All these types of question seem to be quite well accepted and yet I'm still in the dark as to what the question of purpose would even mean for a creator of the universe. I'm quite happy with the distinction Wayfarer highlights above between science describing the states and rules of the universe but remaining silent of the question "why?", but I really have no idea what anyone expects an answer to such a question to look like. — Pseudonym

I think that perhaps the question of "why?" wasn’t even really articulated in such a bald form until the modern period. I don’t think culture was capable of conceiving of the question in the abstract until modernity - in fact I think that being able to frame the question in the abstract is one of the hallmarks of modernity.

There was a debate at a Buddhist forum I visit - about free will, which then spilled over into the question of meaning and purpose in this kind of sense. Someone posted a link to a Q&A with a Tibetan Rinpoche about this question. I had the distinction impression the Rinpoche had no idea what the question meant. He seemed to think it was a funny question, or perhaps a joke. In any case he wasn't the least interested in canvassing it. But I don't think that this indicates that the Rinpoche believes that life has *no* purpose or meaning; I think it's because Tibetan culture has not arrived at the point of considering the question of whether the Universe exists for no reason. I think the Rinpoche's outlook is embedded in a 'meta-narrative' as understood by Tibetan Buddhism - and that meta-narrative provides a background, the reason or rationale as to why one would commit one's life to the elaborate practices and disciplines associated with Tibetan Buddhism. (In fact the distinct impression I got from the Rinpoche's responses was: stop messing about, time's a'wasting!)

As I have an interest in Buddhism, I happen to know that 'the doctrine of fortuitous origins' is actually discussed in Buddhism, and categorised as an 'incorrect view'. (Doctrines of Fortuitous Origination (Adhiccasamuppannavāda): Views 17–18, in the Brahmajāla Sutta.)

On the other hand, Buddhists don't believe in a creator. But their understanding is that the parameters of existence are the consequence of karma, so that current actions will determine the circumstances of your ongoing existence. So Buddhism actually avoids the 'two extremes' of, on the one hand, nihilism (of which 'fortuitous origins' is regarded as an instance), and 'eternalism' (which is a difficult idea to understand but which can be thought of as 'rebirth in perpetuity in favourable circumstances'.)

In any case, in Western culture, the idea that the Universe exists 'for no reason' is recent development, as I'm saying. Greek philosophy, for example, didn't entertain the notion, as the whole task of philosophy was the discovery of reason, in the sense of logoi, the ordering principles of the Cosmos, which actually were the origin of science itself, and all of the specialised branches ending in -logy (biology, psychology, etc). It wasn't until the beginning of modern secular culture, that the thought began to crystallise that perhaps there aren't any, as these might be somehow inter-subjective, cultural or social in origin, or at any rate useful adaptions which are once again the product of something that is ultimately fortuitous in origin. A lot of that is tied to the rejection of the Aristotelian 'telos', which is also 'the reason why something exists'. As is generally acknowledged, modern scientific method is generally dismissive of teleological thinking. So the absence of purpose is taken to be the finding of science, and as a consequence it certainly seems that for many of the inhabitants of modern secular- scientific culture, any sense of the Universe being 'animated by purpose' is regarded as a relic, and is generally associated with the Christianity that secular philosophy, 'the Enlightenment project', has generally defined itself in opposition to. It's an existential outlook, a way-of-being, which has been the subject of an enormous volume of literature in the 20th century.

In social science, disenchantment (German: Entzauberung) is the cultural rationalization and devaluation of mysticism apparent in modern society. The concept was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of modernized, bureaucratic, secularized Western society, where scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and where processes are oriented toward rational goals, as opposed to traditional society, where for Weber, "the world remains a great enchanted garden". — Wikipedia

I suppose the question is, is it possible to retain any sense of the Universe being animated, so to speak, in light of the discoveries of science? I think so, but that it requires a new kind of imaginative synthesis. But in my view, a lot of what drives the debate is precisely un-belief - the rejection of the Western religious and cultural narrative, or rather its replacement with science as the arbiter of what's real, and the consequent assumption that meaning and purpose is at best subjective or culturally constructed.

