Dialogue - part 2

What follows is another contribution from my anonymous correspondent:

I fully agree with you on the point that an overly-passionate manner of expression is detrimental to rational discussion. However, I also believe that it is human nature to be passionate on subjects as controversial as religion is. As unfortunate as that may be, it is something I feel I need to deal with as I pursue my own knowledge of the subject.

I have a deeply pragmatic outlook on life, and even though I am still young I do not see that outlook changing. Nonetheless, I do not think that a pragmatic way of viewing life is mutually exclusive to a spiritual perception of the world. As I broaden my knowledge of physics and chemistry, my perspective also deepens. Humankind has answered an awful lot of "how" questions. We know how gravity works, we know how we have evolved into what we are now, we know many things about the cosmos and are constantly learning more, but what we do not know is the "why". Why do all objects attract each other? Why is it that natural selection works in the way that it does? Why has our universe progressed in the fashion that it has?

Some choose to answer those questions by saying that there is no deeper meaning, no answer to the "whys". For me, that seems like an over-simplification.

I enjoy the world around me, I find every facet of it beautiful. However, the perfect order in which it functions does not strike me as random. I simply cannot believe in that everything around me is the result of a few random reactions. I think that there is a higher meaning for the world that we are living in. Contrary to the illusion that some theists choose to believe, Science and Religion are indeed incredibly overlapping but that does not mean that they are mutually exclusive. As someone who looks to pursue an education in Physics and Theology, I see the world as full of wonders that I cannot wait to explore. God placed us in this playground, and I think he wants us to explore it as much as possible.

Passion, rightly directed, is wonderful and enriches life. Indeed, I would dissent from Kant and argue that pure reason does not exist. No matter how objective a human attempts to be, the cognition is inherently an admixture of emotion and reason because of brain physiology.

William James did not find pragmatism and a religious outlook incompatible. Neither do I. I agree with your comments about "whys." The evidence you identity, while inconclusive, seems to suggest rather than to argue against some greater explanation such as God. In life, humans can only identify what seems most likely true. We have no access to objective, provable statements about the nature of reality. For that reason, science relies on theories (even the best-supported theory remains just that, a theory) and religion relies on faith (which if provable, would not be belief).

One of the critical mistakes that fundamentalists of all varieties make is believing that they can know absolute truth with complete certainty. Access to such knowledge of truth presumes either that reality is reducible to the finite or that the human mind can grasp the infinite fully. Neither of those alternatives seems reasonable to me. Life lived in the face of uncertainty represents a much more exciting adventure than life lived in the illusion of false certitude.