Posted on 11/05/2015 10:05:02 AM PST by Kaslin
A Pew Research Poll released last week reports that fifty-nine percent of Americans see science and religion in conflict. But they also found that, "highly religious Americans are less likely than others to see conflict between faith and science."
I'm not a scientist, and I don't play one on TV. But it's amazing to me to see how some scientists like to claim that somehow science has disproven God.
Meanwhile, on Bill Maher's television program last month (10/2/15), he and guest Richard Dawkins essentially declared that science has disproved God.
Bill Maher: "You talk about the wonder of science probably better than anybody and, of course, it's a little bit of a difficult mission because the more you explain how wonderful and amazing science is, the more the other side says, 'Well, yeah, because God did it!"' ....
Richard Dawkins: "I think that the wonder of science above all is precisely that God didn't do it, the wonder, we do understand how it came about, we do understand how life, in particular, came about with nothing but the laws of physics, nothing but atoms bumping into each other, and then filtered through the curious process that Darwin discovered, it gives rise to us and kangaroos and trees and walruses."
And Dawkins added: "What's truly wonderful is that it came about without being designed. If it had been designed, anybody could do that, it's the fact that it came about just through the laws of physics, naturalism is what's so wonderful about it."
Oh, the glories of science. Now we know better than the ancients, who simply swapped one mystery---the universe---for belief in another mystery---God.
Or do we? G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a great Christian thinker who noted this: "Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say."
He also said, "Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, 'Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?'The young sceptic says, 'I have a right to think for myself.' But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, 'I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.'"
By using reason, Dawkins concludes that this world is essentially reason-less. His type did not invent science, nor could it have. It takes belief in reason to understand the laws of science---even to agree that there are laws of science. And reason cannot form in the void of random materialism. That is why it is historically true that science was born in Christian Europe.
Alfred North Whitehead said that Christianity is the mother of science because of "the medieval insistence on the rationality of God." A rational God had made a rational universe, and it was the object of the scientists to---in the words of the great astronomer
Energetics, Lord Kelvin
Entomology of Living Insects, Henri Fabre
Field Theory, Michael Faraday
Fluid Mechanics, George Stokes
Galactic Astronomy, Sir William Herschel
Gas Dynamics, Robert Boyle
Genetics, Gregor Mendel
Glacial Geology, Louis Agassiz
Gynecology, James Simpson
Hydrography, Matthew Maury
Hydrostatics, Blaise Pascal
Ichthyology, Louis Agassiz
Isotopic Chemistry, William Ramsey
Model Analysis, Lord Rayleigh
Natural History, John Ray
Non-Euclidean Geometry, Bernard Riemann
Oceanography, Matthew Maury
Optical Mineralogy, David Brewster
So, are Christians anti-science? Not quite. Science was invented by Christians.
Furthermore, we write: "The prevailing philosophy of the Western world today is existentialism, which is irrational. It would not be possible for science to develop in an irrational world because science is based on the fact that if water boils at 212 degrees today, it will boil at 212 degrees tomorrow, and the same thing the next day, and that there are certain laws and regularities that control the universe." No rational God, no rational universe.
So, does science somehow disprove God? Not at all. On the contrary, the heavens declare the glory of God.
In the book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, D. James Kennedy and I point out (based on the findings of Henry Morris) that virtually all the major branches of science were invented by Bible-believing scientists, including:
Antiseptic surgery, Joseph Lister
Bacteriology, Louis Pasteur
Calculus, Isaac Newton
Celestial Mechanics, Johannes Kepler
Chemistry, Robert Boyle
Comparative Anatomy, Georges Cuvier
Computer Science, Charles Babbage
Dimensional Analysis, Lord Rayleigh
Dynamics, Isaac Newton
Electronics, John Ambrose Fleming
Electrodynamics, James Clerk Maxwell
Electromagnetics, Michael Faraday
Energetics, Lord Kelvin
Entomology of Living Insects, Henri Fabre
Field Theory, Michael Faraday
Fluid Mechanics, George Stokes
Galactic Astronomy, Sir William Herschel
Gas Dynamics, Robert Boyle
Genetics, Gregor Mendel
Glacial Geology, Louis Agassiz
Gynecology, James Simpson
Hydrography, Matthew Maury
Hydrostatics, Blaise Pascal
Ichthyology, Louis Agassiz
Isotopic Chemistry, William Ramsey
Model Analysis, Lord Rayleigh
Natural History, John Ray
Non-Euclidean Geometry, Bernard Riemann
Oceanography, Matthew Maury
Optical Mineralogy, David Brewster
So, are Christians anti-science? Not quite. Science was invented by Christians.
Furthermore, we write: "The prevailing philosophy of the Western world today is existentialism, which is irrational. It would not be possible for science to develop in an irrational world because science is based on the fact that if water boils at 212 degrees today, it will boil at 212 degrees tomorrow, and the same thing the next day, and that there are certain laws and regularities that control the universe." No rational God, no rational universe.
So, does science somehow disprove God? Not at all. On the contrary, the heavens declare the glory of God.
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“alternate universes†are outside of the realm of science. They are in the realm of belief, not science.”
