I generally avoid religious topics per se on this blog, not out of policy, but for lack of interest. But there are many topics usually addressed in conversations concerning religious dogma that have bearing to our lives. I see the embracing of scientific modes of thought as replacing what had more usually been reserved for piety. So, even with no fear of angering a deity, a scientist constrains his thoughts to comply with protocol. With no aspiration of eternal joy nor fear of damnation, one hopes that the switch does not make for a less enjoyable or less meaningful life. In reading Leo Tolstoy’s ‘What is Religion, Of What Does Its Essence Consist?’ I found this.
“What has happened is that as soon as a new religious teaching appeared (including as always a recognition of equality between all men) those for whom inequality was more advantageous have immediately tried to conceal this basic feature, thereby misconstruing the actual doctrine. This has always and everywhere happened whenever a new religious teaching has appeared. On the whole it has been done unconsciously, because those for whom inequality is advantageous, the rulers and the rich, have tried to justify themselves in the eyes of the new religious teaching without having to alter their own position by using every possible means to instil a meaning into the doctrine that admits inequality. This distortion of religion in such a way as to enable those who rule over others to feel justified in doing so, when passed on to the masses naturally gave them the idea that their submission to their masters was demanded by the religion they professed.”
Sure, there is a difference, but similarities abound. The exploitation of scientific developments had defined a layer of society whose wealth was used to form companies to mass produce the useful advantages of these developments. Pharmacutical companies, companies that exploit the internet, airlines, weapons manufacturers, the list goes on. Those in the upper layers are more likely to have been experts in marketing than the science of the products they sell. But this is not a two-level system. There is more advantage than monetary wealth to be had. There is fame and glory that is as ruinous as gold. Scientific discoveries are ores that feed the scientific smelter, and mines where the lodes are found are MIT, CERN, CAL Tech, École Polytechnique, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, Tsinghua, Berkely, Wuhan, etc. They are brands no less than TRUMP, although with much more warranted scientific justification. Those, who have merited prestige within these walls, peer review to exclude those without. It’s the way those in power have always assured it to be the way the world works.
Beyond the limiting journals are the scientific magazines that bring the message down from the mountain tops to the pleasure of the people with their homilies for the laity. So we can all enjoy the miracles of science, but they are fed to us like pabulum. And, of course, we share the blame because we prefer watching how a football game goes down to studying how the universe works.
Tolstoy lived through, and into, a time of crisis – perhaps similar to ours. His recognition that we are, as we should be, all in this together was unusual in one of the ‘upper class.’ I don’t know whether it would be correct to consider the Russian serfs ‘indigenous’ [this responds to a friend’s comment], but probably from his perspective. He did not try to reenact Marie Antonette’s token concession to her conscience. His were deeper thoughts. His Confessions that I read before starting his ‘Essence’ of Religion’ begins in a way that I and, as he says, millions could identify with in their attempts to find a meaning to their lives. Religion and science both fail to give meaning to the lives of the ‘many,’ and for the same reasons. They have drifted away from their origins by institutionalizing them away from the laity. There are ‘high priests’ in both religion and science that tell us what they bedizen as Truth. They both defy reason in explaining the Truth they don’t expect us to be able to, and do not make the effort to rationalize so that we can, understand. “The entire universe came from nothing” because Yaweh, who is outside of it all, said so? Or “The entire universe came from nothing” because of a random ‘fluctuation’ in something before there was something, supposedly caused by a crack in logic called ‘the uncertainty principle’ or that a surge of energy associated with a less than momentary existence of a Higgs particle finally identified at CERN. Please excuse my not being able to explain that in plain language any better because I have not been a party to a plain language discussion of that. Does any person alive in the twenty first century truly believe any of it? How can they? And if they do out of respect for the ‘elders’, does it give meaning to their lives? And does Evolution confirm that Greed Is Good? That’s plain language invoking a scientific noun.
And yet… there is ennobling meaning to a life well-lived embracing a scientific outlook. That the universe is the way it is, is in fact, the interesting fact. Living individuals can and do defy entropy while they live, but not to gloat. Civil structures survive more or less well to the extent that they comply with natural laws. For example, thermalization, whose conclusion is entropy, works because particles with more energy only transfer it to those with less energy. That process promotes the stability of systems. Only by forcing more energy into the system does thermodynamics allow exploitation. The ‘civilized’ drive toward ‘progress’, accommodates development of pockets of wealth and vast poverty. The rules of the infinite universe are not to be exploited without cost. Let’s not defile the good life and good society with the taint of always embracing ‘progress’. Henry George had some good ideas on that that he derived from Tolstoy.
Leave a Reply