How can science and religion get along?

[Shadow Wolf]

You need to get rid of the bias ...buy a translation of the Holy Quran...read it and then make your positions based on hard facts.

I do in fact have a copy of the Quran. I have read it, and found no more hard facts that what is contained in the Torah, Bible, or the Book of Mormon.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

you got your science in my religion, you got your religion in my science, crap. now both are ruined.

 

[Shia Islam]

Quote: themadhair

YouTube - Muslim Proves Women are Inferior with "science".

It’s important not to mixed Islam, with indivisual Mulims personal opinions.
So Lets bring the verse he was trying to understand. It’s a very clear verse:

“…and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her…” Quran`2(282).

This verse is about the rule of calling witnesses in certain situations, not a general rule. And it shows how Islam takes into account the differences between males and females. Where men can be better in certain situations and women can be better in others.

For Instance women are more emotional which enable them to do certain jobs better, such as taking care of children. This characteristic could not help them other certain situations. In setting laws, there is a need to have a broader look, rather than looking at the individuals and the exceptions.

So this issue has nothing to do with discrimination against women. Indeed there are some verses which imply discrimination against men, however same as with this verse, they are related to the differences between man and woman.

Quote: Surah 71:16-17 Moon light

Lets read the Verses:

“See you not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another,
And has made the moon a light therein, and made the sun a lamp?”

As you can see, the verses did not mention the source of the light. When you walk at night will the moon bring you light? Yes it will…and read carefully and think why the verse used the word LAMP only for the sun?

Surah 41:9 – 41:12 Creation of earth and heavens.

Read verse 11:

“ Then He willed to the heaven when it was smoke, and to it and the earth He said: 'Come willingly, or unwillingly.' 'We come willingly,' they answered.”

It’s clearly mentioning that heaven was already created before; “Then He ordained them seven heavens” Quran.

3.the talking to ants.
If God can't make an ant talk...could you call him God?

When you are making stuff up you may as well go the whole hog. I just find it funny that you can reason this way while demanding scientific facts. If the very rules of reality aren’t being followed here why would you need scientific facts???

Read this research: “Ants talk to each other”:

Ants talk to each other

Best wishes

 

[Shia Islam]

I do in fact have a copy of the Quran. I have read it, and found no more hard facts that what is contained in the Torah, Bible, or the Book of Mormon.

With all respect,

Scientists Understand Science,
Artists understand Art,
Poets understand Poetry,

You may be all the above, but it’s important to approach the Quran with a neutral attitude.
Good Luck

 

[themadhair]

Thank you Shia Islam for illustrating exactly why religion and science will never be compatible. First you rationalise a blatant case of discrimination against women as mandated by your own holy book rather than criticising it, then you completely ignore what your holy book has to say on the topic of creation and its direct contradiction to science and finally, to top the whole thing off, you are actually prepared to defend the story of communicating to ants rather than recognise reality.

Tell me this Shia Islam. Is it unfair of me to attribute you apparent scientific illiteracy to the koran?

 

[Bware]

With all respect,

Scientists Understand Science,
Artists understand Art,
Poets understand Poetry,

You may be all the above, but it’s important to approach the Quran with a neutral attitude.
Good Luck

And theists are historians so they understand the ancient holy texts. Don't underestimate them.

 

[Amhairghine]

They can't as long as fundamentalists exist.

Fundamentalism is irrational. It is a belief without foundation other than a thoroughly discredited scripture. Fundamentalism demands a rejection of reality, logic, reason, inquiry, and scepticism. It cannot coexist with science except as a form of cognitive dissociation.

The sooner people realise that science doesn't give a damn about religion the better. The two are independent and reconciliation between religious concepts and the works of science fail miserably *cough* intelligent design *cough.*

Science is a method of inquiry, evaluation of evidence, cross checking data, formulation of hypothesis, then design of protocols to test the hypothesis. If the study design produces rational evidence it is studied in order to formulate a Theory. Theories are explanations of observed or calculated phenomena, based on the most reliable and rational evidence and/or mathematics.

