God is in the Brain, Sort of

Douglas Fields makes some decent points throughout his short Huffington Post piece, "Is God in the Brain?" However, roughly half way through he ends up giving in to various common fallacies. Despite pointing out earlier that science and religion take opposite approaches he weakens an otherwise decent post with such nonsensical statements as, "Science and religion are different worlds, but fundamentally they are not antagonistic..." First, we only have one world. Even if you take this metaphorically it is still silly. He points out in an earlier sentence that religion relies on faith. How can baseless opinions be used to accurately "explore and comprehend the world around us"? In the second place, if two approaches are opposites by nature, which Fields does imply, how can they not be antagonistic?

Shortly after this he adds that, "One would not look to scripture for the secrets of subatomic particles, but having discovered nuclear energy through the scientific method, one would not look to science for answers about how to use it." Really? Without sound scientific information you want to create policies concerning something that is potentially lethal? It seems to me that a greater understanding of how such particles work is what you need to figure out how to use them.

He ends his piece in a tone that is nearly the opposite of its opening. He seems to give up all pretense at critical thought for the sake of an overly sentimental notion devoid of any merit.

"Yes, Mr. President, you can see God in the brain; just as you can see it in the hand of a child or in a stunningly beautiful sunset that steals one's breath."  Actually, the beauty argument for God's existence is among the weakest. It has been picked apart and trashed so thoroughly that it still amazes me than anyone with half a brain tries to trot it out so regularly. As for the Brain, yes you can see God there but only in terms of how we construct and use concepts. This, of course, makes God as real as Puff the Magic Dragon or Papa Smurf. Mention either of these two characters to anyone my age or older and odds are they know exactly what is being talked about. They could probably give a more detailed description of either of them than they could for God. They may even have some rather warm and fuzzy feelings about them. Does that mean they are more real than God?