Science and religion: could you help me with more examples, please?

[onimolap]

I want to show DCs that science and religion are not always and inherently at loggerheads.

I know the example of Georges LeMaître, the Catholic priest who was the father of the Big Bang theory.

Can anyone help with further examples?

It is possible to trim away all the things about god that are inconsistent with science until there is no longer any conflict. However at that point you no longer have a god. All you have is a feeling or a metaphor which like 'beauty' is in the eye of the beholder.

Which is fine of course because you are left with no religion at all to conflict with anything. Just atheists who can appreciate beauty and art like everyone else.

It would be an elegant end if not for the millions who believe their god will start their car in the morning if they ask him nicely. Who think he will influence their employer to get them a promotion and will cure their diseases if they travel to Lourdes. A god who has moods, plans and intervenes regularly to enforce them. How can someone who thinks god changes the weather to answer prayers work as a meteorologist?.

Seeing as all the Christians I have ever met have never thought like anything you have just mentioned, onagar, you are just not addressing how your average Christian (in the UK, since that's where I am based) actually thinks God works. Most theologians for several centuries have not thought God worked like that either.

ElBurro, you seem determined to tell me what I can and can't believe in, according to 'your' rules of what is compatible with your materialist view of the universe. I believe in a God who underpins everything that you believe in, and who doesn't interfere with it - no magical interventions for parking places/ fine weather.

However, debating these points ad infinitum is wearisome, and I've done it long enough for the moment. I don't have an issue with science; I don't believe in a God of the Gaps. I don't have to square any circle concerning God when it comes to the subject - in fact it seems remarkably absurd since science is one means of understanding God's universe (though it is not the only means of understanding).

It is only wearisome for you because you cannot really mount a coherant defence - I am not surprised you want to end this. The point of this thread is to discuss whether the religious view of the world is compatible with a scientific one. I believe that it is not. In science you do not believe things are true if you have no evidence for them, it goes against the priinciples of scientific endeavour. This is a simple statement of fact, not me trying to force my materialist views on anyone. But this fact also means that the religious view of life is not compatible with a scientific one because religion necessarily requires belief in things that are unproven. Nothing you have said contradicts or undermines this and I don't know how many different ways I can say this to make you understand it. I would respect you a lot more if you just said you did not give a toss what rational science thinks, you are happy with what you believe in and lets just leave it, but you do not. Many religions encourage irrational belief and are completely unapologetic about it. Instead you seem determined to think that you can have it both ways because you are not a raving fundamentalist - this in my opinion is worse because it requires intellectual dishonesty, not just blind faith.

Just to add Dan - As some time ago I used to work as a RSW for a RC charity, I have met many tens of people who have travelled to Lourdes in order to seek a divine cure for illness. Do these people not represent the average UK Christian or is it just that you have not met them?

Well, thanks for that lovely sentiment, ElBurro, about my intellectual dishonesty and incoherent defence of my faith. And yes, I have met people who have travelled to Lourdes.

The entirety of life and existence is not encompassed by science. You seem to think otherwise. That is your opinion, but believing scientific fact and probity is the be-all and end-all of existence is not my opinion. And it's not the opinion of millions of others, billions of others, both now and across the years. Scientific fact is not the only indicator of a thing being real or true - Gould recognised this and said the two spheres did not overlap but did not contradict each other either. You have made scientific fact and its methods of discovery the standard by which everything else is judged. That there is something else that other people see and feel which doesn't fit your box of tests doesn't mean that the religious world is at odds with science. Some things are proveable by scientific tests, others are not (the meaning of a painting or work of literature, the love of a parent for a child, or a partner for their loved one).

You seem happy to tell me I am intellectually dishonest in your opinion and you have little respect for me for my belief in both scientific principles and there being a God who exists and from whom creation has its being (including those scientific principles), well, it's a shame that you want me to know your personal opinion of me, rather than discussing some of the points I have made that you have passed over. After many occasions of my entering into these kinds of discussions over many years - because if theists don't, they are accused of intellectual cowardice - it's always a pity when the theist's intellect or understanding is brought into disrepute, if they don't agree with the circumscribed arrangements of the argument brought to the table by the non-theist.

