Arguably, science is a product of religion.
Quite so - an excellent point.
And may we add that what people very often forget about belief, is that it is belief
only. Because they believe, for whatever reason, that
X is
true, they act as though
X is a
known fact. But knowledge and belief are entirely different; they are worlds apart.
We would wish all self-styled "believers" then to place more emphasis on the simple fact that it
is mere
belief with which they are concerned, and most definitely
not something known. The various Creeds should all include a new line to the effect that "of course all this is entirely unknown to us."
We do not know whether non-Christian religions such as Hindooism Islamism Zoroastrianism and the countless paganisms do in fact describe themselves as
beliefs only. What can other Members tell us about this question? Do those non-Christians admit as the Christians do to not knowing?
It is our view that what is
important is
knowledge, whereas belief is a way of passing time while waiting for knowledge to come to us (whether in this world or in a next). Belief gives men no
authority for
action in the way that knowledge does. If Jesus Christ were to turn up at Jack Straw's Castle one day, and it could be shown with certainty that it was really He, all mere beliefs (Hindooism, Islamism, etc. etc. - again, assuming that they
are beliefs) would then evaporate in an instant would they not?
Having said that, we should note the existence of the rather rare "argument from enthusiasm," where the thinker simply exclaims "How could it be otherwise!" Surprisingly it is found in many modern works of mathematics and even physics, which use symmetry as a prop for the "knowledge" they impart. The method is well described in Vincent McCarthy's book "
Quest for a Philosophical Jesus," where he says "The thinker thinks a thought and his very enthusiasm seems to constitute sufficient - even 'empirical' - proof." Indeed Schelling, in the introduction to his 1797 "
Outlines of a Philosophy of Nature," observes that, in contrast to dogmatism, there is in his genetic philosophy no longer a separation between experience and speculation.
All that forms a complicating factor, as of course do also the nature-spirits of the pagan polytheists, perhaps primitive and perhaps not. It may well be the case that certain myths are
known with more true certainty than our modern "forces" "dimensions" and "times." And all that is to say nothing of the Greeks, nor for instance of Petronius's "
Fear made the Gods" - fear, that is, precisely of the
un-known.
