What is Science?

[inocente]

I don’t think he had any thought process. We do know that Newton disliked philosophy but I doubt that had anything to do with his success. And I think you have no proof that he was merely reacting to public pressure when he said " non fingo. "

Newton may have disliked your philosophy .

He had the integrity to stand up for his own. He certainly didn’t dislike philosophy. As the SEP article says: “his impact on the development of early modern philosophy was profound, so much so that it is difficult to grasp the history of philosophy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries without considering Newton’s role.” - plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-philosophy/

I don’t think that is what he is implying. He is reacting to scientism, the invalid philosophical conclusion that only science can tell us the truth about reality, thus cutting God and philosophy our of the picture…

Then Pearce still wouldn’t have a point. None of the billions of Christians, Muslims, etc. on the planet cut God out of the picture. None of the scientists amongst them cut God out of the picture either. He’s tilting at windmills.

*I don’t think he is implying that. *

Pearce says that someone who doesn’t know a thing or two somehow sees less beauty than someone who does. It’s not a good argument.

He isn’t saying anything like that. You are reading in your own views. He didn’t mention Ebola at all.

I’m just stating the consequences of his desire to get scientists bogged down with metaphysics.

This is what he is getting at: " One disastrous consequence of this reductionist view of science is the separation of cleverness from wisdom. Once physics is divorced from metaphysics it is no longer able to make moral or ethical judgments. Liberated from theology and philosophy, which are no longer considered sciences, the new truncated “science,” more properly called scientism, can be put to the service of damnable endeavours. The list of such endeavours, clever but lacking in wisdom, includes the guillotine, the gas chamber, the atomic bomb, nerve gas, biological weapons, and abortion technology. "

Pearce should look up the meaning of reductionism, it’s nothing to do with what he says there. But other disastrous consequences of the supposed divorce range from increased life spans and overcoming many diseases to the internet and worldwide travel. But by all means let’s ignore all that and blame the scientist.

After all, the government was blameless for funding the Bomb. And blameless for telling scientists it was their patriotic duty to develop the Bomb. And blameless for dropping the Bomb. Otherwise the millions of people who freely elected that government would have to take responsibility. Always better to blame a scapegoat.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Einstein regarded science as the legitimate child of philosophy. Various philosophers since Democritus of ancient Greece had speculated on the existence of atoms, but proof had never been so positive as when Einstein 1n 1905 released his theory of relativity. As he later said in 1946:

“My principal aim in this was to find facts that would guarantee as much as possible the existence of atoms of definite size.… The agreement of these considerations with experience together with Planck’s determination of the true molecular size from the law of radiation (for high temperatures) convinced the skeptics, who were quite numerous at that time (Ostwald, Mach), of the reality of atoms.” Einstein

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Newton may have disliked your philosophy .

He had the integrity to stand up for his own. He certainly didn’t dislike philosophy. As the SEP article says: “his impact on the development of early modern philosophy was profound, so much so that it is difficult to grasp the history of philosophy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries without considering Newton’s role.” - plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-philosophy/

Then Pearce still wouldn’t have a point. None of the billions of Christians, Muslims, etc. on the planet cut God out of the picture. None of the scientists amongst them cut God out of the picture either. He’s tilting at windmills.

Pearce says that someone who doesn’t know a thing or two somehow sees less beauty than someone who does. It’s not a good argument.

I’m just stating the consequences of his desire to get scientists bogged down with metaphysics.

Pearce should look up the meaning of reductionism, it’s nothing to do with what he says there. But other disastrous consequences of the supposed divorce range from increased life spans and overcoming many diseases to the internet and worldwide travel. But by all means let’s ignore all that and blame the scientist.

After all, the government was blameless for funding the Bomb. And blameless for telling scientists it was their patriotic duty to develop the Bomb. And blameless for dropping the Bomb. Otherwise the millions of people who freely elected that government would have to take responsibility. Always better to blame a scapegoat.

Thank goodness people don’t depend on your opinions, they do have the option of reading the article and forming their own. . But if " Google " has its way, they may not be able to find any opinions other than those devoted to scientism.

Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Thank goodness people don’t depend on your opinions, they do have the option of reading the article and forming their own. . But if " Google " has its way, they may not be able to find any opinions other than those devoted to scientism.

