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AIBU?

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Original poster

to be surprised that a scientist with a doctorate is religious

775 replies

Margaritapracataz · 22/09/2015 07:45

I assumed she was joking, but no she's a very intelligent woman (double first) but she has deeply religious beliefs.

Aibu to think this is a bit strange and to think less of her professionally?

OP posts:
VioletBumble · 23/09/2015 16:25

God doesn't desire people to worship him because they have no other choice, but because they choose to.

This implies that God is choosing to 'test' people by not forcing them to worship. If that is his choice, it implies that he is choosing to let the bad things happen, and is therefore culpable.

redstrawberry10 · 23/09/2015 16:26

@cat that doesn't look like a definition to me.

VioletBumble · 23/09/2015 16:34

Also the 'free will' argument doesn't cover all the bad things which man has no control over, no matter how religious or good a person he is. It's just nonsensical.

madhairday · 23/09/2015 16:54

No, the free will argument is certainly not in any sense complete or satisfying. It's part of a whole that's incredibly complex, some of which is taken on faith and experience, neither of which are quantifiable, thus there will never be verifiable answers to the question of theodicy.

WRT God testing people about whether they'll choose to worship/believe in him - God can't win Grin If God makes people believe by displaying God's omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence etc etc then that leaves no room for people's own freedom of choice, and therefore narrows the definition of what being human means into something machine like; or if God lets people choose then God is culpable because evil therefore happens.

Is that God choosing to let evil happen, or God choosing to give people freedom? There's the question (and I don't have the answer) :)

hackmum · 23/09/2015 16:59

But there's a whole bunch of evil that has nothing to do with human beings and their free will - mosquitoes that carry malaria, for example. Why would you introduce mosquitoes into the world if you were designing a world from scratch? Of course some religious people will accept that mosquitoes evolved by chance and that God didn't design the world from scratch - in which case you have to accept that humans evolved by chance. And if you accept that humans evolved by chance why on earth do you think that humans have any obligation to God - to praise him, worship him, pray to him? It makes absolutely no sense at all.

VioletBumble · 23/09/2015 17:19

Is that God choosing to let evil happen, or God choosing to give people freedom? There's the question (and I don't have the answer)

That's probably because there IS no answer. You may as well ask 'Why is X green?'.

redstrawberry10 · 23/09/2015 19:42

Is that God choosing to let evil happen, or God choosing to give people freedom?

if any person acted like that, say a king, he would be thought to be a vindictive thug.

BartholinsSister · 23/09/2015 20:28

Even if there was a god that prevented suffering, averted disasters and such, people would still have free will whether to worship it/her/him. After all, people tell us that god has already done some spectacular stuff, created a universe, made humans from dust etc. I don't see the need for all the mystery.

redstrawberry10 · 23/09/2015 20:32

I am not sure what polio has to do with free will.

100thattemptatausername · 23/09/2015 20:43

Jumping on a previous comment Isaac Newton was a Christian, Darwin was even a Christian, Einstein was a Christian. Science and Faith are not two completley opposing views, often they fit very well together. With any faith you'll have the people who believe science doesn't fit and for some reason we decide to label all of that faith with the same unreasonable label and if it matters I'm an atheist.

redstrawberry10 · 23/09/2015 20:48

Einstein was a Christian

you do know he fled nazi germany because he was a jew, right?

he never espoused christian beliefs. he rejected any notion of a personal god.

pippitysqueakity · 23/09/2015 20:53

Well done OP, light touch paper, then stand well back!

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2015 21:14

Einstein was not a Christian. Newton was a Christian in as much as you had to be if you were in public life at the time. Darwin was conflicted.

MaidOfStars · 23/09/2015 21:16

Darwin knew that what he had elucidated was going to change how people addressed the god issue.

MaidOfStars · 23/09/2015 21:21

Isaac Newton was a Christian, Darwin was even a Christian, Einstein was a Christian

A lay person says this, glibly, as if it should be taken on faith...

A scientist says 'Isn't that a massive coincidence, I wonder what else might be going on'

Seriously 100, you've not thought more deeply?

BoskyCat · 23/09/2015 23:31

I thought Darwin really struggled and had to admit he couldn't really accept religion in the end which caused a lot of angst for his wife.

It was both his studies, and bereavement, that really did for his faith.

hackmum · 24/09/2015 08:46

redstrawberry10: "you do know he fled nazi germany because he was a jew, right?

he never espoused christian beliefs. he rejected any notion of a personal god."

Ah, but the important thing is not whether Einstein was really a Christian or not. The important thing is that 100thattemptatausername believes he was. As long as she has faith, who cares about stupid things like the facts?

MaleVoiceOfDoom · 24/09/2015 09:12

I only read the first third of the thread, my 2p worth: most scientists will have studied their branch of science, they will have taken on board the idea of consulting reality via experiment, but not really studied the roots of science from a philosophical point of view. I think there is a rational train of thought that should lead highly intelligent and educated people to the rejection of religion, but it doesn't lie within science, it's a branch of philosophy (epistemology.)

MaleVoiceOfDoom · 24/09/2015 09:34

Virtually all our knowledge, which includes both religion and science, is a cultural heritage obtained from the society we grow up in. I'm not saying science and religion are equally valid, merely that both contain invented narratives that we use to explain reality to ourselves. Science is superior in that as often as possible it tests it's stories against reality, and when it finds a discrepancy it changes its story. Also, it's story becomes more complex and nuanced with time, explaining in more and more detail, whereas religion seems to be heading in the opposite direction.

Unless they have a very strong motivation or very available alternative set of beliefs, most people are not going to throw off the cultural heritage they were born into, however intelligent they are.

Lweji · 24/09/2015 09:40

I wouldn't consider religion as knowledge.
If I did, then there would certainly be conflict between doing science and following a religion.

MaleVoiceOfDoom · 24/09/2015 09:41

Whether or not someone is Christian (or any other religion) is (I'd guess) best predicted by what their parents believed, not by their intelligence or general level of education.

IceBeing · 24/09/2015 09:51

I do know the answer to 'why is X green' potentially for any inserted X.

I don't know how allowing cancer to kill children is crucial to maintaining free will or 'not to obviously revealing power'?

When people say their child dying was a lesson from God that made them stronger etc. I always think how massively egocentric a view point that is. What about the child? What was their test? How would they have passed?

MaleVoiceOfDoom · 24/09/2015 09:54

I wouldn't consider religion as knowledge.

I would guess that a large proportion of Christians who have ever lived regarded Genesis as the literal truth though. Modern Christians who don't are examples of what I mean by religion in retreat, less of what they believe is supplied by religious narratives.

IceBeing · 24/09/2015 09:55

male like everything it is a combination of genetics, upbringing and societal peer pressure.

All my grandparents were Christian, both my parents claimed to be, but I know one of them was cultural christian and didn't actually believe in God or heaven etc.

I am an atheist....

My husbands Grandparents were Christian, his parents were Buddist and he is the definition of a militant atheist (I am trying to soften him - honestly)

I am an atheist....

My DD seems to be an unbeliever in general....any time you tell her anything she is all about the prove it....

Charis2 · 24/09/2015 10:12

.I haven't read the whole thread, however many many scientists are Christian.

In many cases, the deeper you study science, the more you realise the less we understand, if that makes sense, the more spiritual you become.

Every question science answers spawns a further 100 questions. The more we know, the more we realise we don't know and can't explain. The more unbelievable it is that this universe happened by chance. Some people get round this by deciding there must be countless billions of universes, but only one that works. Others decide the universe did not happen by chance.

Many atheists become Christian through studying science. Many others don't. Both are fine, both are equally good scientists