Hardly. The Bible never mentions what shape the world was, and I'd wager that once Israel had contact with Greece, they knew that the Earth was round, as well.
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Science and Religion not compatible.
- Thread starter YouOnlyScienceOnce
- Start date
Hardly. The Bible never mentions what shape the world was, and I'd wager that once Israel had contact with Greece, they knew that the Earth was round, as well.
Why would you not also consider those things natural too.
Your assumption that you know all that is natural may be wrong.
I'd wager differently since the Hebrews were notoriously intolerent to ideas from other religions!
For a brain that is wired to always look for scientific evidence it is very hard to accept anything anecdotally. It is systematic scientific evaluation that it needs and lives by. A brain wired for faith does not have this handicap; it does not need any scientific evidence. For it faith is a virtue that is capable of overriding skepticism, reason and logic.
Think you missed my point.
I'll try again: OK, since science only deals with the natural world, isn't saying something like :
sort of like saying "Architecture shows us that there is no evidence that pizza tastes good"?
And wouldn't saying something like:
Be equatable to saying "That's correct and that's why interior decorating and agriculture are not compatible and that's why the existence of color coordinated crops is extremely unlikely"?
(rhetorical questions, btw. It actually is just like that.)
I could not agree with you more. However, how many of these natural supernatuarals actually do exist. What kind of evidence is needed to establish what a miracle is, or the existence of a God who not only listens to our prayers but also fulfills them? And when there is no scientific evidence is there not a good chance that all might be fictional?
I dont think so. I happen to believe that the existence of God is basically a scientific hypothesis, like any other and that Gods existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe.
In that case you're contradicting yourself.
ThePainefulTruth
Romantic-Cynic
Actually Jews were very tolerant of other religions compared to some religious sects today, like evangelicals who claim that everybody is going to hell that hasn't been "saved".
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
I;m not really sure what you mean, the concepts are different as the Jews didn't proselytize. Judaism was separate from other peoples, with biases, just read the OT
ThePainefulTruth
Romantic-Cynic
I'm well aware of that. it's just that they didn't condemn or damn gentiles for not being Jews. And the early Jewish followers of Jesus did proselytize. In fact they were in very heavy and heated competition with Paul and his "Christ"ianity. And anybody can convert to Judaism and often did--until it lost favor with Rome after the rebellion in 70CE.
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To the extent of tolerating other people's beliefs in their homeland? Not really, and they especially weren't accepting or adopting of other religious ideas. Which in the case of the world being round is an issue of creation which is not mentioned in their scriptures and they were not likely to accept such an idea from an outsider who uses a language, mathematics, to describe nature. The Hebrews were not a people that had such notions of the use of mathematics which is not the same as using mathematics for construction or manmade projects that the Hebrews did adopt.
I would say that my brain is wired to look at the world logically and not just scientifically. Logic tells me it is reasonable to believe there may be things that are real but not detectable by our five senses (and physical instruments). To me, the evidence that things occur that have no current scientific explanation is strong.
It is logical evaluation that I need and live by.
None of the advanced spiritual paths that satisfy my logical mind espouse any blind faith that could overrule science and logic.
You are lucky and so are the people you come in contact with. The OP wonders about the compatibility of religion and science.
Abbrahamic religions seem incompatible but scientific spirituality, as described by Carl Sagan, certainly is compatible.
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
Carl Sagan
I would only agree that the most conservative schools of Abrahamic religions are incompatible.
Speaking of Carl Sagan, did you know he was favorably impressed by the reincarnational works of the scientist Dr. Ian Stevenson?
Any good scientist will always be open to new scientific evidence on any subject!
Favourably impressed? You may think so, many others dont.
Stevensons work also attracted the attention of Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke who, while intrigued, felt it fell short of providing proof of reincarnation, which they both viewed as unlikely.
Except it wasn't Greek religion that taught that the world was round; it was their philosophers and mathematicians who recognized it.
All the more reason why the Hebrews would not be too impressed with the Greek claim that the world is round, such notions of god's creation claimed by mere mortal men would be taken with a grain of salt.:yes:
Here is a quote from the Washington Post that quotes Carl Sagan:
But in 1996, no less a luminary than astronomer Carl Sagan, a founding member of a group that set out to debunk unscientific claims, wrote in his book, "The Demon-Haunted World": "There are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study," the third of which was "that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation."
So I think it's correct to say Sagan was favorably impressed by Ian Stevenson particularly when Stevenson's work and contentions are so against the grain of the theme of Sagan's book. Nobody is saying Sagan believed in reincarnation.
I'm not sure I understand. Israel isn't exactly small, so travelers would notice things disappearing over the horizon, as would sailors. Such a phenomenon is a clear indication of a round world, given the additional reasoning by Greek philosophers.
Besides, the Tanakh frequently records that the Jewish people "turn to foreign gods". The notion of a round Earth isn't hard to observe.