In my offline life I have plenty to be going on with and I feel I have contributed a sufficiency to this debate, let alone the initial comments about Darwin, Collins and Dobzhansky etc on the first page. The discussion becomes a little circular after a while without a fresh voice, so I hope someone else (possibly even a theist) will add their thoughts to this thread.

Oh DandyDan,

I thought you were bigger than to pull the old 'I'm offended/you are disrespectful' card. Oh course ElBurrro does not respect your belief that science and religion are compatible. That is the point s/he is disagreeing with you about!

But I don't think s/he has used language that is particularly rude or disrespectful, in the context of an adult discussion about philosophy.(Although I agree it is hard on you as the lone theist here willing to put some meat on the bones of the often stated view that science and religion are not intellectually incompatible, and hope that others join in)

You say it is just 'an opinion' that evidence based explanations are the most reliable. But in a RL situation, where the outcomes mattered is that really what you think? Say you got on an airplane, and the pilot announced 'this plane has unfortunately failed some of the routine safety tests we carry out before take-off, however I have great faith that [insert name of whatever god the pilot believes in] will carry this plane safely accross the Atlantic.'

I don't think you would for a minute entertain that the pilot's 'different way of knowing what is real and true' might be valid, and I wouldn't blame you. But what standard would you be using to say that the scientific view of the ground engineers is more valid than the non-materialist view of the pilot?

Equally, if medical doctors say it is not possible for someone to die and then three days later come back to life, and an ancient text says that it is, these are not not non-overlapping, non-contradictory opinions. They are at odds.

I and other posters have addressed why recognising the meaning of a painting or work of literature, the love of a parent for a child, or a partner is not an argument for a non-materialist view of the world. The existence of these things does not entail magic.

Intervention by a deity in to the world (including through extra-sensory communication with human beings) does.

I am not offended. I just don't see why the sentiment "intellectually dishonest" has to come into it: we disagree, that's all, and I'm happy to disagree. I don't claim or even think that someone is intellectually dishonest if they don't accept the terms of my argument. And I don't think the non-materialist question has been answered: there is more than physical matter to our existence.

The plane analogy is plain silly - religious people who accept science accept that if a thing fails - eg. an engine - God does not intervene to cover the gaps. I have repeatedly said I don't believe in a God of the gaps or an interventionist God.

What I would like to do is stop contributing to this thread but responses to it, challenge me to respond - if I don't, your assertion that I am offended, will stand; or other assertions may follow - Dan isn't up to arguing properly, has weak arguments etc. That is the tiresome thing, so once again, departing in peace, and not offended.

It is intellectually dishonest for the following reasons;

A basic tenet of practising science is that you do not accept as fact things that are unproven - I think you agree with this. If you do not just ask any scientist or post on a science message board.
You accept as fact, as a part of your religion, things that are unproven.

Therefore what you believe, a religious view, is incompatible with a scientific view. That is basic logic.
And to keep denying this is IMO dishonest.

We would have to temporarily suspend the laws of logic as well of those of the universe to regard your views as consistent with a scientific view. Reading through what you have put, I think that you really misunderstand what science is. Essentially science is about truth, no more no less.

I am glad that religion gives you meaning, as I said before I am not against religion per se. You sound like a kind and thoughtful person, far more so than many inhabitants of the world. However I will never be quiet when you go around stating that a scientific view of the world accomodates what you believe - it does not.

DandyDan, you needn't feel attacked. It's not really you against the rest as you are merely the one currently speaking for a point of view that others share. It is a pity though that some of those others are not here too.

We've seen in the past that when anyone pokes logical holes in religion there is a tendency to fall back to a minimalist god who has no effect whatsoever.

While some may well believe in such a god the fact is that mainstream religions preach of a god that does has an affect. If you still doubt that then you need look no further that the religious section of MN where you will find people asking for prayers to heal medical conditions or to avert natural disasters.

Not just prayer. Religious people will tell you here on MN that god created evolution and now guides it on a daily basis to ensure it gets it just right. That evolution wouldn't work right if left unattended.

Clearly they believe that god will control the weather so as I said before it would be a conflict to believe that and to be a meteorologist. What would be the point if you genuinely thought that god made it rain? How could someone take a salary for predicting the weather if they believed it followed no rules and was simply based on which people had prayed the loudest today?