Linus2nd

Agreed.

Some people have foolish opinions because they don’t understand even the nature of an opinion and what is required to have one.

In his book *The Great Ideas *philosopher Mortimer Adler has an extensive discussion on what constitutes opinion as opposed to knowledge. Chapters 2 & 3 are especially helpful.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Agreed.

Some people have foolish opinions because they don’t understand even the nature of an opinion and what is required to have one.

In his book *The Great Ideas *philosopher Mortimer Adler has an extensive discussion on what constitutes opinion as opposed to knowledge. Chapters 2 & 3 are especially helpful.

Adler is greart but you have to be sure you read him from his conversion to Christianity. You know he finally became Catholic.

Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Adler is greart but you have to be sure you read him from his conversion to Christianity. You know he finally became Catholic.

Linus2nd

That’s true. He was always a Thomist and Aristotelian, and a traditionalist, so unlike many twentieth century philosophers he is a profitable read for Catholics most of the time. The great virtue of Adler is that he is so much more readable for the amateur philosopher than are many philosophers.

 

[Bradski]

Once physics is divorced from metaphysics it is no longer able to make moral or ethical judgments.

\

Why not say that about chemistry? Or meteorology? They are sciences, just like physics. Do you want to divorce geology from metaphysics? The question makes no sense. What’s ethical about plate tectonics? Where are the moral judgements to be made in working out the likely chance of rain tomorrow? What’s the ‘meaning’ behind chemical reactions?

These things have never been divorced from metaphysics because they have never been part of any metaphysical questions. What we do with science can entail moral and ethical questions but the science itself is, almost by definition, entirely neutral as regards these matters.

Liberated from theology and philosophy, which are no longer considered sciences, the new truncated “science,” more properly called scientism, can be put to the service of damnable endeavours. The list of such endeavours, clever but lacking in wisdom, includes the guillotine, the gas chamber, the atomic bomb, nerve gas, biological weapons, and abortion technology. "

And here we go again. Anything connected with God’s glory is warm woollen mittens and whiskers on kittens, but anything to do with Evil Science is gas chambers and guillotines (did he say guillotines? What the…?). As if chemistry, carpentry and metallurgy are evil. It’s like saying that making a rope is clever, but is lacking in wisdom, because it could be used to hang someone.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And here we go again. Anything connected with God’s glory is warm woollen mittens and whiskers on kittens, but anything to do with Evil Science is gas chambers and guillotines (did he say guillotines? What the…?). As if chemistry, carpentry and metallurgy are evil. It’s like saying that making a rope is clever, but is lacking in wisdom, because it could be used to hang someone.

Anyone who makes nuclear weapons is lacking in wisdom, and that surely includes scientists most of all. This is the greatest argument possible to assert the higher importance of philosophy over science.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . And here we go again. Anything connected with God’s glory is warm woollen mittens and whiskers on kittens, but anything to do with Evil Science is gas chambers and guillotines (did he say guillotines? What the…?). As if chemistry, carpentry and metallurgy are evil. It’s like saying that making a rope is clever, but is lacking in wisdom, because it could be used to hang someone.

There are massive failures to communicate on these forums.
This is not a response to what Linus wrote.
He is talking about Scientism - the belief that in science we find the only valid truth, and therefore that it can provide an answer to everything including what is good.

 

[Latias]

There are massive failures to communicate on these forums.
This is not a response to what Linus wrote.
He is talking about Scientism - the belief that in science we find the only valid truth, and therefore that it can provide an answer to everything including what is good.

Seriously?

What is scientism? Could scientific instrumentalism even be associated with “scientism”, since scientific instrumentalism denies that successful scientific theories necessarily contain “truth” concerning the ontological of theoretical entities within the theory or the mechanisms in scientific theories.

Do you think that a modern philosopher who denies a connection between is/ought can believe that science, by investigating what “is”, can identifying what is “good” or what ought to be?

Anyone who makes nuclear weapons is lacking in wisdom, and that surely includes scientists most of all. This is the greatest argument possible to assert the higher importance of philosophy over science.

