Science and Religion Can and Do Mix, Mostly 1345
coondoggie writes "A recent Rice University study found that in one of the more vitriolic social (and increasingly political) battlegrounds, science v. religion, there is more common ground that most folks believe. In fact, according to the study, only 15% of scientists at major U.S. research universities see religion and science as always in conflict."
This just makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Discarding the moral teachings that have been handed down over thousands of years is equally ridiculous.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the "moral teachiings" that cause conflict, it's the historic mythology that science disagrees with.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure the moral teachings cause conflict.
If a voice in your head told you to kill your own child, would you do it? Let's say at the last minute, the voice says "just joking!", but you were *really* gonna do it. Am I supposed to think you did a morally righteous thing by fully intending to kill your own child to prove your loyalty to someone?
Or what if there was an angry mob outside your house, about to rape some guy? If you instead convinced the mob to rape your own daughters, and let the guy go, am I supposed to look at you like a role model?
Morality has been awfully fluid over the period of human existence...
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s/some guy/an angel
s/a voice in your head/the god you've seen do many wonders and miracles during all your life, he's even anticipated the destruction of cities to you (and then it happened, told you you were going to have a son with your ancient wife and then it happened) /
if you are going to criticize a text, take it within it's surrounding context. Picking Abraham's decision to take Isaac to the altar on itself is not rigurous, at all.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, if an alien came down from the sky in a spaceship, performed all sorts of wonders and miracles, and predicted the future with uncanny accuracy, and even helped me and my wife conceive when we thought it was impossible, sorry, but if they ask me to kill my kid, they're evil. Not just "not good", but pure evil.
Similarly, if an alien was about to be raped at my doorstep by an angry mob, I might be willing to try to fight the mob off and risk my life, but sacrificing my daughter to be raped instead is simply not moral. Heck, I might even be able to understand it if to fend the mob off I had to offer *myself* up for a good raping, but to sacrifice my *daughters*? Not okay.
Abraham's decision to take Issac to the altar should be universally condemned - killing your own child to appease a powerful figure in your life is never justifiable.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
If my mother, who created me, happened to be some fertility doctor that helped me and my wife create a child, and then told me I had to *kill* that child, I'd spit in her face. No matter how wonderful and powerful and generous she had ever been to me, asking for human sacrifice is simply not a moral action.
As to what makes me say that those acts aren't moral, you can derive it in any number of ways without resorting to some otherworldly figure. Philosophers of all sorts have extolled all sorts of rational foundations for morality over the years.
As for "higher thoughts", I'd be awfully skeptical of any being that demanded absolute obedience - after all, what mortal could discern between the word of God and the word of Satan?
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if my mother *was* The Creator, that wouldn't make child sacrifice proper, or even a willingness to sacrifice a child proper.
Sure, Hobbes, Kant.
Generally enlightened self interest and attachment - as a tool, cooperation brings more benefits than conflict, and so one tries to treat others as one would like to be treated, but we can't ignore the fact that we have stronger and weaker relationships with people (and animals and things for that matter), that make some connections and responsibilities more important than others.
Can I assume that you don't have any rational foundation for your morality, and that it is simply communicated to you through authorities you consider superior to your own intellect?
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I take Jesus as described in the Bible as basis for my morality.
And how is that any less arbitrary than the GP, particularly in the absence of reliable evidence that there was anything special about Jesus? I agree that metaphysical questions about the origin of morality are hard, but falling back on religion only pushes back the question one more step.
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The number of backflips you're going through to justify a position is amazing....
How is this any different than confronti
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If such a creator existed, it would be an immoral creator, and it'd be a worthy cause to oppose such an evil entity at every step. Morality is not imparted nor defined by the creator.
Enlightened self-interest, to put it simply.
I've never seen any such thing happening, nor had a reliable account of it, so I entirely discount it.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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Absurd. People commit monstrous or unacceptable criminal actions because they, personally, wish to commit those actions. And as with most humans wanting to engage in something wrong, all they require is the flimsiest rationalisation.
Religion can provide this. So can nationalism. But more important that ideology is--like all crimes--opportunity. If you give a perso
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Perhaps it's better to rephrase this. Religion can be the basis if monstrous behavior, as can any ideology drilled in to heads of its adherents. A child raised to believe that blacks are sub-human is likely to apply thus belief to their interactions with blacks. The belief may be nuanced, by preaching a paternal approach towards blacks, or it could demand that they be eradicated. Some will question the ideology, others will not. We need morality to be based on empathy and rationality. I do not want my siste
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
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Dude. Did you not read the story up until that point? Abraham is keeping the whole "voices in my head are telling me to sacrifice you" thing hidden from Isaac. If he'd said
Re:Wrong assessment (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would morality that's handed down from an immortal being change so drastically over time? This seems more like evidence that the whole thing is a bunch of made-up stories by a primitive middle-eastern culture than anything else. If god is omnipotent and infallible, then his definition of what's moral should be immutable. Yet, as you say, it used to be that daughters were property and offering them up for an angry crowd to rape was okay, but now it isn't.
