The Touchy Relation Between Religion And Science...

I was just recently thinking about this. And any thoughts anyone else has on the matter would be appreciated too.

But the strange thing about religion, is because it can sometimes lead to enlightenment. The Church was just part of life in the Middle Ages, it couldn't be separated from it. So things like the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment were bound to religion, couldn't be avoided. Consider Deism, for example, because atheism at the time would just be impossible, or at least unheard of.

The New Testament theology and other stuff is based on Greek philosophy, because it was just the current science that the time. How odd some fundamentalists still regard as fact. It was "fact" back then. But much off it, like the world is flat, or surrounded by water, has just been disproven. Sorry, folks.

And you know the Gregorian Calendar reform was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. And is the model of scientific perfection. Even Neil DeGrasse Tyson often points out this fact. So some good can come from religion. Sometimes, at least.

 

Any faith tradition that cannot (or will not) seamlessly integrate advances in human knowledge isn't a religion, but mere superstition.

 

The modern numeral system including zero used around the world originated in India, and has its background in Indian religious philosophies focused on enlightenment.

The religious philosophies of Sankhya formulated by sage Kapila as well as the Shunyata philosophy of Buddha provided the philosophical conceptions of the numeral system and zero respectively.

Sankhya means number in sanskrit, while Shunyata meaning void or emptiness provided the numerical term 'Shuny' meaning null in sanskrit, which became 'sifr' in arabic and 'zero' in western languages, when Indian numeral system and mathematics were adopted by the Arabs and Europeans later on.

The Indian numeral system and arithmetic was found to be superior to the roman numeral system in terms of accounting and indepth calculations, and after initial resistance in Europe for a few centuries, was finally accepted by western scholars as a valid and superior mathematical system for calculation purposes.

So I would say that modern science is not completely at odds with religion and has direct links with religion at various points in history.

 

If I might resurrect this zombie post, it depends a lot on our understanding of "science" and "religion". "Science is the gold standard of human knowledge, involving rigorous testing of empirically testable hypotheses. But its strength is also a limitation. Some matters don't lend themselves to rigorous testing . Science is best in eliminating Type 1 statistical errors: false positives, or accepting something as true that isn't. It doesn't save us from Type 2 errors: false negatives, or rejecting something that might be true. And there's an important distinction between doing science and doing life. There are just so many things in life that are uncertain, calling for decisions: who to vote for, what job to take, where to live, whom to marry, etc. We can suspend judgment pending scientific proof, which may come in the next millennium, if then. We can flip a coin. Or we can act on the basis of our best judgment based on the evidence at hand. Administrative agencies making decisions about the safety of bridges and the products we're exposed to, use the standard of substantial evidence: enough to convince a reasonable person, even though other reasonable persons aren't convinced. I generally aim for that in making the important decisions in my life. But I also try not to believe things that are contrary to science.

Religion comes in many shapes and sizes. Christianity places more emphasis on correct belief than most. That "New Testament theology you mention is actually Old Testament theology, if you're talking about things like the age and shape of the earth. I think it's reasonable to believe in human evolution, which is supported by an impressive amount of evidence from a variety of fields. I even believe in cultural evolution which has given us such things as religion and morality. (The evidence there is less certain, cuz it comes from the "soft sciences". I find it reasonable to take an historical-metaphorical approach to the Bible. To take Genesis literally misses the point. The Bible seems not to be the Word of God, but rather the words of humans , with different outlooks and agendas, seeking God over many centuries. I still find the book to be generally inspiring.

In general religion seems not to be necessarily incompatible with science. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed a dual magesteria to give each it's due in its own sphere, although keepin' them separated is a challenge. In July 201998, Newsweek ran a cover story "Science Finds God", reporting on a conference of scientists and theologians at Berkeley. The Big Bang theory, quantum mechanics, and signs of "fitness" in the universe have convinced some scientists that there may be a There there. But the There concerned may not be the Dude in the Sky of your grandfather's religion.

 

Religion(history) surved its purpose(values/structure/ect) imo................time to let go(science/progress/ect)......