So the domain of “science” should concerns the moral and geopolitical implications of possessing and using nuclear weapons, as opposed to providing theoretical insights about the mechanistic, nuclear processes of a thermonuclear device, or the structural engineering challenges to make a device that provide an appropriate environment to ensure that fissionable material in the bomb is exposed to high energy neutrons for a sufficient time to allow a maximum number of nuclei to fission? (The fissionable material has to maintain its integrity for microseconds once criticality is reached, instead of being blown apart by the incipient explosion, so more fissionable material can be undergo fission as opposed to being dispersed away from the high energy neutrons and not being subject to fission). Fusion is a bit different, though, and it involves using the energy from a “primary” fission device to ignite lithium and deuterium to undergo fusion.

 

[lmelahn]

What is science? It is scientia. It is the knowledge of the goodness, truth, and beauty of the divine cosmos in which we find ourselves. It is the science of the physicist and the science of the poet; it is the knowledge of nature and the knowledge of the eternity to which nature points. Science is good; science is true; science is beautiful. Science is divine!

But more than that science has historically been viewed as an inseparable trinity of physics ( hard sciences in general ), mathematics, and metaphysics ( which was called theology by Aristotle and should include theology to day.). But the trend since the seventeenth century is to segragte metaphysics and theology out of the fields of science and relegate them to status of esoteric and useless knowledge. You even see that view reflected on this forum, even by some Christians.

Any way that is the burden of a discussion by Joseph Pierce at The Imaginative Conservative and worth reading.

theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/science.html

Linus2nd
.

I like the classic definition the best: a science is certain, universal, and necessary knowledge of something, seeking its causes and properties.

I think that definition can be applied just as well to theology and metaphysics, as to particle physics and biology.

 

[Latias]

I like the classic definition the best: a science is certain, universal, and necessary knowledge of something, seeking its causes and properties.

I think that definition can be applied just as well to theology and metaphysics, as to particle physics and biology.

I think the thread is also begging the question by implying that there is some authoritative definition of “science” or that one has to accept some definition of “science” in order to have a coherent understanding of it. From this tacit premise, it is then argued that those influenced by modern secularism adopt some definition of science that is too narrow, or that the only credible statements about the world can only be within the narrow confines of “science”. As an example, instead of trying to address the demarcation problem (of what is science or non-science) or tangentially reference it, the OP does not even attempt to define “science”, but instead links to a post that lambastes the follies of a “modernist” perspective of science. Of course, there should be some practical distinction between non-science and science, so one would not grant credibility to patently “unscientific” ideas such as homeopathy and deny them any respect they would get by attaching the honorific “scientific” to their hypotheses. But that practical issue does not concern the OP and the subsequent responses.

To the contrary, I regard the philosophy of science to be an intellectual enterprise that can be undertaken without having a concrete definition of science. First, one has to accept that there is a concept of science (as opposed to a precise and rigorous definition) that most people in a modern culture possess. Perhaps the defining question of science is what specific properties that successful (however defined) scientific theories possess. In other words, why do scientific theories make accurate observational and experimental predictions, be integrated into other domains of scientific knowledge, and have many practical applications? These can be considered to be the facets of a successful scientific theory. Questions that arise concern the semantic content of scientific terms (whether they simply refer to theoretical constructs within the scope of a scientific theory or something external outside of the world), the syntactic structure of scientific theories, the ontology of scientific laws, the nature of scientific explanations, and the cultural and sociological influence of scientific knowledge. By ruminating over these question by appreciating the properties of successful scientific theories (which inevitably means that one must have some degree of scientific competence, such as mastery biological and physical science at the introductory undergrad level), one can appreciate the epistemological properties of a successful scientific theory without having to accept the authoritative proclamations of the clerisy of credentialed scientists in order to determine which ideas and theories are credible. From this, one can develop a sense of intellectual independence and a cautious skepticism that enables one to evaluate the merits of scientific theories and hypotheses.

Certainly, I am interested in whether supersymmetry is just a theoretical idea or actually describes the fundamental structure of nature.

 

[inocente]

Thank goodness people don’t depend on your opinions, they do have the option of reading the article and forming their own. .

It’s disappointing when I make a serious post and you flip me off. Why did you start a thread asking for more philosophy in science and then not engage in a bit of philosophy yourself?

It was you who opined that Newton disliked philosophy, and I quoted a professor of philosophy to show how wrong you were.

Perhaps you were not in a good mood. Here, today it was 22 C (70 F), blue skies, spring flowers everywhere, almonds in blossom. Perhaps that will improve your mood.