I think that perhaps the question of "why?" wasn’t even really articulated in such a bald form until the modern period. I don’t think culture was capable of conceiving of the question in the abstract until modernity - in fact I think that being able to frame the question in the abstract is one of the hallmarks of modernity. — Wayfarer

I think this is probably right, and I think the reason for that is that humanity had not been able to extricate itself from unreflectively anthropomorphic thinking until the advent of modernity. You always seem to be saying that something has been lost or forgotten. I think, on the other hand, that something has been overcome, surpassed. Of course a loss of illusions will always be accompanied by its attendant traumas. Perhaps it could be said that humanity is in its adolescence. Should a return to the innocence/ ignorance of childhood be recommended?

You always seem to be saying that something has been lost or forgotten. I think, on the other hand, that something has been overcome, surpassed. Of course a loss of illusions will always be accompanied by its attendant traumas. Perhaps it could be said that humanity is in its adolescence. Should a return to the innocence/ ignorance of childhood be recommended? — Janus

No, I don't see it that way at all. What has been lost is precisely a sense of related-ness to the cosmos, and also a sense of purpose and meaning. This is writ large all over Modern Culture, and manifests in the form of many social ills and ailments, such as anomie, depression, addiction, compulsive consumption, and so on. This is how the belief that you're the outcome of an accidental collocation of atoms manifests, in my view. Now, I get, you don't feel like that at all, and I'm not wanting to suggest that you ought to. If you can get along without that sense of connected-ness, then good for you!

This is a strawman, though, because the feeling of connectedness is not dependent on any anthropomorphic, and much less any anthropocentric, worldview; in fact I would say it is quite the reverse now, once we have seen the lurking dualism that is inherent in such thinking, and since it is now impossible to authentically return to any such 'childlike' view. The challenge now is to go beyond simplistic 'subject/object', 'substance/ accident' and 'internal/ external' dualistic thinking and allow for the fullest feeling for the numinous, for art and spirituality as well as science, without returning to the ignorance that consists in reifying concepts or imagination.

Do we? How? — Pseudonym

The evidence indicates that the universe was created before human beings existed. If we accept that evidence then a human being could not have created the universe.

This is a strawman, though, because the feeling of connectedness is not dependent on any anthropomorphic, and much less any anthropocentric, worldview; in fact I would say it is quite the reverse now, once we have seen the lurking dualism that is inherent in such thinking, and since it is now impossible to authentically return to any such 'childlike' view. The challenge now is to go beyond simplistic 'subject/object', 'substance/ accident' and 'internal/ external' dualistic thinking and allow for the fullest feeling for the numinous, for art and spirituality as well as science, without returning to the ignorance of reificational thoughts. — Janus

Wow, what an incredibly unphilosophical piece of writing.

What has been lost is precisely a sense of related-ness to the cosmos, and also a sense of purpose and meaning. — Wayfarer

The pre-modern view was animistic. The human social sphere included the whole of nature. The sun and stars were personified. So were the winds, the mountains, the rivers, the forests.

So what we have lost is that pan-spiritualism or pantheism. Organised modern religions reacted to philosophical inquiry by contracting towards a strong mind/body dualism. And in doing that, it shot right past the social sphere within which our individuated being - our personification - is constructed, to develop a mystic or supernatural realm that is supposedly the home to spirit or essence.

Science showed that this shrinking of personification or animation until it had shrivelled right out of material existence couldn't be right. There was no evidence that our essence sits outside nature. Science could see that life was a material process - an expression of a systems "four causes" ontology. And then even "mind" is becoming understood in the same naturalistic way through neuroscience and social psychology.

So we have this wild swing from a too generous pantheism to a too miserly religious dualism. One personified the whole of nature. The other withdrew personhood from nature entirely.

But science - of the holistic systems thinking kind - can locate humanity in humanity. It can identify the social and biological causes of being. That creates a sound natural metaphysics as our modern departure point.

This is writ large all over Modern Culture, and manifests in the form of many social ills and ailments, such as anomie, depression, addiction, compulsive consumption, and so on. This is how the belief that you're the outcome of an accidental collocation of atoms manifests, in my view. — Wayfarer

I agree that mechanical thinking about nature has bad results. But that is part of the overshoot story. We had to de-animate nature to the appropriate degree. Both reductionist science and organised religion took their halves of a shared dualism to unwarranted extremes.

So you are making the call to re-animate our understanding of nature. Again I agree. That is what scientific holism would aim to do. But how do you avoid overshooting the social sphere, and our biological heritage, as you make that violent course correction?