So the only reason that women are people and not property now is technology? Wow, I bet you're a real hit with the ladies....
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You did know that the story of Abraham and Isaac was intended to explain why the Hebrew deity doesn't require child sacrifice, right?
I have to ask, because even though the majority of rabbis and historians of the Ancient Near East (both religious and otherwise) since mediaeval times have known this, both those who believed it's historical and those who didn't, some people still don't seem to get it.
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...and that in turn is a story intended to show that you shouldn't make rash promises. Everyone also knows that.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I've read the NIV, King James, New American, Book of Mormon, Quran, and even the Pearl of Great Price (I skipped Dianetcs and just watched SouthPark instead). I understand the whole narrative. I even agree with some of it. But make no doubt about it, there is no post hoc explanation that makes Abraham a good person for almost killing his son by the demand of his powerful benefactor. None. Nada. No excuses for killing your kid, period.
As for how flawed man really is, that's an argument of philosophy that can be had without resorting to sacrificing your own daughters up for rape, or slitting your son's throat. Certainly, I've had my flaws and I've overcome them without resorting to faith, so your citation of empirical evidence is already refuted :)
As for your continued education on the Bible, I refer you to the illustrious Bart Erhman: http://www.bartdehrman.com/books.htm [bartdehrman.com]
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
So hospitality trumps having your daughters raped? Look, no doubt Lot had a bunch of bad options (maybe he'd have been better off if he had sufficient weapons and allies to fight the mob directly), but can we really say he picked the best out of the bunch?
Of course the story is supposed to be simple, and counterfactuals kind of miss the point, but if the moral of the story was to emphasize how a good host should behave, shouldn't it have been more about sharing the best cut of meat with his guests, or letting them have the nice blanket? Instead, the story treats women as chattel, denigrates any idea of a noble martial defense of ones' guests or ones' family, and begs the question, if the mob was so powerful that it could get Lot to offer his daughters up for rape, why didn't they just take the women, and the angels, and Lot for good measure? Are we supposed to infer that Lot's daughters were just really good at tuckering the mob out with wild sex, that their appetites had been satisfied? Or are we supposed to believe that the mob, while completely irrational in their need for rape, figured that hey, we got the girls, let's not push our luck?
When I say morality is awfully fluid, of course I refer to the fact that back when the story of Abraham, or even Lot, was written, there were probably a bunch of otherwise normal, average people who just didn't see anything offensive about the stories (although frankly, that's speculation on my part - maybe most people thought it was egregiously offensive, but those indoctrinated into it at a young age came to accept it).
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I disagree. The reason black people are poorer (on average) today is similar to the reason that Jews worship the same way their ancestors do, and the same reason we speak almost the same language as Shakespeare.
Memes pass down through generations, for thousands or millions of years. That is so abundantly clear and true that to deny it, as you have done, is untenable. I think it is perfectly clear why MOST children end up in the same socioeconomic class as their parents, even in a world with prevailing econo
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i'll give you that the lingering effects of segregation and the civil rights movement are present today - but as for slavery in the US, other than taught in history and referenced by groups, no one alive today has any actual memory or experience of it from either side.
something that someone did to someone else 4+ generations ago is not an excuse for your failings/situation today.
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> Do you believe that people can only be affected by things of which they have "actual memory or experience"?
Pretty much.
If you are a failure as a black person today, slavery really has little to do with it. Even Jim Crow has little to do with it. Your failures are due to you and your immediate surroundings that other people with your skin tone have managed to escape from. If those other people can manage it, then your excuses are far less convincing.
Some black families have a history of higher education
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It's not so much about the past slavery, segregation, etc., but rather the institutionalized poverty that came with it that still lingers. Unfortunately it has become a feedback loop, which doesn't help anyone.
Interesting that you mention that, as that has little to do with lingering effects of slavery, and more to do with the design of the welfare system which back in the 1960's-1980's helped destroy the basic family unit in black communities when families could get more from welfare for a single mom with children than they could if dad was home too. Thus divorce rates went up so that the family could get more entitlements from the state.
This in turn yielded families without father figures, which then pushed
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say religion and science are pretty orthogonal.
Science kinda just tells you what is likely to happen when you do X. That's it.
Religion is simply your own personal reason that you do X. Maybe it's because everyone else is doing it. Or maybe you have some system of beliefs, founded in scientific observation or some other social aspect of your upbringing. But it doesn't really matter.
