After journeying through some aspects of the Holodomor, a dark journey indeed, I would like to change gears but, at the same time, as we will see, what I am about to say is not unrelated. Remember, that what was being espoused in the Soviet Union was scientific socialism which was claimed to be totally independent of the superstition that belief and religion had supposedly brought.

I want to go back to something that you keep raising and that is how central science is for you and the world-view you have. It is true that science has become a final arbiter on questions that are raised within society. Science seems so clear and certain but the matter is a little bit more complicated than it is often portrayed.

The power of science lies in the many matters where it has acted to improve our knowledge of the world and, through technology, enhance the quality of our lives. From medicine, to technical achievements, there are many examples of the power and usefulness of science. This is all fine as long as it is understood that science does have its limitations, something that is forgotten and sometimes it is simply ignored to our peril.

It is frightening how many scientists seem to assume that one should look exclusively to the sciences for guidance in all manner of questions, whether they be moral, educational or any other. Underlying all of this is the belief that the advance and practical success of science is its own justification. There should be no moral constraints on science since morals are not objective values but inventions made by societies and these morals can and do change with the progress of a society.

This brings me to an important point that I want to make. There is nothing in religious belief, and here I am talking principally about Christianity, that is intrinsically opposed to science. You could have all of the achievements of science – whether space travel, antibiotics, quantum mechanical understanding of the universe – in a religious milieu. The picture is often made that it is faith that opposes science and once the shackles of faith are overthrown, then science will flourish. In a word – this is not true. Without a belief in a creator who gifts us and creation with rationality, so that we can explore His creation, and discover a creation that is subject to a rational exposition, science would not have arisen in the Western World.

There is, however, a dark side to science – one that is quietly ignored because we are blinded by the brightness of the achievements of science or more specifically, by the achievements of technology. But allow me to, at least partially, point out this dark side of science. Mass manufacture of biochemical war agents, nuclear weaponry, court-mandated sterilizations and eugenics, lobotomies, experimentation on prisoners, clinical studies of untreated syphilis in poor black men, Mengele carrying out ‘scientific research’ in Nazi concentration camps and so on and so on. Science, in addition to the positive contributions to society, enables us to achieve these ‘accomplishments’ but it does not have a corrective in the sense – should we do this or not – and this points to the fact that science has severe limitations.

In the early history of Christianity, there were many cults which promised salvation on the basis of some secret or occult knowledge. It is interesting that magic then was not regarded as some supernatural power but a knowledge of the operation of matter and the ability to tap into the reservoirs of energy within matter. This was what underlay the alchemical search for secrets of matter. Interestingly as well, Christian thought saw magic as a form of superstition because the universe was seen as operating rationally because God, and particularly, the Logos, gifted the created realm with rationality.

Technology (the practical form of science) and science per se (the theoretical form) have dominated our world view as something that is a power onto itself without any restrictions. It is espoused as the final arbiter in all contentious matters. If science says something, then it is so and cannot be challenged. Anything that goes contrary to science is seen as something from the Dark Ages and should be banned from any platform or exposition within our society. Ironically, science takes on more and more the characteristics of magic, but with the important difference that magic now, for the most part, works. And we are being seduced to accept the sterile superstition that, science really enables us to see the hidden depths and meanings within the world and this is a blatant untruth. Science does not and never will give us the deeper knowledge and meaning of the cosmos for the very simple reason that this consideration is beyond the domain of science.

In our century, we are witnessing knowledge which has become free from the rules of love or morality or any restraint and we accept this because the new ‘magic’, science, really works and gives us the results that it promises. This sounds like the promise of Mephistopheles written about in the arts. The hidden powers of matter have indeed been unlocked as nuclear weapons, as only one example, frightingly attest to, and we stand at the realization of what the story of Frankenstein predicted in the nineteenth century.

‘Science’ in completing its victory is now opening the door to manipulating what it means to be human. The late philosopher, Joseph Fletcher, complained that the human gene pool was being contaminated by inferior genetic types and he advocated using force in order to improve the quality of the human race. He called on society to rid itself of the burden of ‘idiots’ and ‘diseased’ specimens and to prevent the substandard people from reproducing.

Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, advocated that indelible marks be placed on the brows of people who were seen to be genetically substandard. He suggested that scientists genetically engineer a caste of inferior beings to perform dangerous or degrading labor. Pauling won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry (and a Nobel prize in peace – strange as this may seem) but this in no way qualifies him to make the outlandish statements that he made. This is a classic example of using science, or the accolades for work in science, to promulgate views which are inhuman and antihuman. Pauling had no right to make the statements that he did except he was given a platform because he, after all, had won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He may have contributed to progress in Chemistry, and he undoubtedly did, but when it comes to serious questions of what it means to be a human and the respect that all humans should be shown, or philosophical thinking, Pauling’s qualifications and musings are about on the level of an illiterate. Pauling is really a moral pygmy. And remember, his claims are carried out with the supposed guidance of ‘science’, however that may be understood by those who are morally undeveloped.

The untethered ramblings of academia, in the name of science, are leading us to a future which in the past would have been labeled as a psychopathic attack on humanity, as an illness. Peter Singer at Princeton advocates infanticide for babies and children who are deemed as below par, whatever below par means. James Rachel pushes for a more expansive policy of euthanasia. ‘Transhumanists’ such as Lee Silver propose that we take over evolution and guide it to form better and better forms of humans by genetically melding humans with animals so as to achieve desired physical capabilities. One wonders on what basis these ‘transhumanists’ feel that humans are inadequate and supposedly need improvements and at what cost.

In a deep and worrying manner, we have exchanged rationality for magic, seeing the ability to manipulate genetic material which is seen as simply just another form of raw matter for doing whatever is possible and therefore allowable. The concept of rationality that is used in today’s world is a far cry from what Christianity means by rationality. In the Christian understanding, rationality includes a whole way and manner of life and not just some technical manipulation of the matter of the world or some mathematical computation. Rationality in Christianity’s understanding incorporates virtue, imagination, patience, prudence, humility, and above all, caritas. Without love, you cannot be fully rational. And yet, if one were to take courses in any of the sciences, all the qualities that I have just listed, would be totally ignored, with high praise given only to the technological advances that have been made. But, at what cost, this is ignored.

Thus, when we consider the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and other genocides and crimes against humanity, what underlies them all is a total disregard for the value of human life. One cannot find this value in science and therefore it is deemed just a superstition, a carry-over from the dark unenlightened part of history.

This is not to say that science and scientific studies of the world have no value. They do because they expand our grasp of reality but the dark side of this grasp has to also be acknowledged. More in the next letter.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas