[Oe List ...] CS-I

[Herman Greene]

One of my New Year's resolutions is to not be so sharp with my tongue/pen.
Does anybody else have a hangover from our illusion-busting days?

 

I continue to think about urban scientific and secular. A more complete
thought than the one I expressed yesterday is that I think what we were
trying to do was to bring the church into the 20th century. There was also,
however, in my opinion, a stance of celebrating these changes uncritically
as well as the general economic development model,. 

 

Science has given to us the gifts of modernity and at the same time is
laying waste to the world. Berry said "Science is not a cosmology. When
science thinks it is a cosmology it becomes destructive. When science
functions within a cosmology, it becomes a wisdom."  His effort was to
establish a new cosmology. I had many arguments with him about this because
he seemed to think the universe story by itself was such a cosmology. In his
followers, the universe story as a scientific story and as a philosophical
cosmology has become confused. Berry and Swimme's philosophical cosmology
that was the heart of their universe story was not consistent with what we
may call "scientism." For example, they say there is an intentional or
teleological aspect to evolution ("the universe is about something"),
something that is outside "science" and for many scientists is "heresy"
(because for scientists their trade has become more than an aspect of
reality, it has become the whole of reality-a scientific and philosophical
cosmology).

 

It is certainly true we are becoming increasing urban. It is also true that
cities have been the source of "civilization" over the last 3,000 years at
least. This is reflected in such ideas as the pagans (in other words those
who live in the country) or the heathen (those who live in the heath). Now I
think the growth of cities is probably more problem than promise. For
example in the next 20 years 350 million people are expected to move into
cities in China (more than the entire population of the United States) and
this is on top of those who already live in cities in China. Just the new
settlers in the cities will require the installation of electrical power
greater than the entire installed electrical power in the United States
today and most of it will be powered by coal. Further the role of cities as
the centers of global industrial civilization is problematic.

 

The secular is something I think I understand and then I think I don't. We
can call the world secular and yet we can call it more religious than ever
and the effect of religions is having as much impact on affairs as ever. The
secular is part of what allows science to operate as a cosmology. The
secular is what allows the economic man to exist, the one driven only by
pain and pleasure principles and utility. The secular is what relativizes
all moral values, so that nothing is right or wrong, it is only a
preference.

 

So if we were to teach CS-I again, we may still talk about the urban, the
scientific and the secular but we would be talking about them as much as
problem as promise and we would not be looking to them for values as such,
rather we would be speaking to what is the basis of value and meaning in an
urban, scientific, and secular-yet-very-religious world.

 

Herman

 

 

 

  

_____________________________________________

Herman F. Greene, Esq.

Greene Law, PLLC

2516 Winningham Drive

Chapel Hill, NC 27516

919-624-0579 (ph)

919-942-4358 (f)

Skype: hgreene-nc

hgreene at greenelawnc.com <blocked::mailto:hgreene at greenelawnc.com>  

www.greenelawnc.com <blocked::http://www.greenelawnc.com/>  

 

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