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Science and Reason

The Pope says that if scientists muck around long enough
they will find there is a Reason behind things,
and that Reason is the mind of God.
Reason, the Pope believes, is the order in nature,
and another name for that Reason is God.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find Reason.
It is what human beings do:  they make assumptions
or premises, and generate conclusions.

Rocks are part of the natural order of things,
but I don't think rocks reason.  I do suspect
that there is something like Reason, in a much simpler way,
in chimpanzees, or dolphins, or maybe octopi.

Once brains become complex enough, they are capable of Reason,
so if critters with complex brains look for Reason, they will
probably find it.  First you say what Reason is, then you look around
for it, and there it is!  You are doing it!

Human beings are capable of positing premises,
making assumptions, and thinking about whether
their assumptions hold water.  That isn't God.
That is just what humans do better than rocks and priests.

Science doesn't pretend to find ultimate answers:
it just finds the most reasonable explanation for things,
and continues to test the theory until a better explanation occurs.
Better explanations always occur.

If God is Reason, or if Reason is evidence for a mind of God,
then God has no ultimate answers; just the best, so far.
That is a pretty miserable definition of God.
Or, if God is ultimate Reason, but human beings
are incapable of that kind of absolute perfection,
then the Reason of God is unknowable, and we are back
to doing what we do best:  thinking about things, and reasoning.

Science, by definition, does not know anything about anything
that cannot be tested by reason, because that is what it is to know.
To suggest that science can prove God is simple nonsense.

Perhaps we should be grateful that the Pope does not
suggest that science is an enemy.  It is all we can know.

It is only during election season that we seriously suggest
that rocks and posts might make good Senators.

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