Religion is purely subjective. It is speculation about unknown mechanisms with claims of unknowable entities, based on unsupported claims and no evidence. Religion has two sources: Hearsay including scriptures which are claims by some unknown person without evidence. The second form is religion produced entirely from the speculative imagination of a person, hallucinations, or delusions produced by drugs, alcohol, epilepsy, or psychosis (mental thought disorder.)

The very path science and religion take in terms of reasoning and evidence makes them opposites.

Quite so. Most religion begins with an assumption, uses the assumption as evidence, and arrives at a conclusion which is the assumption.

Amhairghine

 

[Amhairghine]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shia Islam
With all respect,

Scientists Understand Science,
Artists understand Art,
Poets understand Poetry,

You may be all the above, but it’s important to approach the Quran with a neutral attitude.
Good Luck

I understand that and basically agree.

And theists are historians so they understand the ancient holy texts. Don't underestimate them.

Theists are not necessrily historians and rarely are good historians. Their histories are almost always biased toward their "belief (ism)" in a hypothetical God (Theos). The essense is that theists believe in something invisible, inaudible, intangible, non-measurable, and not proven to have any function. Human testimonials about contact with speculative invisible entities without demonstrable function are IMO a result of hallucinations or at least delusional impressions of optical or audible illusions.

Human contact with gods are usually the result of:

thunder/lightening,
earthquakes,
bizarre optical illusions in oil slicks,
Optical illusions in burned toast
Optical illusions in smeared paint,
Swacks of crows or parrots
Odd swirls of clouds
A meal of self picked mushrooms
Smoking long leaves on a bush at the oasis
Riding a car, windows closed with CO leak
Complex Partial Epileptic seizure
Gene in DNA for psychosis.

Amhairghine

 

[Bware]

And theists are historians so they understand the ancient holy texts. Don't underestimate them.

Theists are not necessrily historians and rarely are good historians. Their histories are almost always biased toward their "belief (ism)" in a hypothetical God (Theos). The essense is that theists believe in something invisible, inaudible, intangible, non-measurable, and not proven to have any function. Human testimonials about contact with speculative invisible entities without demonstrable function are IMO a result of hallucinations or at least delusional impressions of optical or audible illusions.

Human contact with gods are usually the result of:

thunder/lightening,
earthquakes,
bizarre optical illusions in oil slicks,
Optical illusions in burned toast
Optical illusions in smeared paint,
Swacks of crows or parrots
Odd swirls of clouds
A meal of self picked mushrooms
Smoking long leaves on a bush at the oasis
Riding a car, windows closed with CO leak
Complex Partial Epileptic seizure
Gene in DNA for psychosis.

Amhairghine

Okay I was being sarcastic. Though it's funny that you pointed out that "Theists are not necessrily historians and rarely are good historians. Their histories are almost always biased toward their "belief (ism)" in a hypothetical God (Theos)."
That's a really obvious statement considering that most theists (we will use you as an example here) tend to use the Bible as a history book.

 

[Storm]

To the OP, science and religion can get along just dandy so long as two things happen:

1) Mutual respect. Currently, this is lacking. We have scientists trying to disprove things beyond the reach of science, like the soul, and religious leaders trying to use their respective holy books as scientific dissertations. This has to stop.

2) The religious need to collectively realize that, while limited, science is our most powerful tool for determining truth, while theology is groping in the dark. If science outright contradicts a point of theology, that point needs to be reconsidered. More likely, it's your interpretation of that point that's incorrect (YEC, for example).

 

[Storm]

Theists are not necessrily historians and rarely are good historians. Their histories are almost always biased toward their "belief (ism)" in a hypothetical God (Theos). The essense is that theists believe in something invisible, inaudible, intangible, non-measurable, and not proven to have any function. Human testimonials about contact with speculative invisible entities without demonstrable function are IMO a result of hallucinations or at least delusional impressions of optical or audible illusions.

