I asked SuperGrok a Cosmic Worldview question…

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Me: “Is there a broader sense [of the term fundamentalism] in which a scientist could be considered sort of a fundamentalist, in the sense that a scientist might have a worldview that is untestable (e.g. scientific materialism) and therefore arguably unscientific, and yet they might assume with unshakable confidence that their worldview is “obviously true” to the highly educated scientist?”

Grok surprised me:

“Yes, there is a well-recognized broader, metaphorical (or “secular”) sense in which some scientists—or more accurately, advocates of scientism wedded to scientific materialism (also called metaphysical/ontological naturalism)—can be considered a kind of fundamentalist. This analogy focuses precisely on what you described: an untestable worldview held with absolute, unshakable confidence as “obviously true” among the highly educated, despite (or because of) its philosophical rather than purely scientific status.

“It is not the same as religious fundamentalism (no infallible holy book, no call for theocracy), but philosophers argue it shares enough “family-resemblance” traits—dogmatism, absolutism, totalizing claims, and reactive rejection of alternatives—to qualify as a boundary case of secular fundamentalism.

“Core Concepts and the Untestable Worldview

  • Scientific materialism / metaphysical naturalism: The philosophical claim that only the physical/natural world exists—matter, energy, laws of physics; no supernatural, no independent consciousness, no purpose or meaning beyond what science can describe. Consciousness, free will, morality, and meaning are “nothing but” brain chemistry or evolutionary byproducts.
    • This is untestable by science itself. You cannot empirically prove “there is nothing beyond the physical” (absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence in metaphysics). It is a prior commitment, not a conclusion from evidence.
  • Scientism: The stronger view that science (especially natural sciences) is the only or best source of all genuine knowledge, including in philosophy, ethics, and meaning. “Weak” scientism says science is superior where it applies; “strong” scientism says it covers everything and other ways of knowing are invalid.

“Many practicing scientists use methodological naturalism (a practical tool: assume natural causes when investigating the world—this keeps science testable and neutral on metaphysics). The “fundamentalist” slippage happens when this tool hardens into an ontological dogma [Ontology is the philosophical study of being and everything that’s real]: “Therefore, nothing non-natural exists—and anyone suggesting otherwise is irrational or unscientific.”

“Why the “Fundamentalist” Label Fits (Scholarly Arguments)

“Philosopher Rik Peels (2023) explicitly argues in a detailed analysis that scientism is a variety of fundamentalism—specifically “secular fundamentalism” or a “boundary case.” Using family-resemblance criteria (no single definition of fundamentalism requires every trait), it matches key stereotypical properties:

  • Reactive/reactionary: It pushes back against perceived threats like religion, Intelligent Design, or any non-scientific knowledge (e.g., philosophy, humanities, or “folk” intuitions about consciousness/meaning).
  • Modern and certainty-seeking: In an uncertain world, it elevates science as the infallible guide to truth and control, using modern tools (books, debates, social media) to spread the message.
  • Grand Manichean narrative: A dualistic story of enlightenment vs. darkness—humanity was in superstition until science revealed the “real” mechanistic, purposeless universe. Science = good/reason; alternatives = evil/stupidity/tradition. tandfonline.com

“Examples of the “unshakable confidence” you mentioned:

  • Biologist William Provine: Science implies “no gods… no purposive principles… free will simply does not exist… when we die, we die.”
  • Philosopher Alex Rosenberg: “Science provides all the significant truths about reality.”
  • Geneticist Richard Lewontin (famous admission): Scientists have “a prior commitment to materialism… we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door,” so materialism comes first, and science follows.

“Thomas Nagel (atheist philosopher, Mind and Cosmos, 2012) leveled a powerful internal critique: The materialist neo-Darwinian consensus is “almost certainly false” because it fails to explain consciousness, intentionality, or value. Yet many scientists treat it as obvious dogma, not open hypothesis. Nagel calls out the overreach: science cannot reduce mind to matter without philosophical sleight-of-hand. Critics [of scientism] (including Mary Midgley, John Gray, and others) note this mirrors religious fundamentalism in:

  • Absolutism and inerrancy of the “text” (peer-reviewed science or the materialist paradigm).
  • Totalizing scope (science answers everything—even ethics and meaning).
  • Dismissal of alternatives without fair engagement (e.g., labeling dualism, idealism, or theism “unscientific” rather than philosophically debatable).
  • Self-refuting problem: Scientism’s claim (“only science gives truth”) cannot itself be proven scientifically—it’s a philosophical assertion.

