Worshipping the Laws

The elements of religion are co-opted and forged into a new religion of material worship by the mullahs of science: this is the message of Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas (PhD Physics), in an article by Karl Gibberson (PhD, physics) for salon.com. Having not just a mystical creation story and a new moral ethic of ecology, the new mullahs of Materialism decree that all truth is material, that it can be known, and that science is the one true path to enlightenment. The mullahs of science are the descendants and heirs of the Enlightenment, the prophets of Modernism, the evangelists of Atheism.

In fact it is the orderly laws of the universe that these religious evangelists worship. Never mind that those laws must have a source, a cause. To the new religion it is the laws of the universe alone that are truth and ethics and enlightenment combined into a stew worthy of religious awe and the zeal of worship. The reverence-filled stories of creation "out of nothing" are as fanciful and fantastic as those of any traditional religion, and just as incapable of proof. In fact, says Gibberson, these reflect the "mythopoeic requirements" of religious belief as delineated by E.O.Wilson: they are stories, created for worshipping.

But the zeal extends beyond just worship. It encompasses a desire, deeply felt, desperate even, for a world made over in their own image. And this makes the mullahs aggressive beyond just evangelism. It launches them into the raging river of intolerance, leading to tyranny. Weinberg rightly refers to PZ Meyers as a sort of inquisitor who seeks out and martyrs infidels (to the religion of science) on his website. In fact, in terms of rhetoric of intolerance it would be difficult to discern Meyers from any other religious-hatred monger. If the religion of science is based on the ethical standards of a Meyers, few will sign up voluntarily.

Gibberson concludes:

"I am incredibly impressed with the achievements of science. But I don't think science is omniscient and I am not convinced that science will ever know everything. I am not convinced that science is even capable of knowing everything. That we can know as much as we do seems rather miraculous, in fact. Is it so dangerous to believe that there is a bit more to the world than meets the scientific eye, that behind the blackboard filled with equations there is a rational, creative and even caring mind breathing fire into those equations? "

Worshipping the laws and ignoring the source for those laws is irrational. It is based on an agenda, that of self-anointment to an elite priesthood. But it is only a partial reality that is being worshipped. Their glass is more than half empty.