Wow, talk about rank bias!

I'd wager that most "good historians" have been theists. Why? Because most PEOPLE are theists! Being a theist, either generally or properly speaking, does not automatically produce a revisionist historian.

 

[Bware]

To the OP, science and religion can get along just dandy so long as two things happen:

1) Mutual respect. Currently, this is lacking. We have scientists trying to disprove things beyond the reach of science, like the soul, and religious leaders trying to use their respective holy books as scientific dissertations. This has to stop.

2) The religious need to collectively realize that, while limited, science is our most powerful tool for determining truth, while theology is groping in the dark. If science outright contradicts a point of theology, that point needs to be reconsidered. More likely, it's your interpretation of that point that's incorrect (YEC, for example).

Very true. Good post!:clap

 

[Storm]

Thank you.

 

[darkendless]

And theists are historians so they understand the ancient holy texts. Don't underestimate them.

Do they?

So much has changed in 1500 years or so.

 

[Amhairghine]

Wow, talk about rank bias!

I'd wager that most "good historians" have been theists. Why? Because most PEOPLE are theists! Being a theist, either generally or properly speaking, does not automatically produce a revisionist historian.

Many good Christians have been good Historians but the best have been relisious sceptics (non-theists or deists.)

One could claim that good Christians have been good Genetic Evolutionists, or good Quantum Physicists. But I guarantee you would not find many. I have been to great universites in the UK, France, and Germany plus one in Seattle. Science departments mostly have no Christians on staff. The rare ones like Francic Collins, Ph.D (of the Human Genome Project) are good Christians but compartmentalise belief in a different brain network than their science education. Few people have such split brains.

Even in the USA, the major University and Medical School, had a large professional staff, Professor, Associate Profs, and Assistent Profs were non-theists...the entire Neuroscience Department. And there was no bias against Christians in a state that is majority christian, and non-science departments had lots of Christians.

Hitory professors with a Christian belief system spin the facts almost inevitably. I talked with one associate professor of Middle Eastern History and expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He told me that the World Wide Flood of Noah was a fact. He added that the enormous amount of water came from within the Earth and then went back in. He said tha Ark did not need a motor because God made the animals come to Noah. He was not joking.

When I explained that under the Earth's crust was red hot magma moving in cyclical currents to move the continents and cause rift zones. There is no place for 2.5 billion Km³ of water to elevate the oceans 8 Km to cover Mount Everest. He said, believe it or not, plate tectonics and magma currents are JUST THEORIES.

I congratulated him on his article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how fortunate they were not destroyed in some disaster along the Jordan River-Dead Sea Transform Plate which is a collision zone of the African Plate and the Arabian Plate in a rift zone right under the Jordan River and Dead Sea. He smiled at me, and patted me on the back. Liam, that is all THEORY, none of it has been proven.

Sorry, but movements of the two plates along the Jordan River fault zone have been measured for several years. It produced the Golan Heights, and Israeli Geologists postulate that the Sodom and Gomorrah Story fits with volcanism (fire and brimstone which is sulphur), earthquake and later sinking of the valley like the Death Valley of California. He again shook his head. He was a nice old chap but living in a fantasy world. I tried to explain that even the features of my homeland, Northern Scotland show obvious features of tectonic faults including my home valley where Loch Ness is located. It is long and straight. There is a similar lake to Ness called San Andreas Lake (from which the fault takes its name), It is a ``sag pond'' that naturally formed in the valley of the San Andreas fault.

Basically I think that modern science makes it very difficult to believe in Christian Mythology. A metaphorical Jesus and Christianity really make no sense to me.

Amhairghine

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Many good Christians have been good Historians but the best have been relisious sceptics (non-theists or deists.)

One could claim that good Christians have been good Genetic Evolutionists, or good Quantum Physicists. But I guarantee you would not find many. I have been to great universites in the UK, France, and Germany plus one in Seattle. Science departments mostly have no Christians on staff. The rare ones like Francic Collins, Ph.D (of the Human Genome Project) are good Christians but compartmentalise belief in a different brain network than their science education. Few people have such split brains.

