Given the excellent response to my two recent posts suggesting that agnosticism in religion was not an intellectually defensible position, but that an examination of what being agnostic means (in various contexts) is revealing as to what it means to believe something, or to know something, or be certain about something, a part three beckoned. I don't want to individually respond to points that were made, in what has been an enthusiastic and a very thoughtful, and fruitful, debate, but rather develop a couple of the themes.
In the first place it is worth noting that the "atheism as a religion" misunderstanding is alive and well. I was accused of demanding that people believed exactly what I believed, and therefore was no better than a religious leader like Falwell. I want to respond to this not in order, as it were, to clear my good name, but to make a more general point. While in many countries in the world I would be killed for being an atheist, and in others I would be ostracized, and in many more I would either legally or practically be prevented from running for political office, the reverse is not true. I don't care what personal beliefs people have, and I have friends with a spectrum of beliefs that we agree to disagree on. Now it is true that I think the world would be a better place if all six billion of us were atheists, but it is clear that I can't make that happen anytime in this millennium. Note that I don't think that the world would be a perfect place, or even a good place, human beings would still fight as a result of economics, or culture, or history, or skin color, or psychology, or nationalism, but at least the lack of religion among the mix would make for a slightly more rational approach to social and political questions. Listen to fundamentalists of all religions talking these days, and you will find yourself listening to psychotic thought processes that would get them put into a Cuckoo's Nest if they didn't have the get-out-of-the-asylum-free card of religion.
In the second place I am not suggesting that science knows everything. Even making such a suggestion reveals a misunderstanding of science, which can never know everything, by its very nature. But to say something like, well, science has only just discovered dark matter, so how do you know god isn't out there too, beyond the reach, either temporarily or permanently, of Earth-bound science, is to misunderstand again the nature of science and, indeed, the nature of religion. It is a commonplace that early societies on every continent, while understanding much about the natural world around them, nevertheless were completely mystified by phenomena such as thunder and lightning, the seasons, earthquakes, tides, madness, comets, life, death. In addition, because they knew, and knew they knew, so little of the world geographically, there was a great deal of unknown world where dragons might exist, and cannibals certainly did. Out of all these known unknowns came religion, and I don't think we have to look any further at religion as an evolutionary product, or hard wired into human psychology (though some aspects of it for individuals are certainly genetic).
Now what science has done in the last few hundred years (following on from much older work by Greeks and Arabs) is to work out, sometimes in broad terms, often in very fine detail, how our world (in the widest sense) functions. The whole framework is in place, through the work of scientists in all of the disciplines of astronomy, physics, biology, chemistry, geology and so on. It is certainly the case that new discoveries are being made all the time, and in the case of astronomy and physics, big discoveries. Big questions like is string theory the explanation of the structure of matter for example, and how did matter come into being during the Big Bang, and is the universe infinite, as well as smaller questions about the exact nature of particular stars and galaxies or the history of Mars and Venus. But that doesn't mean that if we manage to make an even bigger and better telescope we will suddenly discover god lurking behind some dark matter, or sitting on a quasar just beyond the reach of current telescopes. I thought we had gone well beyond the concept of heaven being "up there" beyond the stars, but it seems not when you read some comments from religious people. Science could have discovered "god" but not by building bigger telescopes. I'll come back to that, but first a bit of a digression.
It has been said that there is no such thing as medicine and "alternative medicine" there is simply medicine that works. That is if there is anything among all the crazy beliefs about homeopathy, and naturopathy, and iridology, and Chinese herbs, and reflexology, and crystals, then it will, when demonstrated to be effective, be adopted by mainstream medicine. This stuff isn't rejected because of stubbornness, but because in order to know whether a treatment is effective it has to be scientifically tested. Mere belief doesn't cut it when it comes to cures for cancer, or making the lame walk. Similarly, one of my respondents noted that there is really no such thing as the supernatural. There is the natural world, and then if something appeared from beyond the natural world, as it were, it would be incorporated into an enlargement of our understanding of the limits of the natural world (this is essentially the case with dark matter, for example).
