Archive Home Page I agree with a lot of what you say. Particularily the part about science not becoming a religion, though I think some might make a case that science while not a religion per se, is now based on a rather narrow set of metaphysical tenents, primarily as now defined by the Logical Positivists of the early 20th century (all those questions on what is metaphysics have forced me to do some reading :)
Most particularily I agree with you on the part about respecting diversity of metaphysical, spiritual, and religious beliefs. In the middle east we see three good peoples basically hating each other over "differing (cultural) inflections of the same idea of a single paternal God" (Campbell's words).
I for one love a good provable fact. However cosmology has moved well beyond the realm of observable provable phenomenon. The theories regarding creation and black holes are it seems to me are very speculative and built upon a lot of assumptions about physical reality (those assumptions primarily being based upon "proven" models that work for a set of provable facts, very often with unexplained exceptions). We've built logical construct upon logical construct and from those constructs build new constructs to explain the things that the old constructs can't explain (the 90% missing matter for example seems to me to be a BIG problem with some of the old theories, yet rather than starting from scratch we often doggedly hold on to the old construct). And even when we do start from scratch we limit the questions we're allowed to ask to "the proper domain of science". It seems to me that "imagination" is going to be what it takes to answer the creation questions, and maybe, just maybe, what Hubble shows us will give us a new perspective on the nature of physical reality. That however is purely speculation a priori.
Maybe someday science will finally learn all there is to know about this universe, and we'll still not know why we exist. It may be that we'll never know the "reasons" we exist. Maybe we're just the random productions of an endless phenomenon long since abandoned by it creator (if indeed there ever was one). Those are possibilities. I do however have a bias and unquestionalbly have "beliefs" in this regard that say this is not the case.
Thanks for your considered thoughts. I'm learning a lot here.
I also love those "free floating, unprovable intellectual constructs, beautiful as they are" that while not always rational seems to point to some place of mystery or hidden insight. Here's another, just for fun:
"It's not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I posess worlds. By space the universe encompases me like an atom, by thought I comprehend the world." - Blaise Pascal