Is God Scientifically Explicable?

[PoliticalChic]

1. There are some things in the universe that are not scientifically explicable.
Can anyone argue that this is not true? If so, they would have to argue that they believe that at some future time, science will be able to explain everything.
“Believe” becomes the operative term, and such an explanation nudges science into the realm of faith. And it becomes a religion.




2. Which brings to mind this, from Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘Napoleon's question to the atheistic professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has never been answered. To say that the Universe was made by immutable laws only puts the question one degree further back as to who made the laws. I did not, of course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, but I believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could get no further than its existence.” The New Revelation, by Arthur Conan Doyle; Chapter I: The Search Page 1

3. Similarly, the Big Bang origin of the universe required energy. And Newton stated that mass and energy are interchangeable, but that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. But something must have created the energy, at what we might call ‘the beginning.’

a. Now, before one attempts to explain away the obvious problem by inserting the term ‘infinity,’ let’s agree that infinity does not exist in the real world. So, without ‘infinity,’ it follows that everything in the universe is finite, therefore had a beginning….and, an end.

b. The Greek philosopher Epicurus: ‘ It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’
What if science can never explain certain things?





4. The interpretations and explanations provided by science come, mainly by way of our observations, and a few instruments. Human observations. But birds and bees communicate within the ultraviolet portion of sunlight… a part of the spectrum that humans don’t see.
Ultraviolet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

a. And eyesight is our most important sense. It provides the majority of our sensory information about the world. Consider how much less we’d know if we had no eyes. Even so…we’d probably feel that we knew everything about our surroundings. But we don’t know about the world in ultraviolet. Or in infrared. We live between 400 and 700 nanometers.
What Wavelength Goes With a Color?

b. And the inner ear contains hair cells that are moved by sound waves between 20 and 20,000 Hertz.
Sensitivity of Human Ear
That’s the extent of our contact with the real world. Beyond said ranges…we don’t know about it!





5. Further, our sensory system actually distorts the information that we do collect. For example, there is no such thing as color in the real world: color is made in the mind based on the wavelength information that the eyes send to the brain.

a. And, when we look at a rock, or any solid material, what we are actually seeing is swarms of subatomic particles with lots of empty space between; over 99% of the rock is empty space. Yet, that’s not what our limited senses and processing center tell us is true and real.

6. So, do we gather and understand half of what there is to know about the universe? A tenth? A millionth?

Is it possible that there is a force, God, in the universe, and we are unable to process the information due to our limited senses and limited ability to interpret sensory data?





a. “Erasmus Darwin paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin and maternal grandfather of Francis Galton,… proposes that reason is inferior to generation. [It was his] view of deity as a designer that was present in Newton. The "cause of causes" harkens back to the Aristotelian/Thomistic definition of God as the prime mover who sets all things in motion. Generation and reproduction are thus put into the realm of a causality that is willed by a God who is Himself causeless. He believed that the process of evolution was due to "...the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements to by generation to its posterity, world without end." Erasmus Darwin

b. Perhaps claiming that we are abandoning ‘faith’ and engaging ‘reason’ is no more than hubris. Rather, the abandonment is based on not realizing how little we know of the parameters of what we call reality. It may simply a question of God in a form that we can never perceive or comprehend.
Covered in chapter nine of "The Genesis Enigma," Parker.



‘It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’

 

[Sallow]

Science can't "explain" fantasy and superstition.

 

[Wiseacre]

There are some things that are not yet scientifically explanable yet, like dark matter and dark energy. Given enough time, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually come up with more data and at least some theories about it. But God is a different thing all together. Until and unless we get an undeniable indication that God exists, it'll have to remain a question of faith. And maybe that's how it should be.

I would suggest that the very existence of the universe could be taken as evidence that God exists. Something had to trigger the big bang, something had to create the matter and energy that exists today. That something could be articulated as God.

 

[SAYIT]

1. There are some things in the universe that are not scientifically explicable.
Can anyone argue that this is not true? If so, they would have to argue that they believe that at some future time, science will be able to explain everything.
“Believe” becomes the operative term, and such an explanation nudges science into the realm of faith. And it becomes a religion.

