| Sep 5 @ 12:58 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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Take evolution for example. I've never understood the hoopla over it, or why certain factions take such umbrage with it. It seems simple to me - God(or whatever higher power you want to insert here) as creator of all would be behind it, right? As all in this in the natural world - including humans discovering a use for stem cells. Why would a creator give us the tools and the intelligence to use them if He/She/It didn't want us to?
Thoughts?
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| Sep 5 @ 1:09 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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Loreli
Posts: 20,161
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Good thread Aero....
I always wondered why there is so much illness, so many babies born with birth defects. I just figure.....rather than sit and just have things "given" to us...we were all meant to work at betterment.
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| Sep 5 @ 1:14 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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I completely agree. I know I want MY kids to educate and better themselves(and those around them) with the resources I've provided. Why would "God" be any different?
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| Sep 5 @ 1:21 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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16knots
Posts: 3,627
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There has never been any conflict between Buddhism and science. Quite the opposite. As science develops further, Buddhism becomes more prominant to the truths of itself and of science.
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| Sep 5 @ 1:25 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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Pretty much the same deal with Paganism Knots 
And I think that's the way it should be.
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| Sep 5 @ 1:36 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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hammertime
Posts: 14,071
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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
It took the church almost 500 years to finally accept the fact that Galileo might have been right after all. That just shows you how careful the chuch is to accept knew information. Let a half a thousand years go by just to make sure its right but until then condemning anyone from accepting such reality too quickly as heretics.
Now the Vatican hosts astronomy conferences but they still forbid the use of condoms. Oh well, that's going to take another one or two thousand years to accept that. I think they're banking on Armageddon to happen first. But I always wonder what the greater sin is. A priest who uses a condom with a choir boy or one who doesn't use a condom. Such things just boggle the mind. Maybe one day we'll know the answer. One a more positive note, the Vatican accepts evolution. They just consider God to be the prime mover in the universe and all the rest happened naturally. Its a nice way to look a it. It kind of makes that kind of God far more sophisticated than the one in Genesis who makes a mud man and rib woman who later gets involved with talking snake selling fruit.
Evolution is a problem to Christians because it affects public policy and education. These fanatical Christians who build creationism museums to teach their children that the Flintstones was the way it happened and as an added benefit to teach them their parents are morons. You'll notice lots of Christians deny the reality of global warming despite the evidence. Evidence is a bane to Christians.
Evolution is founded by the scientific method. It uses evidence. This is a foreign concept for religious folks because their tools of "knowledge" is faith. Faith does not really lead to knowledge at all, it leads to blind acceptance and beliefs without actual evidence. If there were evidence then it wouldn't be faith. Evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Its not perfect. There is much we don't know but the creationists like to fill in the blanks with God. They use God like water. It fills in the gaps or cracks and so in that sense God is cracking up.
The creationists try to use ideas like "irreducible complexity" to say things like, "See, its too complicated so God must have did it" rather than continue to explore nature searching for facts, evidence and ultimately the truth. They keep failing at every step of the way but they won't give up pushing easy non-answers as conclusions.
Not one. NOT ONE creationist has submitted any documentation with evidence to any scientific journal for peer review yet they pretend to be scientific. They seem to be following in the same footsteps as the authors of Jesus. Not one single writer ever witnessed Jesus. Its just the way it is but who needs evidence when you got faith?
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| Sep 5 @ 2:04 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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Good post hammer.
But I still have to wonder - why does faith have to preclude science if God created such? I know church politics has something to do with it - but it can't be the only reason, can it?
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| Sep 5 @ 2:07 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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But I still have to wonder - why does faith have to preclude science if God created such? I know church politics has something to do with it - but it can't be the only reason, can it? Its called CONTROL Aero.. if they cannot control the masses and let them think for themselves where will their power be ??
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| Sep 5 @ 2:09 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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I grew up Boston Irish Catholic. I know all about control 
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| Sep 5 @ 2:10 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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Roman Catholic Cali Style here and yeppers BIG time control going on
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| Sep 5 @ 2:16 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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hammertime
Posts: 14,071
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Well how do we know God created anything or even if there is a god to begin with? Where is the evidence? If there was any evidence we wouldn't be having this discussion. God would just be within a branch of science as another species worthy of study like any other creature.
Religion and science are two modes of thinking and for the two commingle one of them has to compromise. Religion won't do that unless its to their benefit. Catholicism did because it would simply die because of the overwhelming evidence that proved the church wrong about its cosmology. It took them all 500 years to say Whoops. They did offer ontological arguments for a prime mover so they were ripe for the cause anyway. I suppose they were just trying to deal a better hand but still lost.
Here goes from a post I made on Dec 7, 2007 @ 6:15 PM
You can't avoid logic. Every statement carries logical constructs and flow that can be analyzed. What religious people do, lacking in knowledge in logic and reasoning, often use logic to prove their beliefs have veracity and reality. Often they wind up disproving the very thing they're try to prove. A famous ontological cosmological argument was proposed by Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas argued that everything that exists has a cause. This was a brilliant argument because its so apparent that everything can be shown to have be caused by something previous in an unbroken chain of causation. The zinger was the ad hoc conclusion of the first cause argument and this was a fundamental logical fallacy. The logical fallacy is so obvious that its not obvious. The whole basis for this argument is that everything depends on a cause but then another premise gets slipped in, a first cause and that breaks the rule of the original premise by introducing something that does not have a first cause. So you have conflicting premises where one says everything is caused and then you then say there is something that is not caused, the first cause and that would be god. It was a brilliant argument nevertheless because its so convincing but its conclusion was arrived at in grave error.
