| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/3/2007 8:10:01 PM |
Theistic Evolution --- so some reading ... ;) ... if one views the story in Genesis as metaphorical, rather than literal, science and creationism don't seem so incompatible anymore ...
Then why should anyone follow anything exactly as it says in the bible, such as worshipping jesus, or any number of other things?
But that's besides the point. Evolution and creationism are diametrically opposed because one says that man evolved after an extremely long time from other species, and one says man was created as is. One idea has predictive value and can help us understand the world, the other is easy to understand.
There's a sci-fi/fantasy book that actually talks about this, the seventh/last book of The Incarnations Of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. The crux of his point is that before god created day and night, what was a "day" to god? If a "day" to god is measured in eons, then creation and evolution don't have nearly as much to argue about.
If you're going to discount one part of the bible, why not just ditch the rest?
The bible and science don't agree. Choose one to treat as fact, and one to treat as a fairy tale. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/6/2007 8:33:27 PM | More and more scientists are becoming believers in a higher power, though not as defined by religion. They are realizing that everything is energy that is vibrating at different rates and therefore everything is connected.
You should read The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. It talks about amazing things happening within a new theory. I'm not skilled at explaining it and won't do it justice but if you are looking at a Higher Power through science, I highly recommend this book.
PS Religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Some people are spiritual without being religious (I happen to be one of them) and vice versa. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/11/2007 8:23:30 PM |
More and more scientists are becoming believers in a higher power, though not as defined by religion.
I would like to see some evidence supporting this claim. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/12/2007 1:01:10 AM |
I would like to see some evidence supporting this claim.
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8916982/
http://www.irr.org/schaefer1.html | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/12/2007 4:25:43 AM |
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8916982/
http://www.irr.org/schaefer1.html
The first two refer to the same study, the third isn't evidence of a trend but a study that states some scientists believe in god.
The first study comes from the templeton foundation, an organization that specifically gives large quantities of money to scientists willing to make statements in favor of god. (In fact more than the nobel prize) Probably not the best source for this kind of information.
None of this is relevant however, because even if that was true, it doesn't show a trend, it shows a snapshot. I suspect if you ran the same study in the 60's you would have had a much higher number of believers. | |
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Nergal
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Joined: 4/29/2007
Msg: 56 | |
| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/12/2007 4:35:48 PM | | Everybody has a right to believe whatever they want. Its only Christians that appear to insist that everyone believes what they believe. Anybody with a shred of intelligence acknowledges that fact. Internationa;, mutual cooperation are all baeed on this. Personally I find it hard to believe that any religion would ask me to believe that another religion thinks less of me. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/13/2007 11:48:41 AM | Science and religion are not mutually exclusive by any means, since neither completely disproves the other.
There is no possible way to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of God.
God never says to ignore one's surroundings and never observe the patterns of anything ever. People may have, at some point, made the claim that God said something like that, but when you get right down to it: neither Science nor Religion can prove its counterpart correct or incorrect.
The problem is a little more complicated:
Science is self-correcting, and therein lies its strength. If something is determined to be inaccurate, it can be altered. Its weakness is in its lackof conviction: in science, nothing is ever 'proven correct', it is only 'not yet disproven'. There are no scientific 'facts', only things that have not yet been proven to be completely false. Granted, some things Science is pretty damn sure about, but it never commits to the absolute certainty of TRUTH.
Religion however, relies on the premise that it never inaccurate, and can never be altered. Religion's weakness is the lack of any ability to adjust itself, to changing times, places, peoples, etc. You can't just take Leviticus out of the Bible, even though the whole genocidal-military-campaigns and selling-your-daughter-into-slavery thing is no longer a positive societal goal. Its strength comes in its conviction: with religion, certain things are TRUE. Absolutely. Without question or equivocation. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/13/2007 1:30:45 PM | The way I look at it is this...