Now we can return to the question of scientists finding god (so to speak - I don't, by the way, believe that you can be both religious and a scientist, but that's just one of my many prejudices). What 300 or so years of science has given us is not just an understanding of how individual parts of our world work - how the brain functions, how the solar system was formed, the history of the Grand Canyon, the chemistry of our bodies, gravitational forces, and so on - but how all of these individual studies fit together. When science began it began as a single subject - natural philosophy (as distinct from religion). Over time it was split into more and more subjects as the amount of knowledge became far too much for any one brain to handle, and people became more and more specialized. But these different subjects, astronomy, biology, physics and the rest don't operate in isolation to each other. Nor do they contradict each other. They are, quite clearly, all reporting back on the same universe. Nothing uncovered by the geologist contradicts what the biologist is working on; the chemist is unsurprised by theories on the composition and function of distant stars; the physicist has no quarrel with the climatologist; the psychologist and physiologist are comfortable dinner companions; the botanist and archeologist can lie down together in an excavation.
Now, in a god-driven universe none of that could be true. By now cracks would be appearing as tens of thousands of scientists work away at finer and finer details. At some point someone would have said - "Just a minute, this experiment isn't working, there is some unknown factor coming into play". At some point a biologist would find a species with no evolutionary history; a doctor would find a miraculous recovery; a geologist would find that the Earth was only 6000 years old; a chemist would find a mixture of chemicals that behaved in some inexplicable way. In short the supernatural would begin to appear, as the whole natural structure described by science was revealed as being affected by some outside agency. And then the Jerry Falwells of this world (if he was to come back to life) could say "I told you so", and the scientists would eagerly set about trying to uncover the nature of this mysterious outside agency that had previously only revealed itself to Mr Falwell.
Hasn't happened of course, and we are at least 100 years beyond it happening. It ain't going to happen now. The last gasp of an attempt to find it is the phony science of "Intelligent Design", and the craziness of the young Grand Canyon and the humans with dinosaurs on Noah's Ark. These are people who are pretending to be scientists who have found evidences of christianity, processes that don't fit with the mainstream scientific body of knowledge. Just like the homeopathists, who pretend to have found cures that are beyond mainstream medicine. But there is no such thing as alternative medicine, and no such thing as alternative science, only science that can be tested and proved.
So, to come back to the main point of this series. There is no alternative body of learning which points to a god of any kind - there really is just the natural world. There is therefore nowhere for religious agnostics to hang their hats.
And finally, as something of an afterthought, just as I pointed out that one could be agnostic about UFOs visiting Earth as a subset of being agnostic about life elsewhere in the universe (or you could believe in life elsewhere and be agnostic about visits), so you could be agnostic about the existence of Christ as a real person as a subset of atheism about god. The evidence in favor of Christ being a real person is very poor, but evidence against is also thin. I'm probably agnostic on this topic, but I can understand being convinced for or against.
I promise this is the last in the series, and I hope you have all enjoyed the debate the exploration has created. Next time, for something completely different - why Darwin didn't create evolution.
Thomas Huxley asked "If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?" Why, on the Watermelon Blog, of course, Thomas.
Follow David Horton on Twitter: www.twitter.com/watermelon_man
What should we make of people who spend their entire life leading people in this game where the smarter and more open minded get it, and the rest of the flock doesn't even know about the rules. We indoctrinate children with very literal stories of god and spirits, but as minds develop gods need to become more mystical and abstract else reality takes hold. Many never let go of the childish notions.
These stealth atheist leaders must be convinced that we'd be lost without our myths. They've been and important part of all civilizations as far back as we can know. Religions never develop apart from context; they are always products of their times. I don't think we'll ever be without them It seems to me that most badly need evolving; but context is changing too rapidly for them to keep up.
I wish Zanti (I believe in the myth) would explain all this to us, instead of just telling us that we have a cartoonish notion of faith.
See muse, now that's what *deep* is about. And how to express it with eloquence.
But absolutely no empirical evidence of god exists. Don't most agnostics agree with this? (If evidence could be shown, no one would be agnostic OR atheist.) So an agnostic must admit that what he or she is withholding judgment on is nothing more than a figment of the imagination - a chimera. God is purely an invention of the human mind. So being agnostic about god is equivalent to reserving judgment on the existence of Santa Claus, Little Red Riding Hood, and dragons.
So what drives agnostics to be agnostic? Is it fear - the fear to finally let go and take the last spiritual steps to atheism?