Even in the USA, the major University and Medical School, had a large professional staff, Professor, Associate Profs, and Assistent Profs were non-theists...the entire Neuroscience Department. And there was no bias against Christians in a state that is majority christian, and non-science departments had lots of Christians.

Hitory professors with a Christian belief system spin the facts almost inevitably. I talked with one associate professor of Middle Eastern History and expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He told me that the World Wide Flood of Noah was a fact. He added that the enormous amount of water came from within the Earth and then went back in. He said tha Ark did not need a motor because God made the animals come to Noah. He was not joking.

When I explained that under the Earth's crust was red hot magma moving in cyclical currents to move the continents and cause rift zones. There is no place for 2.5 billion Km³ of water to elevate the oceans 8 Km to cover Mount Everest. He said, believe it or not, plate tectonics and magma currents are JUST THEORIES.

I congratulated him on his article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how fortunate they were not destroyed in some disaster along the Jordan River-Dead Sea Transform Plate which is a collision zone of the African Plate and the Arabian Plate in a rift zone right under the Jordan River and Dead Sea. He smiled at me, and patted me on the back. Liam, that is all THEORY, none of it has been proven.

Sorry, but movements of the two plates along the Jordan River fault zone have been measured for several years. It produced the Golan Heights, and Israeli Geologists postulate that the Sodom and Gomorrah Story fits with volcanism (fire and brimstone which is sulphur), earthquake and later sinking of the valley like the Death Valley of California. He again shook his head. He was a nice old chap but living in a fantasy world. I tried to explain that even the features of my homeland, Northern Scotland show obvious features of tectonic faults including my home valley where Loch Ness is located. It is long and straight. There is a similar lake to Ness called San Andreas Lake (from which the fault takes its name), It is a ``sag pond'' that naturally formed in the valley of the San Andreas fault.

Basically I think that modern science makes it very difficult to believe in Christian Mythology. A metaphorical Jesus and Christianity really make no sense to me.

Amhairghine

I know this is not adding to the discussion at all and that it is completely irrelevant, but from now on I will be reading your post with a scottish accent playing in my head with background music played on bagpipes.

 

[Storm]

Many good Christians have been good Historians but the best have been relisious sceptics (non-theists or deists.)

One could claim that good Christians have been good Genetic Evolutionists, or good Quantum Physicists. But I guarantee you would not find many. I have been to great universites in the UK, France, and Germany plus one in Seattle. Science departments mostly have no Christians on staff. The rare ones like Francic Collins, Ph.D (of the Human Genome Project) are good Christians but compartmentalise belief in a different brain network than their science education. Few people have such split brains.

Even in the USA, the major University and Medical School, had a large professional staff, Professor, Associate Profs, and Assistent Profs were non-theists...the entire Neuroscience Department. And there was no bias against Christians in a state that is majority christian, and non-science departments had lots of Christians.

Hitory professors with a Christian belief system spin the facts almost inevitably. I talked with one associate professor of Middle Eastern History and expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He told me that the World Wide Flood of Noah was a fact. He added that the enormous amount of water came from within the Earth and then went back in. He said tha Ark did not need a motor because God made the animals come to Noah. He was not joking.

When I explained that under the Earth's crust was red hot magma moving in cyclical currents to move the continents and cause rift zones. There is no place for 2.5 billion Km³ of water to elevate the oceans 8 Km to cover Mount Everest. He said, believe it or not, plate tectonics and magma currents are JUST THEORIES.

I congratulated him on his article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how fortunate they were not destroyed in some disaster along the Jordan River-Dead Sea Transform Plate which is a collision zone of the African Plate and the Arabian Plate in a rift zone right under the Jordan River and Dead Sea. He smiled at me, and patted me on the back. Liam, that is all THEORY, none of it has been proven.

