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Can Religion Ever Hope To Stop Science From Science From Probing?

As time continues so do Christian religion followers numbers throughout the world, yet science expands with sometimes mind numbing discoveries. Science to me feeds on it's progress (work) while religion seeks to maintain and grow the status quo despite what science learns. So far both sides respect each other and leave well enough alone. Will it last for another say, one thousand years or will when science learns about "The Beginning" (presuming here they do) will the majority of the worlds Chrisitians shrug it off saying simply, "So you found the God Particle and who do you think made it"?

I'm sure you can show us some really great examples of Christianity trying to stifle science ... you can, right?

Oh. Never mind.
 
I definitely think its wrong. But my point is that a minority of Christians believe in a literal interpretation of all the bible - especially OT stories. It doesn't make the bible silly when people do that, it makes them look silly.

These are the same people trying to drive their politicised religion into the laboratory, the classroom and our homes and it seems to me that they are not getting too much general opposition to this from the less literal facilitators.
 
I'm sure you can show us some really great examples of Christianity trying to stifle science ... you can, right?

Oh. Never mind.

In modern times? Scopes, Dover, Geology in general and Evolutionary Biology come to mind without too much thought.
 
Maybe that spicific faction of that one spicific religion is shrinking, sure, but that hardly represents religion per-se.

We may be talking at odds here. I wasn't talking about the popularity of religion, that is one affliction that humanity will take some time to rid itself of. I was talking about the 'scope' of religion where 'Goddidit' and the 'God of the gaps' is an ever shrinking domain.
 
We may be talking at odds here. I wasn't talking about the popularity of religion, that is one affliction that humanity will take some time to rid itself of. I was talking about the 'scope' of religion where 'Goddidit' and the 'God of the gaps' is an ever shrinking domain.
I wasn't talking about the popularity of religion either.

You seem to be lumping all religions together as if they're all in conflict with modern science. In fact, you're only talking about a certin sub-group of Christian Creationists. Not even all Creationists, not even all Christians, not even all Abrahamic faiths, certanly not all religions.

And not every science conflicts with any religion at all.

A few sub-categories of science conflict with a few sub-categories of religion, and sometimes the science moves over, sometimes the religion moves over, most of the time they co exist and a few times they fight.

Its not representative of the real world at all.
 
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I wasn't talking about the popularity of religion either.

You seem to be lumping all religions together as if they're all in conflict with modern science. In fact, you're only talking about a certin sub-group of Christian Creationists. Not even all Creationists, not even all Christians, not even all Abrahamic faiths, certanly not all religions.

And not every science conflicts with any religion at all.

OK, I just wasn't sure but, that's good to know.

I lump them all together because they have all shrunk. Just because Christian AND Muslim politicised creationists are the most prolific modern denialists it doesn't mean that the positions of more 'liberal' religions have not had to shrink their theology in the face of rational onslaught, in the past. As I said before, the 'God of the gaps' is downsizing because of the pressures of the modern world, he no longer pulls the sun across the sky in a chariot or causes thunder with his hammer or causes rain to fall.
 
In modern times? Scopes, Dover, Geology in general and Evolutionary Biology come to mind without too much thought.

Then you MIGHT want to give it some more thought ... there is a significant difference between disagreeing with science and trying to "stop science".

Go back, do your history homework, and get back to us.
 
OK, I just wasn't sure but, that's good to know.

I lump them all together because they have all shrunk. Just because Christian AND Muslim politicised creationists are the most prolific modern denialists it doesn't mean that the positions of more 'liberal' religions have not had to shrink their theology in the face of rational onslaught, in the past. As I said before, the 'God of the gaps' is downsizing because of the pressures of the modern world, he no longer pulls the sun across the sky in a chariot or causes thunder with his hammer or causes rain to fall.
I don't understand what exactly you mean by they "shrank their theology". A reduced membership?
 
Then you MIGHT want to give it some more thought ... there is a significant difference between disagreeing with science and trying to "stop science".

Go back, do your history homework, and get back to us.

Scopes and Dover concerned themselves with adding or subtracting to the school curriculum in the USA thereby trying to stop kids from learning good science and potentially preventing future scientific advances in a country that leads the World in many scientific disciplines. Direct significance, not just disagreeing but, trying to use the State to stop science. QED
 
I don't understand what exactly you mean by they "shrank their theology". A reduced membership?