In a recent video called "The Four Horsemen" (all thanks to HeevenSteeven for directing me to it on YouTube), atheist authors Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris discuss the fact that many clergy of various faiths either don't believe in god or have an understanding of the god concept totally different from what they present to their "flocks". Thus, they perpetrate a falsehood - they know or suspect the truth, but cannot or will not admit it. I think agnostics are like this - they recognize how empty the god concept is (i.e., any attempt to discuss god inevitably leads to dogma and contradiction), but they cannot or will not admit it.
How about it, all you agnostics? Why are you a fence-sitter about totally made up nonsense?
Oh, and if any of you believe there IS possible evidence that gods exist, please do enlighten us. I anticipate at least some teleological arguments (i.e., arguments from design). But be forewarned - my debunking pen is sharpened and ready.
Even tho it seems like I am posting comments here on Huffpo at all hours of the day, I actually do have a job. And three young children. Busy, busy, busy.
(Tried to post this yesterday - please forgive it appears twice.)
This raises the question of whether it's worth my time arguing with someone who would say something so ignorant. Probably not.
There are some great ideas about what the stuff is, if it exists, but because it doesn't interact (except gravitationally) it's *very* difficult to deal with experimentally.
And, oddly enough, it doesn't have too much to do with David's topic. (I would have suggested his title tie in to 'His Dark Materials', instead.)
I'm going to read what over at the watermelon blog, but I must make a confession, I was trying to hook you, because you always say 90% of dark matter. but ya didn't bite.
Anyway, it is supposed to be (I don't have a clue as to what is true) 75% dark matter, 23% dark energy (whatever that is) and 2% of matter as we know it. ??? who knows?
When it comes to math, it's such a strange language (I call it a language because it represents concepts really) standards of measurement are really quite abstract, I mean really, a quart, or a liter, a yard or a meter, the numerals themselves could be changed, would not make a difference except, that no one would be able to understand one another. Strange that. Agape.
Einstein declared that the speed of light was constant - doesn't seem to be in actual fact and he ducked the issue of what he called "spooky action at a distance" altogether. Now Google "Quantum Teleportation". I dare you and try to explain to me how that is possible while maintaining the Standard Model...
Many of the scientists I work with, NASA folks and others, are Christians or some other religion and have found or are exploring the relationship between their beliefs and their field of interest.
As for me, I choose not to believe anything and prefer to say "I don't know". I have actively sought to purge the words " I believe" from my vocabulary. "Belief" is for people who are impatient or gullible and unable to wait to find an answer.
I have also learned that many Christian believers don't even know what they believe. They can't tell you anything about the historical times around Jesus, who the Roman emperor was or who was the king of Judea.
Many believe things that aren't even in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the "rightous" dead will ascend to heaven. What it says is that God will come to Earth and bring the dead to life in a corporeal existance here on Earth. No pearly gates, no floating on clouds.. so when someone says to me that they are Christian, it doesn't mean much to me other than they appear to be uncritical and impatient.
Beyond that.... I don't know.
It is true that relativity conflicts with any kind of realist interpretation. But it does not seem to come out particularly in this case which turns out to be slower than light communication.
On the more philosophic point, I don't see the point of eliminating the word "belief" from ones vocabulary. It is a perfectly good word. And it does not imply the kind of certainty that might be undercut by any inconsistencies in science.
Belief is a useful word for explaining behavior. Someone who truly did not believe anything would be in a constant state of stasis never able to favor one action over another.
In most of this thread I have been giving reasons for objecting to a dogmatic strain of atheism. But there is nothing better about a defense of agnosticism on too broad grounds. Claiming to be agnostic on everything just has the effect of cheapening agnosticism.
I have been trying to defend the rationality of agnosticism. But that is not meant to cover a view that says I am agnostic about God because I am agnostic about everything. That is not more rational than dogmatic atheism, just more pointless.
For someone interested in rationality, the drive to rule out the rationality of other positions should be less attractive than the drive to prove them false. After all, even a little experience with the world would tell one the degree to which we all start with world views that are which themselves cannot be fully supported rationally, and therefore what it is reasonable for us to accept from such a starting point varies greatly.
Part of being rational should be dealing with the world as it is and not as it should be. Horton notes above that he does not believe that someone can be religious and a scientist. The many religious scientists should have cured him of this prejudice. Although there may be some convincing abstract argument to this effect, but obviously it would be a curiosity along the lines of proofs that bumblebees can't fly.