2. Which brings to mind this, from Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘Napoleon's question to the atheistic professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has never been answered. To say that the Universe was made by immutable laws only puts the question one degree further back as to who made the laws. I did not, of course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, but I believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could get no further than its existence.” The New Revelation, by Arthur Conan Doyle; Chapter I: The Search Page 1

3. Similarly, the Big Bang origin of the universe required energy. And Newton stated that mass and energy are interchangeable, but that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. But something must have created the energy, at what we might call ‘the beginning.’

a. Now, before one attempts to explain away the obvious problem by inserting the term ‘infinity,’ let’s agree that infinity does not exist in the real world. So, without ‘infinity,’ it follows that everything in the universe is finite, therefore had a beginning….and, an end.

b. The Greek philosopher Epicurus: ‘ It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’
What if science can never explain certain things?

4. The interpretations and explanations provided by science come, mainly by way of our observations, and a few instruments. Human observations. But birds and bees communicate within the ultraviolet portion of sunlight… a part of the spectrum that humans don’t see.
Ultraviolet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

a. And eyesight is our most important sense. It provides the majority of our sensory information about the world. Consider how much less we’d know if we had no eyes. Even so…we’d probably feel that we knew everything about our surroundings. But we don’t know about the world in ultraviolet. Or in infrared. We live between 400 and 700 nanometers.
What Wavelength Goes With a Color?

b. And the inner ear contains hair cells that are moved by sound waves between 20 and 20,000 Hertz.
Sensitivity of Human Ear
That’s the extent of our contact with the real world. Beyond said ranges…we don’t know about it!

5. Further, our sensory system actually distorts the information that we do collect. For example, there is no such thing as color in the real world: color is made in the mind based on the wavelength information that the eyes send to the brain.

a. And, when we look at a rock, or any solid material, what we are actually seeing is swarms of subatomic particles with lots of empty space between; over 99% of the rock is empty space. Yet, that’s not what our limited senses and processing center tell us is true and real.

6. So, do we gather and understand half of what there is to know about the universe? A tenth? A millionth?

Is it possible that there is a force, God, in the universe, and we are unable to process the information due to our limited senses and limited ability to interpret sensory data?

a. “Erasmus Darwin paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin and maternal grandfather of Francis Galton,… proposes that reason is inferior to generation. [It was his] view of deity as a designer that was present in Newton. The "cause of causes" harkens back to the Aristotelian/Thomistic definition of God as the prime mover who sets all things in motion. Generation and reproduction are thus put into the realm of a causality that is willed by a God who is Himself causeless. He believed that the process of evolution was due to "...the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements to by generation to its posterity, world without end." Erasmus Darwin

b. Perhaps claiming that we are abandoning ‘faith’ and engaging ‘reason’ is no more than hubris. Rather, the abandonment is based on not realizing how little we know of the parameters of what we call reality. It may simply a question of God in a form that we can never perceive or comprehend.
Covered in chapter nine of "The Genesis Enigma," Parker.

‘It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’

Your questions raise more questions:
Isn't it possible (even likely) that it was God who produced the Big Bang, making both God and the Bang real? And what existed before the Bang?
Finally, if everything in the universe is finite isn't it possible that God, too, is finite (and perhaps gone)?
Oh, and why would you do this to me first thing in the morning?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Just because we lack the means or intelligence to explain a phenomenon does not mean it is inexplicable.

We might have physical limitations placed on us by our physiology that make it impossible for us to understand some things. (dare I say most things in the infinite universe)

For example my dog will never understand algebra not because it is inexplicable but because she is physically incapable of the thought necessary to do so.

It is pure hubris to think we have no such limitations.

 

[Polk]

I would suggest that the very existence of the universe could be taken as evidence that God exists. Something had to trigger the big bang, something had to create the matter and energy that exists today. That something could be articulated as God.

The problem with that argument is that it creates the same question, just removed another step. If we're working from the idea that "something had to trigger" each action (which isn't unreasonable in the observable universe), then we also have to ask what "trigger[ed]" God.

 

[Polk]

Just because we lack the means or intelligence to explain a phenomenon does not mean it is inexplicable.

We might have physical limitations placed on us by our physiology that make it impossible for us to understand some things. (dare I say most things in the infinite universe)

For example my dog will never understand algebra not because it is inexplicable but because she is physically incapable of the thought necessary to do so.

It is pure hubris to think we have no such limitations.

Emphasis added.

I think that's possible, but it also creates an infinite loop.

 

[Wiseacre]

I would suggest that the very existence of the universe could be taken as evidence that God exists. Something had to trigger the big bang, something had to create the matter and energy that exists today. That something could be articulated as God.

