paying-attention

A college student sent me the outline draft of a paper she was working on. My questions are in italics....

There is a striking difference between trying to answer the questions of life through the eyes of science and trying to use religion and art works to find meaning in life. Although both kinds of thinking are products of human creativity, people have created a huge gap between the two sides and even set up an opposition about which kind of thinking is the "right" way. Humans used to have ultimate faith in the idea that God would eventually provide all the answers, or if He did not give the answers in this life, the belief in an afterlife would save humans from the futility and finitude of physical existence. Science has begun to overthrow blind faith in a god by disproving certain things in the Bible and other religious documents. Why have humans made the gap so wide and therefore irreversible? Where does this increasing gap leave humans (what
comes next in the process)? Can we really be satisfied with merely scientific ends (do we need religion and if so does the individual need it or does society need it)?{Are you willing to accept this dichotomy? Are you arguing that the pursuit of science is free of ethical underpinning?}

Works of art used to be revered as the real embodiment of Divinity (example: Greek statues of gods actually were the god, not a mere representation). "Art no longer affords that satisfaction of spiritual needs which earlier ages and nations sought in it" (Hegel's Aesthetics 10). Art is not as closely linked with religion as it once was; it has become more of a pastime than something really meaningful. {Might this reflect our constant modern need to be entertained? Could this also reflect our attitude toward religious observance?}

According to Freud's The Future of an Illusion, humans have a fear of nature (26). In order to defend ourselves against nature and make communal existence possible, mankind created culture. All works of culture are a product of the human need to protect itself against nature's wrath. In the natural sciences, man merely tries to understand nature and is still "helplessly paralyzed" under the power of nature. In order to escape this paralysis, we anthropomorphize the forces of nature as acts of an "evil Will" and place a personified God as the creator of nature. By placing nature in the realm of humans, we are no longer required to fear it as a spontaneous element of destruction. Man can now try to appease and bribe the personified creator as if He had the same human desires of man. If humans can succeed in appeasing God, then he will theoretically either stop the destruction of nature, or provide an afterlife to make up for physical life. Thus man is able to believe that he has a certain amount of control over nature. {How is this supposed feeling of control reflected in art? Is art also about control?}

"...(T)he young scientists now feel that they are part of a culture on the rise while the other [artistic, literary intellectual culture] is in retreat" (C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures 19). Humans have a need to understand everything and in order to do this they turn to science or religion. Religion provides indirect answers that must be accepted solely on faith. Science, on the other hand, provides results which can be physically tested and proven. Science is closer to physical human experience. Man has begun to give up some religious dogma in order to trust something real rather than something intangible and (in many cases) unexplainable. {How does imagination further the cause of science? Is this different from the artistic impulse?}

C. P. Snow presents the "two cultures" as the scientific culture and the "traditional" culture. The traditional culture is concerned with literature, art, and religion. "There seems to be no place where the cultures meet." This is largely because "the two cultures can't talk to each other" (Snow 17). The things that one culture find interesting and worthwhile are the most pointless pursuits for the other culture. A person from the scientific side may not have read many works of Shakespeare or Kant, but the person who has read such things may not know what is meant by mass or acceleration. The cultures do not wish to know even the basics of the

other culture, so they grow farther and farther apart. They will continue to grow apart as long as they cannot communicate and exchange interests. {Again, is it part of your thesis that the two be mutually exclusive?}

Can man continue to widen the gap or is there to be an inevitable end to one side? It seems that, logically, religion should decline in order to allow the rise of science to continue. Society, however, (according to Freud) needs religion so that humans will have a defense against "the crushing supremacy of nature" (37). Religion provides a father figure for society so that the individual is not forced to cling to his father of childhood. Without society, each individual would be driven by individual instincts and chaos would be the result as each human killed according to his immediate drives. Religion allows man to be bound into a society and the laws of such a society (driven in many cases by the morals sprung from religion) prevent chaos. So, religion is necessary to prevent chaos, but it is really just an illusion man uses to escape the fact that nature as a whole is much more powerful than man. If science can bring man a greater understanding of nature, it seems as though science should be able to supersede religion because man will no longer fear the power of nature if he understands it. According to Freud, however, it is "natural to man to personify everything that he wishes to comprehend, in order that later he may control it" (39). Not with science, but with religion does man personify nature and make it a product of a "person" (God). If science is to take over completely, man must let go of his need to control everything. The need to control is innate (for Freud) and so man can never escape religion. Science seems to be eliminating religion, but science cannot control, it can merely get a closer understanding of something. The personification inherent in religion is still necessary. {What about those branches of science that bring technological advancement? Don’t they point to a scientific attempt to control the natural world?}