Yes, let's separate science and state. I suppose that would mean terminating these global public-private partnerships that aim to establish transhumanism as the one world religion. Your concept of a 'will to incorporation' has me thinking that the Enlightenment ultimately replaced one official religion with another, and how difficult it is to break from this 'eternal return' or 'wheel of rebirth' pattern that societies go through. I'm with you that the stories and myths comprising so much of our literary, spiritual, and intellectual heritage do nourish the inner life and need to be renewed. Surely there's a way to create the sort of pluralistic society where the material and the numinous can coexist. I wonder if such an idea of the holy can be recovered and innovated on by looking for inspiration in the ancient past. Apparently there was no real division between science and religion, for example, in Greek antiquity. So saith Arthur Koestler in The Sleepwalkers. He describes the "all-embracing vision" of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, uniting "body, mind, and spirit in an inspired and luminous synthesis" . . . Then again, Pythagoras' disciples believed his authority was absolute, like that of a god: "'the master said so' was their law."
Been reading Mary Midgley (thanks to Chris Bateman at Stranger Worlds: https://strangerworlds.substack.com/?utm_source=homepage_recommendations&utm_campaign=1097928), and she suggests that the conversation about things non-science do not simply stop because they're not science. And since science is not up to the task of discussing things metaphysical and spiritual, languages that relate to the world as not merely matter and energy are necessary... and still being used. She seems to further suggest that where such conversations are shut down, the problem is a desire to appear "scientific." She mentions a "dismissiveness" that is detrimental.
There's also this wonderful interview with Tom Holland, Stephen Meyer and Douglas Murray that touches on the subject you bring up here about science and scientism being an outgrowth of religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2u54a1FL28&t=804s . . . around the 13-14 minute mark. As you can see from my article, the history on that subject is pretty straightforward. The scientific project (in the positive sense) comes from the same positive impulse that gave rise to religion.
Fascinating conversation. It shows that science can also lead to profoundly spiritual discoveries, especially when Meyer describes his and many other scientists' "intellectual conversion to some form of theism," one cosmologist saying that he came to a belief in god not in spite of the scientific work he'd done, but because of it.
Yes, let's separate science and state. I suppose that would mean terminating these global public-private partnerships that aim to establish transhumanism as the one world religion. Your concept of a 'will to incorporation' has me thinking that the Enlightenment ultimately replaced one official religion with another, and how difficult it is to break from this 'eternal return' or 'wheel of rebirth' pattern that societies go through. I'm with you that the stories and myths comprising so much of our literary, spiritual, and intellectual heritage do nourish the inner life and need to be renewed. Surely there's a way to create the sort of pluralistic society where the material and the numinous can coexist. I wonder if such an idea of the holy can be recovered and innovated on by looking for inspiration in the ancient past. Apparently there was no real division between science and religion, for example, in Greek antiquity. So saith Arthur Koestler in The Sleepwalkers. He describes the "all-embracing vision" of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, uniting "body, mind, and spirit in an inspired and luminous synthesis" . . . Then again, Pythagoras' disciples believed his authority was absolute, like that of a god: "'the master said so' was their law."
Been reading Mary Midgley (thanks to Chris Bateman at Stranger Worlds: https://strangerworlds.substack.com/?utm_source=homepage_recommendations&utm_campaign=1097928), and she suggests that the conversation about things non-science do not simply stop because they're not science. And since science is not up to the task of discussing things metaphysical and spiritual, languages that relate to the world as not merely matter and energy are necessary... and still being used. She seems to further suggest that where such conversations are shut down, the problem is a desire to appear "scientific." She mentions a "dismissiveness" that is detrimental.
There's also this wonderful interview with Tom Holland, Stephen Meyer and Douglas Murray that touches on the subject you bring up here about science and scientism being an outgrowth of religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2u54a1FL28&t=804s . . . around the 13-14 minute mark. As you can see from my article, the history on that subject is pretty straightforward. The scientific project (in the positive sense) comes from the same positive impulse that gave rise to religion.
Fascinating conversation. It shows that science can also lead to profoundly spiritual discoveries, especially when Meyer describes his and many other scientists' "intellectual conversion to some form of theism," one cosmologist saying that he came to a belief in god not in spite of the scientific work he'd done, but because of it.