The first cause augment is also in grave error because it never says which god supposedly is the first cause. Zeus has as much claim as Jehovah or Lord Shiva.
You will find this type of "leap of faith" argument all the time with Christians. Most Christians lack logic in their thinking as brilliant as some of their arguments are, they always take that leap of faith at the end destroying their own purpose and hoping no one notices.
Logic is a tool and like any tool you must learn to use it else you'll harm yourself in its misuse.
source
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| Sep 5 @ 2:18 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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Freshman year in high school Sister told us to write a paper on the evils of the "Protestant Revolt." I proceeded to write an excellent account of all humankind gained because of the Reformation. Almost got my ass booted over that one 
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| Sep 5 @ 2:23 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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haha YOu sound like Me Aero and my report on the RED SEA and um why the accounts did not ring true to me... the geography(science) was off a bit  Sister Karen bout had a kiniption fit haha she called my mom in for a conference etc ...Im so glad Mom backed me on my research was always fun to find holes in the Churches logic and ask them for explanations .. the big WHYS and such..drove them bonkers to HAVE to either cede or find some PROOF when faced with scientific facts disproving their stuff ...  yeah kinda funny tho I got straight A's in religion 
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| Sep 5 @ 2:24 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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hammertime
Posts: 14,071
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You would have really got booted if you wrote that Arabs were very much behind the Renaissance movement.
Some facts on Islam
800-1100 CE Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world. It was completely open to all travelers, Christians, Jews, non-believers, etc... Everyone....
Baghdad was the center of Engineering, Medicine, Biology, and Mathematics.
Our numerals called Arabic numerals.
Algebra -- Arabic word and created by Arabs.
Algorithm -- an Arabic word.
Arabs exploited the value of zero.
While constellations are named after Greek and Roman mythology, the majority of star names are Arabic.
Downfall occurs after Imam Hamid al-Ghazali 1058 – 1111 CE
His philosophy is that mathematics and science are the work of the devil. 
Intellect in Islam never recovers.....
Today, Born Again Fundamentalists are following the same anti-philosophy as Imam Hamid al-Ghazali
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| Sep 5 @ 2:28 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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Ther are ways to use BOTH to create a workable history tho.. using time lines from the Bible and the Torah and other religions accounts have vastly helped to create accurate histories ..they have given starting points and clues to great events in the history of the world .. an given archaeologist and other researches a fundamental basis for understanding the way past cultures lived ... from their trading to medicine or lack thereof ... Science and religion CAN be used concurrently to discover many mysteries
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| Sep 5 @ 2:32 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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hammertime
Posts: 14,071
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Becky
There is no evidence for an Exodus. No archaeological evidence for Moses, a flood or a mass exit that if they actually walked would have taken two weeks the most.
ALso, at the time Jesus is supposed to have lived there was no Nazareth.
So whats going on here?
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| Sep 5 @ 2:36 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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Aeromuse
Posts: 2,573
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Well how do we know God created anything or even if there is a god to begin with? Where is the evidence? If there was any evidence we wouldn't be having this discussion. God would just be within a branch of science as another species worthy of study like any other creature.
You're right - we don't know. But my point is I don't understand how a belief in God(any God) precludes accepting scientific facts. If you believe in a God that created all - why would you scoff at it's work? I don't see how one could separate god from science actually. Maybe god IS science.
Hell - think about how our ancestors must have felt seeing lightning or even birth. It must have seemed magical to them. IMHO even the most "supernatural" occurences will be explained someday - we just haven't acquired the knowledge. Yet.
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| Sep 5 @ 2:38 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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Hammer when in HS I researched using SCIENCE (back in the stone age pre internet) and the directions traveled and the length of time given in the Bible put them at the REED SEA which has a part of it that kinda has like a sand bar that floods with the tides but is passable ... I tossed that info into the report and all hell (literally) broke loose .. I was pegged a troublemaker and heretic ... hmm kinda like here  but I got an A on my report and that vindictive Nun tried for two more years to try to get to me in another religion class and in a sewing class.. yeppers A's in both just cause I HAD to yanno?/
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| Sep 5 @ 2:39 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive?
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beckyiv42000
Posts: 12,035
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Hell - think about how our ancestors must have felt seeing lightning or even birth. It must have seemed magical to them. IMHO even the most "supernatural" occurences will be explained someday - we just haven't acquired the knowledge. Yet.
Just like the world being flat... it just takes time for us to learn is all and then that knowledge is morphed into a science
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| Sep 5 @ 2:45 PM |
Science and Religion - why are they mutually exclusive? |
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SunBabe
Posts: 12,243
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Hey, I just got a "visual". If the world was flat back then, wouldn't all of Noah's floodwater have dribbled off the edge? 
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