Religion is kinda like an operating system... it doesn't really matter which one you run. Some are more susceptible to viruses and botnets than others, some interoperate better other operating systems. But generally it's great that there's some diversity.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Religion is kinda like an operating system... it doesn't really matter which one you run. Some are more susceptible to viruses and botnets than others, some interoperate better other operating systems. But generally it's great that there's some diversity.
The next time a woman is stoned to death for adultery, a child is driven to suicide for being gay, a man is murdered for "sorcery" or a family is destroyed for being apostates, I'll be sure to cheerfully remind every involved that it doesn't matter what you believe, and that we should value this diversity.
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Problem is those actions are warranted and condoned by the foundational texts of the religions.
Congratulations! You constructed a sentence which is simultaneously completely correct, partially correct, completely incorrect and mostly irrelevant. That's quite a feat. (If you're curious about the "partially correct" bit, there's no foundational text of any major world religion which condones a child being driven to suicide for being gay. If you know of one, please provide chapter and verse.)
Even those actions which are condoned (if you wanted to spin it one way) or treated as an unremarkable fact of li
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I'd say religion and science are pretty orthogonal.
Modern religion is mostly orthogonal to science, only because in the last few centuries it has retreated away from a number of fields it used to occupy where science won the cultural battle (e.g.: no, the earth was not created 5000 years ago, thank you).
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Agreed.
- Women are their husband's property.
- Homosexuals should be stoned.
- Unruly children should be stoned.
- When ordered by God we should kill not just men but also women and children when invading a country.
- Eat a lobster and die.
- Divorce and be stoned.
- Etc...
I mean, discarding all of the scientific nonsense is a no-brainer. But we really need to get back to the good book as a source of moral authority.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
>>I mean, discarding all of the scientific nonsense is a no-brainer. But we really need to get back to the good book as a source of moral authority.
You're a bit out of date.
The Old Testament which has been superseded by the New. There's basically two laws you have to follow these days:
1) Love God
2) Love Other People As Much As Yourself.
Everything else is details.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard this interpretation before, but an awful lot of Christians still cite Leviticus whenever it suits, often while eating a bacon cheeseburger.
I realize that hypocrisy is far from limited to Christians, but this one is a regular on the evening news:
"Hey, how about some gay marriage?"
"Nuh uh, Leviticus."
A just universe would follow that up with a serious punching.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
dammit, now I want a bacon cheesburger.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
>>I've heard this interpretation before, but an awful lot of Christians still cite Leviticus whenever it suits, often while eating a bacon cheeseburger.
It's called cafeteria Christianity for a reason. =)
But if you want to get technical, the RCC divides Old Testament law into culturally-bound laws and moral laws, with the former not applying (like what clothes to wear) and some (like the Ten Commandments) still applying. But Jesus made it very clear that there's only two commandments for a Christian that really matter:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A37-40 [biblegateway.com]
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Oh come on, Jesus said everything both ways. I'll see your Matthew 22:37-40 and raise you a Matthew 5:17 [biblegateway.com]. Your passage says that the previous laws hang on those two principles, not that they're abolished by them - and my passage confirms that the previous laws are still in effect.
There's a reason why cafeteria Christianity is so popular - the Bible can be interpreted as contradicting itself on almost every subject, which means that you have to pick and choose what you want to believe - it's just not consist
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You demonstrate the flaw in the article. (Score:3)
The majority of SCIENTISTS do not have a problem with science and religion.
It is the RELIGIOUS people who have a problem with science. Because it contradicts their religion.
Nice statement of fact there. Too bad there are millions (billions?) of people who do NOT agree with you. Their statements of fact contradict yours.
Don't confuse our personal
Re:You demonstrate the flaw in the article. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>It is the RELIGIOUS people who have a problem with science. Because it contradicts their religion.
As I said in another post, the two groups that feel science and religion are in conflict are fundies (which you'll see all over the place on sites like The Blaze) and logical positivists (found on sites like Slashdot). Most educated people do not.
>>Their statements of fact contradict yours.
It's not my problem if they're wrong. =)
Well, I've made it something of a personal mission to correct the fundies' misapprehensions about science, and positivists misapprehensions about religion, but that's just a hobby.
Thanks for proving it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. They're "wrong" because YOU already "know" what is "right".
And if they don't agree with you ...
And yet around 50% of the US population thinks that "intelligent design" should be taught in schools along with evolution.
It's not the "fundies" who are the problem.
It's anyone who believes that his personal religion is "right" and that others are "wrong".
Re:Thanks for proving it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Give up, you have no hope. You must already know this, but in an argument between science and religion, science can never win because it's constrained by provable facts, whereas religion has the entire depth of the human imagination to come up with a response.
