You and I seem to be people with similar origin Mountain Girl.
Bothpostgrad math physics geeks - although rather than carry on in academia, my early career was in geeky stuff in high tech corporate research departments (defence) , but we look at the world through similar eyes.
My belief has several legs - first that deconstruct scientific realism I held in my youth.
Second that give credence to theism
That said, third.. I also have a non rational faith. The above two allow me to avoid conflict between my scientific mind and catholicism, and even at my most distant from it, I never quite lost the faith.
Each of these would need a book to do justice - I will just pick a couple of random example of each..
First, the more I study science, the less I believe it is other than a (very useful) observation model, rather than a fundamental underpinning of our universe .
(eg 1/ Science is getting too bizarre! I fail to believe that an infinite number of universes coexist, of all possible pasts and futures, selected by observation, as quantum physics needs me to believe, which if time has an arrow and causality is real, must be a growing infinite number as the tree of multiple outcomes spread - and the only reason I am supposed to believe that is because science seems to prefer it, to an even more bizarre belief that things not existing before observation! But thats what science obliges me to believe, if I think that it is more than a model!
eg 2/ Are we arrogant enough to believe that our senses detect all dimensions? Even the models increasingly say no (superstrings) And if we do not detect all dimensions, our models must model a projection of what is, so they see the 2D circle not sphere. So none of the models by definition can then be fundamental. The apparent movement of a "circle" projection is never a fundamental model of the "sphere" what it is or what it contains. Just as a shadow picture of a human on a screen, has limited information about the human body. And is not a fundamental definition of what a body "is" it is just a model of how it is "Observed" So science is an illfitting suit of clothes on a wondrously complex body!
eg 3/ Is an electron "real", or is it a behaviour model?. Hawking is now saying no of the models generally. When he talks of "model dependent reality" - in essence he states he no longer believes that the model can be unique, which by definition means the two different models cannot both relate to a real existence, if they model in terms of different concepts, so they can only be an observation model of it with no implication for what is really there. ! So when we say we cannot detect all the matter or energy in our universe, is it because our concepts of matter and energy are useful artefacts of our model, not an expression of reality. So in searching for "wimps" and fudge factors like cosmological constants are we looking for something that doesnt exist, to explain a discrepancy in a low dimension model, of a process of infinite dimension.
In short - in the scientific shrinking God of the gaps - I conclude that science no longer "explains" at any fundamental level. It does a fine job of modelling observations , and from those models we can do some pretty amazing things. Other explanations have to be sought for "what is it really" and "why is", we can only say "what it normally does" So the gap is not only not shrinking, it is still the entire universe.
Second, the harder I look at it, the less I believe the blind watchmaker paradigm for life that assumes life itself is a biochemical accident, the first replicating cell a lucky chemical freak, and consciousnessness is a biochemical process, evolution explained as dumb optimization. Too many things dont't add up.
eg 1/ a replicating cell capable of evolving is a hideously complex thing. The bio chemical processes inside it are greater than many of our chemical factories put together, and if just one of the pipes didnt connect properly, it would not survive let alone to reproduction. There are only two possibilities - that a full function cell popped into existent, so staggeringly unlikely, it didnt happen. Or a lower form did pop into existence for which there is absolutely no conjectured structure - no conjectured process for that to exist
As someone who has built many extremely complex engineering systems, (few as complicated as a cell) and seen that despite the best efforts of many high IQ people they never work until tweaked. To conjecture that random chemistry did this , even if there was a viable design, accepts that there is and was a soup of failed attempts at life, before the first one appeared, and the new abiogenesis accidents should still be happening. Where. Show me! They dont exist.
Abiogenesis does not qualify even as a hypothesis! - it is neither testable nor is there even a process. Abiogenesis is the name for a hole in a theory, "life a biochemical accident" ,not the existence of a possible explanation!
eg 2/ I spent a lot of time in (mathematical ) optimization of complex control and measurement systems ( stuff like kalman filters, nonlinear systems). Dawkins makes the facile comment that "rock climbing up an evolutionary cliff didnt need to happen to elevate heights of evolutionary development, it just went round the shallow path at the back to get to the top"
Which proves that Dawkins knows even less about optimization than he does about quantum chemistry. If we assume for simplicity as Dawkins does (indeed most optimization algorithms do) that performance is represented as a scalar height we are moving to ascend. I will tell you what really happens, as all us mountain people know! Your attempt to scale a height by unguided optimization, (ie climb the nearest thing you see) guarantees you get stranded on evolutionary molehills!. You cannot get to the mountains, without making big jumps and having casualties jumping off cliffs. If you go to the closest high thing you will never get to a peak just by moving upwards!
This is the bane of all unguided optimization from all of us that have had to do it in math systems. And I have done a lot of optimizations using "hill climbing" techniques. Dawkins has no idea of the problems.
So to get to the highest (evolutionary) mountains you either have to avoidiclimbing foot hills close (ie accepting current evolutionary disadvantage for far future evolutionary advantage, so staying in a valley, which presumes knowledge of the higher peak - ( but in survival of fittest it cannot happen, those with short term advantage win) - or alternatively you make big not small jumps in underlying change in the hope of leaping from one hill to a higher point on the next to continue upwards, which would give a massive pile of genetic failures. Analogy jumping off cliffs and hoping Where are the heap of genetic casualties becasue of bigger jumps?. Small changes constrain you to foothills. Or mole hills!
In short, if you want to climb everest by blind hill climbing starting in texas, you would end up stranded on the mound in the local refuse tip! Because from there everywhere is down in evolutionary advantage..you would never GET to a proper mountain.
Anyone who has done intelligent optimization has nightmares dealing with foothills and incomplete optimizations, and that is even when using intelligence not dumb and blind!
