Questions of Purpose, questions of science

I'll get back to DH'ing soon hopefully, (even though the stats seem to show that people got pretty bored of it)

Well the religious world has it's knickers in a bit of a knot (including Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks) because of Stephen Hawking's new book where he apparently says that there is no logical or scientific NEED for a God to explain the complexity or origin of the universe. This is a rather irksome development for the believers of the world as religious people have been throwing around Hawking's "know the mind of God" quote around for years in order to make an appeal to scientific authority.

The idea being thrown around now is the old slogan "Science tells us the Hows and Whats religion tells us the whys". This statement presupposes two things A. That why is a legitimate question to ask. and B. That positing the existence of God answers that question - as far as I can tell the religious answer to the "Why" is "Beats me but I think God has it sort of worked out"

Basically the answer which religion provides to the "Why" questions is to create someone else to know the answer.

Richard Dawkins recently engaged in an online chat debate with Ruth Gledhill, The Times religion correspondent. (Transcript here) Gledhill started up with the Hows and Whats vs. the Whys "One would be the the purpose of the universe. Although science might discover the mechanism, we are still left with the question of what is the purpose" Dawkins responded that there is no reason to assume that there is a purpose. There is no reason to assume on SCIENTIFIC or even LOGICAL grounds that there is any sort of teleology in the universe. (Emotionally speaking it's probably a good idea to wishfully think that there is some sort of purpose but THAT is not science or even a field of inquiry)

Dawkins makes another excellent point: The "God answers the Why questions" way of thinking is a bit of a cart before the horse. The question which we desperately need religion to answer is apparently "why is there a universe and more importantly why are there hairless quadrapeds with overactive imaginations" the believers are saying that the only answer to this question is "'cuz of God and his plans"

But wait a second! Purpose is something we generally ascribe to intelligence and intention. If someone has involuntary spasm we don't ask him/her "Why did you do that" because the action in question was not intentional. When there is no intentional agent behind an action we do not ascribe to it a purpose.

Similarly to ask "why is there a universe" is essentially to ask "Why did God make the universe". The question presupposes an intentional designer. But the question never starts if God is not in the picture! SOoooo basically to sum things up: according to the above line of reasoning religion is around to explain a problem it itself engenders.

"[Q]uestions that begin 'What is the purpose of . . .' require the existence of a purposeful agent."