The real problem with the question originally posed by wande is that it treats the terms, or concepts, abstractly as independent entities.
Levi-Strauss, a leading structuralist, suggested that a proper basis for analysis is the
relations between terms. As with the
relations between, say, gravity and light or between the mechanical structure of a building and its proposed function.
Words such as "science" and "religion" have a sort of magnetic field and are modified by each other.
At a very basic level one might see in Western culture a relationship between Hebraic and Hellenistic elements. The former, in the New Testament, being the urge to develop a moral awareness and a strict conscience and the latter a delight in seeing clearly and a taste for intellect and a spontaneity of conscience ( an adaptability to circumstances- generally solipsistic).
The Hebrews were often enslaved peoples in the empires of the Tigris, the Nile and the Tiber but the Greeks had slaves.
It is the interactions of these basic strands which are suggestive and which lend their weight to progress through the thesis/ antithesis dialectic.
Quote:Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers,
Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control--
So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole,
Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
Matthew Arnold. Butler's Sermons.
The two strands of thought, Hebraisim and Hellenism, are the basic weft and warp on which the tapestry of Western intellectual thought is depicted and neither is adequate alone. The human spirit is greater than either of them.
It might even be said that human expression forms are never equal to the grandeur, the depth and the strength of that spirit which is why art exists and particularly music. What is the point of art if it is not an attempt to say the unsayable?
At any point in time one or other of these strands of thought, Hebraic religion and Hellenic philosophical exactitude, may be in the ascendent as the latter has been during the scientific revolution. As religious practice has declined Hellenism has come to dominate our culture whilst losing sight of the dependence of Hellenic culture on the priesthoods of Delphi and Eleusis and the orgiastic religious festivals which most of the intelligentsia were familiar with, if not always high adepts of, and which it was a capital offence to divulge the mysteries of to the uninitiated (the lower orders) and of which Mr Graves spoke so clearly and briefly about in The White Goddess. (Ref-Ernst Curtius- History of Greece.)
Neither of these two strands of thought is sufficient alone for the continuation of progress and it thus follows, if that assertion is accepted, that to raise one above the other is a wrecking tactic.
It may be that those raising the Hellenistic standard (scientific methodology) do so because it allows them to vainly think that by doing so they become members of the elite initiated which is a very long way from the truth.
The Intelligent Design movement, where it is not a business proposition, seems to me to be nothing more, or less, than an attempt to restore a balance which it may well be thought contemporary society has allowed to swing too far in one direction and has caused all sorts of social problems which are proving costly to deal with and which could undermine efficiency.
Naturally, those professionally engaged in dealing with these problems or commentating upon them or providing palliatives for them would be expected to resist such a restoration of balance and wande's continual quoting of their spokespersons and apologists bears this out and shows us who they are as well as demonstrating how far this lack of balance has become a lazy and casual habit of thought which I think I may fairly claim I have been the only consistent source of resistance.
With the Hellenistic Zeitgeist Sidgwick's statement that social usefulness really means "losing oneself in a mass of disagreeable, hard, mechanical facts" is understandable for a class of educated drones seeking to justify their insitution of slavery. (The slaves wrote nothing). It is similar to the old aristocratic dictum - "a hard day's work never killed anybody."
The Hebraic Zeitgeist, a slave's voice, is to "find oneself."
Hence Hellenes murdered Socrates for "corrupting the youth".
One need only look at the aridity in Greek art, feelingless form with no emotional content, to depict emotion was prohibited, and compare it with Rembrandt or Rubens or compare the simple dolmens of the Parthenon with Cologne cathedral to see the difference.
Perhaps it is merely a function of the weather and topography. Darwin might have thought so. Spengler certainly did. After all 2,000 years is the twinkling of an eye in human history and hardly that in evolutionary history.
The intemperate certainties, bellowed assertions and intolerant dogmas to be seen in the styleless and arid productions of city-based scientific methodologists are, on this argument, destructive of the human spirit and thus, ultimately, of society.
The fundamentalists of religion are equally at fault in insisting upon their own intemperate certainties, bellowed assertions and intolerant dogmas and seeking to take the balance too far in the other direction.
The ID thrust, if not the run-of-the-mill practice (the straw man), is much more basic than its own spokemen seem to be aware of and they risk going to far themselves when they lose sight of the balance between spirituality and utility which are equally necessary for society, as happened at Dover.
The real difficulty is that too many people have an egotistical yearning to offer solutions to society's problems without the botherations of studying the subject.
Your resident gum-flapper. Stick to Mr Ritter eh? He's easier to follow being no more than an irrelevant incident brought on by eagerness to shove himself in our faces.