In practice, contrary to what Horton claims above, sciences are often in conflict with each other. Quantum mechanics seems to violate relativity if one takes it as a description of the world rather than just of what we see. Of course scientific advances fit together more than they don't. And when they don't scientists tend to assume future discoveries will fix the problem (that is actually how dark matter was first discovered) or that eventually the theories we have will advance in ways that will take care of the contradictions.
All of this seems to mean that a rational person should be loathe to claim that other rational people cannot take different positions. This is not to say that rationally anything goes. That would be the death of rationality. But it does mean that in understanding peoples views, and trying to dismiss them, we need to be very careful to discover the actual point at which their beliefs diverge from ones own. Otherwise the case for whether their beliefs are rational is hopeless.
Normally I steer clear of religious-oriented debates (having had my fill at Sam Harris' discussion board). But I thought I would weigh in here with some radical thoughts.
First a word on 'beliefs'. I contend that the only thing going on in any person's head IS belief. What we call knowledge is really just a single person's representation of their perception of reality and both representations (in neural tissue) and perceptions are fraught with noise. Some people have a better capacity to 'know' than others. One of the biggest problems people have in developing a reasonable representation of reality in their heads is that prior held beliefs can and do create filters in perception that further distort their representations of the reality of their environment.
Science and the scientific approach to perceiving reality have had the best record in history for producing shared perceptions and representations that lead to explanation and prediction. So I personally count science as a better way to know what is knowable. But that's just me (and many others!)
Now the radical part. I have long thought that beliefs in a supernatural world and miracles and such represent the foibles of a species in transition. Homo sapiens is an unfinished work of evolution. Beliefs in agents behind unexplained phenomena or mis-perceived events is a hold over from the transition from a minimally minded ape to a 'theory-of-mind' holding, story-telling ape. While I share David's thoughts about what would result in a better world (sans beliefs in supernatural stuff), I also think it will require more evolution and selection for brain areas involved in judgment (e.g., the polar prefrontal cortex) and wisdom.
I also suspect that that further evolution will be mediated by human choice and technologies. Evolution has produced evolvable systems and now second-order evolvable systems. That is, systems that enter into the process of their own evolution!
One day (perhaps 100k years from now) no one will believe in the mystical. They will, however enjoy the mysteries.
V.
Eloquently express indeed. Ya think we got another 100,000 years, now that's the most optimistic thing I've ever heard.
From your mouth to God's ear. :)
Agape, (Love in fellowship of our shared fragile Humanity)
After the bottleneck, expansion, efflorescence, diversification, and speciation. Think post-K-T boundary event 65mya. It's all evolution!
V.
Stripped down the argument is of the following form:
Religion developed because of the great gaps in our scientific knowledge. Therefore any justification of religion must be found in science. There is no justification of religion in science. And so all rational people should be atheists. (If someone thinks the argument part of the post works differently, they are free to try to summarize it more accurately. But I have given the part of the post that seem intended to do the work).
But the first claim is conceivably true but certainly not established. Belief in God has always been equally connected to concerns about politics, morality, and purpose. And to the degree it has concerned scientific matters it tends to be as much with questions as to why there is something rather than nothing, a question that science can't really get at, more than questions of under what natural laws the world operates.
But if people's reason for being religious or agnostic is not to fill in the gaps in science, then the argument gives them no reason to change their veiws about God. Horton is saying that they should not believe on any other grounds. But the basis of this argument is a contentious claim for which no serious argument is given.
Zanti claimed in one of his comments to the last post that atheists should be sceptics. There is certainly an historical link. Although there is no logical link between belief there is no God, and a sceptical attitude towards belief. There have been plenty of dogmatic atheists.
But the atheists carrying the fight are trying to make the case that they are not atheists first, but people who start with reason and wind up with atheism as a conclusion. And I certainly think that is the right approach.
But, and I suspect this was Zanti's point, if one wants to make that case, ones arguments should reflect the greater importance of reason over atheism to ones arguments. That is to say that the atheist who claims to ground his atheism in reason has a greater duty to focus on good arguments rather than rhetoric precisely because he is trying to establish the importance of reason.
That is why the presence of rhetorical tricks and other poor reasoning techniques seems worse in these cases. To take the first example above, Horton tries to establish that athiesm is not a religion because there are some religious countries that are intolerant to atheism. But there have been few atheist countries, and my belief is that they have all been intolerant to theism. Of course the atheists are no doubt ready to jump up and shout, but that is communism, that is not my kind of atheism. But once they sit down, it should be obvious that religious people in the US respond to Horton's argument by jumping up and shouting that is a different brand of religion, my religion is not so intolerant. And they are right. Horton's argument is just a rhetorical trick here. It is not the central argument to his post. But it is worrisome that he chooses to soften the path to his actual argument by beginning with a rhetorical trick to get people in the right mood to accept his actual argument.
First, please allow me to say thank you for this most exciting series of essays/posts, especially culminating with what I personally consider an *excellent* concise and Spot-on essay.
That said, I believe sometimes words get in the way of concepts, and as you clearly point out many are working from their specialties trying to tie it all together, which is a work in progress. Defining terms and the need for disambiguation seems to be of import in this regard.
Personally, I'm working on Logic, (the science of reason) which involves psychology and the cognitive sciences including neuroscience, that's why I enjoy Sam Harris's work, among others. Yet, as you so aptly point out, it must jive with all the other sciences. I'm of the mind that everything can be reasoned the answers are just awaiting our discovery.
I don't know if I'll ever work out a formula for my logic paradigm, it's locked in my head and getting it down to being useful for others may be hard to fulfill, without question. Yet, I will not be detoured, one can see it working, so it must be definable. The hard part, is, what goes through our brains in a nanosecond can hardly be put into speech and requires volumes of text.
But, I must say, you sure did an outstanding essay, that covers it very well.
I don't understand skepticism, much, yet in some ways it mirrors, sophism, and my logic paradigm has problems with both, although I am aware of the need for both. Logic (the science of reason) I feel should do away with such antiquated persuasions. Ones time is better spent on the empirically obvious, especially when taking in that which all the sciences have thus far already provided, especially, the cognitive science of the last few years, which has move expotentially.
My sincere thanks for your essay and input. Agape.
PS, I go to your watermelon blog, but the text there is too hard for me to read because of my dyslexia, your blog is aesthetically pleasing though.
Regards
David
I was so offended by your George Bush impersonation in the first post ("You're either an atheist, or you're one of 'them'") that I couldn't even read the whole piece. Then I missed part 2, but I did read all of this post, and I must say nothing you wrote today persuaded me that agnosticism in religion is "not an intellectually defensible position". Indeed, I believe I saw various holes and hidden assumptions in your "reasoning", but I have no wish to debate those issues again.
You're free to believe what you wish. I still don't think you can PROVE (in a geometric or scientific proof) that there is NO god. So one can believe there is a god, or one can believe there is no god, but there is no definitive proof for either position. I think yours is the "intellectually indefensible" position. You're using your formidable intellect to construct a sophistic argument destined to alienate people who would otherwise be your political allies.
Does god exist? does God exist? Doesn't matter to me, but if you insist that I must accept your belief in order to intellectual credibility, then I'm likely to relegate your opinion to same dustbin as the "religious" fundamentalists.
What does the truth-in-fact of what Dr. Horton says have to do with the manor in which he expressed it? The main point being, not the conversion of believers, but what is in-fact the reality of our existence and the essence of Humanity.
If you want to preach to believers find yourself a pulpit, and do it anyway you see fit, but don't start crying when they call you a religioner.
Personally, I'm a non-believer expounding on what I've found, nothing more. I only challenge others to "sapere aude", and find their own way.
The Bu$h-ism Dr, Horton used was appropo to being agnostic, especially considering His disambiguation in the second post. In that context I thought it quite clever.
There have been killings and repression for those believing in a god when the state says He (or whatever) does not exist; see the USSR and Maoist China. People can use any excuse, including religion, to be horrible to each other.
The choice for complete empiricism is a philosophical choice no different than the embrace of the possibility of the supernatural. There are zillions of religions out there, and more than two secular philosophies. It shouldn't be said that the initial choice, leading one to religion or leading one to non-religion, is freighted with the baggage of all the creeds attached to it; I would assume that most atheists do not feel that Leninism, Randian Objectivism, and the Hobbesian, amputation-loving Legalism of the ancient Chinese philosopher Han Feizi are necessary outcomes of non-belief, just as the Inquisition does not mean that the whole of religion is flawed.
This makes your argument fallacy, on its face.