You want a personified cosmos. And you accept that would have to take the vaguest or most ambiguous form. Yet isn't the danger that you then still want to wind up with some kind of ultimate binary victory that puts you on the right side of the conventional dualism? The cosmos must be ultimately mind-like or divine in some fashion?

So I do think it is a pendulum story. We went from extreme animism to extreme dualism. Science de-animated the material world, and religion said that was OK as the divine realm stood quite separate at the back of all that ... with its super-animate powers to compensate.

But the human is to be found in the humanity of our biological and social development. Then animism reaches as far as organisms in general - life and mind as a semiotic form of complex order. And the Cosmos is nature understood at its most general or undifferentiated level possible. That is yet another story - possibly pan-semiotic according to modern physics. So re-animated to that degree - the one that sees the universe in properly organismic terms as a structure serving a (thermal) purpose.

The challenge now is to go beyond simplistic 'subject/object', 'substance/ accident' and 'internal/ external' dualistic thinking and allow for the fullest feeling for the numinous — Janus

Numinous: having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.

We have many points of agreement but that we're coming at the issue from different perspectives - you through bio-sciences, me through spirituality. So my orientation is indeed more religious - perhaps you could say first person rather than third. But I think the aim of philosophy - love~wisdom - is a sense of unconditional relatedness and compassion - in the sense intended by the Christian agapē, or the Buddhist bodhicitta. How to realise that, is the question. I don't think that biology really answers that question - I think the wisdom traditions of the world have found a higher source and how to tap into it. It's an anthropological question - what is the human being, really? Just 'a species'? I think something more than that.

But I think a lot of what you write, is indicating that culture and science are moving in that direction. As you say, science itself is much less mechanist now than it used to be. So there's a new synthesis arising, maybe, and I think it can indeed incorporate the 'system science' and holistic view that you're advocating. But there's something else that has yet to be realised. 'The old is dying, the new is struggling to be born'.

Numinous: having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.

The point is that you cannot say anything positive about what is indicated by the feeling of the numinous. You yourself refuse to say anything definite about it, so how is your position really different than mine? I acknowledge that the feeling of the numinous may have been lost to many people in modernity; but I also wonder how many pre-moderns actually had such a sense anyway.

Phenomenologically speaking, we know that the sense of the numinous is a powerful affect, as such, why should it need to be justified beyond itself? We also know that people who have such feelings often cleave to the religious symbolisms that they were born into in order to lend structure and context to the feelings, but this does not demonstrate anything in particular about metaphysics.

If mystical or religious experience were taken to demonstrate anything particular about metaphysics, then there would indeed be a problem, since the different metaphysical conceptions associated with the major religions disagree with one another. Any attempt to draw any metaphysical conclusions from mystical experience is an attempt to objectify the experience, something which, by your own lights, it seems you should be opposed to.

And here is a more comprehensive definition from Merriam Webster;

Definition of numinous
1 : supernatural, mysterious
2 : filled with a sense of the presence of divinity :holy
3 : appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual

I highlighted the three categories to show that only the second one is essentially the way you want to interpret the term.

What about also....

4: sense of scientific and mathematical wonder that the structure of reality has intelligible form

Yes, that seems right to me, I think the intimation of a pervading immanent order that is invoked by mathematical intelligibility and applicability, and the general intelligibility of nature, definitely evokes another dimension of the sense of the numinous.

It would seem to be the most purely intellectual. The others are more based in simple affect. A sense of the mysterious, a sense of the holy and a sense of the beautiful, senses that require no particular knowledge or intellectual mastery to drive them.

A sense of the mysterious, a sense of the holy and a sense of the beautiful, senses that require no particular knowledge or intellectual mastery to drive them. — Janus

I'm tempted to draw attention to the lack of intellectual mastery here. :naughty:

But instead, I think all three of yours require quite sophisticated cultural training. And that itself should be telling. We have to learn the general attitude - mystic, religious, aesthetic - which then allows us to perceive the affective state in a noumenal fashion. As a feeling painted across the world itself.

So we likely disagree deeply here. You seem to think the sense of the numinous is something simple, direct, unmediated. I reply that it seems very much the product of cultural learning, a sense of awe and rightness that can be reliably evoked from within a well-developed conceptual frame.

