Deconstructing Scientific Dogma

Having been a relatively recent pastor and theologian in evangelical Christianity, I am well aware of deconstruction. I have in fact deconstructed much of my former belief system. That is terribly painful for some but was less painful for me because I had deconstructed before, and I allowed life circumstances to bring me back, but not full circle. The things that I learned and believed from my first deconstruction, many of them, I kept locked away, but I did not voice them because I wanted to fit in and work within the evangelical framework. One of my reasons was to attempt to reform and reshape Christian dogma into a more realistic and more palatable place.

It is my belief that much of scientific dogma is a reaction to Christianity. The age of reason liberated people from the constraints of religious dogma, but the process of liberation created a dogma that was just as ridged as Christian dogma to make sure that religious dogma would not gain a strong hold again. This resulted in denying any kind of supernatural or paranormal phenomenon. More than that, scorn was placed on any in science that would investigate or give credence to anything labeled pseudo-science. This included parapsychology, extra-sensory perception, and anything that could be connected with the spiritual plane.

Not only did academic science ridicule individuals that would look investigate the paranormal, the actively damaged the careers of anyone daring to step outside of the accepted scope of materialism. They had concluded that the material world happened independently of any outside force and that even consciousness arose from materialism.

Of course, there were intellectual giants that did not give into the materialist physicalist dogma, but they were few in comparison to all those in scientific endeavors. One such giant was Carl Jung, who held that one of the most important parts of psychology was humanities relationship to the numinous. Many of the physicists that developed quantum mechanics were bold in stating that there was most definitely a supernatural aspect to reality.

Over the millennia, Greek Philosophy, especially Platonism and Neo-Platonism stated that the universe at its core foundation was mental and ideal. Over the last one hundred- and fifty-years Newtonian Classical Mechanics has given way to space time and ultimately the micro world of quantum physics. These seem incompatible to scientific theory, and yet, it is quantum physics that is responsible for so many inventions and upgrades. You often hear physicists say that they cannot explain the weirdness of the quantum world but only that it works.

Philosophers have struggled with the hard problem of consciousness. The cognitive scientists have been unable to identify how we know the difference between the taste of chocolate and vanilla within the brain. They are unable to deal with experience. There is a rise in philosophers that have a panpsychist view of the nature of reality. The biologist, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has theorized that there are morphic fields of resonance which are responsible for mental telepathy. It is not just in humans but in the animal kingdom as well.

Dr. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist from the University of California at Irvine is working on a theory that consciousness is the foundation of reality. He is making progress mathematically using evolutionary game theory. In 2022 the Nobel Prize in Physics was given to three men who have proven that the universe is not locally real. The latest in physics believes that space-time is doomed and that there is a deeper reality out of which space-time arises.

The public is led to believe that everything in science is tangible, measurable, and repeatable. And while that may be true of the basic aspects of our science, it is not true at the foundational level of reality. In that area there are theories and hypotheses and there is a wide difference of opinion. They simply agree to disagree. The quantum level works for a multitude of advancements in technology, and yet it is still a mystery.

I can understand why they stay away from what they call woo, but that is not the same thing as ridiculing woo. The fact is, they ridicule woo! The question becomes why do they ridicule woo? I think the answer is, if they give any room for the supernatural, if they give any room for consciousness to be foundational to reality, they establish religion’s role in human philosophy. I don’t think it has to be the case. They can embrace the possibility of consciousness being foundational without validating religious dogma. But the fact is, they have developed scientific dogma to eliminate the return of religious dogma and in my view it needs to be deconstructed.