But if " Google " has its way, they may not be able to find any opinions other than those devoted to scientism.

Ah, so now google is part of a secret scientism conspiracy.

Out of 7 billion people on the planet, 5 billion are theists and another billion have some other religious belief. That’s around 84% of all people, and thus around 84% of google employees, and around 84% of all scientists.

So isn’t this supposed threat of scientism somewhat overblown? Is it really of great concern to the people of Syria? Or India? Or even France? Or a threat to any part of the world outside the cocktail parties of the chattering classes? Try giving a philosophical answer bro. Some evidence might be a nice touch.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

It’s disappointing when I make a serious post and you flip me off. Why did you start a thread asking for more philosophy in science and then not engage in a bit of philosophy yourself?

It was you who opined that Newton disliked philosophy, and I quoted a professor of philosophy to show how wrong you were.

Perhaps you were not in a good mood. Here, today it was 22 C (70 F), blue skies, spring flowers everywhere, almonds in blossom. Perhaps that will improve your mood.

Ah, so now google is part of a secret scientism conspiracy.

Out of 7 billion people on the planet, 5 billion are theists and another billion have some other religious belief. That’s around 84% of all people, and thus around 84% of google employees, and around 84% of all scientists.

So isn’t this supposed threat of scientism somewhat overblown? Is it really of great concern to the people of Syria? Or India? Or even France? Or a threat to any part of the world outside the cocktail parties of the chattering classes? Try giving a philosophical answer bro. Some evidence might be a nice touch.

I think you should re-read your post. There are certain topics or a certain slant to those topics which draw from you a very typical response. I’m sure you were seriious. You typically take a dim view of the possible benefit of Aristotelian/Thomistic ( Scholastic ) philosophy could have for the progress of man and faith, even science. Your typical response is " faith and science " and nothing else is of value. And your typical responses { as above ) have nothing to do with my point. Proof? You, yourself, your attitude, is proof, it is typical of the age we live in. There is a great danger in that view. I and my coreligionists have been fighting it for about a hundred years. All you need to do is read the com-boxes discussing philosophy and science. I’m not picking on you or trying to miff you. I’m just saying that Pearce knows what he is talking about. Just watch EWTN for awhile. If you want a list of authors I can give them to you.

Linus2nd:

 

[Latias]

I think you need to reread the article, you are inserting your prejudices. This is basically the whole point: " One disastrous consequence of this reductionist view of science is the separation of cleverness from wisdom. Once physics is divorced from metaphysics it is no longer able to make moral or ethical judgments. Liberated from theology and philosophy, which are no longer considered sciences, the new truncated “science,” more properly called scientism, can be put to the service of damnable endeavours. The list of such endeavours, clever but lacking in wisdom, includes the guillotine, the gas chamber, the atomic bomb, nerve gas, biological weapons, and abortion technology. "

By throwing out metaphysics/theology, those devoted to scientism, which is the ideology of the modern science classroom, texts, books, one is lead to the conclusion that nothing matters but " progress " and utility and profit, that all the bars are off.

He is not implying that the scientist has to be thinking philosophically or theologically when actually involved in looking at a petri dish or through an electron microscope, but that he should be aware of the philosophical/theological/moral implications of his research and his statements about conclusions.

Linus2nd

Has anyone considered the possibility that the contemporary separation of “science” and classical metaphysics is primarily driven by understanding the implications of successful scientific theories, rather than an imprudent rejection of metaphysical concepts, particularly natural law and teleology. Certainly there does seem to be any prohibition against natural theology – that is a philosophical attempt to investigate nature, which is the creation of the deity which bespeaks the attributes of the deity whose attributes can be inferred from his creation, without any recourse to tradition, authority, and divine revelation of scripture. Natural theology is a purely secular activity, although its conclusions are often used to affirm the convictions of orthodox theists. One could attempt to resurrect a staid natural theology that does not get embroiled with a cultural agenda to reverse the perceived prevalence of moral relativism or to promote another political agenda.