But you have pointed out the key bit - why should the Bible be any more a source of authority than, say, Dianetics? I think one of the secret reasons people are against Scientology (besides the brainwashing and slavery bits) is that it so obviously shows - in a nice, condensed 60 year history - how a major religion can basically be manufactured whole cloth and accepted by millions...
Or others. (Score:3)
Let's start with the Jews. They have a religion.
Which forks into Christianity.
Which forks into Catholicism (East and West).
Another fork for Islam.
Back to Catholicism - fork for the Protestant Reformation.
Lots of forks for lots of different Protestant sects.
Fork one of those into Mormonism.
Yep! Arguing about whether statement X is in book Y is meaningless. Because it is only the BELIEVERS who look to that book as an authority in the first place. Some of those religions have additional holy books. Some don't.
Re:Thanks for proving it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoa, human rights? Christianity is responsible for more torture and death in the first 19 centuries AD than almost any other human cause, and probably stunted development of "civilization" by several hundred years. Scientology, fortunately, has managed to do little more than steal some disposable income from gullible celebrities.
Anyway, you seem to be applying a logical argument ("2000 years of ...") as some sort of validation. If you applied length of belief to science, we'd still be studying the four elements...
And, I just don't see how philosophy and ethics need any requirement of religion, since religion has no requirement but faith. In fact, I never understood why "religion" needed to exist at all even for those who have that faith in a higher power. And IMO, personal faith in a few positive tenets doesn't really sound like a bad thing. If, as you say, the whole Bible should now be reduced to 2 concepts, why does there need to be such a massive infrastructure around it all? Why not just make it a personal thing that doesn't have to involve people who already understand the basic concepts of right and wrong?
Re:You demonstrate the flaw in the article. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You demonstrate the flaw in the article. (Score:4, Interesting)
> No, the conflict between science and religion is a false conflict created by atheists as a way to denigrate religion
Clearly you've never read any of the newsletters from the American Family Association.
If not bothered by theocrats, I don't think you would ever hear form atheists.
You are mainly whining about SKEPTICS that rightfully won't accept things without evidence. This is the same reason that Troy was originally thought a myth and why it took about 80 years for plate tectonics to be widely accepted. You have to make a compelling case when it comes to a scientific argument. You can't just depend on blind faith and appeals to authority.
A very small vocal minority of fundie protestants object to the the philosophy of science in general.
They seek to alter the majority rather than tolerate what they view as heresy and don't have sufficient moral courage to separate themselves from the rest of the society that they find so disturbing.
The AFA and similar groups love to play victim and false martyr. The "moral majority" is actually a very noisy minority.
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... make it seem as if atheism is supported by science.
Atheism does not require support. It is *absence* of religion, not a different kind of religion. That's the definition of the word. Religion has no scientific basis, so someone who fully embraces science is not religious, which is what is called atheism.
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No, the conflict between science and religion is a false conflict created by atheists as a way to denigrate religion and make it seem as if atheism is supported by science.
You are making a very, very broad judgement. The affirmation that the conflict is created by atheists is a statement almost impossible to disprove, and you want it to be correct. However, it's almost impossible to prove as well - one or even fifty examples don't prove it, it just gives evidence. There's also a virtually countless amount of evidence that says the opposite - that theists create the conflict. What matters is which evidence you look for (and want to believe), and how much time you spend look
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." -- Matthew 5:17
Sorry, buddy, you're going to hell.
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You should read the NT. You'll find it doesn't say what you think it says.
--For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV)
--"It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the s
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Everything else is details.
"Not one jot" of which will pass away until Jesus' father's kingdom is established.
You've arbitrarily picked one side of one of the more glaring contradictions in the New Testament. You have zero justification for doing this. Many of your co-religionists pick--or rather cherry-pick--the other side of the contradiction.
Furthermore, the NT is full of additional prohibitions and pronouncements, some from Jesus himself, which is a little weird if those two laws are the only things that matter. I know if I we
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1. Create rules which, by his own admission, are so strict that they cannot be followed.
2. Decree that anyone who violates these rules will be punished by nothing less than eternal torture. Unimaginable agony inflicted upon them without rest as hours become days, days become years, and years become millenia for ever and ever. Even for something so tiny as saying 'no, your bum doesn't look big in that.'
3. Proudly proclaim that
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
>>1. Create rules which, by his own admission, are so strict that they cannot be followed.
Who says the rules are so strict they can't be followed? Jesus said, "Be thou perfect, as thy father is perfect." The concept of Original Sin was the pet project of St. Augustine, who said rather famously "I cannot not sin." This was done to counter Pelagius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius) who felt that it was possible for good folk to live without sinning for extended periods of time.
