Science V Religion

[radarmark]

Yes, that is true. But it does not mean much to science or progress. The only threat is letting such Fundamentalism (usual culprits in these cases) gain traction (which is why I am a curmudgeaon sometimes).

Look up "Process Theology". Kind of a scientific theology. My own beliefs are quite in line with it and Quakerism. It works for me. Scientist and Mystic.

 

[OAT]

I use to think that there should be a Creator God. But after reading up on Buddhism and contemplating its teachings, I see no need for any form of theology that involves a "Creator God" or a "One Cosmic Consciousness" or any kind of mysterious mysticism.

Anyway, I put great store on logical and rational arguments, so if anyone can logically and rationally prove to me that my thinking is wrong, I am more than prepared to abandon it.

 

[MartinAtkins]

I use to think that there should be a Creator God. But after reading up on Buddhism and contemplating its teachings, I see no need for any form of theology that involves a "Creator God" or a "One Cosmic Consciousness" or any kind of mysterious mysticism.

Anyway, I put great store on logical and rational arguments, so if anyone can logically and rationally prove to me that my thinking is wrong, I am more than prepared to abandon it.

I suppose that a number of religions have Creator gods. Of the several gods who ruled in Genesis, one of them was a creator god--later monotheism was embraced. Other reigilious thinking just accept the belief that world always existed; therefore, eliminating the need of a creator. Eternal things, by definition, were never created.

 

[Woodland Wanderer]

It seems to me that if God created and sustains all things, and science studies the physical universe which at the very least is wholly part of 'all things', then the worship of God calls for some interest (to the extent of one's ability, training and time) in science. After all, if scientists uncover the laws (that is, the characteristic patterns of natural of events) what they are doing is displaying how God guides nature. It is true that it may be difficult to connect a given law absolutely to God's specific purpose, but surely for a believer in a Creator, the divine purpose must eventually be accomplished through the way the universe has been ordered.

 

[Thomas]

Science is deeply important, religion we do not need to rid or keep.

Yet a recent New Scientist article asserts that religion was there before science, and will be after ...

 

[Thomas]

Hi all —

Galileo said that Christianity explained how to get to heaven but science explained how the heavens were made. I think that’s just a perfect phrase to synchronize religion and science.

Yep.

Other then that science has nothing to do with religion regardless of what some modern day religions have to say.

Hmmm ... not so clear cut. Religion has a lot to do with philosophy, which is a science. My religion has a lot to do with cosmology and anthropology, and the findings feed back into our theological determinations.

The latest Catholic views on Genesis and evolution, for example...

He's out there running around saying the earth revolves around the sun confounding what the church was teaching...

Confounding what everyone was teaching. The view of the universe was Aristotelian, and he upset the scientific community before the Church got involved ... Copernicus had proposed heliocentrism long before Galileo, without any hoo-ha, and his theory was well received by the pope.

Let's not forget that religion and science were once one discipline.

Hurrah! It's called 'philosophy' — the love of knowledge. It's tragic that some 'scientists' would reduce philosophy to a ho-hum-science because it does not follow empirical methodology, as if that were the benchmark of everything.

Plus, with what the new physics is teaching us about the illusory nature of matter, science and religion seem to actually be coelescing. That's really cool!

I read that Plato offers a better way of looking at the 'new physics' than the Aristotelian/Newtonian mindset ... but that might be wishy-washy ... Personally I'd welcome a balanced scientific commentary on that.

I have a religious/philosophical belief system that has no conflict with science (except for the idea that nature is a random and unplanned occurance).

I thought your were a Theosophist?

Science is incapable of telling us anything about the supernatural, which by definition is above nature.

But science does enable us to shift the horizon back, else we'd still be believing in Olympus. On the other hand, religion must be able to be argued reasonably, and science has enabled us to demonstrate that religion is not mere superstition.

Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God

Only the supporters of scientific fundamentalism hold this view.

There is also the fact that the world does have properties of intelligence, from which we can observe that the world was created out of intelligence.

Hmm ... not so sure. The world is intelligible, certainly. And there are 'laws' which presuppose some ordering, but then I think there are contra-arguments — the laws of nature are just the facts of how nature works. Does hot gas expand because a natural law says so, or does the fact that when gas is heated it always expands allows us to posit that as a law?

We learn from William Paley’s famousWatchmaker Argument...

Is that still valid?

BTW: Can I say an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite amount of materials and an infinite amount of time will eventually produce a watch, a TV set, an electron microscope, as well as writing the complete works of Shakespeare if they have an infinite number of word processors?