Perhaps the fundamental concept that the metaphysicist wants to reintroduce is teleology or having an understanding of final causes in nature. Do successful scientific theories necessarily exclude teleology, or require a naturalist metaphysics? In other words, do successful scientific theories allow one to attain a comprehensive and satisfactory understanding of the natural world and its processes without concepts such as divine providence and teleology? For instance, in the framework of statistical mechanics one can understanding many chemical phenomenon as the consequence of stochastic atomic processes. This allows one to reduce most chemical phenomenon and properties (such as temperature and heat capacity) to a molecular ensemble of molecules, which each individual molecule is subject to Newtonian forces from the interaction of other molecules. Although it is complicated, one can have some comprehension that a chemical system will arrive at a configuration that has minimum possible amount of free energy as the tendencies of each molecule acting independently, only being influenced by other molecules in its own vicinity such as the elastic collision with other molecules, approach that configuration. For a given ensemble of gas molecules, it is understood that if it is at a given absolute temperature, the distribution of the velocity of the molecules has a respective mean velocity and variance. Also the average energy of the molecules contained in a given degree of freedom (translational, rotational, and vibrational) is apportioned equally for all degrees of freedom.

One reason why statistical mechanics is seen as a “successful” theory is that it has many verified quantitative predictions, and provides a robust framework to formulate such predictions for future experiments.

Since statistical mechanics allows one to understand critical aspects of the world without any abstruse metaphysical concepts and that is emphasizes the stochastic behavior of the fundamental molecular entities that behind observable macroscopic phenomenon, it is easy for one to say that the realm of statistical mechanisms is a microcosm for the macroscopic world, which would also be devoid of purpose.

I had more to say about Darwinian evolution, but I’ll keep it short.

 

[inocente]

I think you should re-read your post. There are certain topics or a certain slant to those topics which draw from you a very typical response. I’m sure you were seriious. You typically take a dim view of the possible benefit of Aristotelian/Thomistic ( Scholastic ) philosophy could have for the progress of man and faith, even science. Your typical response is " faith and science " and nothing else is of value. And your typical responses { as above ) have nothing to do with my point. Proof? You, yourself, your attitude, is proof, it is typical of the age we live in. There is a great danger in that view. I and my coreligionists have been fighting it for about a hundred years. All you need to do is read the com-boxes discussing philosophy and science. I’m not picking on you or trying to miff you. I’m just saying that Pearce knows what he is talking about. Just watch EWTN for awhile. If you want a list of authors I can give them to you.

You and Pearce redefine philosophy to exclude all philosophies other than the scholastics. But I’ve never met more than a handful of Catholics who are scholastics, and not one Baptist, Muslim or Hindu scholastic. Perhaps I’m wrong but I’d suggest the vast majority of the 5 billion coreligionists in the world are not scholastics. And of course Christ came to save us all, scholastic or not.

Scientism gives undue weight to an extreme form of empiricism, and is such an extreme belief that it will probably die out on its own. In the mean time it’s not the most pressing issue in the world. As far as Pearce’s scholastic solution, that science “needs to be restored to its full Aristotelian and Trinitarian splendor”, I think a big proportion of the 5 billion theists in the world would either not know what he’s on about or would heartily disagree.

 

[inocente]

Perhaps the fundamental concept that the metaphysicist wants to reintroduce is teleology or having an understanding of final causes in nature. Do successful scientific theories necessarily exclude teleology, or require a naturalist metaphysics? In other words, do successful scientific theories allow one to attain a comprehensive and satisfactory understanding of the natural world and its processes without concepts such as divine providence and teleology?

For what it’s worth I agree with much of what you said in that post. I don’t believe theories exclude teleology necessarily, the issue is more basic - all scientific hypotheses must be open to being falsified by empirical evidence, and it’s hard to see how this could ever be achieved for an hypothesis which assigns purposes in the natural world. This goes back to Newton’s argument against the supporters of Descartes. Science cannot test a priori definitions of purpose, and since it can make progress without doing so, it ought be silent on the subject, since including untestable suppositions would weaken the results.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You and Pearce redefine philosophy to exclude all philosophies other than the scholastics. But I’ve never met more than a handful of Catholics who are scholastics, and not one Baptist, Muslim or Hindu scholastic. Perhaps I’m wrong but I’d suggest the vast majority of the 5 billion coreligionists in the world are not scholastics. And of course Christ came to save us all, scholastic or not.

