Managing Truth

Religion, like science, is fuelled by the sense that there is 'something out there'. The 'something' is known to both the scientific and the religious community as The Truth - whether we are called toward it by it, or strive for it with our own wits, it is our justification for what we do. The one equation, the Theory of Everything, the completion of that long list of all the facts there are to know about the universe, progress in the never-ending pursuit of 'pure' knowledge, or God, the pursuit of the elusive Goodness, or Peace, or oneness. 

Ask why we want to know how the universe works, or what value there is in scientific knowledge, and the answer is obvious: scientific knowledge lets us do stuff. If science had not given us things - measles vaccines, jet aircraft, microwave ovens, poison gas, automobiles and assault rifles, i.e., technology - we would think of it the way we think of Philosophy; a bunch of academics sitting around arguing about what the meaning of an 'atom' is. 

Science is credible, important, demands recognition and priority, because it allows us to do things, and have things (with which we can do more things). Thus the question 'how' can we do it lends itself almost entirely to science. The question 'should' we do it, or 'why should we', is harder to answer scientifically. Give us your goal and we can help you reach it. Ask us what your goal should be and we say can only say to "learn more facts". Because if we say anything else, such as, "enhance human flourishing" you will ask us why you should value that, and then what will we say? 

What will we do when we have all this knowledge, when we know so much? Probably the same things we are doing now, only more so. Even faster travel, and travel even farther. Even more efficient ways to make war. Entertainment that is even more entertaining. Stronger medicines than the medicines we have now (and stronger poisons, of course).

Science has the sense of something big going on in the universe and says what is going on is knowable, reducible, pin-down-able, intellectually own-able, and therefore finite. It is a matter of listing all the facts we know. Literalists who absolutize their religion are in kind with the scientific impulse of the knowable: explicable, hard fact, controllable, own-able. Science is about managing. We know so that we can do. When we absolutize religion we are mimicking the scientific need to manage.