The War against the Modern Society

No, it is not Osama bin Laden I think of but the Pope, Benedictus XVI. The British-German blogger Alan Posener has written a book called Påvens Korståg from 2011, or the 'crusade of the pope'. He attacks the Pope's anti-relativism. According to Posener the Pope rather think we should return to before the French Revolution.

The book contains a chapter concerning the Pope and natural science. Rodney Stark's book For the glory of God from 2003 claims that science is derived from theology. Stark seemed to have a rather pro-Catholic attitude. Reading between the lines of Posener's book I get the feeling that the Pope might have ideas like--science is a temporary phenomenon that will go away. The Church will be on top again.

It is clear that we have a battle of who's on top--religion or science. I have earlier stated that I also think that science, elucidating the unknown, is derived from elucidating God or the super natural. However, Faith in God is not a problem but Catholic faith carries a lot of dead weight such as prohibition of condom use and anti-homosexual ideas despite the fact that 20% of Catholic priests are homosexual, according to Posener.

Science today claims that morals stem both from genetics and from reason. Therefore there is a slow shift in morals over time varying in different cultures. Is this good or bad? The Pope says bad and that means we have a little over a billion people that are supposed to think the same. I think that such a drift is positive. It is part of a slow improvement of the human condition. Science, mind you, continuously offers guidance for improving things. Great care has to be taken, however, for not making the wrong conclusions. It is very hard to say that things could not be better.

That brings me to the topic of democracy. The wisdom of an educated populace is of paramount importance when it comes to the very frequent problems that experts can't judge. If the populace gets the blame for errors, there is stability. The Chairman Maos of the world rule by a Mandate from Heaven like past emperors. Confucius stated that the moral of the ruler should guide him to be benevolent towards the people. The Chinese, however, acknowledge that there were good and bad emperors and no one to blame but the top.

I have argued for fusing religion and science and I should perhaps say then that I have understood that many claim that religion and science occupy two non-overlapping domains. This is however some kind of truce. There are some people that are both priests and scientists that I have read. I could not get further than the truce if I did not remove the supernatural and replace it with the yet unknown. The reason science is taking over in the battle between religion and science is that science is developing and religion is rather stagnant. The God concept is developing. Animism, polytheism, monotheism, personal God versus impersonal God. I believe the next development is a non-personal materialistic pantheism. This means that a scientist/priest can also interest himself for why things are like they are and not just how things happen.