76 Quotes About Scientism

The intellect with which we discover knowledge about the matter in physical sciences to answer the question of ‘What is’ and ‘How it is’ and the conscience with which we differentiate between right and wrong, are neither our own creation nor have they appeared by themselves. Electrical appliances function in full compliance with the mechanical and electromagnetic principles, but their existence is not the result of such natural laws alone.

By learning syntax of programming languages, we can learn to make new and variety of computer programs, but it does not negate the inventor of the programming language. Matter had existed before we had human life in the universe. We had only learnt to use matter in different ways. Scientific enterprise does not run nature, but merely tries to understand it. Sun, moon, seas, rivers, mountains, forests, clouds and basic chemical elements had all existed even before we arrived in this universe.

When we look at a computer program and find loop in the code which enables the program to run endlessly, it does not mean that there was no author and that the endless program had no point of start. If an executable computer program is run and complex animation appears on screen which runs and runs with unique things appearing from time to time, one cannot imagine that the program was made from nothing and by no one and it just came by chance.

What eludes us is to think about the meaning of our own lives. We would do research in distant galaxies, distant past of the universe and in the smallest particles of matter, but we remain ignorant about the meaning and purpose of our own existence.

Nature and natural laws do not explain the deeper meaning of life. They are in need of explanation themselves for their origin, purpose and designer. Descartes said: I think, therefore I am. It is also important to think ‘why I exist and where will I be when I am not (alive).

The ability to make machines can be used for more effective food production, distribution, clinical cures and better health. On the other hand, the same ability can be used to decimate species including human beings. The record of science taking a solo flight by discarding values in recent times has not impacted our technical progress, but it has resulted in the unprecedented loss of human lives in wars, extinction of species, ecological imbalances and irreversible damage to the environment.

Many scientists in the past did not regard scientific discoveries as a challenge to faith. They understood that what had been offered by modern science are better explanations of physical phenomena rather than finding a newer source of origin, creation and ‘will’ behind the physical phenomena. Isaac Newton is quoted to have said that gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.

Rediscovering regularity in physical realities is not the end-objective of existence. How we develop as adults from birth as an individual and how and when homo-sapiens as a whole came to exist in this form physically is all beside the point as far as the basic questions of purpose, essence and meaning of life are concerned.

Sam Harris writes that “Most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.” There are no objective morals then. Sam Harris is skeptical of free will. If that view is taken, then all judiciary and penal laws shall cease to exist. But, do they or would they?