But try telling that to a majority of the world population..........who still believe in something(history/culture/society/ect)...............without killing eachother...*sigh*



Mzzls

 

I really thing that the Religious community and the Scientific Community need to get together a re-write the Bible. Some simple compromises will make a big difference. The specifics that I propose are as follows:

1. Declare that the body of a human being comes from biology, and the soul from "God"

2. When the Lords Prayer was adopted, it declared "Our father who Art in Heaven." That makes all humans, male or female, are the children of god, not just Yesua (Jesus).

3. When you die your body goes into a hole and your soul goes to heaven.

4. Forget the concept of immaculate conception. Jesus' body was conceived in the regular way, but the soul was planted by God. This will go a long way in reconciling differences between Christians, Muslims and Jews (World Peace). Remember that in Biblical times it was believed that man planted the seed, and the woman was the incubator to nurture the mans seed. The concept of Meiosis and heredity from both parents was not realized until the last 100 years.

5. The issue of Yesua being the Messiah will just become a matter of individual choice.

6. The fables of Adam & Eve and Noah's Ark need to be recognized as Myths and not a historical fact. There is geological evidence that Homo sapiens was on the earth 70,000 years ago, and not post 6,000 years as the Bible proclaims.

I will stop here.

 

Science is only touchy for those that are made uncomfortable by facts and the search for facts in the natural order of things.

 

That is the most likely reason, why governments distance themselves from suggestions of other intelligent life in the universe.

 

1) the soul is the spirit beyond cells and DNA. I am not on the faith side, I am on the science side. You tell me.
2) The lords prayer should be changed to my father rather than our father. When pilgrims say "Our father" to me that means that all of us are the son's or Daughter's of God.
3) Heaven is a non physical place where the spirits of the departed mingle.
4-7) These concepts are irrelevant and divisive and need to be excised from religious faith. If Miriam was a virgin at the birth of Yesua, would have been a woman, originating from Mitosis rather than meiosis.

 

A lot of stories in the Bible were adopted to help explain things to an ignorant and illiterate society. We have evolved beyond this in current time and the Bible needs to be edited to profess the real intent of Christianity. The concept of conception needs to be the first item that young people need to understand. Another on is that Yesua (Jesus) was a jew, not a christian.

 

I'm pretty sure scientific "enlightenment" happened despite religion's beliefs and laws, and at the cost of many rational men's lives. I don't like the word "enlightened", I think it's used more by delusional people to describe some fantasy spirit land they've DECIDED to believe as reality. I believe there was a man named Jesus who inspired a religion that was a large influence on western society. That's about as Christian as I get. Largely because the Old Testament God was the most evil sadistic blood thirsty monster ever dreamed up. The whole vicarious redemption through the bloody torture and death of Jesus, It's the same old blood-lust. Religion is a coping mechanism people made up to forgive themselves of their brutal acts against each other, so they can sleep at night. It's living in ignorance and denial and fantasy land, because reality sucks. In a nutshell...

And boy oh fucking boy, are some people all in on denial and ignorance. The more religious they are, the more likely they are to be against vaccines, climate change, evolution, medical science, rocket science, any damn science... The more likely they are to vote in evil delusional politicians to push their agendas of ignorance and anti-science. Jesus Christ, make a girl suffer to full term with a dangerous non viable pregnancy... because YOU have a problem with her life choices. God damn it. I know a deeply religious woman who is morbidly obese, and she thinks the vaccine damaged her knees! I am not making this shit up. Religion is organized ignorance. There is no reconciling this mentality with science.

 

Science and religious conflicts........

Remember that the Bible was not written by men of science, but by men of faith.

The Bible states that "God created the world in six days, and He rested on the seventh".

It was their explanation of the miracle of creation, which would still the SAME miracle whether it took six days or uncountable eons.

In today's world, both religion and science are indeed "hot button" issues; it is not surprising that there is so much conflict between the two, from both the religious sector and the scientific.

IMHO, as time progresses, I am thinking that the "relationship" between religion and science will only become more and more volatile and fanatical......................