No, like I said, I wasn't referring to a popularity contest and I gave plenty of examples but I'll take one non-Christian one to further explain. It was thought for a long time in many Nordic countries that thunder was caused by Thor striking his hammer because they had no idea how or why thunder happened. We know the nature of thunder and lightning now and so we no longer need (G)god(s) to fill that gap for us just as we no longer need (G)god(s) to explain many things; although people that are unable to cope with saying, 'we don't know but, we may know at some point in the future' still cling to religion.
 
Scopes and Dover concerned themselves with adding or subtracting to the school curriculum in the USA thereby trying to stop kids from learning good science and potentially preventing future scientific advances in a country that leads the World in many scientific disciplines. Direct significance, not just disagreeing but, trying to use the State to stop science. QED

Surely, you jest ... I guess you haven't actually studied either, right?

If you look, which you clearly haven't, the Scopes trial was a discussion of the constitutionality of a Tennessee law. In truth, it actually wasn't about Scopes or evolution at all. That was merely a convenient vehicle to bring to a head a clash between Traditionalist and Moralists. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South. It was an artificial issue created by the ACLU. Giving further lie to your interpretation is the fact that NO religious leader testified at the Scope trial for either side.

The Kitzmiller v Dover trial, on the other hand, was an overt attempt by the liberal intelligentsia to kill local control of school boards. In this case, Intelligent Design was merely the vehicle, not the issue. The Intelligent Design discussion is very much still in contention today. Again, it is of particular interest that no religious leader testified in this trial, either. The closest they came was to use a liberal Professor of Theology (a Roman Catholic) who testified FOR the plaintiffs. Conversely, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick in England, and author of books on social epistemology and science and technology studies testified for the defendants.

Nothing is as simple as it seems ... you need to be more careful.
 
Surely, you jest ... I guess you haven't actually studied either, right?

If you look, which you clearly haven't, the Scopes trial was a discussion of the constitutionality of a Tennessee law. In truth, it actually wasn't about Scopes or evolution at all. That was merely a convenient vehicle to bring to a head a clash between Traditionalist and Moralists. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South. It was an artificial issue created by the ACLU. Giving further lie to your interpretation is the fact that NO religious leader testified at the Scope trial for either side.

The Kitzmiller v Dover trial, on the other hand, was an overt attempt by the liberal intelligentsia to kill local control of school boards. In this case, Intelligent Design was merely the vehicle, not the issue. The Intelligent Design discussion is very much still in contention today. Again, it is of particular interest that no religious leader testified in this trial, either. The closest they came was to use a liberal Professor of Theology (a Roman Catholic) who testified FOR the plaintiffs. Conversely, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick in England, and author of books on social epistemology and science and technology studies testified for the defendants.

Nothing is as simple as it seems ... you need to be more careful.

Politicised religionists cannot even admit when their crusades have been halted, deluded to the last.
 
Politicised religionists cannot even admit when their crusades have been halted, deluded to the last.

Wow! What a reasoned, succinct, and fact based response! I am crushed ... (Where the hell is the 'sarcasm' button?)
 
No, like I said, I wasn't referring to a popularity contest and I gave plenty of examples but I'll take one non-Christian one to further explain. It was thought for a long time in many Nordic countries that thunder was caused by Thor striking his hammer because they had no idea how or why thunder happened. We know the nature of thunder and lightning now and so we no longer need (G)god(s) to fill that gap for us just as we no longer need (G)god(s) to explain many things; although people that are unable to cope with saying, 'we don't know but, we may know at some point in the future' still cling to religion.
Odinists today still regard thunder as Thor striking his hammer. Wiccans still use magnets in certin rituals, atributing the interaction to their god of choice, eventhough they know perfectly well how magnetism works. I think these things were just never taken as literally as you presume.

Im still not seeing how you measure a "reduction in theology". Are you meashuring the volume of written works then & now? Number of sculptures, number of temples....what?
 
Wow! What a reasoned, succinct, and fact based response! I am crushed ... (Where the hell is the 'sarcasm' button?)
The official sarcasm font of the internet is to italicize every other letter.
 