The problem with that argument is that it creates the same question, just removed another step. If we're working from the idea that "something had to trigger" each action (which isn't unreasonable in the observable universe), then we also have to ask what "trigger[ed]" God.

At some point you gotta decide to go with an unexplainable, supernatural force that started the whole thing going. Which is as good a definition of God as you can get.

 

[Polk]

I would suggest that the very existence of the universe could be taken as evidence that God exists. Something had to trigger the big bang, something had to create the matter and energy that exists today. That something could be articulated as God.

The problem with that argument is that it creates the same question, just removed another step. If we're working from the idea that "something had to trigger" each action (which isn't unreasonable in the observable universe), then we also have to ask what "trigger[ed]" God.

At some point you gotta decide to go with an unexplainable, supernatural force that started the whole thing going. Which is as good a definition of God as you can get.

I would reject the idea that unexplainable must equal supernatural.

 

[Wiseacre]

The problem with that argument is that it creates the same question, just removed another step. If we're working from the idea that "something had to trigger" each action (which isn't unreasonable in the observable universe), then we also have to ask what "trigger[ed]" God.

At some point you gotta decide to go with an unexplainable, supernatural force that started the whole thing going. Which is as good a definition of God as you can get.

I would reject the idea that unexplainable must equal supernatural.

That's fine, got no problem with that. But my understanding is that the laws of physics and chemistry and every other law of science did not exist until after the big bang. Like only a few of the smallest units of time after, but nonetheless there were no natural laws in existence when the big bang initially began. So, some might say that situation qualifies as a supernatural event.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. There are some things in the universe that are not scientifically explicable.
Can anyone argue that this is not true? If so, they would have to argue that they believe that at some future time, science will be able to explain everything.
“Believe” becomes the operative term, and such an explanation nudges science into the realm of faith. And it becomes a religion.

2. Which brings to mind this, from Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘Napoleon's question to the atheistic professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has never been answered. To say that the Universe was made by immutable laws only puts the question one degree further back as to who made the laws. I did not, of course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, but I believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could get no further than its existence.” The New Revelation, by Arthur Conan Doyle; Chapter I: The Search Page 1

3. Similarly, the Big Bang origin of the universe required energy. And Newton stated that mass and energy are interchangeable, but that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. But something must have created the energy, at what we might call ‘the beginning.’

a. Now, before one attempts to explain away the obvious problem by inserting the term ‘infinity,’ let’s agree that infinity does not exist in the real world. So, without ‘infinity,’ it follows that everything in the universe is finite, therefore had a beginning….and, an end.

b. The Greek philosopher Epicurus: ‘ It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’
What if science can never explain certain things?

4. The interpretations and explanations provided by science come, mainly by way of our observations, and a few instruments. Human observations. But birds and bees communicate within the ultraviolet portion of sunlight… a part of the spectrum that humans don’t see.
Ultraviolet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

a. And eyesight is our most important sense. It provides the majority of our sensory information about the world. Consider how much less we’d know if we had no eyes. Even so…we’d probably feel that we knew everything about our surroundings. But we don’t know about the world in ultraviolet. Or in infrared. We live between 400 and 700 nanometers.
What Wavelength Goes With a Color?

b. And the inner ear contains hair cells that are moved by sound waves between 20 and 20,000 Hertz.
Sensitivity of Human Ear
That’s the extent of our contact with the real world. Beyond said ranges…we don’t know about it!

5. Further, our sensory system actually distorts the information that we do collect. For example, there is no such thing as color in the real world: color is made in the mind based on the wavelength information that the eyes send to the brain.

a. And, when we look at a rock, or any solid material, what we are actually seeing is swarms of subatomic particles with lots of empty space between; over 99% of the rock is empty space. Yet, that’s not what our limited senses and processing center tell us is true and real.

6. So, do we gather and understand half of what there is to know about the universe? A tenth? A millionth?

Is it possible that there is a force, God, in the universe, and we are unable to process the information due to our limited senses and limited ability to interpret sensory data?

a. “Erasmus Darwin paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin and maternal grandfather of Francis Galton,… proposes that reason is inferior to generation. [It was his] view of deity as a designer that was present in Newton. The "cause of causes" harkens back to the Aristotelian/Thomistic definition of God as the prime mover who sets all things in motion. Generation and reproduction are thus put into the realm of a causality that is willed by a God who is Himself causeless. He believed that the process of evolution was due to "...the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements to by generation to its posterity, world without end." Erasmus Darwin

b. Perhaps claiming that we are abandoning ‘faith’ and engaging ‘reason’ is no more than hubris. Rather, the abandonment is based on not realizing how little we know of the parameters of what we call reality. It may simply a question of God in a form that we can never perceive or comprehend.
Covered in chapter nine of "The Genesis Enigma," Parker.

