Science Text Attempts to Reconcile Religion and Science

terrymaster69 writes "The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences has just published their third book outlining guidelines for the teaching of evolution. 'But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"

Re:Two Baskets

[JaredOfEuropa]

The moment something is taken out of the science basket and put back into the god basket, you let me know, ok?

That is precisely what the creationists are trying to accomplish: putting the question of the origin of species back into the god basket. Don't let these people out of your sight...

Re:Two Baskets

[Marcion]

nowadays religion brings nothing good it seems, what happened to compassion and love thy neighbour? instead we get peadophile priests and sexual abuse cases,

If the only interaction with organised religion is through what the media reports, then yes it seems that it brings nothing good. However, for every pedophile priest, there will be 10,000 quietly busting their guts out for their parishioners.

what happened to helping the poor?

Again, what have you done for the poor in the last year? Most church members I know give a massive amount of cash and time for the poor. Who is giving the homeless meals and a place to stay? In my town it is the church. The government won't feed or home anyone who cannot pass random drug tests, which is basically all the homeless in the west. (At least here in Europe, if you are not on drugs and have half a brain then you can easily earn enough to eat at least).

Re:Orthogonal concepts

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, the Bible explains the how, too.

Re:I call bullshit

[NEW22]

Umm, he doesn't think he is right and everyone else is wrong. You make it sounds like he stands alone in his position. The world is not full of theists, and particularly Christians. What you are doing with that is a sort of false bandwagon argument. I mean, a bandwagon argument is poor anyways, but yours is also false because the "bandwagon" isn't even necessarily holding to your view.

You say that the creator is not bound by the laws that science operates in. Maybe that is somehow possible, in a theoretical sense we have no way of knowing. How do you know this? You say that history, revelation, and experience are used to know about God. How do you distinguish between history and mythology? How do you know who's revelation to trust? Can't one person's "revelation" just be their imagination, or their own wishes, or a lie to coerce others? What do we do when some have no experience of a God, and others do, while others have experience of encounters with extraterrestrials? Choosing to know a God in the ways you describe leads to irreconcilable differences when people have conflicting revelations or experiences with no way to sort out their differences. At least science can attempt to go to the evidence, and if it fails to resolve a difference now, there is a hope evidence may be uncovered as our knowledge advances.

Now, your relationship to your brother... well, science has some things to say about it. Things to say about genetics, mechanisms, how memories form, outside things. Your internal and shared subjective experiences, however, well, it is its own thing. Science is not so much about that internal feeling of social things, though it has certain things to say about objective mechanisms involved. Some people point to these sorts of things as the place for religion, though it has seemed better filled by philosophy and psychology and community to me.

Re:Logic vs Faith

[QuantumLeaper]

I'm not a Monkey, but an Ape, last time I looked I didn't have a tail.

Re:Mod parent up

[Rosy At Random]

Sigh... No. Time - well, Space-Time, since you bring Einstein into it - is an internal part of the universe's structure. The Big Bang is not where the universe began, it is merely a subdomain in which some parameters approach zero from our perspective. It is no more true to say that the universe began there than to say the unit circle began at (-1,0). You might want to google 'block universe' and stop referring to the bible everytime you're in danger of having to think logically.

Re:Mod parent up

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

My old high school science teacher was religious, and was heavily involved with his local church (as I was shocked to find out). He taught us the theory evolution without caveat, without overemphasis on the word "theory", and with only one mention of any controversy on the topic. Even then, he only mentioned that he had no trouble resolving science and faith, that faith is something you believe in despite all scientific evidence, that science is done by the scientific method, and that no matter what his faith is, the scientific method delivers the same results, and that he can learn them, and teach them.

I think he was right. If you are truly faithful to your God and his teachings, then no amount of scientific evidence or reasoning should really make a difference to that. Science shouldn't really threaten religion.

Re:Orthogonal concepts

[Corwn of Amber]

1, Where did I come from?

Your mom, for but about half of your genes.

2, Who am I, really?

The sum of your experiences.

3, What, if any, is the purpose of my existence?

To your genes : Replicate as much as possible.
To your body : Live as long as possible, expending as little energy as possible.
To you : Find something to do, obviously.

4, What will happen to me after I die?

What happens to a cat's sight after it dies? It stops. What does your consciousness do when you die? It stops. Brain processes stop. Seen through your own eyes, your identity is in your brain. Thus, it stops at death.
Apart from that, left to itself, your body will rot and eventually be eaten by various necrophages.

Does that answer the questions?