, tradition, comfort… a lot of things that science alone just can’t deliver.
I am not in any way denigrating religion in what I mean to say. We’re all emotional, we all need stuff… and y’know… we all meet our needs (hopefully) in some way.
Just to clarify – you mean a universe where it turns out that the various problems with classical physics (the most obviously relevant one: there was no way to explain how the sun kept shining over the timescales required for evolutionary biology and uniformationist geology) turned out to have solutions that fit into the classical paradigm?
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics derailed the progress of rationalist atheism? :dubious: I don’t buy it. And as far as x-rays go, at most it gave an example of a startling, initially mysterious discovery for credulous people to postulate their own custom pseudo-scientific “discoveries” (orgone, etc.) I don’t see it affecting mainstream religion much at all.
Thank you, it was a minor nitpick and to be fair… I totally overlooked totally in your title.
I’d like to stand by my earlier arguments.
I was recently considering starting a thread - why logic isn’t persuasive. I decided I’d messed up enough lately and decided to let it go. In the end, logic is only persuasive to those with whom logic is emotionally resonant. If logic isn’t a core value, or isn’t resonant… it just doesn’t work. It’s not enough. Or even close.
That’s why I think a lot of the “great thinkers” on religion, seem to miss some of the ummm… benefits and necessities of religion.
I think the notion that religion and secularism are separate entities is in and of itself a religious concept. It’s one of the stupidest distinctions ever in history, but we are forced to play the game by lackwits who think it’s a relevant distinction and are incapable of comprehending it’s historical genesis as a way for Europeans to keep from killing each other in endless Christian schisms.
Quantum Mechanics does not impact this ridiculous dialectic in any way. It does not say anything about who is right in one of the most moronic debates ever to be conceived.
What could quantum mechanics possibly have to say about whether or not there should be a separation of church and state? Which throughout the entire history of the United States has been firmly intact.
Secularism is not an ideology with a set of doctrines, it is the attempt to reconcile states with multiple religious institutions.
The idea that intelligent people on both sides of this debate equate secularism with a disbelief in the divine irritates me to no end.
It seems to me that regardless of the understanding of the universe, there’s always room for religion. The universe is perfectly organized and readily understandable : there must be a perfect designer. The universe is behaving strangely and its workings hard to figure out: there must be something supernatural at play.
I’d have to look it up, but I believe modern spiritualism started with two girls who claimed to be mediums (they were later exposed as fakes) which was long before the discovery of the X-ray. Besides a few people trying to use modern physics as support for various mystical worldviews, I don’t see physics affecting religion very much at all, positively or negatively.
Personally, I think that a simple and logical universe would make it easier to insert a rational maker than one which relies on minute buildups of random chance.
But mostly I’d like to point out that the 19th Century secularist movement didn’t end, rather there was a rise of the common man–capable of reading and writing and to work in professions which allowed him time to do so. I would be willing to bet on whether more books have were written in the 20th Century than in all of man’s history before that. And most of it junk and banal and targeted at the lower denominator.
So, “movement” or not, you’re really only talking about something tht exists in the parlor rooms of the upper class intelligentsia. The average man was largely unaffected would be my guess.
Of minimal relevance, I chuckled at a background element visible in the various Star Wars prequels - heavy lines of vehicle traffic zipping along in airlanes in the Senate city, whatever its name was. This traffic was always visible in the exterior shots, regardless of the main events in the films. Sure, the Republic is crumbling and the Empire is risen and the Clone Wars epically waged, yadda yadda yadda, but Joe NerfHerder’s still gotta get to work!
