Posted on 01/02/2007 8:27:12 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
The late Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard used to describe religion and science as occupying “non-overlapping magisterial authority,” or what he called NOMA. That is, science and religion occupied different “domains,” or areas of life, in which each held “the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.”
There were many problems with Gould’s approach, but at least a lack of respect for religion and religious people wasn’t one of them. Not so with some of today’s scientists.
The New York Times reported on a conference recently held in Costa Mesa, California, that turned into the secular materialist equivalent of a revival meeting.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg told attendees that “the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief.” According to Weinberg, “anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.”
Another Nobel laureate, chemist Sir Harold Kroto, suggested that the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion be given to Richard Dawkins for his new book The God Delusion.
Continuing the theme, Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute called for teaching “our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty.”
In case you were in doubt about which worldview would inform this “catechesis,” she then added: “It is already so much more glorious and awesome—and even comforting—than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”
Attempts at a Gould-like détente between religion and science didn’t sit well with this crowd. A presentation by Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden on how to make evolution more acceptable to Christians was disrupted by Dawkins himself who called it “bad poetry.”
After a while, the rancor and stridency got to be too much for some of the attendees. One scientist called it a “den of vipers” where the only debate is “should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”
Another, physicist Lawrence Krauss, chided them, saying “science does not make it impossible to believe in God . . . [and] we should recognize that fact . . . and stop being so pompous about it.”
Fat chance. What’s behind all of this animosity? It is a worldview known as “scientism,” the belief that there is no supernatural, only a material world. And it will not countenance any rivals. It is a “jealous god.”
As Weinberg’s comments illustrate, it regards any other belief system other than scientism as irrational and the enemy of progress. Given the chance, as in the former Soviet Union, it wants to eliminate its rivals. It is no respecter of pluralism.
But this really exposes the difference between the worldviews of these scientists and Christians. We welcome science; it’s the healthy exploration of God’s world. The greatest scientists in history have been Christians who believe science was possible only in a world that was orderly and created by God. We don’t rule out any natural phenomenon.
The naturalists, on the other hand, rule out even science that tends to show intelligence, because that might lead to a God. Now, who is narrow-minded?
Or...
TBHNA
Excellent post, Mr. Silverback.
"The Bible has no astrophysics"?
Cheers!
**********
Goodness. That's news to me as well. :)
At least being a Red Sox fan eventually paid off. :-)
And yet they demand that their colleagues depart from that search for knowledge in order to go on a jihad against faith.
And now we know the exact elemental percentages contained in male bovine fecal matter.
Where does sandstone come from? Whether one is a Creationist or an Evolutionist, one would expect to find more aquatic fossils.
Ah yes can't defend the argument so we resort to name calling.
As for my previous observation, and the mistaken view that only those that espoused such views were scientists of the day, I would like to remind you that the Church accepted those 'scientific' claims as the standard. Any dissent against what the Church held as 'science' was quelled (i.e. the Church's acceptance of Aristotlean 'science'). By the argument you support we shouldn't accept any new research, or new findings of this creation that God has given us, and should still believe the planets rotate around the earth
"And God said . . . . And there was . . ." According to the biblical texts the world was not "brought about" through evolution in the wide sense, i.e. an indefinite series of events over an indefinite period of time.
Also, I'm curious as to why you've ignored this question:
[A]re you supporting the idea that a main goal of scientists should be to eliminate religion?
Well...are you?
Oh, actually I can and will defend the argument, but I never miss an opportunity to puncture a bloated sense of moral superiority.
No, but they did issue a fatwa against all infidels and mandate prayer five times per day toward the scrap yard where HMS Beagle was broken up.
Note that in post 16 I ask him for evidence of the theocracy he fears and in post 37 he provides a statement of belief from a creationist website as "proof" that creationists are going to take over the government and ban scientific inquiry.
What I find bizarre about the allegory argument is that one almost couldn't write a worse piece of allegory.
And knowing God's mind, as you apparently claim, you know the definition of 'there was' do you? Tell me, was it a flash? Or sort of smokey? What sort of sound did each creature make when they were brought into existence? Poof? Blam? What age were the creatures? The Bible states God created it. It states He brought them into existence. It doesn't state how He did it though does it. It doesn't state what actual physical actions in our realm happened when He spoke does it? How long did it take? How long is 'instantaneous' in God's time?
The difference between faith and fundamentalism is that I have the faith to know that He did it. It doesn't matter how He did it. Whether it be creation, evolution, or a mix of the two or what. But I do know at no point does God ask us to suspend all common sense, what we see in creation, etc. to accept the world is 6,000 years old just because some bloke sat down and worked backward on a genealogy chart.
Thanks! Check his reply and post 37 if you haven't seen it. He presented a statement of belief from the CRS website and acted like it was the Creationist Mein Kampf.
This "scientism" philosophy predates Christ and goes back to Aristotle who borrowed it himself from even more acient mesopotamian cultures. Jesus and religion are still going strong and will continue to do so long after frauds like Dawkins are dead and forgotten.
The thing I take issue with about the term *Bible literalist* is that it is used to discredit anyone who takes the creation account literally. There's a big difference between taking a narrative account, that's clearly written as a narrative account, literally and taking the whole Bible literally. Taking the accounts literally does not automatically demand that all of it be taken litearlly.
When the Bible states that *He said* or *They went* or other terms used to show action, there is no precedent for reading it as an allegory. Yes, there are allegories, along with metaphors, analogies, parables, etc.; but recognising the difference between them and reading them as such also does not mean that none of the Bible should be taken literally or that the Bible is therefore untrue. Or that the person doing so is hypocritical or being unfaithful to what they believe.
Personally, I am uncommitted as to the age of the earth. It may be about 6,000 years old; it may be not. There are factors mentioned in Scripture that would muck up the dating methods we depend on that could render them unreliable as far as I can see. I am aware of the history of the dating of the age of the earth by Ussher and that is why I am hesitant to accept it. The age of the earth was derived using Scripture by a man but is nowhere stated IN Scripture. If it was, that'd be a whole different matter. I hesitate to accept as truth something calculated by a person.
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