‘It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’

Your questions raise more questions:
Isn't it possible 9even likely) that it was God who produced the Big Bang, making both God and the Bang real? And what existed before the Bang?
Finally, if everything in the universe is finite isn't it possible that God, too, is finite (and perhaps gone)?
Oh, and why would you do this to me first thing in the morning?

I'd say that the accepted definition of God doesn't include 'finite.'



"Oh, and why would you do this to me first thing in the morning?"
It's why we both come here....isn't it.

 

[Polk]

At some point you gotta decide to go with an unexplainable, supernatural force that started the whole thing going. Which is as good a definition of God as you can get.

I would reject the idea that unexplainable must equal supernatural.

That's fine, got no problem with that. But my understanding is that the laws of physics and chemistry and every other law of science did not exist until after the big bang. Like only a few of the smallest units of time after, but nonetheless there were no natural laws in existence when the big bang initially began. So, some might say that situation qualifies as a supernatural event.

You could say that, but I don't think there is a reason we should say that. It's a question we may never be able to answer, due to technological limits. I actually really like the way Dawkins addressed this issue in "The God Delusion". In the strictest sense, there is no scientific reason to be anything other than agnostic.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. There are some things in the universe that are not scientifically explicable.
Can anyone argue that this is not true? If so, they would have to argue that they believe that at some future time, science will be able to explain everything.
“Believe” becomes the operative term, and such an explanation nudges science into the realm of faith. And it becomes a religion.




2. Which brings to mind this, from Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘Napoleon's question to the atheistic professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has never been answered. To say that the Universe was made by immutable laws only puts the question one degree further back as to who made the laws. I did not, of course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, but I believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could get no further than its existence.” The New Revelation, by Arthur Conan Doyle; Chapter I: The Search Page 1

3. Similarly, the Big Bang origin of the universe required energy. And Newton stated that mass and energy are interchangeable, but that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. But something must have created the energy, at what we might call ‘the beginning.’

a. Now, before one attempts to explain away the obvious problem by inserting the term ‘infinity,’ let’s agree that infinity does not exist in the real world. So, without ‘infinity,’ it follows that everything in the universe is finite, therefore had a beginning….and, an end.

b. The Greek philosopher Epicurus: ‘ It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’
What if science can never explain certain things?





4. The interpretations and explanations provided by science come, mainly by way of our observations, and a few instruments. Human observations. But birds and bees communicate within the ultraviolet portion of sunlight… a part of the spectrum that humans don’t see.
Ultraviolet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

a. And eyesight is our most important sense. It provides the majority of our sensory information about the world. Consider how much less we’d know if we had no eyes. Even so…we’d probably feel that we knew everything about our surroundings. But we don’t know about the world in ultraviolet. Or in infrared. We live between 400 and 700 nanometers.
What Wavelength Goes With a Color?

b. And the inner ear contains hair cells that are moved by sound waves between 20 and 20,000 Hertz.
Sensitivity of Human Ear
That’s the extent of our contact with the real world. Beyond said ranges…we don’t know about it!





5. Further, our sensory system actually distorts the information that we do collect. For example, there is no such thing as color in the real world: color is made in the mind based on the wavelength information that the eyes send to the brain.

a. And, when we look at a rock, or any solid material, what we are actually seeing is swarms of subatomic particles with lots of empty space between; over 99% of the rock is empty space. Yet, that’s not what our limited senses and processing center tell us is true and real.

6. So, do we gather and understand half of what there is to know about the universe? A tenth? A millionth?

Is it possible that there is a force, God, in the universe, and we are unable to process the information due to our limited senses and limited ability to interpret sensory data?





a. “Erasmus Darwin paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin and maternal grandfather of Francis Galton,… proposes that reason is inferior to generation. [It was his] view of deity as a designer that was present in Newton. The "cause of causes" harkens back to the Aristotelian/Thomistic definition of God as the prime mover who sets all things in motion. Generation and reproduction are thus put into the realm of a causality that is willed by a God who is Himself causeless. He believed that the process of evolution was due to "...the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements to by generation to its posterity, world without end." Erasmus Darwin

b. Perhaps claiming that we are abandoning ‘faith’ and engaging ‘reason’ is no more than hubris. Rather, the abandonment is based on not realizing how little we know of the parameters of what we call reality. It may simply a question of God in a form that we can never perceive or comprehend.
Covered in chapter nine of "The Genesis Enigma," Parker.