For many simple reasons, based in my own experience of Intelligent optimization, and also the macroscopic jumps evelotionists would rather you dont talk about. I no longer buy unguided evolution.
Third, there is plenty of evidence out there which indicates beyond natural and points at theistic interpretation and phenomena.
All sorts of things which are unexplained and unexplainable, many more than you probably know.
So I will pull a handful out of the air.
There are MANY where these come from - you know I am fascinated by all sorts, from the forensic science of eucharistic miracles, to the incorruptible bodies of saints, and some of the marian appariations are hard to dispute scienctifically eg Zeitoun. But I will pick a couple you may not know.
eg 1 I believe in the story of Alexandrina da Costa.
A bed ridden mystic who was claimed to have not eaten, or had bodily functions for many years.
She survived just on a daily eucharist wafer. Her claims did not even have the support of religious authority, who assume she was a pious fraud. All wanted her outed as a fraud, so she was forced to undergo controlled investigation.
She was hospitalized and watched 24/7 for two weeks. During that time all she consumed was a eucharistic host each day. Her body weight was unchanged. She did not have bodily function. In frustration and assuming it was still a fraud perpetrated by the observers, the supervising atheist medic, changed the team for "more reliable" watchers. And after 30 days they too had confirmed, she did not eat, drink, or even urinate and her body weight was unchanged, her blood samples returned normal. A medical report with several hospital signatories including the atheist doctorin charge concludes "unexplained". It is out there to read.
eg 2 Therese neumman was a stigmatic and an uneducated peasant.
She too was observed and inedia was confirmed.
But the most interesting facet was her visions were documented, during which she spoke aramaic which was witnessed and written down. It was a language she can never have known.
The most eminent language scholars confirmed her aramaic was flawless. Since she was uneducated and aramaic was known and spoken only by few a few academics in universities, how did she do it?
Her story echoes with that of modern day Katya Rivas whose stigmata were prophesied, so camera crews filmed both the appearance and witness of wounds. But I draw attention to the healing. No plastic surgeon on earth can heal wounds in 24 hours, but that is what happened. Seen on camera, witnessed by many. Like neumman Katya produced writings. She was observed writing for periods of an hour, flawless grammar, never pausing, never correcting, and the theology given an imprimateur, even more surprising she sometimes wrote in languages she could not know. Polish! The writings exist . How could it be faked?
eg 3. A bed ridden nun and peasant Anne Emmerich - had a vision of the life our lady almost two millenia before. And she described the view and a house Mary lived in in the wilds of mountains near ephesus (which is tradition, that John the apostle and she went there). In her visions anne catherine described the unusual (near octagonal back, and the location of rooms and such as fires) Studying a map, and Using the visions of islands visible at the sea a few miles away , the city a few miles inland and other features, it was determned there was only one location that view was even possible from a place called nightingale mountain. An intensive search of trackless nightingale found a ruin of a building on that hillside now named "panaghia capouli", or "meryem ana evi". But here is the kicker. It had been rebuilt.
It was ONLY when they dug down into the footings they found the shapes and fire hearths she described. So anne catherine had described the building, not as it was in her own time, but as it had been 2000 years before. So even if anyone had been there, and "planted" the observation information getting anne to fake having seen it, they would not have described what she saw. Only archeological digging confirmed it. Quite apart from the near impossibility of faking the vision, it brings a new dimension to consciousness.
How could anne catherines consciousness have drifted in time as well as space?
And if it can move in time and space, it is a killer blow for the scientific rationlist view that consciousness is just a chemical process. There is the evidence it is not.
eg 4 And I will put the last one in because it hits at the heart of Christianity.
Despite hundreds of man years of scientific effort, thousands of papers, scientists of all description investigating, only one hypothesis accounts for the shroud of turin.
That the mark is a chemical oxidation, only in the surface of the threads formed by scorching because of a short body centric radiation burst post mortem (because it does not appear under the blood stains which were there first). The physiochemical dating verdict (other than RC) is first century, and (even invisible in natural light) forensics confirm the tortures of christ. No other hypothesis even gets close, and it certainly is not an artwork. And it is not a contact mark: it shows features that cannot have been in contact with the cloth. So it must be radiation.
Of the types of radiation neutron radiation would explain the RC dating and the progression of dates away from the body found by the RC testers.
Read "shroud of turin" Fanti. Test the shroud Antonacci.
There are many other fascinating phenomena, beyond science.
That said , I dont need ANY of this to believe.
Deep down I believed, even when most of me had become a scientific rationalist, before coming back to the church.. But my science is no longer in conflict. I find science demonstrates the power of God. And it would be surprising if there were no evidence. In my opinion there is a lot of evidence that stands investigative scrutiny.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT?
We mountain people need to stick together!
I'm struggling to find faith, and none of your reasons why really resonate with me. My main obstacle has always been lack of evidence that God exists.
The only evidence I see so far is sort of like this....
One, a lot of people claim to be Christians, could that manyg people be wrong or misguided (of course that's not a great argument for two reasons, one, that there are also a lot of people who believe in other faiths, and there's a lot of division in Christianity so that many Christians think other Christians are wrong and misguided).
Two, there are a lot of people more studied in Christianity than I am who have managed to hold on to their faith (although at least one prominent Bible scholar became agnosric in tbr course of his research)
Three, there are some Christian people who live a life that is inspiring and sets a good example that can be recognized by all (yet here again, there's examples in the other side too)
Four, time seems to have to have had a beginning, because we can not be infinitely further in the future than day 1.
So, that implies a beginning. Does a beginning imply a being or beings started that process, and does that necessarily lead to God as understood by Christianity?
So that's what I have in my corner so far. Whether it's enough, or if more will come, only time will tell.
I keep plugging away at it, with the help of online friends, local priests and a few good books