You are badly mistaken about that and just plain wrong. The potential existence of alternate universes or a multiverse is implicit in mathematics. You cannot be anymore purely scientific that an experimentally reproducible mathematical equation, whether or not there are any multiple universes.
Where did the natural laws and natural constants of physics come from?
Where did the math come from?
How do we know that the result of a mathematical equation will always yield the same result given the same conditions? ( a requirement for meaningful experimental use)
Well, the second half of your statement depends a great deal on what kind of God you believe in, so I don’t think science can actually do that.
If you mean science can show how little impact we can have on creation, I’ll grant you that.
If I understand your question (and it depends a lot on the word “the” in there) I’m not sure it makes sense.
Math is a methodology human beings to model reality. It came from our brains. I wouldn’t call it a separate creation, per-se, any more than language. It’s a natural result of us being able to think logically and coming up with a logical modeling tool to help us do things.
To prove something exists means sticking it in a bottle and coming up with a “repeatable” test that other people can reproduce and validate your results. The cold fusion guys failed to do this and their experiment was proven flawed by others which is why cold fusion is considered not to exist.
To prove something does not exist as the premise of the experiment is much, much, harder. You have to eliminate “every possible way” it could occur and create a huge matrix of repeatable experiments that need to be validated. That is why most theories are proof positive not proof negative and why mathematicians stay away from proof negative as it is almost impossible to come up with every possible way something cannot exist.
Now apply that scientific approach to proving or disproving God and it is easy to see that you can’t stick God in a bottle to examine in a repeatable experiment so claiming that science has proven or disproven God is completely ridiculous. The only conclusion you can draw is that disproving the existence of God will be much, much, harder based on science. When these guys get together and reinforce their atheistic faith and chant “science” in between their group think reaffirmation of their beliefs, they automatically validate they don’t understand the first thing about science.
Isaac Asimov, “The Feeling of Power.”
That was a fun story in which humanity had forgotten how to do math without calculators and someone had begun devising the algorithms himself by studying ancient computers.
3x7 is 21.
How do you know that?
Well, I just do. I’ve tried it on a calculator any number of times and it always comes out the same.
But how can you be sure it always will?
My methods work, you see.
(At least, as best I remember the interchange.)
Good pay and benefits.
Seriously, I knew an atheist who was ethnically Jewish who was studying to be a Jewish chaplain so he could help people with their life issues. He was pretty comfortable that this was a reasonable career path.
Without God there would not be.
So you don’t think math is “discovered” but “created”?
You don’t find it to be “remarkable” that what was originally developed to do “inventory” meaning keeping track of ‘how many’, and ‘how big’; then is later shown when “abstracted” away from ‘accounting’ to have rich fullness and seemly endless stream of properties and structure?
I think an interesting question would be “Does God disprove science?”
I mean, if science is founded on the notion that certain laws operate consistently and God can “miraculously” invalidate those laws, does that mean science can’t really exist?
Or does science allow for miracles with the implicit “unless God does a miracle” statement in every conclusion.
I’m not trying to cause trouble. I think it’s an interesting philosophical question - maybe only to me.
Not necessarily, any more than language might have been invented primarily to tell people the best place to fish but now has rich fullness and seemingly endless stream of properties and structure.
Non-Euclidian geometries, to me, suggests that math is our servant, not our master. When we use math to model reality as we experience it, it’s useful. If we devise other mathematical structures, no matter how interesting, they aren’t useful (except maybe as art).
I could be missing something, but that’s what I see.
Apparently now not unasked. One answer about "Why" is that with a silver tongue, a well-shellacked mane, and a TV camera, it's a great way to wind up with a beautiful home with an air-conditioned doghouse and some real nice clothes. Ask Jim Bakker.
Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean....Science analyses, religion integrates. Science breaks things down to their component parts. Religion binds people together in relationships of trust. Science tells us what is. Religion tells us what ought to be. Science describes. Religion beckons, summons, calls. Science sees objects. Religion speaks to us as subjects. Science practices detachment. Religion is the art of attachment, self to self, soul to soul. Science sees the underlying order of the physical world. Religion hears the music beneath the noise. Science is the conquest of ignorance. Religion is the redemption of solitude.
- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership
Proof that DNA was designed by a mind:
(1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.
(2) All codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind.
(3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind, and language and information are proof of the action of a Super-intelligence.
We can explore five possible conclusions:
1) Humans designed DNA
2) Aliens designed DNA
3) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
4) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
5) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.
(1) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans. (2) could well be true but only pushes the question back in time. (3) may be a remote possibility, but it is not a scientific explanation in that it doesn’t refer to a systematic, repeatable process. It’s nothing more than an appeal to luck . (4) could be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic explanation that remains is (5) a theological one.
To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything, DNA is proof of a designer.
This is called 'secular magic'.
I was led to Jesus by some genuine rocket scientists working on the Apollo program.
I thought I read somewhere that the rate of creation of new information represented in the DNA of the Cambrian Explosion dwarfed the rate of creation of new information in the Information Age. But I can’t find it any more to see how they arrived at that conclusion.
Is this something you’re familiar with?
Where do laws of logic come from, how do we know they apply through space and time?
Why does the universe follow mathematical laws?
Numbers are concepts, contained wholly in the mind....where did the concept originate? Were there numbers before the was a mind to conceive them?
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