Sorry, but movements of the two plates along the Jordan River fault zone have been measured for several years. It produced the Golan Heights, and Israeli Geologists postulate that the Sodom and Gomorrah Story fits with volcanism (fire and brimstone which is sulphur), earthquake and later sinking of the valley like the Death Valley of California. He again shook his head. He was a nice old chap but living in a fantasy world. I tried to explain that even the features of my homeland, Northern Scotland show obvious features of tectonic faults including my home valley where Loch Ness is located. It is long and straight. There is a similar lake to Ness called San Andreas Lake (from which the fault takes its name), It is a ``sag pond'' that naturally formed in the valley of the San Andreas fault.

Basically I think that modern science makes it very difficult to believe in Christian Mythology. A metaphorical Jesus and Christianity really make no sense to me.

Amhairghine

Wow. One whole example.

 

[Amhairghine]

Do they?

So much has changed in 1500 years or so.

They have no solid evidence. Religious historians trying to translate languages 2000 to 3000 years old poses major problems. They often have little secular literature to compare for colloquialisms, sayings, figures of speech.

Often popular official literature is stricter to grammatical rules and does not tell us what relatively common people like prophets and priests mean by expressions.

For example, if you compare papers from MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Edinburgh, London, or Paris to what you read in JW prayer tracts you can see the problem.

Scholars from 100 AD brought forward in time and taught Oxford English how would they deal with the following:

"Take a walk" = carry a path somewhere else.

"Take a pee" = Find a urinating horse. Grab his stream and take it with you.

"Take a crap" = Horse drops a poop, you grab it and run away

"He is full of ****e" = Filled head and torso with faeces.

"Raining cats and dogs" = Cats and Dogs falling from the sky.

Amhairghine

 

[Amhairghine]

I know this is not adding to the discussion at all and that it is completely irrelevant, but from now on I will be reading your post with a scottish accent playing in my head with background music played on bagpipes.

Oi, Laddie. Bheir alang a pinnt of Guinness, an we keen stot doun t'a rood wi me fiddling Lorrrd Gorrrdon's Rrrreel air me fiddle an ye keen blaw ur pìob mhor.

In Texas English: "Hey Man. Bring along a pint of Guinness, and we can stagger down the road with me fiddling Lord Gordon's Reel and you can blow your Highland Pipes.

Both of those sentences ARE in ENGLISH.

If you think you speak English and understand English, visit Glasgow and talk to the locals.

Amhairghine

 

[MoonShadow1]

They get along fine if a person has an appropriate perspective of both religion and science. Science (as Father Heathen said) is not a world-view. Science is a method for the collection, analysis and testing of data. Science looks at the phenomena of our natural world and seeks to find explanations and understanding of how our natural world operates.

Science is not a system of ethics, it is not a philosophy, it is not a way of living, it is not out to get religion, and it is not demonic.

Religion, on the other hand, is a system of ethics, a way of living, and a philosophy. Religion is the acceptance of a particular outlook/perception of our world and acting in appropriation to that outlook.

Religion is not a method of understanding or explaining the natural world. Religion is not a method of understanding or dictating history. It is solely for the betterment and refinement of mankind via particular ethical modalities and ideological beliefs.

When one realizes the difference between the two, it makes it very easy for the two to get along.

Greetings,

I agree with "TheKnight" absolutely in his assessment.

I am aware of several instances involving scientific researchers (trained scientist's) such as biologists, physicists, and or chemists whom are also deeply involved in practicing their chosen religion's ( Christian , Jewish, Catholic )....... :shout

Thus they have maintained a healthy and most desirable "Thriving Balance" regarding specific spiritual & intensive Intellectual matters. Yet there are some folks whom may deem this realistic "Balance" as untentable to the extreme...

Thankfully........ there appears to be sufficient numbers of these positive and most logical examples of successful utilization regarding both essential disciplines...:bow:

It is indeed possible..... to adopt a universal attitude of acceptance that the World of "Science & Religion can most assuridly co-exists and dynamically thrive among all people...................

Thank You M/S 1