I just watched the episode of Bones entitled “The Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and there is this devout Muslim character who is discovered to have been faking a thick Arabic accent so that people don’t pry into how he reconciles his faith with his career as a scientist. His response:
“There’s no conflict between Allah and science. Allah created the mystery of the world and science struggles, and mostly fails, to explain it. But the search for truth is honorable and I honor Allah through the search for truth.”
While there are a great number of things I enjoy about this show, THIS is perhaps the most annoying part. They present this supremely rational, scientific characters but as soon as the topic of mysticism comes up the writers capitulate. Even Dr. Brenan who is the only true atheist in the group leaves some of the most absurd assertions about faith and magic unchallenged.
The entire show, with regard to the topic of mysticism, is based on the premise that the universe is unknowable. Not unknown. UNKNOWABLE.
It really annoys me.
Getting back to the writers’ latest offense science does not mostly fail to explain the universe. IN FACT, science is the ONLY tool which has EVER revealed ANY truth about the universe.
I bet you thought I was done blaspheming right there, didn’t you? You were so wrong.
If your best argument that magic is real is that there are things people don’t know, then you should just sit down and be quiet right now because no one ever wants to hear from you ever, least of all when you think you’re doing science. Clearly, you’ve never even heard of science. You aren’t even good at magic, frankly. If your religion were a business, no one would buy stock in that and do you want to know why? It’s because your religion is shrinking thanks to that science you’ve never heard of.
Now, I’m not saying there will ever be a moment in which people are omniscient, but it isn’t unreasonable to conclude that every genus of phenomena in the universe is completely and utterly explicable and arriving at those explanations is within the reach of science. So, basically, science is shrinking the area in which your magic can live. Instead of being a growth enterprise, your religion is decaying.
Also, aren’t you the least bit ashamed to look another adult in the eye and suggest that the proof you have for knowing something is that people don’t know it? You really do deserve to be smote for that. I’m talking to you, writers of Bones.
if it weren’t for the likes of you, whose lustful pursuit of knowledge of this world has caused those would-be believers to scoff at His might, He might have been able to inspire the proper fear in you with a thunderstorm or an Aurora Borealis. Then you might have been saved. The lust of your eyes has damned you and your ilk, atheist.
It’s true. I have pretty eyes. It’s very sweet of you to notice! *blush*
A lot of this is about pandering to Moslems. Many television shows and movies have no problem going after Christian mysticism. That is all well and good, except when it is arbitrarily thrown in or is part of contrived plot line. On the other hand, the media bends over backwards to propagandize their audiences on how the Religion of Peace is benign or a positive good. This is the liberal media’s tell. They don’t have a problem with unreason (hey they’re socialists themselves!); they’re basic problem is with Western Culture in which, like it or not, Christianity has played a large role. Islam being an enemy of the West for its entire existence is something the secular left can jump into bed with. They have the same enemy.
Well, on Bones, they give very friendly treatment to all forms of mysticism. Occasionally, they’ll have a bad guy or unpleasant character who is a priest or pastor, but the notion of mysticism in general is pretty well embraced.
I see this Muslim guy as just an expansion on that theme.
Julie and I too enjoy Bones for its better than average writing, wit, and, until maybe a year ago (not sure when it happened) its emphasis on good science. The turn to mysticism as a foil to Dr. Brennon’s ’scientific’ approach we saw as just a writer’s way of being ‘interesting.’ But this particular episode was a remarkable demonstration of the current practice of making mysticism respectable. Dr. Brennon is, unfortunately, much like House, portrayed as a very intelligent woman (yeah) who has an unfortunate inability to ‘get’ the mystical rantings of everyone around her — and I do mean everyone. No doubt Sweets will wind up changing her ‘orientation’ and she will become a believer. I can see no other way for her and her religious FBI agent partner to become romantically involved but that she become open minded (boo).
I agree.
i think the mistake that the writer made was to say that science fails to explain the mystery of the world. based on dr.maurice bucaille’s the bible, the qoran, and the science, it can be concluded that there is simply no conflict between Allah and science. that’s it. they should leave it at that.
Except that would be false as well. Where religion requires faith, science requires that one abandon it completely. Science and faith are antithetical epistemological methodologies.