“Important Differences and Nuances

“This is not true of science as a method. Genuine science is provisional, falsifiable, self-correcting, and open to revision—qualities that oppose fundamentalism. Peer review and evidence can (and do) challenge materialist assumptions (e.g., ongoing debates in consciousness studies or quantum interpretations).The “fundamentalist” label applies mainly to:

  • Popularizers or ideologues who conflate method with metaphysics.
  • Academic gatekeeping where dissent (e.g., on consciousness or fine-tuning) is socially punished as “anti-science.”
  • Not all scientists—many (including religious ones like Francis Collins) explicitly separate methodological naturalism from personal metaphysics.

“Scholars like Peels suggest science itself can learn from mainstream religion: embrace humility about limits, tolerate dissent through dialogue rather than excommunication, and avoid seeking total certainty.

“In short: Yes. Your description captures a real phenomenon that philosophers have named and analyzed. Scientific materialism can function as an untestable, totalizing faith for some—held with fundamentalist-like certainty precisely because it feels “obviously true” within a highly educated, secular echo chamber.

“The analogy highlights the importance of distinguishing evidence-based science from philosophical overreach. True intellectual humility (in religion or science) requires acknowledging what we cannot prove.”

…………………….

It’s amazing. Grok said all of this stuff without any cajoling from me. I was totally stoked.

But here’s the honest thing about my views, despite my strong feelings against violent “religious fundamentalisms” of all varieties and my rejection of the depressing, morality-ending, free-will denying “scientific fundamentalism” of scientism, despite my seeing no inherent conflict between true science and spirituality or religion, and despite my devotion to always striving for an ounce of true objectivity, I have to admit that I’m still a “fundamentalist” in this spiritual sense of the word: I actually know that God is real, loving, trustworthy, and the source of all integrity. This is the only thing that I’m convinced I know for sure. Other things sit on a spectrum of certainty.

I suspect that no religious text is 100% infallible, while almost all of them have infinite value, especially early Christian writings. I feel 95% confident about this, but I could be totally wrong.

I suspect that God is all-knowing… but if you think about this, the implications are enormous. Experiential knowledge is far deeper than observational knowledge. Actually experiential knowledge is a completely different phenomenon from “book” knowledge which is the knowledge gained from looking at something or observing someone else’s experience. So if I’m right about God’s omniscience, he is experiencing every conscious being’s life from within, as if God had all the limitations of knowledge, IQ limitations, environmental limitations, genetic limitations, etc. of that person or being. And each being’s emotional and physical sufferings would be known to God at the experiential level, which means God actually experiences everything any conscious being experiences exactly as that being experiences it, every emotion, every sense of doubt, guilt, joy, frustration, love, physical pain, anxiety, depression, pride, temptation, decision making along with the consequences, etc. I feel 91% confident about all this, but I could be wrong.

I “know” that UFOs/UAPs are real. I feel 99.99999% confident about this but I could be wrong. (They could, for instance, be the product of a technology that can somehow completely control human perception (as well as human instrumentation within a laboratory setting and out in the field).

I suspect that non-human intelligences (NHI) are behind the creation and operation of some UFOs/UAPs. Although I could be wrong, I feel 88-98% confident about this depending on the latest testimony I’ve heard. (As time passes and the memory of the latest testimony fades, my confidence also tends to fade a bit.)