St. Augustine also felt it was impossible to do good deeds without God's help, whereas Pelagius thought that while God was an inspiration for us to do good, it was our free will that made actions good or bad.
St. Augustine also felt that unbaptized kids go to hell, whereas Pelagius thought they were born without sin (again, Original Sin was an Augustinian thing based on some of the writings of St. Paul, not Jesus).
St. Augustine felt that people died because of sin, not because we're physical beings, and physics sort of sucks like that (as Pelagius felt).
Pelagius, quite unfortunately, lost the debate to St. Augustine (and got excommunicated for his efforts) and so we ended up with these theological contradictions that you sort of rightly point out don't make a lot of sense.
The irony is that after two thousand years I'd say that most churches would be considered Pelagian these days. So your ranting is a little bit misguided.
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You should go back and read all the religious laws, or ask a Jew about all the nuances they learned about their religious law. Or, you can read what Jesus said (Matt 5:20): "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (The Pharisees were known to go out of their way to try to follow the minutest details of Jewish law.)
> Jes
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>>The teachings of Paul in the NT also have a number of examples of outdated morality. If you just stick to the teachings of Jesus from the Gospel's you'll probably be alright, but probably the majority of modern Christianity comes from Paul's teachings.
Indeed. I think Paul was a bright guy, but I also think he got a lot of elements wrong (he was a misogynist, when Christ wasn't), and/or gave advice that has been since transmuted by the RCC into divine law. For example, he recommended chasity to other
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Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
> Discarding the moral teachings that have been handed down over thousands of years is equally ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous; moral philosophy has been advancing since the bronze age, just like science. There's a reason that religions founded in that era endorse slavery, regard women as property, and practice scapegoating, to name just a few items; they are only as moral, could only possibly be as moral, as the men who founded them were. We can do better today.
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Of course, today's mainline major world religions don't endorse slavery, regard women as property and so on. Religion has also advanced since ancient times. Indeed, many of the moral advances that you cite were developed by religious people.
As a general rule, only fundamentalists believe that religion was set in stone back in the day.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion has advanced by discarding the moral teachings that have been handed down over thousands of years. And mainly because it has been forced to.
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
And now we have those examples to add to our historical knowledge too!
Isn't this fun?
Oh, you meant that some people tried something new and ran up against (major) problems to do with abuse of power and other nasty aspects of human nature, so we should (obviously!) go back two millenia in our thinking.
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Funny, but that is exactly what that old book written by nomads basically teaches. Men are flawed. Hmmmm Funny that!
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Moral teachings that have largely been proven to work in building relatively peaceful and successful societies and individuals. So I'd include some religions and not others, perhaps, if you want to draw a fine line.
The only people that believe science and religion are fundamentally in conflict are religious fundamentalists and the militant positivists you find here on Slashdot. For *everyone else* (as the study shows) they coexist in harmony.
Science is the empirical study of how things are.
Religion is the normative study of how things should be.
There's no inherent conflict between these two things, because they discuss two very different things.
While the logical positivists on here will say the study how things should be is uninteresting, for most people, well, it's interesting. (Which is why logical positivism is a failure of a philosophy.)
Re:This just makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I went to catholic school. Jesuits, to be more precise. Out science lab teacher was a priest (quite an old one, 70+ years old). He used to say:
"It is not the duty of religion to say HOW things happen, but WHO is behind it. Science, on the other hand, will tell you HOW, but now WHO is behind it. I see no conflict whatsoever between the Big Bang and my faith. Between evolution and my faith. When I see Darwin's evolution, I see God's hand behind it."
Big Bang Theory proposed by a priest (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I went to catholic school. Jesuits, to be more precise. Out science lab teacher was a priest (quite an old one, 70+ years old). He used to say:
"It is not the duty of religion to say HOW things happen, but WHO is behind it. Science, on the other hand, will tell you HOW, but now WHO is behind it. I see no conflict whatsoever between the Big Bang and my faith. Between evolution and my faith. When I see Darwin's evolution, I see God's hand behind it."
Its not surprising one catholic priest would accept the Big Bang theory given that the theory was proposed by another catholic priest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaitre [wikipedia.org]
Interestingly some leading scientists of the day dismissed the theory because it came from a priest, it "smelled of creationism".
Re:This just makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Discarding scientific knowledge because of a book written originally for a nomadic group of shepherds is ridiculous.
Discarding the moral teachings that have been handed down over thousands of years is equally ridiculous.
There is one very, very, VERY important difference here. One of these is subject to review, testing and change when new facts emerge. The other is still stuck in 1000 BC.