That's not a historically accurate view of the relationship of Christianity to evolution.

Christian theologians dating all the way back to Origen (3rd century) viewed the creation narrative as allegorical. This was the dominant view until at least the protestant reformation, but more likely until after the enlightenment.

See for example:
On First Principles - by Origen of Alexandria
The Literal Meaning of Genesis - by St. Augustine of Hippo

In more modern times, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement and one of the most important voices of modern theology was very interested in evolution as you can see from some of the writings included in his compendium:
A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: A Compendium of Natural Philosophy

This was before Origin of the Species, so obviously Wesley is a lot more guarded than he would be had he lived a few years later; back when he was studying evolutionary thought the mechanism of survival of the fittest had yet to be discovered, so evolutionary theory was still in its infancy. Nevertheless, here we have one of most influential modern theologians promoting the study of evolutionary science.

History just doesn't seem to match this revisionist idea that Christianity considered the genesis account true in a literal way for much of its history. History actually shows that allegorical readings were the most common for at least Christianity's first 1500+ years.

Let's not even get into the Kaballah and other Jewish thoughts on the creation narrative, which get even more esoteric and non-literal than the Christian interpretations.

Fundamentalism is a rather new concept in Christianity and it is only within that fairly new and comparatively small movement that biblical literalism has ever been promoted.

All that begs the question WHY make a massive allegorical tale of the world's origins, a global flood, and a Hebrew slave exodus thru the desert. I mean, what's the point in any of that if not true? The Gospels also refer to these fables in quite a serious manner at times, as if the Jesus character didn't know any better:

"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24:38-39).

"Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’" (Mark 10:6)

That doesn't sound like he's aware of evolution or the Higgs Boson.
 
Originally Posted by Tim the plumber View Post
If the bit about the world flood is a myth and so is the creation story why is the resurrection bit 100% solid?

Because the bible isn't all about one thing or all about another. Its a book written over centuries by various people with various audiences to say various things. Its not always easy to determine what should be taken literally and what shouldn't. Even the Jesus stuff can be tricky. Did he really mean he was going to come back riding on a cloud? Did he really mean for you to pluck your eye out if it caused you to sin? Its all about context and knowing the language, the audience etc. Some people spend their lives studying it and they still all don't agree on some things.

Just try to answer the question.

Just try to sort out some criteria that make it OK to believe that he walked on water and got better from death and that there was never a world flood.

If you can't, just try to be honest about that to your self.
 
That really doesn't make any sense. Everybody it's being forced to accept evolution. There really isn't any way to deny it.

I don't have any problem what so ever accepting everything science suggests regarding evolution. However it really has nothing to do with God it doesn't disprove Christianity in the least. I don't know why some atheists think evolution is some trump card.

You disproved a 5000 year old poem about a talking snake and magical fruit. But then again I never thought it was to be taken absolutely literally.

What else can you prove? Donkeys can't talk? Men didn't live for 600 years?

I don't see any atheist claiming that it's evolution which shows the Bible to be silly. I think it's physical geography, astronomy, geology, history and the rest.
 
I'm sure you can show us some really great examples of Christianity trying to stifle science ... you can, right?

Oh. Never mind.

Are you aware of the silly restriction placed on stem cell research in the US?
 
I did.

Just try to answer the question.

Just try to sort out some criteria that make it OK to believe that he walked on water and got better from death and that there was never a world flood.

If you can't, just try to be honest about that to your self.
 
All I can say is, I am a religious person and have no desire to stop Science from doing Science. Carry on.
 
Originally Posted by Tim the plumber View Post
Just try to answer the question.

Just try to sort out some criteria that make it OK to believe that he walked on water and got better from death and that there was never a world flood.

If you can't, just try to be honest about that to your self.


No, you did not. All you said was that some bits should be regarded as allegorical. Which bits and why?
 
There isn't a ban on stem cell research.

US scientists chafe at restrictions on new stem-cell lines : Nature News & Comment

The announcement last month of a long-awaited breakthrough in stem-cell research — the creation of stem-cell lines from a cloned human embryo — has revived interest in using embryonic stem cells to treat disease. But US regulations mean that many researchers will be watching those efforts from the sidelines.

Please wake up.
 
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