I suspect that the current efforts of congress to “disclose” the existence of an advanced non-human intelligence to the public might possibly be successful. I feel 35 to 55% confident about this, but if they do succeed, I feel 99.99999% confident that many Christians will find the existence of NHI challenging to their current dogmas, and as a result of dogma collapse they may likely stop praying to our personal, loving God. This concerns me because I think Christianity at its core is about the true God who is “all light” with no darkness, and some of the teachings attributed to Jesus in the gospels represent the only hope of our species’ long-term survival, assuming we are left to our own devices, grudges, and WMD: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – The Nazarene

I suspect we live in a cosmos that is analogous to a “simulation” or a holo-physical replica of Baseline Reality, a situation that would account for things like the fine-tuning of physical constants, the apparent mathematical impossibility of DNA’s unfathomably complex and specific information that is somehow rationally organized (situated for efficiency within the double helix), the dual nature of light, the collapse of the wave function, nonlocality, the flexibility of time (time is bent by gravity and relative velocities), Planck’s constant (energy is literally digital, it comes only in indivisible tiny packets), the apparent “miracles” of free-will, identity, and consciousness, and the existence of God (the creator of our simulation-like cosmos) who works from Baseline Reality (a.k.a. Heaven). I feel 90% confident about this simulation analogy, but 100% sure of our loving God. So of course, I could be wrong about the Christian concept of “Heaven and Earth” suggesting a simulation analogy, because like everyone else, like all “fundamentalists” including atheists who “know” there is no God, agnostics who know for sure than nothing can be known for sure, and like everyone else, even you, I am often wrong about important things. Often wrong, folks. Embrace it.

Because recognizing your own human propensity to get important things wrong is quite likely the beginning of wisdom.

Why are we here?

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Many years ago, Neil Young wrote something profound and worrisome, “Only love can break your heart.”

But just this morning Ellie, my granddaughter asked, “Why are we here?”

Auntie Teri laughed and said, “That’s the great philosophical question that everyone wants an answer to.”

I blurted out, “I can tell you why we’re here. It’s so we can learn…”

But I hesitated as thoughts rushed through my head. Things like, “We’re here to find out what it’s like to live in a place where God isn’t physically present to influence us… so we can see who we really are. Our souls are from another realm called Reality. Life in this Universe is an E8 simulation that Johanna calls 229 H Street. God is The Great Surfer who lives outside of space and time and misses us when we’re away from home…”

My words, “So we can learn…” hung awkwardly in the air. I was starting to realize I had nothing appropriate to say to someone her age.

Until she rescued me and finished my sentence…

“to love?” She made it look and sound like a genuine question, but it felt to me like an angel’s solemn message.

I said, “Yes,” and grinned the biggest ever, realizing that she knows more about life than I do.

“We’re here to learn to love,” I said firmly, pretending that “love” was the word I was searching for all along.

“For only love can break your heart. What if your world should fall apart?”

No, Neil Young, your world won’t fall apart. Hang tough. Ellie says the whole reason we’re here is to learn to love. And she should know, she’s five years old.

…

Your pal, Talmage

The Cowboy Angel Rides

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“Move away from the screen, son.”

A deep voice boomed at me from behind my chair. I jumped and almost spilled my coffee, leaped to my feet and turned to face the intruder in one slick, spastic move.

It was a guy. He stood seven feet tall with his skin glowing like a halogen light bulb in a dark room. He wore a glowing cowboy suit that reminded me of an old movie my mom likes, The Electric Horseman.

But how’d he get in here? The hinges on my bedroom door squeak like a coffin lid. An empty potato chip bag was still right up against it. My room’s only window was painted shut six years ago. You’d need a crowbar and a hammer to open it.

I should have seen this guy’s reflection on my computer screen. I should have seen the light on my desk and the light on the wall in front of it. But no, somehow he got in here like he’d popped out of thin air.

“Dude, you scared the Irish out of me. What’s with the glowing makeup and all the lights?”

“I’m an angel from E8.” He exhaled with a tired-sound. “I’m here to discuss physics. But, kid, you’re spending entirely too much time indoors on that thing.” He glanced at my computer monitor.

“What kind of angel are you? A Baptist, Catholic, non-denominational, or… wait, you’re a Mormon, right?”

His eyebrows went up a little, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m just wondering. You could be a silver version of that Mormon angel, whats-his-name. Greer says the Mormon World Corporation is, like, totally into the ET thing. So I’m just putting one and one together. See what I’m saying? Except you should probably be gold instead of silver. Them Mormon angel statues are always gold.”

“I’m not a statue.”