And as such, it stands on the side of the phenomenal. The brain needs feelings of certainty and uncertainty, salience and irrelevance, attention and disinterest, just to navigate life with pragmatic efficiency. Ultimately I am sure when I feel sure. Unsure when I feel that.

To be simplistic, the brain is designed so that the ability to recognise the familiar, recognise the unfamiliar, are emotionally rooted at a very basic level in the brainstem and limbic system. It is a basic dichotomy being imposed on the ever present flood of life so as to create an intelligible divide on experience from the get-go.

So a generalised sense of awe or salience is not difficult to explain. We would even know all the sympathetic nervous system hallmarks to look out for - the physiologically-appropriate orienting responses like widened pupils, quickened heart-beat, sweaty palms, paused digestion, etc.

Thus it can all be explained away. But then it also seems a marvellous thing to me ... that everything makes natural sense when looked at with a dialectical or dichotomistic logic. Makes me tingly all over again. ;)

I see it in a different way:
The Universe was not created in the first place it just exists we humans have a string tendency to think that the Universe was created but it was not it just exists think about it i will clarify my answer if someone is interested

I'm tempted to draw attention to the lack of intellectual mastery here. :naughty: — apokrisis

Well, it's a good thing you didn't succumb to that ill-informed temptation! :lol:

The fact that there obviously have been sophisticated religious, philosophical and aesthetic practices and systems of thought that have grown up around these senses of the numinous does not entail that an unsophisticated individual cannot experience a sense of mystery, or of beauty or of the holy. I can remember having such feelings in early childhood, at a time when my knowledge was much less even than it is now, and my intellectual mastery was negligible. Jacob Boehme, considered by some to be the greatest of the Christian mystics was a shoemaker when he experienced his visions; he had no formal education at all.

Your thinking is reductionistic, not in the atomistic materialist sense, but in the sense that you want to objectify and reduce everything to being understood by science and mathematics. I think this is probably due to the fact that you lack a feel for the other three senses of the numinous, you have a kind of 'tin ear', I think. What we are at root is all about what we feel, not what we think. (Although I am not suggesting that we should not develop a good comprehensive intellectual understanding based on that essential affective life, if we feel so moved).

Your thinking is reductionistic, not in the atomistic materialist sense, but in the sense that you want to objectify and reduce everything to being understood by science and mathematics. — Janus

Sure. I am reductionist in the sense of reducing things to models. In this case, a general holistic model of causality that stands in self-conscious contrast to the atomistic/materialist one.

So that means I see structure or form as an element of reality. I don't eliminate them. Modelling is reductionist only in homing in on what matters in having explanations.

I think this is probably due to the fact that you lack a feel for the other three senses of the numinous, you have a kind of 'tin ear', I think. — Janus

Unfair. I have a highly educated aesthetic response. And you seemed to agree that an appreciation of the structure of nature can be a numinous feeling.

It is true that I don't feel any generalised thrill contemplating the kind of mystic and religious social constructs you might have in mind.

What we are at root is all about what we feel, not what we think. — Janus

I've taken the opposite message. It is so easy to socially construct our states of feeling that one has to accept a post-modern absurdism about them. We have to wear our emotions lightly because they are not authentic in that root Romanticist sense.

Jacob Boehme, considered by some to be the greatest of the Christian mystics was a shoemaker when he experienced his visions; he had no formal education at all. — Janus

But you previously said that:

If mystical or religious experience were taken to demonstrate anything particular about metaphysics, then there would indeed be a problem, since the different metaphysical conceptions associated with the major religions disagree with one another. — Janus

?

I am not suggesting that we should not develop a good comprehensive intellectual understanding based on that essential affective life, if we feel so moved. — Janus

But woe betide anyone who does ;-)

You seem to think the sense of the numinous is something simple, direct, unmediated. I reply that it seems very much the product of cultural learning, a sense of awe and rightness that can be reliably evoked from within a well-developed conceptual frame. — apokrisis

There is a debate in religious studies regarding whether there are any 'unmediated experiences' or whether they're a product of cultural conditioning. But I believe that reference to 'the unconditioned' and 'the immeasurable' do indeed refer to those realities. And sure they're at the outer edges of human experience, but I don't buy that they're social constructs. Social constructs are made around such insights - perhaps to wall them off, like a tokomak reactor!

Actually where I first read about 'the numinous' was in a book that is well-known in comparative religion, 'The Idea of the Holy', by Rudolf Otto.