Moral teachings that may have been appropriate for nomads in the middle east three millenia ago may or may not apply to modern day society. Some certainly still do (not killing sounds like a good general rule), some are utter bullshit in todays society - we've since abolished slavery, consider women equals, the role of parents isn't as important anymore, we're not all homophobes, magicians are entertainers not people we fear and want to put to death, and let's not even talk about the dietary guidelines.
People often point out the bible as a "source of moral teachings", but when you look at it, basically any of the actual rules that matter are independent of the bible and can be found in many other teachings as well, or are so obvious (again, killing) that it really doesn't put a good light on Moses people that it needed explicit mentioning.
No, friend, the bible is a horrible source of moral teachings. The good parts are massively drowned by crap, nonsense and dangerous psycho stuff. Only by ignoring the vast majority of it can you come to a worthy subset. And frankly, when you go to that effort, you can just as well write the same subset from scratch, and find much better reasons for it, in the same time.
really? (Score:5, Interesting)
After having read the article, I am not convinced that the questions asked showed that there was common ground at all. It may well be that scientists recognise that religion and science are orthogonal and therefore do not conflict.
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>>It also means we have no free will since we're deterministic automatons so the idea of "Judgement" and sin and grace and all that is bullshit since we're just playing out his deterministic pre-designed script.
Well, Calvin would certainly agree with you. He thinks the universe was all predestined to happen a certain way, so the people that became Christians and were saved he called the "elect" and damn it sucks to be you if you're not.
>>1) God created the universe as a deterministic system in w
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Well, Calvin would certainly agree with you. He thinks the universe was all predestined to happen a certain way, so the people that became Christians and were saved he called the "elect" and damn it sucks to be you if you're not.
One of the ironies of theological history is that Calvin wasn't a Calvinist in the modern sense. It's interesting to consider what Calvin would have said about evolution had it been around in his day. I strongly suspect he'd have been fine with it.
One of the things that he dealt with was the new science of astronomy, which flatly contradicts a literal reading of Genesis 1 and the "water above the firmament". He wrote:
Moses describes the special use of this expanse, “to divide the waters from the waters” from which word arises a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. [...] The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses.
(In Calvin's day, it was believed that Moses wrote Genesis, something that we now know is n
Re:really? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article didn't say "scientists and religious people can mix" it said "Science and religion can and do mix, mostly". I find the whole idea of answering if that's true via a survey as showing the exact wooly thinking which shows the difficulty of mixing science with religion. This is a
Science and religion can mix if, for example:
Fortunately it seems that for most religious scientists in most circumstances those things are true. Unfortunately there are some specific areas of cosmology and evolution where it seems many religious people are unable to follow scientific methods.
In the words of tim minchin (Score:3)
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." -Tim Minchin
Well, 85% of scientists are wrong, then. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is always a conflict between religion and science. It's just that it's mostly irrelevant for scientists in the USA. And even more irrelevant in Eastern Europe.
Now try to teach evolution in Muslim countries like Pakistan. Go on, try it. We'll pay for your funeral.
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Actually, there's much less of a perception that evolution and religion are in conflict in most of the Muslim world than in the US. There are even a number of Muslims who interpret certain verses of the Qur'an as describing evolution. Turkey's really the only country with a history of evolution denial, and they picked it up from the US. Similarly, there are starting to be anti-evolution movements in other Muslim countries, but it's an idea that's been spreading with the influence of American culture.
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Similarly, there are starting to be anti-evolution movements in other Muslim countries, but it's an idea that's been spreading with the influence of American culture.
How does that work? I think it more likely that scientific thought and ideas are starting to threaten the more dogmatic in the midst of their culture and they're just repeating the same defensive behaviors that characterize the Western creationist movement for the past couple of centuries. It's one thing when a remote culture has beliefs that compete with your own, it's another thing when those beliefs are growing in strength in your own culture.
The only aspect that I think could be due to US cultural in
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Can't really cite it as this is from personal experience. I'm Christian but I grew up in west Beirut(mostly among Sunni Muslims but I also have Druze and Chiite friends). One of my most anti-American/Israeli friends is a Chiite originally from a small town in the south whose family is involved politically with Hizbollah. In debates I couldn't even bring up *any* kind of not 100% fundamentalist idea without her saying that I was advocating we completely surrender to Israel. Yes, the indoctrination was that b
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Are you only including Muslim countries that are "like Pakistan" in your challenge? That is, only very conservative Muslim countries, with a literacy rate hovering around 57%?
In fact, if you ask moderate, well-educated Muslim scholars, many (most?) will respond in the same way as the Catholic church's position: evolution and speciation is a fact, but that God is somewhere in the process. This line of reasoning has existed in Islam since as early as the 19th century.