‘It is best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification.’

You are, I don't know about God. In your case, OCD explains you rather well.

I have CDO…it’s like OCD, but all the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Just because we lack the means or intelligence to explain a phenomenon does not mean it is inexplicable.

We might have physical limitations placed on us by our physiology that make it impossible for us to understand some things. (dare I say most things in the infinite universe)

For example my dog will never understand algebra not because it is inexplicable but because she is physically incapable of the thought necessary to do so.

It is pure hubris to think we have no such limitations.

That is pretty much the point of the OP.

Your point as well?

 

[rightwinger]

 

[Skull Pilot]

Just because we lack the means or intelligence to explain a phenomenon does not mean it is inexplicable.

We might have physical limitations placed on us by our physiology that make it impossible for us to understand some things. (dare I say most things in the infinite universe)

For example my dog will never understand algebra not because it is inexplicable but because she is physically incapable of the thought necessary to do so.

It is pure hubris to think we have no such limitations.

That is pretty much the point of the OP.

Your point as well?

Yes. There are , it's safe to say an infinite number of things that we very well may be incapable of imagining never mind quantifying.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I would suggest that the very existence of the universe could be taken as evidence that God exists. Something had to trigger the big bang, something had to create the matter and energy that exists today. That something could be articulated as God.

The problem with that argument is that it creates the same question, just removed another step. If we're working from the idea that "something had to trigger" each action (which isn't unreasonable in the observable universe), then we also have to ask what "trigger[ed]" God.

"God is often conceived as the supreme being and principal object of faith.[1] In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. In deism, God is the creator (but not the sustainer) of the universe. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. Common among these are omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence."
God - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The accepted view is that God always was.

Look at it another way: here was no time before the Big Bang....so if God is responsible for same, He was present before time.
He has no beginning.

 

[PoliticalChic]

At some point you gotta decide to go with an unexplainable, supernatural force that started the whole thing going. Which is as good a definition of God as you can get.

I would reject the idea that unexplainable must equal supernatural.

That's fine, got no problem with that. But my understanding is that the laws of physics and chemistry and every other law of science did not exist until after the big bang. Like only a few of the smallest units of time after, but nonetheless there were no natural laws in existence when the big bang initially began. So, some might say that situation qualifies as a supernatural event.

"But my understanding is that the laws of physics and chemistry and every other law of science did not exist until after the big bang."

Excellent point.




And, we've come so far that physicists admit to a 'leap of faith'....the multiverse!

Berlinski comments:

"1. Dawkins, among others, has embraced the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours. Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.

2. Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability.”



Any who have not read Physicist Lightman's article in Harper's:

ARCHIVE / 2011 / December
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Article — From the December 2011 issue
The Accidental Universe
Science’s crisis of faith
- See more at: The Accidental Universe | Harper's Magazine
The Accidental Universe | Harper's Magazine

 

[PoliticalChic]

The co-author of Darwin's theory was Alfred Wallace.

Unlike Darwin, Wallace believed a Creator guided the process of evolution, playing a key role throughout history in the inbreathing of spirit in mankind and bestowing mental faculties to humans. Wallace called his advocacy for a Creator his "little heresy" because of the opposition it drew from the scientific community….Wallace is something of a 'missing link' between early evolutionary theory and today's Intelligent Design movement: Alfred Russel Wallace - Conservapedia

 

[PoliticalChic]

Science can't "explain" fantasy and superstition.

Berlinski "The Devil's Delusion"....
"Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment: “‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” Lewontin explains why one must accept absurdities: “…we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

"Before one accepts the support of such “smart scientists” simply because of their vocation, why not question this scientific atheism as merely yet another foolish intellectual fad, successor to academic Marxism, or feminism, or the various doctrines of multicultural tranquility? Could not the rise of militant atheism be a reaction, albeit a cautious- even pusillanimous- one, to the violence of Islamic religiosity?"