Otto was one of the most influential thinkers about religion in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for his analysis of the experience that, in his view, underlies all religion. He calls this experience “numinous,” and says it has three components. These are often designated with a Latin phrase: mysterium tremendum et fascinans. As mysterium, the numinous is “wholly other” – entirely different from anything we experience in ordinary life. It evokes a response of silence. But the numinous is also a mysterium tremendum; It provokes awe [i.e. 'is awful'] because it presents itself as overwhelming power. Finally, the numinous presents itself as fascinans - merciful and gracious.

But woe betide anyone who does — Wayfarer

But, where have I said there is anything wrong with studying religious systems. or systems of mystical symbolism or poetry or the arts?

And where have I suggested that Boehme's visions and writings demonstrate anything about metaphysics?

I welcome reasoned critique of anything I have said but it should be well-aimed.

I've taken the opposite message. It is so easy to socially construct our states of feeling that one has to accept a post-modern absurdism about them. We have to wear our emotions lightly because they are not authentic in that root Romanticist sense. — apokrisis

it is only on account of the primacy of our affective life that the kinds of influence of our states of feeling that you allude to are possible. The point is that our affective responses do not tell us anything about the objective nature of the world, but they may certainly tell us about the objective nature of affective subjectivity.

Was the universe created by purpose or by chance?

The question has two possible outcomes so we should initially assign a 50% probability to each outcome. — Devans99

Well, the universe was either created by a rabbit or it wasn't, so 50% chance rabbit, 50% not rabbit. I get you don't think it was a rabbit, but please don't ridicule my belief in a rabbit diety because my chances of being right are equal to yours.

Start by examining the universes origins. The Big Bang. A huge explosion in space of a least 10^53 kg of matter that created the universe. Was this by chance or the work of a creator? I’ll conservatively assign a 50% probability to each outcome. Combining this probability with the initial staring probability:

50% + 50% x 50% = 75% chance of creator — Devans99

The problem with this complex math equation you've devised is that the chance of it being random chance is also 75%. We would have to add the 25% chance of the Big Bang being correct to the initial 50% as well. Both your possibilities are going to approach 100% the more you add to this, making the likelihood of either equally likely.

Will you ever articulate this view so that its meaning becomes less nebulous and then back it up with actual historical and anthropological research? — Πετροκότσυφας

It seems straightforward to me, that the sense of living a purposeful existence ought to be an antidote to anomie, depression, and so on. So, if it doesn't seem obvious to you, then maybe I'm just wrong. I'm not trying to publish a paper on it.

You don't explain what that means and so on. — Πετροκότσυφας

I write a fair bit on this forum, I create fairly detailed posts, often cite sources. I could try and respond to your questions above, but going on our previous interactions, I don’t think you will have the least interest in what I have to say. I started off this last interaction in response to another poster, and a fairly specific point, I will wait and see if anything is forthcoming from that.

This post was where I responded to a comment by Pseudonym.

Your math is wrong.

As if I were to believe that abstract theorising about the origin of existence itself, which most haven't even thought about, is a more straightforward cause of depression, anomie and any other social ill you find in our "modern world", than unemployment, division of labour or whatever. — Πετροκότσυφας

Well, a philosophy forum is mainly engaged with ‘abstract theorising’, but what I was referring to was the existential implications of the falling away of religion in the secular world. So this was summarised like this:

When man lived securely under the canopy of the Judeo-Christian world picture he was part of a great whole; to put it in our terms, his cosmic heroism was completely mapped out, it was unmistakable. He came from the invisible world into the visible one by the act of God, did his duty to God by living out his life with dignity and faith… offering his whole life—as Christ had—to the Father. In turn he was justified by the Father and rewarded with eternal life in the invisible dimension. Little did it matter that earth was a vale of tears, of horrid sufferings of incommensurateness, of torturous and humiliating daily pettiness, of sickness and death, a place where man felt he did not belong, “the wrong place,” as Chesterton said…. In a word, man’s cosmic heroism was assured, even if he was as nothing. This was the most remarkable achievement of the Christian world picture: that it could take slaves, cripples, imbeciles, the simple and the mighty, and make them all secure heroes, simply by taking a step back from the world into another dimension of things, the dimension called Heaven. Or we might better say that Christianity took creature consciousness—the thing man most wanted to deny—and made it the very condition for his cosmic heroism.

