According to the Bible, the Virgin Mary got pregnant without Joseph's sperm or genetic material. Egg fertilized by Spirit? An angel informed Mary's husband of the pregnancy. Can we believe angels exist as Billy Graham does or regard them as relics of Hebrew mythology, fabrications of man's fertile brain? The star of Bethleham! Chances are it was a literary star with no counterpart in nature. Someone is always trying to prove it was a comet or planets lined up. So much in the Bible is perceived as the fulfillment of prophecy. Can we take this stuff literally or view it as legends in the collective mind of ancient Middle Eastern tribes. With prophecy, we work backwards. We invent it after the fact. Is there such a thing as sin? Sin does not exist in nature. A cat kills a mouse. No sin. Billy Graham believes in demons. I am 60 years old and have never seen a demon or evidence of a demon. Nor have I seen a miracle. The Bible is a string of impossibilities. People might say these things do not happen today but happened back then. The notion is ludicrous. Why bend over backwards trying to force reality into a theological frame? If Jesus is God, why does He not return now? Why not put things in order now? If the universe is 15 billion years old, will it take Him another 15 billion to do so? Can we believe Jesus ascended into heaven? He floated into space? Have astronauts in the Shuttle orbited past Him? In film biographies of Jesus, he has the piercing blue eyes. The Anglo-Saxon Jesus! He reels off vague parables which are riddles to the modern world. The surest way to confuse is to use a parable, analogy, metaphor or simile. What is God? What is the Kingdom of God? Where is God and where did He come from? Is theology man's invention? Books, art and movies take things out of context. They distort reality into episodes with a hope of commercial success. Does the Bible do this? If not, why do we have to buy a Bible in a book store to read the word of God? Why do preachers preach until they are blue in the face and then ask for money? The bottom line is money. Apart from imagination and art, how could Jesus have raised Lazarus from the dead? The supernatural does not exist in a natural universe. Faith can not make the impossible happen. Yet, Jesus said, "I am the Resurrection, and the Bible says all things are possible with God. Are those who speak of an empty tomb as evidence of the Resurrection not failing to distinguish between an actual tomb and a tomb of the mind? Preachers wear suits and ties and give an appearance of being sane, rational people. When they speak of a rapture and physically rising through the atmosphere to leave behind the unredeemed, we realize something is amiss. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggert extolled virtue while patronizing prostitutes. Morality is most plausible when it has a scientific foundation. It was not science that used nuclear energy for bombs. It was a clash between tax-funded military establishments which have traditionally embraced religion. If one gets paid to perpetuate ignorance, he will generally do it. Mormons are on the cutting edge of Christianity. They claim Jesus came to western America to save Indians. If intelligent life is discovered in another part of the galaxy, a sect will arise claiming Jesus appeared to redeem lost aliens. The age of theology lay between 3000 B.C. and 600 A.D. The age of science began 400 years ago. Carl Sagan, in his book, "The Demon-Haunted World," called science the candle in the dark. Science is the way, evolution over creationism, observation over revelation, objectivity over subjectivity. Our eyes and ears tell us how things are. It is as we suspected when we were kids, before organized religion sapped our energy. Religion is flawed. We are physical, not spiritual. We are alive when we are alive. We are dead when we are dead. We are not dead when we are alive. We are not alive when we are dead. We live in a natural universe. The supernatural does not exist apart from man's imagination and his tendency toward myth. Carl Sagan left us with these words, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Science is the candle, not mythology, not astrology, not religion. This being said, I still subscribe to the ultimate message of the Gospels. If the Universe is 15 billion years old and middle age, Jesus Christ will return in another 15 billion years. His return will be in the nick of time to save believers at the brink of the universe's demise. He will save the souls of all believers in the cosmos. At that point, religion and science are the same. The 1% of truth in the Bible merges with the 1% of truth in science. Eternity becomes a conscious mist, 1% blissful, 99% flaming, heaven and hell.
Science and religion are in no way contradictory. With Judaeo-Christian religion there is a potential conflict if you believe that the pentacheuch was given to Moses by the holy spirit as parts of Genesis are in clear conflict with observation, though some conservative christians believe that this is a test of faith. Some parts of science do infact suggest that there may be a god. Im going to try and avoid sounding like one of those hideous websites, but much of modern physics is fairly religion friendly. The big bang is the obvious example, I dont know what the church was expecting science to come up with but something like the big bang must have been one of the better outcomes they could have hoped for. Im tempted to avoid talking about quantum mechanics and religion given the way that the topic has been so hideously mutillated but the process known popularily as the 'collapse of the wavefunction' also raises the issue that the universe is being observed from outside.
The unification of science and religion is being attempted. I would suggest looking into Ken Wilbur who has written extensively on this subject. Try A Theory of Everything, An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, perhaps.
Yeah people are always trying to unify. Physics theorists are always trying to unify everything despite the fact that were at least two generations of theory away from that. I dont blame them its a tempting thought that we are painstakingly close to however science hasnt got where it has by randomly flitting from one theory to the next, its slow often painstaking making sure one block was in place before building on it. Im not particularly suprised to see that people are trying even more amusing feats of unification. Ill be interested to see the branch of non-linear dynamics that explains the miracles.