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There is always a conflict between religion and science. It's just that it's mostly irrelevant for scientists in the USA. And even more irrelevant in Eastern Europe.
Now try to teach evolution in Muslim countries like Pakistan. Go on, try it. We'll pay for your funeral.
I don't suppose you'd care to provide any support that gives your personal opinion more weight than the vast majority of the scientists in the survey? Perhaps you know of a survey in Pakistan? Surely you wouldn't be stating your personal belief as fact without any ermpirical evidence, would you?
Absolutist statements = No-No (Score:5, Insightful)
ALWAYS in conflict? ALWAYS? To anyone who has ever been part of the educational system, and has gotten used to taking multiple choice tests, the word "ALWAYS" when applied to something like science/religion is a big red flag.
Finding that 15% agree with an "always" statement in that context is rather an amazing find.
Ask the question in terms of "overwhelming frequency" or some other next-to-absolutist statement, and you'll get more honest answers. But this report on the study, at least, only presented the "ALWAYS(15)/SOMETIMES(70)/NEVER(15)" range, which doesn't seem useful at all.
With the statement presented, and the specific granularity of statements allowed, this seems more like quote-mining to minimize the perception of conflict than an honest study.
Ryan Fenton
Superintendant Chalmers (Score:2)
"God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion."
13th Century Thomas Aquinas on the "conflict." (Score:5, Interesting)
Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA THEOLOGICA, 1265 AD: “Among the philosophical sciences one is speculative the other practical [natural philosophy], nevertheless sacred doctrine [Roman Catholicism] includes both; as God, by one and the same science, knows both Himself and His works.”
This basically states that if you are understanding science properly, you are understanding God's works properly. And conversely, if you understand God's works, you will let science progress to understand God's works, as God and science are one in the same.
That compromise in thinking eventually led to the Renaissance.
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The "Jesus hates the homeless" merchants in the temple really don't get much beyond preaching hate of some target mostly outside their market (Black, Women, Gays, whaever the fashion of the time is) and would not have heard anything like the above. People have fogotten that the "Bible Colleges" were a purely policitical way to contin
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Interesting, but Thomas Aquinas' writings did not prevent religious authorities from attempting to set Galileo's pants on fire during the Renaissance.
When obnoxious bigots come to power, they usually don't care about the enlightened writings of their elders.
Re:13th Century Thomas Aquinas on the "conflict. (Score:3)
I am an engineer and a Catholic. I've come to the following conclusion. God created the universe. The way to look at this statement is as an answer to how the universe was created not as to there is a God what did he do. So the only way to know God is to study science. Learn the rules that govern how his creation works. There can be no conflict because if there is a disagreement between any stance between religions and facts than facts win since they are the direct observations of the universe. Religion is
They mostly have (Score:2)
Most scien
Re:They mostly have (Score:5, Insightful)
The example that I always like to use is the Big Bang, which was first formulated by Monsignor Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest. At the time that it was proposed, it received significant disdain from the astronomical community, since most astronomers at that time believed that the Universe was eternal and static (the so-called "steady state") -- they felt that a beginning of space and time at some point in the finite past crossed over into the realm of religion and philosophy. On the other hand, the religious community (by and large) welcomed the Big Bang with open arms, since it was in accordance with the creation accounts of their particular belief systems.
But in the 80 years or so since the advent of the Big Bang theory, a funny (and depending on your point of view, sad) thing has happened: The two camps have almost completely switched sides. As the evidence came in, most astronomers and cosmologists came to accept the Big Bang. They saw the confirmation of Hubble's observations regarding the redshift of distant galaxies, the discovery of the CMBR, the evidence that the distribution of baryonic matter in the Universe is consistent with what is predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, etc.
Unfortunately, for those segments of the religious community that have been hijacked by the rise of fundamentalism / fanaticism in the last 50 years or so, the Big Bang was no longer "good enough". The idea that the Universe came about in a dramatic cataclysm ("in the beginning...") became unacceptable since the timescale called for billions of years, rather than the six thousand or so that are dictated by a rigid literalist interpretation of the appropriate holy writ. It's not good enough that the prevailing scientific theory on the origin of the Universe calls for a beginning -- it's not fundamentalist enough.
The idea that science and religion are incompatible is poisonous and civilization-threatening. Getting back to the example, the idea that religious folks, of all people, should be opposed to the Big Bang theory is completely baffling. If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never understand it. There's no shortage of beauty in modern science or ancient teachings; the conflicts (such as they are) are largely manufactured. And as you mention, the rising fundamentalist movement is a major player in this enterprise.
"Always" (Score:4, Informative)
Of course science and religion can mix... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course science and religion can mix and they should!