Scientism gives undue weight to an extreme form of empiricism, and is such an extreme belief that it will probably die out on its own. In the mean time it’s not the most pressing issue in the world. As far as Pearce’s scholastic solution, that science “needs to be restored to its full Aristotelian and Trinitarian splendor”, I think a big proportion of the 5 billion theists in the world would either not know what he’s on about or would heartily disagree.

It is also true that the 5 billion theists in the world know next to nothing about science, whether in the form of neutral hard science or in the form of extreme empiricism. The problem is that it is the extreme form of empiricism that has taken hold in the universities and has filtered down into the high schools and the lower grades, and which has taken hold of the media of all sorts. And I don’t share your optimism that it will die out on its own accord. To me this is about as likely as that radical Islamism will fade out on its own.

And many of our coreligionists, who are in a position to know, do not share your sanguine view. And I think the implication that this trend, which has taken 4-500 years to metastasize, can be combated by appeals to faith alone, or by simply preaching the Word, is not realistic. To allow errors about reality to be propagated in the classroom or in mass media, without challenge, is to abandon truth. It is to abandon the truth God has created in reality - which he has done for a purpose. And that purpose is that he may be seen and known through his creatures, that his creatures themselves are evidence of the Truth of his Revelation, his spoken Word. God has spoken by Word and by signs, his creatures.

Linus2nd

Linus2nd.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Has anyone considered the possibility that the contemporary separation of “science” and classical metaphysics is primarily driven by understanding the implications of successful scientific theories, rather than an imprudent rejection of metaphysical concepts, particularly natural law and teleology… snip ]…{/QUOTE]

No one is denying the practical and beneficial results of science. But I think its attack on and rejection of Aristotle’s four causes ( material, formal, efficient, and final ), the act and potency structure of the material world was done with full intent. It was done basically because it challenged the world views of of Hume and those following him, to the present day. And it would be nice if it could be regarded as harmless, but it just is not harmless. It has led to the whole crazy secular humanist philosophy which has the modern world in its grip.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

It is also true that the 5 billion theists in the world know next to nothing about science, whether in the form of neutral hard science or in the form of extreme empiricism. The problem is that it is the extreme form of empiricism that has taken hold in the universities and has filtered down into the high schools and the lower grades, and which has taken hold of the media of all sorts. And I don’t share your optimism that it will die out on its own accord. To me this is about as likely as that radical Islamism will fade out on its own.

Here’s some counterarguments.

1. If the 5 billion theists in the world don’t have any scientific knowledge then they surely can’t put indue value on what they don’t know, so scientism isn’t an issue for them.
2. Since they believe in God, they know for sure there is at least one other form of knowledge - the one by which they came to know God.
3. For many of them, I want them to put undue value on what little science they know. I want them to put emphasis on keeping sewerage well away from drinking water, on washing their hands before cooking or eating, on going to a scientifically trained doctor rather than a juju man, because that helps them to live a longer happier life.
4. Pearce is not alone in wanting to loosen the ethics of science. Behe wanted it to let in his ID, some string theorists and multi-verse fans want it to let in their notions, and so on. But that destroys the very thing which makes science so valuable, as well as letting astrology and so on call itself a science.
5. Pearce ends up wanting to call poetry and painting science, and to put theology and physics on the same basis. He wants everything to be called science. His logic seems to be that if people look up to science, let’s put a spurious scientific label on religion so they look up to that as if it was science. What’s that if not scientism?

And many of our coreligionists, who are in a position to know, do not share your sanguine view. And I think the implication that this trend, which has taken 4-500 years to metastasize, can be combated by appeals to faith alone, or by simply preaching the Word, is not realistic. To allow errors about reality to be propagated in the classroom or in mass media, without challenge, is to abandon truth. It is to abandon the truth God has created in reality - which he has done for a purpose. And that purpose is that he may be seen and known through his creatures, that his creatures themselves are evidence of the Truth of his Revelation, his spoken Word. God has spoken by Word and by signs, his creatures.

Most Christians I know don’t think modernity is a cancer. I can understand the hellfire view that God has lost the battle and we’re all doomed, but I think if Christians can’t send a message of hope to the world, that God is still in charge, that love always wins out in the end, then who can? There’s that phrase physician heal thyself. If religion is sick, and I’m not convinced it is, then it won’t get better by casting blame around.