“Ah, but you’re a Mormon.” I smirked and nodded, agreeing with myself.

“You’re out of shape. You’re poisoning yourself with carbohydrates. Your body needs sunshine and better sleep.”

I could see this was going to be a one-sided “adult” conversation. Unless maybe I forced things in another direction.

“How do I know you’re not a demon?”

“Do you believe in demons?”

“No, but I didn’t believe in angels a minute ago.”

I could see half of my clock on the wall behind him. The second hand was frozen. I hoped it just needed batteries, but I kind of knew better.

“And anyway, why would an angel single me out for a message? How’s that going to be fair to everybody else? All them people out there needing a message but never getting one? Is that fair? Does fairness even matter where you come from?”

He stared at me blankly.

“Where are you from, anyways?”

His gaze dropped to the floor beside his huge cowboy boots. He spoke quietly as if to someone else.

“You sure we hit the right coordinates? Check the date. This kid’s talking religion, for Shiva’s sake.”

It was clear that I’d disappointed the man already. I do that a lot with people. With angels, too, apparently.

He nodded to himself with his lips moving, then his eyes came back to me looking like a beat cop trying to endure tough talk from a superior. “Ok, then.” He looked me up and down with a perplexed expression.

“What are you, really?” I asked. “And don’t feed me no angel crap.”

“You need to get outside and walk,” he said. “Sunshine, fresh air, exercise, human interaction. You’re isolated in here. You’re destroying yourself.”

“Talk to the hand, dude.” I didn’t put my hand up, of course, that’s totally lame.

“What?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Listen, for reasons I can’t fathom, the Desk thinks you can help us.” He looked at the computer screen behind me. “Those damn simulation games destroy free will.”

OK, he wasn’t Mormon. Those boys might take a hit off a meth bowl to get you talking shop with them, but they don’t touch four-letter words. Uh-uh.

I glanced over my shoulder at Grand Theft Auto where I… uh, where my character just stole a hundred large from Wells Fargo and crashed the getaway car on a sidewalk loaded with pedestrians. Multiple fatalities, of course. I needed to scram fast to avoid the cops and more boring jail time. But the whole screen was frozen now, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.

You know, I worked a long time getting those sick Grand Theft Auto muscles all over me. And the rad gear? Along with some respect from the community, know what I’m saying? None of that came easy.

And this beyond-white-male dude thought I was going to just turn it off and walk away?

Right. None of that was going to happen.

The pushy talk coming out of his mouth was irritating enough, but to be honest, I felt kind of paralyzed by the fact that a guy like this even existed in the first place. And in my bedroom, you know?

But here he was, bigger than life.

Then it dawned on me. I was having a psychotic break — my first hallucination on the grand tour of shame and misery for the rest of my life. All it would take now was one word about this to my shrink and I’d get tagged schizophrenic, like my Uncle Saul.

He’s in his mid-forties and never been laid. The shrink’s scarlet letter is not working out so good for the man. Sad part is, hell, he seems perfectly normal to any chick he meets, right up to the moment they find out he comes attached to the word, “schizophrenia.” Then it’s all, “Bye-bye Saul. I’ll call you.”

“Dude, you’re a hallucination.” I turned away, sat back down in my chair and hid my face in my hands. I could feel tears coming, but I knew I shouldn’t let myself be a victim. That only makes things worse. You got to believe stuff happens for, like some decent reason that don’t have to ever make sense.

My bedroom door squeaked open. “Call your mother in,” the cowboy said. “Ask her if I’m real.”

I thought about it for a second. Ordinarily, I never let her in my bedroom. Calling her in here now would look suspicious. She’d figure out something was weird and then talk the truth out of me, right down to the details of this hallucination. Then it would be official. “My son’s turned idiot like his uncle.”

But can a hallucination open a door?

I didn’t know. I bounced my bare heels on the carpet, up and down like double bass, trying to figure out how to do this right. Then I noticed the carpet was still damp from last night.

“Hey, Mom? Fritzie peed on the floor again. Check it out, there’s this gross wet spot in here.”

I spilled a little beer is all, but Mon’s not going to know that… Unless she gets down and sniffs it.

