Topics Religion

Question Is there any more scientific basis for the justification of a belief in Feng Shui, any more than the major religions have their belief in God? My Chinese girlfriend is a firm believer and practitioner. I'm a lapsed Christian and see no more "proof" in Feng Shui than I do in the God that Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in. Thanks.

Accepted:
December 11, 2008

Comments

What I know about Feng Shui could be written on a very small scroll. But that said...

There's at least this interesting difference between the two cases. Feng Shui claims that certain ways of arranging stuff tend to breed various sorts of good or bad fortune. If that's true, it's the sort of thing we have a pretty good idea how to test. So Feng Shui seems amenable to scientific investigation -- whether or not it would be worth the trouble to do the studies. But the claim that God exists isn't so obviously like that. It's far harder to figure out just what we should expect to see in the world if there is -- or isn't -- a God. Some might say: all the evil in the world counts as proof that there's no God. But anyone who knows the history of this issue knows that it's not really so simple. Or someone might say: the peculiar kinds of cosmic "coincidences" science has uncovered (the "fine-tuning" of various constants that allows for the possibility of life, for example) is evidence for God's existence. But once again, it's not so simple.

This isn't a criticism of theism. The claim that God exists is more like various metaphysical claims (e.g., that there are necessary connections in the world) and less like claims of the sort that if your doorway points in a certain direction, you're likely to have bad financial luck. The point is that looking for straightforward empirical evidence for God's existence or nonexistence may be a misbegotten enterprise. Feng Shui, whether spot on or silly, is much more easily tested.