Can Science and Religion be reconciled?

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Pugget

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For everyone!

Can you study and take to heart all scientific knowledge, yet still have an honest and deep belief in a deity and religious teachings?

If you believe religion is truth, then do you ever doubt? How do you keep the faith in a practically hostile world? (especially this forum?)

And if there is nothing more to life than chemicals and laws of physics, do you let yourself pretend otherwise for the sake of comfort?

And if you have changed your beliefs in your lifetime so far--- what did it?
(Let's hope no one found Jesus on Death Row here...);)

If you haven't changed beliefs -- what would? Do you hope it will happen? Expect it?
 
Originally posted by Pugget
Can you study and take to heart all scientific knowledge, yet still have an honest and deep belief in a deity and religious teachings?
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Somehow, I seriously doubt one can be religious and scientific, since many religions base themselves on fantastical things, or pure faith. Take Christianity: how can a scientist be Christian, and yet still believe in evolution, when it obviously goes against the Bible?

If you believe religion is truth, then do you ever doubt? How do you keep the faith in a practically hostile world? (especially this forum?)
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Don't worry about this forum being hostile...I think the people here are very openminded, and won't harass you for your religious beliefs. As long as you don't start telling us to join in some cult or something (without good reason, of course). :)

And if there is nothing more to life than chemicals and laws of physics, do you let yourself pretend otherwise for the sake of comfort?
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Nah, I'm more of a romantic, I like to hope in things that can't be explained away by the harsh realities of formulas. :)

Welcome To SciForums, Pugget! :D (interesting choice of alias) :)
 
Pugget,
How do you keep the faith in a practically hostile world? (especially this forum?)
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You keep the faith, or not, because you want to, whereas the hostilities that might confront you here, from time to time, are well-intended admonishions to further examine the reasons for your faith--to help you decide that it wasn't too easily come by. ;)
 
No! not really.

How can one know many scientific proofs which contradict bliblical literatures and yet remain totally devout?.
 
How can one know many scientific proofs which contradict bliblical literatures and yet remain totally devout?.
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Your Faith in your god is not the same faith you might invest in the "bible literature". The "bible literature", afterall, is only someone else's Cliff Notes for people uncertain they actually have a personal relationship with a god--someone else's words and ideas about the nature of your own personal relationship with your god. It's not very personal if it's exactly the same for everyone.

Jesus is said to have said: find your personal relationship with your god at home, in your closet, not in the public square where ideas are not entirely your own.

What critical role need others play in the simple equation "You + your god = You + your god"?
 
Can you study and take to heart all scientific knowledge, yet still have an honest and deep belief in a deity and religious teachings?
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Sure you can. Science seems to be a part of what was created.

Do not mix up religious teachings and religion.

If you believe religion is truth, then do you ever doubt? How do you keep the faith in a practically hostile world? (especially this forum?)
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Everybody should doubt. Sureness (?) is not of this world. Wise is he who knows that he knows nothing.

Hostility towards religious points of view? I don't care about that. Trick on the forum: tell scientists how right they are (cause they probably are on most points) and then try to open up the mind for all sorts of weird thoughts :)

And if there is nothing more to life than chemicals and laws of physics, do you let yourself pretend otherwise for the sake of comfort?
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There is already more. Take emotions. Even though some claim to explain them as chemicals, they are still emotions and worth having. It is all a matter of point of view and willingness to live.

And if you have changed your beliefs in your lifetime so far--- what did it?
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I don't make drastic changes, since I already try to be open to everything and don't lock myself in a small scientific or religious view of the world. (I try, I really do :) )

If you haven't changed beliefs -- what would? Do you hope it will happen? Expect it?
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Well, a moment of Satori, a chat with an angel,... these things would probably draw me in a certain direction. But I think there is a reason for this not being a very common happening.

I think life is meant to be lived and such events would only interfere with the living. Are we born to meditate all of our lives? Must we sit and wait for an angel to come by? I strongly doubt it.
 
Science seems to be a part of what was created
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Umm, I see it as Science is a part of what, to some, seems was created.

Afterall, we all can agree that Science exists. ;)
 
Umm, I see it as Science is a part of what, to some, seems was created.
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That is more correct indeed. I just can't put every point of view in every phrase. :)

Afterall, we all can agree that Science exists.
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Yes. It appears quite real in what we've agreed on to call reality.

And it is darn fun to drive a car too. :)
 
I have discovered that Geneisis may not be entirely as contradictory as many non-theologists would have you believe. The Bible gives us a list in order of what happened on this planet befor man showed up, and few people realize how very close to the Geological clock it really is when you stand back and look at it.

1) The Earth is created.
2) Life begins in the oceans "Let the water bring forth abundantly moving creatures."
3) Life begins in on land "Let the earth bring forth living creatures."
4) God creates man "Let us make man".

Genesis sounds a lot more like the Geologic clock than most fundamentalists Christians would have you believe, and it gets even more interesting than that. In Hebrew, the words light and dark also correspond to "Order" and "Chaos". It would not be incorrect to also translate "Let their be light" to "Let their be order". Wow, sounds like the Big Bang, doesn't it?

I could go on further about this, but Genesis, when looked at in a much more scholarly point of view is CERTANLY NOT a litteral six days.
 
Reality exists quite independent of consensus opinion.
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No it doesn't. Reality is formed by people all the time. It is what we agree on. I do believe that we are progressing to some kind of truth, but it is a long and bumpy way.

For example: Galilei asked the church authority to look through his telescope and see that earth was not the center of the universe.

The church people refused. One: they already knew the truth and had no doubt in their mind. Two: the telescope was a thing of the devil which would mislead them into seeing things that weren't there.

The world is full of these distorted (?) views on what reality is.
 
Reality is formed by people all the time. It is what we agree on.
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Perhaps you mean Truth?

Reality is, in part, that which actually lies at the exact center of the Earth. Can we all agree on what it might be?

Reality is, in part, that which lies more than 20 Billion Light Years in any direction. But, not enough time has elapsed, since the Big Bang, for information from so far away to have reached us. Can we all agree on what that distant reality might be?

;)
 
The reality is...as of this posting, Pugget did not return to this thread....

Anyone care to analyze....???
 
Mr G, what reality is depends on your point of view. This is also true for science and religion.

I think science and trees and water and... are a very safe bet, but you can never be sure.

Whatever is real or true, you have to live with your experiences and with the common experience of most people, so the discussion is of course purely theoretical.

May be she could join us in pseudoscience....
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*lol* Touché
 
A4Ever,
....what reality is depends on your point of view
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The universe was no less real Billions of years ago, before life-forms capable of points-of-view first arose on Earth, than it is today.

Points of view arise from our individual perceptions of reality--both the portions of reality directly observable by us and those portions we don't actually percieve but about which we guess anway--and are often times in error due to the limitations of our senses.

Just look at the religion, psuedoscience and parapsychology fora.

:)
 
both the portions of reality directly observable by us and those portions we don't actually percieve but about which we guess anway--and are often times in error due to the limitations of our senses.
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Well, doesn't this show that noone can be sure about what is perceived? Everybody is limited by their senses.

Kant said that we can measure things, but we can not know the thing itself.

Das ding an sich ist ein unbekantes, that's what I mean.

On top of that, there are psychological factors which influence the already limited senses:

Show two groups the video of a car accident. There is no broken glass in the video.

Ask the first group if they saw ANY broken glass. More will say no.

Ask the second group if the saw THE broken glass. More will say yes.
 
Science and religion are reconciled in secular Christianity.

Otherwise known as "liberalism."

The downside: it has infested science with politics.
 
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