Some of you i've spoken to distrust science if it contradicts scripture. [Spirituality & Religion]

@booboo One way out of the debate without actually debating it, I suppose...

@ArishMell hahahahaha... the ball is in your court... the evidence is there if you are studious enough.. I'm not going to do the work for you though, that's the lazy way out (for you)

@booboo

Certainly some people believe that. But on the other hand, some things that science teaches us are in direct contradiction to what we know of god through the bible.

@Pikachu Hmmm, admittingly, parts of the bible are vague and mysterious... when this life is over, i believe we will find the answers we are looking for in heaven.. until then, the righteous shall walk by faith not by sight..

@booboo

Some parts of the bible are specific and incorrect. For example, the genesis account of the order of creation of animals is in direct contradiction with the fossil record and geology.

[quote]until then, the righteous shall walk by faith not by sight..[/quote]

Well this is [i]exactly[/i] the attitude i'm talking about here.
What are some examples where a natural claim has been shown to actually have a supernatural explanation or a faith-based explanation?

@booboo I do not class religious beliefs written down in ancient books as "evidence" of anything other than what their unknown authors believed; but scientific laws do not change.

However [i]some[/i] of those old tales may reflect real events the observers genuinely could not understand so just said "God did it". Then dogma took over to suppress questioning. Only some tales: others are obviously just fables but might have been intended as parables of some sort.

The most recent example I have met of "super-nature" possibly having an entirely natural explanation is that the smoke and "fire" used as a landmark by the nomadic Hebrews was an eruption among some volcanoes that do exist but are now dormant, in that region.


I don't dispute the abilities of the God in which you believe if he, she or more accurately it exists - something obviously none of us can either prove or disprove.

I do though dispute the idea that your God will change fundamental scientific processes, apparently on a whim, when having an entire cosmos to run!

What changes is our knowledge and understanding of them, and then only through constant reviews, improving techniques and new discoveries. Religious belief likes rigidity and dislikes questioning, reviewing and new evidence.

You can believe in a god creating and driving everything, but you cannot distort those things to suit antiquated religious dogma. Such distortion helps no-one, nor does it serve or even respect, that deity.

@ArishMell i see what you're saying, but God hardly does anything "on a whim".. our finite minds can't begin to explain, nor comprehend, an infinite God and creator..

@booboo Oh, I understand that point of mystery, but to say God can change scientific laws whenever he wants seems suspiciously whimsical to me.

However we are missing the point that religion and science ask very different things; so whilst it is possible to follow both and very many devout believers do, modern knowledge cannot be twisted to suit ancient mysticism.

[i]Religion[b]s[/b][/i] assume everything natural is created by a deity of some sort for (presumably) its own reasons. They are not concerned with [i]how[/i], because that is not their central message and purpose.

Besides, these beliefs were invented long before anyone could genuinely have investigated and understood that; although surprisingly perhaps, the early-Muslim world led such exploration whilst Mediaeval European Christianity wallowed in dogmatic mediocrity.

[i]Science[/i] is interested in the [i]how and when[/i]. It is not concerned with [i]why[/i] or by [i]whom[/i].

In fact it has to stay aloof from religion because so much science is now international, crossing religious and cultural boundaries to share research and understanding.

@ArishMell I do consider myself a scientist. I spent nearly 50 years in academic medicine one. I am in awe of nature and specifically at the many physiological mechanisms that science has revealed and continues to uncover almost on a daily basis. I look.at these processes and say, how can they have evolved purely by chance, as well as how could any powers regardless how infinite, "invent" something so infinitesmally complicated.

I do believe in God but not as a man sitting on a throne. I do not therefore believe in an anthropological god, but as a power that explains what I cannot explain scientifically. I read the bible as almost historical fiction, not as THE word of God.

@samueltyler2 I accept that you believe in God, as "driving" everything anyway.

However when we think of the how rather than why, how do you consider living things to have evolved if not by vast numbers of small chance events and adjustments over a vast time?