In every single instance when science and religion have come into conflict, science won. Science, by definition, says absolutely nothing about spiritual matters. They are fundimentally two seperate questions. Science asks "how?", religion asks "why?". The problem only arises when religion oversteps itself and tries to answer "how?", such as the whole evolution vs intelligent design debate. There was a time when the church was at the forefront of scientific research, but that was a long time ago. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/14/2007 10:05:41 PM | | Science and religion were'nt always polar opposites. Newton, Copernicus, Pythagorus were all very religous as well as scientific. I think the most dangerous idealogies are science without concience and religion without critical thought. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 12:41:33 AM | People keep asking the question....but it really doesn't matter does it?
you can only find out the answer when you die...if even then!
Soooo why not live life as best you can and in peace.....hold true
to whatever you believe and there you go......follow this...no more debates
no more foolish wars (atleast less wars) and life will be good  | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 1:52:01 AM | Somebody mind telling me why a priest or a theologan is any more qualified to tell me the "why's" of the universe than a pumber?
A knowledge of fairy tails doesn't qualify you to discuss much besides the fairy tails.
Philosophers on the other hand... | |
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mak68
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Joined: 4/14/2007
Msg: 62 | |
| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 2:47:16 AM | The two are NOT compatible.
Science is based on facts and evidence. About how the natural world around us works. I would also say that science involves critical thinking and logic.
Religion, and I'll even say spirituality, are based from faith. If one starts to apply critical thinking and logic to their belief system, one might not like the answers found. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 1:25:28 PM |
Somebody mind telling me why a priest or a theologan is any more qualified to tell me the "why's" of the universe than a pumber?
A knowledge of fairy tails doesn't qualify you to discuss much besides the fairy tails.
They are no more qualified to tell you the "whys" of the universe then you are to teach say.....spelling at an elementary level | |
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mak68
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Joined: 4/14/2007
Msg: 64 | |
| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 5:44:14 PM | I'm assuming that your quote tags are misplaced... So here is my translation of your post:
Chrlsedm says:
Somebody mind telling me why a priest or a theologan is any more qualified to tell me the "why's" of the universe than a pumber?
A knowledge of fairy tails doesn't qualify you to discuss much besides the fairy tails.
You say:
They are no more qualified to tell you the "whys" of the universe then you are to teach say.....spelling at an elementary level
You are comparing the teaching of the universe to teaching of spelling at an elementary level, logical fallacy of oversimplification. You are reducing a complex idea to a simple inaccurate idea. The two do NOT compare...
Try again. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/15/2007 9:32:20 PM | The name of the book you referred to is "Dancing Wu Li Masters," not "Dancing with the...."
Everything is energy... light, matter, thought, consciousness, everything.
I used to read the Bible a lot... different translations... somewhere in the OT I read a passage that said "I am the glue that holds the universe together." I've never been able to find that passage again, but it stuck with me.... oops. LOL! | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/16/2007 4:27:00 AM |
You are comparing the teaching of the universe to teaching of spelling at an elementary level, logical fallacy of oversimplification. You are reducing a complex idea to a simple inaccurate idea. The two do NOT compare...
Try again.
No sir YOU try again, read his post again, and if YOU don't see the problem, maybe you are part of the same problem | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/16/2007 10:19:37 PM |
They are no more qualified to tell you the "whys" of the universe then you are to teach say.....spelling at an elementary level.
Oops wrong set of tales right? Anyway, I'm not qualified to teach spelling at an elementary level, that's not what my degree is in.
Thank you for conceding this point. While we're talking about personal failings, would you like me to private message you how to quote things properly?
Edit:Lets just be clear here, is the only purpose of you posting in this thread to nitpick spelling, because if it is, we can get a mod in here to just delete your off topic posts. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 12:38:14 AM |
You are reducing a complex idea
Just because you think something is complicated doesn't make it so. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 5:06:20 AM | I believe they go together, each helping the other to evolve in various ways. I'm not speaking regarding "organized" religion, but rather the individual beliefs of those involved.