As long a "faith" is the only prerequisite and guidance comes by way of a type of spiritual osmosis there is a BIG problem. That problem is irrationalism, which by the very nature of it, is emotional and an unsound base to build upon. Unless, of course one could provide *some*, *any* weight to their emotional mythic argument. In other words, ya just cannot build on thin air. (with the notable exception of fictional screeds, Hollywood movies or TV shows)
These seem to be rather different things, although one can see why the second would be contained in the first, there does not seem to be any reason why the first entails the second. And as it happens that seems to be Akhmed's point.
So while you accuse him of ignoring intolerant and not rational religions, despite the fact that he discusses them explicitely. Your whole response to him seems to involve ignoring what he says and assigning him a view that he gives no hint of having.
This is an oft repeated claim that since atheists hold no belief in deities, it's a belief nonetheless. Your statement goes further. We always seem to wind up here; it's like saying the fact that I don't collect stamps is evidence that I have a hobby.
Of course atheists can have a philosophy of life; If it's humanist, Christians, Jews, or anyone else can be humanist as well; I just don't happen to include deities, unseen agents who care about my existence, or any other religious dogma along with it. My beliefs are a subset of a religious persons.
You're defining religion so loosely as to include ANY beliefs or lack of beliefs that may guide your daily behavior. If I happen to think fitness and vegetables are good for our well being, and I try to convince others, is that a religion?? As Lon argued on the other post it's not helpful to use a word for something it wasn't intended to describe. If I refered to someone as being religious, exercise and diet probably aren't what you'd think about.
Empiricism is a philosophical position, not a religious one. It is explicitly irreligious; and equating it with religion is sophist rhetoric.
The mere absence of belief is nothing special, but a promotable identity ("I am an atheist"), based on incomplete reasoning, is something you feel is very special, which is therefore odious to the same degree as insupportable religious beliefs when they result in destructive personality characteristics.
Beyond that, as a convinced materialistic scientist, you have yet to prove even the absolute existence of matter. Finer and finer instruments reveal less and less of real substance until it becomes clear that their self-noise is indistinguishable from what they purport to be observing.
Even the hand or the eye give evidence of the solidity of a table only because they all belong to the same order of phenomena. That kind of "evidence" is circular and self-validating -- worthless as actual proof.
Forget about God, prove to us the ultimate existence of matter. You cannot do it without the prior assumption that it does exist, never mind that you don't know what it is.
So it seems to me the scientist is up the creek without a paddle just as much as the religionists you criticize. You both stand on platforms you cannot explain or prove, and use your own practices as self-validating evidence of their value. Absurd!
2)"Forget about God, prove to us the ultimate existence of matter. You cannot do it without the prior assumption that it does exist, never mind that you don't know what it is."
Don't 1 & 2 contradict each other?? You're claiming the eye and table are the same order of phenomena, but then claim we can't prove the existence of that phenomena. If so, how can you claim they are the same order?
I'm not playin' gatchya here; I'm genuinely confused by your comment.
Except that everything science has ever claimed has been explored through human perception. I realize you probably hold philosophy in the same contempt you hold religion, but both address a real, fundamental question -- how much of reality is shaped by perception and how can we even find out when that perception is all we have? Simply saying "well, if the there is anything, we would have found it be now" isn't really an argument so much as a plea for acceptance.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/davies07/davies07_index.html
As for me, I'm a total atheist, but I realize there are people in the world who are believers and are far smarter than me, along with many who are not. These are very deep waters.
Take this gem:
"both religion and science are founded on faith --namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws"
Since when do physicists claim a set of rules existing OUTSIDE the universe??
I finally realized I'd seen this piece before so I went right to the bio page; sure enough: Another scientist taking research money from the Templeton Foundation to write nice fuzzy pieces about how either science and Faith can co-exist of how science and faith are both based on faith. (Templeton's Raison d'etre is to prove they're compatible). His essay is the result of starting with a conclusion and trying to stuff the world into it.
I guess any two things are compatible if you define them advantageously. Like call physics faith. Or like David Sloan Wilson calling Atheism religion. The trick here is using the same word to describe two different modes of thinking.
I suspect that the universe is a far more complex place than we realize. But there is still a notion among some physicists that our universe exists in a jug under some grad student's lab table *somewhere*, next to a bunch of other very similar ones.
including Paul Davies' own response.
http://www.edge.org/discourse/science_faith.html
I believe that Davies is taking a metaphysical
point of view. Not that the existence of 'things'
means god exists, but that the existence of *rules*
means god may exist.
See also 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Math
in the Natural Sciences', a seminal paper by Eugene Wigner.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html