Humanistrus

The experimental science that began to emerge in the 17th century would eventually challenge many of the everyday assumptions of the Christian West, including the notion of an Earth-centered cosmos. But few of the great men of early modern science viewed themselves as foes of religion. Few questioned the special status of the soul or its boon companion, the mind. In fact, prominent among the shapers of the scientific worldview was the French mathematician and philosopher Ren� Descartes, whose most enduring contribution to modern thought was his argument that reality consisted of two entirely different substances: material substance (res extensa) and thinking substance (res cogitans). But how did these two different substances interact? According to Descartes, the bodily organs sent perceptions and other information via the brain to the mind, located in the pineal gland in the middle of the head. Reflecting upon these data, the mind then made decisions and directed the body's responses, in words or deeds. This dualistic picture of the body-mind relationship would later come to be attacked as the "ghost in the machine" argument. But for centuries, Christians and others found Cartesian dualism a reassuring and reasonable explanation.

If consciousness, particularly higher-order consciousness, exists only to respond more effectively to information in service to life, then we are nothing more than Darwinian survival machines. Other notions of value, purpose, freedom, and individuality-notions as important to many secular humanists as to religious people-are reduced to, at best, reassuring illusions of possible survival value. Other, more religiously grounded notions of spirit and soul get even shorter shrift in this reductionist view.

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items are from between 25 Sep 2007 & 29 Mar 2008.