Frankly, I do not believe there must be a conflict be science and religion. The current generation of scientists has made it so because they are “physicalists” i.e. they are convinced there is a material explanation for everything.
There are few who do not see things this way and are trying find the link. I met this guy: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/hoffman.html
not too long ago and he had an amazing and convincing explanation.
First, he said to imagine the universe as you perceive it to be your “human interface” with reality. Similar to the screen on your computer, it represents what is happening, but is not a true representation of reality. Evolution guarentees that it cannot be. The amount of energy needed to perceive real reality would be a huge waste. Your perception is evolved so that your “hack” into reality is better than the “hack” of what you want to eat or what wants to eat you. Humans may not even have the capacity to understand reality.
Thus, trying to expain the universe by using what we are able to perceive is like trying to explain what is happening in a computer by what you see on the screen. The screen represents reality, but it is not. It is your “human interface” because you cannot communicate with the true reality of the computer.
Scientists can’t explain what the universe is composed of (although there are fuzzy theories) and they don’t even have a theory for what causes human consciousness. Of course if the brain is just a representation of reality, that is perhaps understandable. Could you explain the an icon on your computer if you weren’t willing to believe there was something beyond it?
That much said, there is a lot going on in religion that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Religious doctrine often can best be understood by thinking of it like a file of the pictures of your children on a computer screen. The file is important to you, you would not put it in the “recycling basket” and erase it. But you do not believe that this file really looks like that or really contains your pictures (they are a series of 1s and 0s of course). However, you take the representation seriously, but not literally.
Religios movements are unfortunately filled with a lot of people taking things literally that should only be taken seriuosly. Thus the conflict with science. Those who take things literally are not so open to being questioned. The scientists are equally guilty, but in a different way. Moreover, “faith” is often just an excuse for believing something about which one is uncertain. Scientists have “faith” too, but claim to be open to challenging it if given evidence to the contrary. Religions don’t usually appreciate this, but Christianity has proven remarkably adaptable on questions that scientists have answered (round earth revolving around the sun not in the center of the universe)
Hoffmann believes that scientists will spend another 20 to 30 years trying to figure our the “physical” explanation for things. Then enough of the old school will be dead and perhaps it will be possible to apply the scientific method to some of the ideas that religion has had for the past 10 millenia.
Applying the scientific method to religious concepts would be a revolution of extraordinary proportions. Too few scientists have been willing or able to go down this path. There will be opposition from both science and religion to doing so. But it is probably the only way to really begin to answer those huge open questions.
Posts #11 and 22 were the most “reasonable” I’ve seen on any of these threads lately.
It’s always seemed to me that science and religion address different realms...to believe one is not to exclude the other.
This part below reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in his work The Republic.
Without diminishing the contemporary philosopher, he has in a sense updated Plato in the IT idiom.
First, he said to imagine the universe as you perceive it to be your “human interface” with reality. Similar to the screen on your computer, it represents what is happening, but is not a true representation of reality. Evolution guarentees that it cannot be. The amount of energy needed to perceive real reality would be a huge waste. Your perception is evolved so that your “hack” into reality is better than the “hack” of what you want to eat or what wants to eat you. Humans may not even have the capacity to understand reality. Thus, trying to expain the universe by using what we are able to perceive is like trying to explain what is happening in a computer by what you see on the screen. The screen represents reality, but it is not. It is your “human interface” because you cannot communicate with the true reality of the computer.
Minus the typos, that should be in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. That is just brilliantly stated.