I see no problem explaining miracles. Miracles are just events that seem to have no rational cause. So the concept of God is substituted for a lack of understanding of the cause effect relation. Here are Wilbur's classifications of the relation between science and religion: 1. Science denies religion. The most comman stance amongest scientist today. Religion is a superstitious relic or a survival mechanism. 2. Religion denies science. Fundamentalist contend that science cannot know real truth. 3. Science and religion deal with different realms of being and can peacefully co-exist. Strong version: epistemological pluralism, there are different realms such as matter, mind, soul, and spirit. Science deals with the lower realms, religion the higher. the realms can be integrated as they all belong to the same "big picture". Weak version: NOMA, nonoverlapping magisteria. There are different realms but the realms can not be integrated as they are seperate. 4. Science itself argues for Spirit's existence. Science can be used to reveal spiritual realities. (The Big Bang seems to require a creator, evolution follows an intellegent design, etc.) 5. Science is only one interpretation of the world and has no more validity than art or poetry. Used by post modernists to counter any other arguement without offering rational position of its own. The problem, Wilbur contends, is in the definition and application of both science and religion. He redefines science to include not just hard sciences such as physics and chemistry but also the human sciences such as sociology and linguistics, etc. All Good science follows these tenets: 1. A practical injunction or exemplar: a practice, experiment, an engagement, something you must do if you want to know something else. 2. An apprehension, illumination, or experience: The injunction brings forth data. It may be physical, mental, or spiritual. 3. Communal checking, rejection or confirmation: If there is no way for the data to be challenged, it can not be science, it is dogma. Religion involves more than the "narrow" relgious beliefs contend: 1. Human consciousness is evolutionary and progresses through definite stages which can be investigated experimentally. Narrow religions stop short of, or conceal, the higher levels of psychic, subtle, casual, and non dual experiences. 2. These levels may be investigated following the three tenets of science noted above. Deep religion relies on specific social practices that rely on data, and experimental evidence that is refined and checked by a community of peers. Neither of these definitions exclude the present sciences and religions, they transend and include them. ..and so the book goes....
I dont really know much about social sciences, I assume they follow the same methodology as physical and biological sciences. A major rule in Physics since Newton is reproduceability, an experiment must be reproduceable to ever be accepted. There have been a number of potentially major discoveries that have been discounted on the basis they could not be reproduced. This means a miracle, something that happens as a one off, can not by definition fall under the remit of the physical sciences. If you believe in miracles then you believe in a domain outside of science. As I said before the degree to which spirituality falls under the remit of science depends very much on the nature of sentience. If it is a purely physical phenomenon then of course it will one day be explained by biochemistry. However this may well not be the case and the spirit may well turn out to be something very different.
There is the whole idea that the supernatural/spiritual is seperate from physical, natural process of everything that exists but these two could be connected or intertwined in ways that we just can't comprehend as humans and that are so hidden and undetectable by modern science that we will never know them. And also the idea that God is just in everything (or is everything) and makes every single little thing happen just as it does and is aware of it. if there is consciousness after death we are no where near being able to say that it is not a result and in accordince with physics and science that we know today but just on a more detailed level that we don't know about yet (or will proably never discover).
Since there are so few actual physical provable laws in science, theologically minded people can use what ever theories fit their worldview. If you notice, on any given subject, there are multiple theories to explain it but usually the most popular one is the one that fits into the theological framework. I find it interesting that one of the original forms of the big bang theory was proposed by a young Belgian cosmologist and priest, one Georges-Henri Lemaitre, in 1931.
It wasnt entirely his idea but he was certainly involved and was a large part of the Catholic church making it the official church line on how creation occured, not sure whether or not it still is. He was also responsible for one of my favourite quotes of all time, 'There are two ways to the truth, I chose to study them both.'.
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a miracle." I place miracles and religion on the same plane: I agree, and that is Wilbur's point.
We probably can draw some common ground between Science and Religion, however I don't think there will ever be a footing in Science for much of the myth that makes up some religion(s) or is created by the practitioners of some religions. Much of the fight between Science and Chritianity right now is actually between Science and Church(s) doctrines. The Bible, for instance, doesn't particularly preclude evolution...doctrine really has a problem with it. There are MANY otherwise good religous people that have absolutely no problem with evolution...but many of their churches do. The "each after his own kind" passage doesn't say or doesn't necessarliy imply that "his own kind" is immutable. In fact, it is a really broad statement that in many ways is ambiguous.
Last thought here...I seem to keep getting myself cast as a defender of biblical thought. I am well studied in it. I spent decades studying it all the way down to the original languages and incliding as many texts as I could find that were not included in the finished canon. Bottom line...I know what it says and I know what it doesn't say. I know what was written by the original writters and I know what was added later. It is a book of religous myth wrapped in a statement about the then ruling authority and its right to rule. It is full of contradictions if read as the infallable word of god but if read as the writting of many men throughout a very long period of time and evolving culture with often times diverging views and cultures it becomes a loose but fairly reasonable demonstration of the evolution of religous thought. All I am defending is the words as written by the original writters. I try to reshape some of the arguments here on these threads when the sorce is misquoted or when doctrine is quoted as the words in the bible. It has fortunately or unfortunatly become a part of OUR culture and it has become a major source of contention in our culture by being abused by the christian fundamentalist and their kin. I left the church because of my studies and the light of honest reason but I do not hate or condemn the bible or those who try to live some lifestyle loosely based on their view of it. I do condemn those who use it to stuff their ideas and ideology down the throats of others either by cultural oppression or by religious inspired legislation. The sum total of jesus teachings were to love, forgive and to keep your own house in order. Shoving your ideas down my throat isn't a part of any of that. His basic teachings are good advice for all people...however Jimmy Swaggert and his ilk have NOTHING to offer society except for a shing example hypocracy and greed.
my first hand experience of people being possessed (by a demon??? or whatever) was an eye opener. i'm not religious, nor really beleive in any powerful entity but i've found that the world is certainly strange enough to entertain all possibilities.