Which she totally will.

Man, I’m dumb. Here comes another lecture on the evils of alcohol. Yes, I know what a liver is, Mom. But read my lips — I do not care!

Mom showed up at my door, took one look at the big shiny dude, and ran off screaming, Jesus. She’s very religious that way.

“OK, so you’re real.” I didn’t want to let on that it was a gigantic relief, but it was. “Why can’t you just talk to me like a normal human being instead of getting all up in my face with this bossy attitude of yours, huh? Tell me that.”

He nodded solemnly. “I suppose you’re right. The powerful never listen, do they? But you really need to control the acidic tongue. It will destroy you.” He sat on the side of my bed and crossed his legs like a girl — well, totally not like a cowboy let’s just say. And his butt, get this, it didn’t sink into the bed at all.

“What’s the deal, you aren’t denting my bed? You gotta be 200 pounds plus.”

“Good observation. But never make personal comments, it’s rude.” He looked at my blankets and quick as a slap sunk nine inches into my extra-soft memory foam mattress. “Now then, I used the term, ‘angel’ with you because I thought you could relate to it. But actually, I’m more of a…” He glanced out my window at the evergreen trees in the vacant lot next door. “Have you heard about the third ontology? Irwin’s code theoretic axiom of quantum gravity theory?”

I shook my head. “Sounds perfectly boring.”

“It’s not.” His eyes moved to my computer monitor. I scooted my chair out of his way and looked at the screen with him. The bank-heist fatalities vanished, and up came a YouTube video showing some physicist dude with my dad’s pompadour haircut and the exact same hairline. It was weird. Even the eyebrows and eyes were similar.

“The shapes represent themselves in the code,” Max said, “carrying meaning without the need for a translation.”

Somehow, that made sense now.

“The rules of the code are non-arbitrary, they come from a natural mosaic tiling language called a quasicrystal. The symbols are what they represent. We use geometric symbols in a geometric language to represent geometric objects. The hardware, the software and the simulation output are all one-and-the-same.”

“Dude, this is an information dump, don’t you think?” Not that I couldn’t understand him. It was just that understanding this kind of stuff felt totally weird to me. I’m normally not the sharpest pencil in the box, to put it politely — like if a teacher ever said I was average, I’d take it as the biggest total complement of my entire scholastic career. But it’s not apt to happen, seeing as I quit going to classes over a month ago. I’ll be old enough to officially drop out next year.

Max started the video again with a chuckle. “Guess I was a bit verbose there, sorry. Remember this part, though.”

And without skipping a note, Klee Irwin kept right on talking. The man’s got a set of lungs.

“…there is physical evidence and argument that is very rigorous that reality is not a deterministic algorithm playing itself out… the general consensus among scientists is that reality is non-deterministic.”

“Let us discuss how in the world there can possibly be a language as the substrate of reality without some notion of a chooser of the language and an actualizer of the meaning of these geometric symbols. Because there needs to be something that interprets or actualizes meaning in order to say that information exists.

If we like, we can just start with the axiom that God exists. But that’s not what science is about.

Science is about going deeper and constantly questioning where that comes from, and going all the way down to the bottom. So God may or may not exist, but if he does, I want to know how does he exist?

So we don’t need to make it religious.

We can say, well alright, abstractly maybe there’s this kind of universal collective consciousness, it’s not like a human consciousness, maybe it’s more like a force in Star Wars, maybe it’s more like Chi in Chinese medicine. We don’t know what it’s like, but we need something that is everywhere and that may be the substrate of everything, and [something] that is capable of actualizing this geometric information that we conjecture, and making the syntactical choices in this mosaic tiling language in 3D that we are working with here at Quantum Gravity Research.”

“So what’s this all about, Max? Really. You don’t need some dumb ass like me trying to spread this stuff around for you.”

“No,” Max said. He adjusted something on the jewel-studded lapel of his cowboy jacket and leaned toward me whispering, “We want you to oppose him.”

“Me? That’s really dumb. You think I could go up against this genius dude?”

Max nodded. “You can now.”

I scratched my head. “What are you saying, then? Klee Irwin is wrong?”