 

We have to remember that at the time the Bible was compiled the intellectuals and common people did not understand known facts that exist today such as:

1. The earth is a sphere, not a plate

2. The earth revolves around the sun

2. Women were just an incubator for the seed that was planted by men.

3. The concepts of inheritance trough DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, RNA were unknown.

4. Many of the events in the Bible were plagiarized poems from earlier civilizations, namely Adam and Eve, Noahs Ark, The battle of Armageddon,

5. Many concepts in the Bible were sourced from the apostle Paul and not from Jesus the Nazarene Jew

6. Conception is derived from DNA from the mother and father.

7. The concepts of Virgin birth, could only result in female offspring vis mitosis, Namely Jesus and Caesarean (From Cleopatra)

8. Archaeological evidence traces the history of Homo sapiens over 70,000 years

9. Humans and dinosaurs did not walk the earth at the same time.

The list goes on

 

It would seem to me that a person could see the relevance of --say--evolution and many other scientific truths / theories and still be be able to believe that an all powerful being created all. Who knows? Well--no one. That's where faith becomes that which brings succor to many.

 

Confucious once said:

"......life is not for destinations; they are for journeys........."

In light of this, I believe that there will always be an unquenchable quest for answers and explanations to many factors relating to both religion and science,as we journey through life.

Never ceasing to ponder, never ceasing to contemplate, never ceasing to hope for accord between men of faith and men of science.................

 

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed with evolutionary theory, and see no conflict between it and a reasonable construction of scripture.

I'm not sure what to make of the list, which is a kind of grab bag of things that might give a religious fundamentalist pause. Some, however, I take issue with. Take #4, for example. The term "plagiarized" suggests dishonesty. I don't think the intellectual property laws were that well developed back then. And instead of "plagiarized", I'd say parts of Genesis were written to contradict and refute Babylonian myths.

Although Genesis is the first thing we come to in the Bible, Its likely to have been added relatively late in the game, during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people (598-538 BCE. That event was a real crisis for Judah. Their God's Temple had been destroyed and His people scattered--suggesting to some that He and they were washed up. But no. Instead of giving up, the Jews reinvented themselves--and their God. Yahweh wasn't simply the God of the Jews, but was now the God of the entire universe. And He demanded new measures from the Jews to keep their separate identity alive in the face of Babylonian pressures to assimilate. In other words, true monotheism was born.

The Babylonian creation myth featured a cosmic battle between the god Marduk and his mother, the Chaos monster, Tiamat. Marduk split her in half with his sword, and used her carcass to create a new earth. The Biblical account is much different. God hovers over the primordial waters, "the Deep", and then begins barking commands. Unlike Marduk. and like the Memphite Egyptian god Ptah, it seems that Yahweh creates effortlessly with words. Each of the things created are brought into being in the same way. These objects were worshiped by the Babylonians as gods, but in the Bible they are presented as mere objects! The Deep, over which Yahweh hovers, is called tehom, (sounds like tiamat). So influenced, but not exactly plagiarized!

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..........it is possible for one to look at the Bible as a collection of legends and folk tales, some based on incidents that actually happened, others, perhaps, based on legends, or, even the keen, fertile imagination of a self-proclaimed "prophet".

Sadly, especially in recent years, the Bible has been used more and more as a weapon of hatred and intolerance by hate-mongering religious bigots.

Speaking of science, read of what scientists say of such great Bible incidents as The Great Flood (Noah and the Ark), Moses parting the Red Sea, the Star of Bethlehem (which, from what I have read, could have actually been a comet/meteor)

So many people find themselves thoroughly perplexed at trying to decipher religion through science, trying to establish a "common ground" between them.

If God created the universe, then who created God?

How can God be eternal, existing BEFORE time.....before there was a universe?

IMHO, I think that there will always be, until the end of time, much controversy and heated discussions in regards to religion and science.

Perhaps........just perhaps...... some things were MEANT to ALWAYS remain "unsolved mysteries".........mysteries man will continue to ponder, contemplate, and debate, for as long as the human race exists.........