Religion, Science and the nature of faith

Don Lemon of CNN interviewed Jay Bakker on the proof of God.  I don't like web videos, so I haven't seen the interview, but the usual Facebook mish-mosh of replies consists of the usual Christian parroting their religious teachings; the atheists condemning the fairy tales; and a smattering of liberal religious voices calling for respectful dialogue.

My take is that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of "proof" and the meaning of faith.

Science is a method of using rules of logic and deduction and induction, applied to observed facts, yielding testable hypotheses and theories.  When these rules are properly applied and confirmed using a method of "proof" the results may be used to further construct theories and more science.

Religion, using philosophical methods of argument, deals with emotional feelings to construct a structure that  seeks to explain the world in an emotionally comforting manner.  Religion, particularly, seeks to deal with the philosophical questions of origins, moral rightness, and the question of death of self.

These two definitions should not be terribly strange to the intellectually curious.  They are not exact, but outline the broad strokes of each realm of inquiry.  Each realm claims to deal with self-evident truths based on the observations made by the human mind.  Science, on one hand, self-limits its claims of application, while religion, on the other hand, claims authority of all of human experience.  This, obviously, sets up a conflict between the two.

Step back a bit, though, and notice that they are both claiming to be based in observations made by the human mind.

I'm not going to get involved in the philosophical history that makes the observations of our minds highly suspect. (See Philosophy, especially the deconstructionism of Hume and others, for more on that.)

I would prefer to concentrate on an observation that both realms of endeavor depend on that article known as "faith."

Religion revels in its dependence on the concept.  One doesn't need to seek further for explanations because the premises of their authority are "givens" and should be accepted on faith.  Most religions reward their followers who accept this faith uncritically with promises of ultimate rewards at the end.  There are some religions, however, that encourage followers to examine their faith in the light of reason, all the while encouraging them that to correct conclusions will be rewarded in the end.  In this situation, "atheism" becomes a religion, in that it encourages the practitioners to see that there is an "end" that is illusory and this belief -- that there is nothing, rather than something good -- has become and article of "faith"

Science disclaims the authority which the radical atheists thrust upon it, and self-limits itself to explaining the observed phenomena in a consistent manner.  But is should be noted carefully that a lot of the basic observational data, the postulates, that science relies on are still accepted as true without further evidence, as a matter of definition.

I contend that this is no less "faith" than religion's basic postulates.

Both sides are aghast as such a characterization, yet both appeal to "self-evident truths" as their foundations.  To me it has become a matter of quibbling, in much the same manner that major Christian schisms are the result of quibbling about the translation of particular words in ancient discussions.

A rapprochement between religion and science can come, without "accommodationism" by recognizing that the realms of endeavor are deliberately non-overlapping, but ultimately based on "faith" in their foundations.