“No, he’s right about everything. Too right. That’s the problem. A simulation only works when the people inside don’t know it’s a simulation. If they figure things out, it all becomes little more than a lucid dream and they quit playing.”

“You mean like, mass suicide or something?”

“Yes, that could happen. Or worse. What people do here matters to their character and personality in Reality. Take Hitler, for instance. What he did has tarnished his soul. He may never want to come back to Reality. He may never be morally fit to come back home.”

“But I thought he was dead.”

“Hitler’s dead, but the soul of the man, the person from Reality is still cycling. He lives somewhere in Long Beach, California. But there’s a larger problem. Someone we all dearly love has put an enormous amount of time and effort into building this simulation for us. We asked him to do it. And now we’ve got over a trillion, trillion people in Reality who feel sure they need this experience. They want to know who they are apart from the physical presence of the Great Surfer.”

“Dude, you lost me. The great…”

“He’s a Surfer. That’s all you need to know.”

“You talking about God?”

“He dislikes that term, but, yes, from your perspective, that’s as close as you’re apt to get.”

“And what if I refuse to go up against this physics dude. He’s just out there trying to tell people what in the freaking world the truth really is about this place. These lives we’re living.”

“That’s no problem at all, son. We totally respect free will. There are thousands of scientists and educators already set up to oppose him. We’ve been working on it for centuries, you could say.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I have no idea why the Desk singled you out. With your background and this lifestyle?” He looked at my computer screen and shook his head. “They had a reason, though. They always do.” He touched his lapel and spoke softly to the floor again. “It’s a no-go, Swadhisthana. The cowboy angel rides.”

“Now, wait a sec. Just let me–”

He tipped his hat and disappeared into thin air.

My computer screen came to life. Writhing, mangled, moaning people all over a bloody sidewalk. My ride was still functional. I could probably get away before the cops showed up. I started to reach for the game controls but stopped. It wasn’t interesting anymore. The sirens grew louder and louder as I stared at the scene. I didn’t care about the sociopathic muscle man I’d become. He wasn’t me. Never was.

I stood and looked out my little window at an old cedar tree that I bet somebody planted more than a hundred years ago. Maybe I could sit in the shade and figure out how in the world I’m going to explain all this to Klee Irwin. He’s going to think I’m nuts.

But the dude should know all the problems he’s causing, right? And all the people they’ve sent on a mission to stop him.

Maybe my mom will back me up on the cowboy angel part. The guy was real.

the end

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Gates of Eden by Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman)

Of war and peace, the truth just twists

Its curfew gull just glides

Upon four-legged forest clouds

The cowboy angel rides

With his candle lit into the sun

Though its glow is waxed in black

All except when ‘neath the trees of Eden

The lamppost stands with folded arms

Its iron claws attached

To curbs ‘neath holes where babies wail

Though it shadows metal badge

All and all can only fall

With a crashing but meaningless blow

No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand

And then complains

Unto the shoeless hunter who’s gone deaf

But still remains

Upon the beach where hound dogs bay

At ships with tattooed sails

Heading for the Gates of Eden

With a time-rusted compass blade

Aladdin and his lamp

Sits with Utopian hermit monks

Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf

And on their promises of paradise

You will not hear a laugh

All except inside the Gates of Eden

Relationships of ownership

They whisper in the wings

To those condemned to act accordingly

And wait for succeeding kings

And I try to harmonize with songs

The lonesome sparrow sings

There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden

The motorcycle black Madonna

Two-wheeled gypsy queen

And her silver-studded phantom cause

The gray flannel dwarf to scream

As he weeps to wicked birds of prey

Who pick up on his bread crumb sins

And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden

The kingdoms of experience

In the precious wind they rot

While paupers change possessions

Each one wishing for what the other has got

And the princess and the prince

Discuss what’s real and what is not

It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden

The foreign sun, it squints upon

A bed that is never mine

As friends and other strangers

From their fates try to resign

Leaving men wholly, totally free

To do anything they wish to do but die

And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden

At dawn my lover comes to me

And tells me of her dreams

With no attempts to shovel a glimpse

Into the ditch of what each one means

At times I think there are no words

But these to tell what’s true

And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden