Is it possible.....

[Jayhawker Soule]

Is this proof? Of course not. It's still a "could have been". But it's a bit stronger than a miraculous parting ....

No, it is not proof.

More to the point, it is not even evidence, and I'm not sure that there is much reason to get enthralled in the 'could' component of the could-have-been.

 

[ChristineM]

Its a new series. So there aren't going to be that many. There are a lot more available in print.

And still only 7% od scientists asked said they held a religious conviction

I remember my twin and I were in the same biology class. The biology teacher had never questioned evolution before in her life. We would bring up interesting observations throughout the two semesters in her class.

Yet evolution has never been disproved, on the contrary, ALL the evidence points to evolution being the mechanism that drives change

Then she said, you know, you two could convert me into believing that Jesus really did live.

No need to convert me,i am pretty sure he did live, just not as the bible states, more likely an agitator and anarchist, who died for his crimes against the government.

 

[Milton Platt]

Yesterday's science, today's superstition.
Spontaneous Generation | Microbiology

Spontaneous Generation was never a scientific theory, only speculation from observation. It was science which proved the speculation to be incorrect, per the article you linked.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

After viewing some of the science vs. religion debates I had the following considerations.

1. Is it possible that some religous people understand various disciplines of science very well finding no contradiction between their particular religion and current accepted scientific findings?
2. Is it possible that non-religious people understand certain religions and religious principles better that some people who adhere to those religions or religious principles?
3. Is it possible that there exist religions that have no contradictions with science past or present?
4. Is it possible that today's science could end up being the future's superstition?
5. Is it possible that some people who talk about science (religious or not) themselves have never really studied any discipline of it seriously and have never performed any practical science experiments.
6. Is it possible that there are some religious people who accept things 2nd, 3rd, and even 10th hand with no direct research into whether what they believe is even historically true or not?
7. Is it possible that that the words like science and religion are often used in a very general minimalist ways to where the lack of specifics causes the division and not the actual science or religion themselves?

Yes on all counts, although the likelihood/commonality varies.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Yes to all, except 4, because after looking over the other answers, I'm curious if you actually meant that today's science would become tomorrow's " folly " and that " superstition " may not have been the best word to use ( Unless you actually meant it in the common sense )

Great comment. You actually addressed an issue that I wanted to see if anyone would catch. I.e. what did I even mean by the words that I chose. In terms of superstiation I meant the following definition of the word:

"a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief."​

This is of course is one type of definition of the word and not THE definition of it. Further, the word differs from language to language and culture to culture so that some of it may be based on the people of a particular generation and how they view previous generations.

For example, in our generation we may rightly have the ability to look through history and the use of technology not previously developed and come to the conclusion that certain concepts of past generations were "unjustified belief in supernatural causation." Yet, a previous generation, "using their own language and idiom" may respond:

"We were not using unjustified belief in supernatural causation - in our day what we were doing is equivalent to what you call in your day science. We had our our scientific method and we did the research and both the method and our research pointed to the conclusions we came to. You guys simply have history, that came after us, and technology that we didn't have available to to come to the conclusions you have arrived at just as the generations before us didn't have we had. If you had lived during our time, you and all of your modern day researchers would have come to the same conclusions we did if you lived under our conditions."
​

Because we can't dictate how future generations interpret our findings, research, and developments of our generation (possibly because even our languages could be extinct or dead langauges in the future) they may also define our generation as holding by "unjustified belief in supernatural causation." Just as some elements of Alchemy, Atronomy, Astrology, etc. were once ruled as "superstition" while other parts have passed through the filter of more advanced analysis and found to be reasonable and acceptable. Further to this is that some ancient authors considered the study of the "Source of Creation" as a discipline of science. Rabbi Mosheh ben-Maimon (1135 to 1204) in his day called it (מדע אלהות). Thus, he claimed that the only way to understand this type of "science" was to know various disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. There are some who would argue today against this.

A good example of this could be - 10,000 years in the future a generation may exist that is able to travel through intersteller space. Because our generation and previous generations have never done this, as far as we know, in 10,000 years they may study what they think they understand about the current ideas of how to potentially do intersteller travel and say what is proposed in our generation was "unjustified belief in supernatural causation." Again, if we could communicate with them we could argue, no it was the science of our day, yet they may interpret it as superstiation - based on our understanding of what we are even saying.

Again, thans for the great comment.