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York, Free Press, 1973]. And that is not a religious book, by the way, but a sociological analysis of religion. But I hope it conveys in a little less abstract terms, what it was that was lost, or went missing.

The evidence indicates that the universe was created before human beings existed. If we accept that evidence then a human being could not have created the universe. — Metaphysician Undercover

What evidence is there for a lack of human beings before the universe began, or outside of the observable universe?

Well, the universe was either created by a rabbit or it wasn't, so 50% chance rabbit, 50% not rabbit. — Hanover

You are not doing the math correct, I get:

96.25% chance of an abstract creator for universe
0.0009625% chance of a Rabbit creator for universe

The calculation is the same until the end when we allow for an extra peice of evidence against the Rabbit:

Rabbit lacking intelligence and capabilities to build universe 99.999%
Chance Rabbit built universe: 96.25% x 0.0001% = 0.0009625%
(Note same additional predicate cannot be applied to abstract creator as we know nothing about abstract creator’s intelligence and capabilities).

The problem with this complex math equation you've devised is that the chance of it being random chance is also 75% — Hanover

You have not read all my math; I do both calculations; you must of just read the start. The chance of the universe being random was calculated as 3.75%

We live in a quantum universe, where only certain quantum states are possible. The hydrogen atom, for example, has distinct energy levels separated by discontinuous gaps. This is different from a continuous function universe where all states, including what is between, are possible. Quantum favors Created over Statistical, since quantum loads the dice so basic statistical assumptions are no longer fully valid.

Cards and dice are manmade and not natural. A six sided dice is equally weighed on all sides. Each side only differs by a superficial facade that is subjective. Nature does not work this way. Nature assigns different quantum potentials to each side. In nature, all the sides are loaded differently and are not the same as a dice. The first six energy levels of the hydrogen atom dice have a different physical value on each side. Under different conditions certain sides will be favored. Statistics does not operate like nature. Statistics should be limited to manmade things where facade sells better than potential.

The question is did God; natural, or manmade; statistics, create the universe? Based on the models that exist, I would say manmade has fabrictd the current perceived universe.

If you look any gambling casino, these are not rational places. People go there to escape reality and live a fantasy. Nature is not composed of dice and cards. You need a manmade place to find that. That is how casinos make money. We should ask Donald Trump since he made money with casinos.

Surely the word 'created' sets us off on false assumptions. Things happen, perhaps.

If mystical or religious experience were taken to demonstrate anything particular about metaphysics, then there would indeed be a problem, since the different metaphysical conceptions associated with the major religions disagree with one another. — Janus

Drawing a distinction between religious (or better, spiritual) experiences, and religious (or better, theological) concepts, and religion itself; religious beliefs and narratives are human universals (Brown, 1991). And the content of those beliefs and narratives concerns the metaphysical.

Because of its subjective and intersubjective aspects, I agree that generalisations regarding the spiritual/theological/religious may be problematic.

That you have linked the spiritual to affect (an aspect of responsiveness, or corporeal condition), and @apokrisis has linked it to cognition (an aspect of awareness, or mental condition), thereby linking spiritual to different aspects of consciousness (mass noun), I find new and interesting.

Statistics estimates nature very well; one example is the bell curve. Statistics I thought was also the essence of QM??

The question I posed, the answer is unknowable in a boolean sense would you not agree?

But I’d like an answer to the question: statistics and probability can at least give an approximate answer. There is no other approach.

It seems to me you are trying to use a shovel to cut wood. Your tool does not fit the job.

There are 3 ways we can come to believe something to be true, and act accordingly.

Fact, Reason or Faith. Many arguments of this nature's core difference is that someone is arguing something is true from a basis of faith, and someone else is saying it is false from a basis of fact.

Fact is the realm of science, its truth is based on its observations being confirmed by reality. Its truth claims are verifiable, measurable, and conform to an observable reality. It can not make, or deny any truth claims outside this realm.

Reason is truth based on logic, its truth is based on a set of observations or believes that taken together point to a truth that is reasonable. This belief can not be in conflict with an observable fact. It can not make truth statements that are the in the realm of fact, however it can not make, or deny any truth claims based on faith.

Faith is truth outside of fact or reason. It is a truth one chooses to believe. It can not be in conflict either fact or reason. It is the realm of theology.

You are trying to answer a truth claim by reason with the tools of science.