Let me quote Abdulbaha, son of the founder of the Bahai religion, a growing religious and social movement with more than six million followers:
If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science, they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. If a question be found contrary to reason, faith and belief in it are impossible, and there is no outcome but wavering and vacillation.
Quite a strong statement for being from a major religious leader a hundred years ago. Also:
This gift [intelligence and reasoning] giveth man the power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation
Finally:
Religion and science are the two wings upon which man's intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism.
The only reason that science and religion doesn't seem to mix is that too many religious leaders stick to their dogmas and traditions even in face of human and scientific progress. Religions role in this world is to develop and foster spirituality, morality and selflessness so we can create a fair and just society and it can only do so if it keeps evolving and improving with new knowledge and understandings. Christianity developed and changed a lot in the first few hundred years after Jesus with doctrines and writings being added and removed at a high pace. Why are so many churches of today so hellbent on sticking exactly to the way things earlier were? It's simply not healthy.
Ps. I'm not officially a Bahai, but I consider myself a "friend of the faith".
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Morality exists without religion. Look to any other species. They have morals. But they're not religious, certainly not socially and organized like humans.
Religion is more like the morality of a specific time period frozen, along with their limited level of knowledge, but forcefully carried on into the present. We can easily dismiss the majority of the content of the Bible, scientifically, historically and morally. Yet some people still marvel at the few sensible things in there, as if we couldn't have figu
Yeah but... (Score:3)
It's not religion vs science (Score:3)
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People are still denying evolution because of their magical sky fairy friend. There are still plenty of people who believe that the Sun is only thousands of years old. And far too many people who see homosexuality as anything but natural. If you first go with the belief that a sentient humanlike being created everything, and that that same being is your personal friend today, you'll be open to quite a lot of nonsense that goes against science.
Asking the Wrong Question (Score:3)
If you want to answer the question "does science conflict with religion?" (leaving out the "always", as it's not clear from the book abstract if that word was really in the survey, or if Michael Cooney's summary added it), you cannot answer it by simply surveying an arbitrary set of scientists. That only gives you the answer to the question "do scientists believe that science conflicts with religion?", or maybe "does the practice of science conflict with having religious beliefs?".
I would say the original question falls under the category of philosophy of science and/or epistemology. Not all scientific practitioners are experts in philosophy of science or epistemology, in fact I'd guess that most are not. Thus, their opinions on the question, while perhaps interesting in their own right, do not offer convincing arguments any more than surveying a random sample of scientists from all domains can offer convincing conclusions about climate change. If you want to that, you ask scientists that specialize in climatology and related disicplines.
The abstract also mentions this:
That sounds very suspect to me. I'd like to know what the definition of "religious" is.. is it a self-reported label, or are specific beliefs queried? And the label "spiritual entrepreneurs" sounds like complete gobbledygook. "Seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith" does not sound equivalent to a position that science doesn't conflict with religion. In fact, if you have to get creative outside of "traditional religion" to "work with the tensions", that implies that those individuals do recognize a conflict between science and religion. If there's no conflict, you don't need to find creative workarounds.
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
B-b-b-but atheism! (Score:3)
Aren't scientists all supposed to be godless atheists? ...According to all the non-scientist atheists out there who want the scientists on their side. ;)
"[Astronomy] is the most noble and sublime of all the sciences, and presents to our view the most astonishing and magnificent objects - whether we consider their immense magnitude, the splendor of their appearance, the vast spaces which surround them, the magnificent apparatus with which some of them are encompassed, the rapidity of their motions, or the display they afford of the omnipotent energy and the intelligence of the Creator." - Rev. Thomas Dick, "The Philosophy of a Future State," 1831.
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It's not religion vs science (Score:4, Funny)
it's idiots vs science.
The scientific world rejects idiots. Religion and politics (is there a difference ?) actually need to embrace/recruit them.
Guess who's more numerous.
The slashdot crowd (Score:5, Funny)
"15% always" != "can mostly mix" (Score:3)
This is an odd interpretation of the figure.
Religion - even if we limit it to Christianity/Islam/Judaism, which covers most of the US - consists of varied concepts, only some of which directly conflict with scientific knowledge. (The rest isn't necessarily good - some concepts are just morally wrong instead of scientifically.) Science also consists of different disciplines, which do not contradict religious views on the universe equally (natural sciences are most affected, while the greatest biblical affront to mathematics is rounding Pi down to three, and I don't know of any for, eg, sociology).
Taking all that into account, we still have just under one in six of ALL scientists queried considers science to be in conflict with ALL religion ALWAYS.
Interpreting this to mean that science - and particularly natural science, like biology and physics - can coexist with religion, is a bit of a long shot.
A magic eight ball answers questions too (Score:3)
That doesn't mean the answers are worth anything.