Replies

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god..."

This is possibly one of the most convolutedly retarded statements I have ever read.

You must be new here. :-)

"In the beginning, God created..." is NOT a tenet of paganism (but it IS the central theme of creationism).

You don't seem to be getting the underlying theme the Brother is talking about. The literalization of the Genesis Scripture account, even in the face of conflicting scientific evidence, leads to the "de-sciencing" of our understanding of revelation.

If science lies to us, and is not to be believed, we must believe that events that happen happen only because the whims of the gods, or of God in our monotheistic era. It is this attribution of every event in the world to a divine will rather than the systematic interaction of natural forces that leads to all kinds of pagan-like interpretation of events.

Muslims see in Katrina the revenge of Allah on we infidels. Environmentalists see their god getting revenge on the evil Bush regime. Pat Robertsen sees earthquakes in San Fransico as God's smiting of sinners.

These are all pagan attitudes and they all come about when we have no scientific understanding of the natural world.

And thunder and lightning? Chickenfeed compared to the flood, and falling frogs and swarming locusts. (Tho', occasionally when I've said something particularly unChristian-like, I have looked upwards in fear of a recompensatory bolt.)

You jest, but this is exactly the point. What is more awe inspiring, that God suddenly causes a new star to rise in Bethleham? Or that God created a universe where a particular comet's path, from the moment of creation leads it to appear during the Nativity?

Being able to understand how God uses science is not evidence of a lack of faith. On the contrary, having a fear that our study of the natural world will contradict God's written revelation shows a lack of faith that God designed the world to reveal truth to us.

You're soothing, Dave, but on this point I must disagree:

If science lies to us, and is not to be believed, we must believe that events that happen happen only because the whims of the gods, or of God in our monotheistic era.

There are not only these two exclusive choices. Science does not "lie" to us, though some of its interpreters might, "science" is an attempt to understand and explain that which occurs around us, to us, and in spite of us.

Rain, and winds, and other myriad events are in motion at all times. Does God direct them all? No, but He directed their inception and, if one believes the Scriptures, He has, at times, directed them specifically. (Which is why it is not completely outside of true Judeo-Christian faith to look up for the bolt... better than being swallowed up by the ground.)

= )