I rather think statistically, they can, but will they? Really? Really? And so what? Will it not just be a complete fluke? The monkeys won't realise they've done it, will they? So what does that tell us?

Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” This Scripture attributes the heavens and the skies to a supernatural Creator.[/quote]
Oh indeed. In catholicism, there are two books: The Book of Nature, which is everything man can know by his own intellectual operation, and the Book of Revelation, which are those things made known to him that transcend the limitations of the human intellect.

Again, I point to the fact that the gaze of the intellect is infinite ... but scientists will tell me that's just a fluke of its operation ...

Well, since science is the study of what exists in the material world (okay, math and philosophy are kinda-sorta sciences, but I am not including them),

Isn't this relegation of some sciences to 'kinda-sorta sciences' part of the problem, before we even get to religion!

if science discovers something new ... for that Religion to remain copasetic with science, it must readjust its view.

I agree, where there is conflict. Modern theological thinking about Genesis, for example, allows for Adam and Eve to be not two people, but perhaps a group? The question is whether our 'man' evolves 'simultaneously' (in cosmological timescales) or at one place/one point ... the simultaneous or contemporaneous evolutionary view is, i think, unlikely according to scientists (the odds are stacked against it, surely?) ... but that our 'man' emerges not as a man and a women (can we say 'first man') but rather that A&E signify a process? Then there's the 'us' man (sorry, the correct description evades me) and Neanderthals, who lived side by side ... ?

Cosmology is interesting. New Scientist articles point to the probability that we are alone in the universe, human life emerging from so many improbables ... and multi-verses? Well of course, if God is infinite, why not? But does that make a difference? Not until we develop the technology to step between the dimensions, which seems a long way off?

It seems to me that if God created and sustains all things, and science studies the physical universe which at the very least is wholly part of 'all things', then the worship of God calls for some interest (to the extent of one's ability, training and time) in science.

And vice versa. I think scientists who poo-poo the idea of the Divine out-of-hand are also examples of 'blind faith', 'following the herd', etc., etc. I'm not saying they have to join a congregation, but to not even allow the possibility of God? No, that's fundamentalism.

The scientists I admire are the ones who say we should be very careful about making absolute statements.

And sheesh! if cosmology can talk about 'blue-cheese universes', or 'm-brane theory', then what makes 'God' such an outlandish proposition?

Welcome, btw, to Woodland Wanderer and Ludwik Kowalskil ... are you still around?

God bless,

Thomas

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God

Only the supporters of scientific fundamentalism hold this view.

Is it really that simple? How is this so? I am not certain it can be done, and I do not see myself as a fundamentalist.

And vice versa. I think scientists who poo-poo the idea of the Divine out-of-hand are also examples of 'blind faith', 'following the herd', etc., etc. I'm not saying they have to join a congregation, but to not even allow the possibility of God? No, that's fundamentalism.

The scientists I admire are the ones who say we should be very careful about making absolute statements.

And sheesh! if cosmology can talk about 'blue-cheese universes', or 'm-brane theory', then what makes 'God' such an outlandish proposition?

I do agree with this though, wholeheartedly. Along with most of what you said. + Rep to you.

 

[radarmark]

Whitewater and Thomas are correct. If science is about the physical universe (that is what "physics" is all about), it really is a poor method for dealing with what is beyond physics (the definition of "metaphysics").

While a lot of physicists and other scientists make an awful lot of claims that are metaphysical (see Einstein's rejection of quantum or M-brane theory being correct-but-not-empirically-testible or anthropic cosmology or "the big-bang explains everything"), that does not mean that reason cannot be used to debunk such claims.

Quantum theory is much better based than relativity (more empirical proof to a higher level of statistical significance). If a theory (M-brane) cannot ever be empirically tested, what does it mean to claim its "scientific" (or empirical) truth? If we posulate that the universe as it is ("mankind" as science defines it) "must be explained" by physical cosmology (anthropic cosmology), how does this differ from the religious cosmology of the Prime Mover in terms of empirical content? Finally if "big-bang theory" explains everything, what is the difference between it and "creation out of nothing", or the more empirical notion of "cyclic cosmology" (which looks a lot like a Hindu-Buddhist-Hopi conception of multiple creations)?

See, the issue is that science is based on the measurable, the empirical. When it tries to apply itself to "big issues" (theology, metaphysics, qualia) it is like the pit of an olive "applying itself" to the fruit. Kind of limited by Gödel's Theorem and the "Popup" and "Popdown" of Gödel, Escher, Bach.

 

[radarmark]

This is a mistake, see previous post!