Science and religion have come into conflict as a result of people making claims on both sides that the other is wrong. Rather than seeing what they have in common, and where they've taken human beings in culture and progression, they dismiss, deny, denounce, and degradate each other for their mistakes, yet mistakes are a natural faucet of human progress. Like Fibonacci regression, we advance, and retreat, make progress, and then regress a bit -- even the conflicts between religion and science cause both to adhere to this principle.
Many scientific advancements have been made by men of various faiths who "believed" a possibility existed, having been born of their faith [often from their religion of choice], to create and or propose an outcome. Ideas and thoughts are not independant of belief in the early stages of scientific hypothesis.
One may say to someone living 500 years ago. One day you will fly in a large machine, talk to people around the world on telephones and computers, and one day we will have technology to restart a human heart and bring the dead back to life.
If you were to say that to someone 500 years ago, most would laugh at you. Yet, those of faith and imagination often propose ideas of this kind, they often seek after truth and knowledge as a result of their belief that they can do great things, and help other human beings. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 5:45:18 AM | I'm not sure I understand what you're disagreeing with, given what you've just said is just a different way of repeating what I'd just said, at least from what I can see.
Regarding the "birth" of science, it was in-fact born of discreptency of what was being stated as fact by the Catholic church vs, what was being observed. Since I didn't enter the discussion regarding the birth of science, I can hardly be held accountable for explaining the entire history. So I hope you'll understand my confusion.
It is true leaders of religion were foolish when scientific enlightenment began to manifest, that doesn't minimize the truth that many men of faith still maintained their faith and expanded their understanding and faith via science inspite of resisting dogma and assumptions by leaders of their faith. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 7:20:25 AM |
Just because you think something is complicated doesn't make it so.
No I think it's a rather simple and straight forward idea myself, which I guess is why he came by to snipe at my spelling rather than discuss the point. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 8:49:03 AM | I believe at this point in time, speculations of this type have HUGE definitional problems. Having said that, the scope of religion has been declining at an increasing pace, at least since the time of Pythagoras. Science has been much more accurate in explaining the nature of reality than religion has. Very few engineers design a bridge based upon information gleaned from religious writings.
On the other hand, my understanding is that spiritual approaches to certain problems, especially in psychology, seem to have an impressive success rate. For example, the AA approach to alcohol abuse seems to have been impressively successful. The AA approach essentially relies upon a development of spiritual abilities. Another example would be the Budhist approach to spiritual development. This type of approach is now gaining ground in western psychology. See, for example, Learned Optimism by Mark Selegman. The Budhist approach promises to increase happiness and decrease negative emotions. There is even an article in National Geographic (about 1 and 1/2 years ago) detailing objective evidence of the success of Budhist meditation practices on happiness.
Thus, I conclude that science is generally more reliable in explaining the nature of the physical world. I also conclude that in those areas where science fails to give us clear understanding, a spiritual approach can often result in a beneficial outcome.
Just my 2 cents. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 11:36:28 AM | Science was born alongside christianity???
Oh well that's where I'm going wrong, thinking it was born pre history alongside philosophy.
You really don't have to be sarcastic. I'm not offending you, so I would expect the same respect. I am speaking of the enlightement period in which the explosive scientific progress took place post dark-ages. This is what I originally meant. This is when the when "Science vs. Religion" began to manifest as debates. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/19/2007 3:38:14 PM | Synch -
I understand your point and that is one of the reasons I started with the definitional disclaimer. If "religion" is construed as the belief in an all powerful diety with conscousness - well I, personally, see no evidence of any kind substantiating this allegation. I do, however, acknowledge that some spiritual undertakings appear to have consequences favorable to human existence. | |
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| Science and Religion
Posted: 6/20/2007 10:27:08 AM | Hey there,
I also think that science and religion hasnt evolved enough to understand how the two are like two wings of a bird, people should be willing to admit that they might be ignorant and thats why they might not understand something, science still has a very limited way of investigating reality, as humans evolve the many other ways will become known, and the same goes for religion, most religious people are following religion more out of conditioning then a conscious choice, so untill they become conscious it will be difficult for religion to access the potential thats there.
Thanks | |
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