“Why is there the assumption that science and religion do not go hand-in-hand?”

The short answer is that they are fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, science is a method for learning about the physical world through observation and testing, while religion concerns itself with the spiritual and divine elements of existence. If you’re willing to be a bit flexible, the two views can be complementary instead of contradictory – but that may be easier said than done.

“But isn’t the theory of evolution simply that – a theory – so isn’t your belief in that theory actually based on your FAITH in it?”

No, because – as I mentioned above – science is not just another kind of religion. Science is based on observation and testing; faith doesn’t really come into it.

I don’t really want to quote myself here, but I recently wrote a post on my own blog about why Creation vs. Evolution is a stupid subject to debate. I mention this because one of the things I was responding to is the assertion that science is just another kind of religious belief. It isn’t, and I think it’s important to understand the difference between the two.

Your view of prayer is one of the refreshing bits of catholicism. ie many routes, and many things can be considered to be prayer. I spent a fair while at Taize in France, where contemplation is a big part of the approach – and in many ways, it was great. Largely a very peaceful place and I know a lot of people really do feel benefit from participating.

I really don’t want to convert anyone to atheism (the world would be a boring place if we were all the same). The modern atheists though are pretty militant in confronting those who would:

a) re-write science (and I notice a zillion small instances every day);
b) restrict the freedowms of those around them (like my freedom to choose when to die for example, which I would want to do if in permanent and serious painn – while a bloke wearing a dress in Rome with a funny hat and strange views would want to stop me);
c) inculcate children with unproven theories (surely we can let people choose religion as adults?). It is child abuse to teach lies to children – and while any faith will not think that their version is untrue (by definition) they must at least be able to appreciate that their views are strongly contradicted by a squillion competing faiths. Can’t we teach about evidence to children and let them choose which ‘faith’ (belief in the things for which there is no evidence) they want to adopt when they are adults?

Your faith sounds lovely: you find it fulfilling and liberating. No one should seriously want to attack or confront that (I might have some interesting discussions about it though!). The issue is the bed fellows you may be assumed to have (as I noted in my other reply) – by reason of association. I’ve never reconciled that piece – including with my family by the way.

I do wonder whether the way forward is to try to find common ground to the extent possible, between theists and atheists. So, for example, many theists find great beauty in nature – and ascribe to god. I too find wonderment and stunning beauty in nature here on earth and the wider cosmos (but miss the god bit). Still: I have that much in common (and I think it is the bigger piece, perhaps unsurprisingly).

All the best,

Jim

No worries: there is loads of rhetoric on a blog – and plenty of space for it.

While I think you are certainly right: we do all think differently, I don’t believe that has any bearing on whether a personal, interventionist god exists. Either he/she/it does – or doesn’t. I’m not aware of any faith that would allow that concept in their suite of beliefs either (ie it can be true for me, but not for you). It really doesn’t matter while people believe funny things privately (and we all do after all). It does matter though if you are a catholic and therefore provide either explicit or tacit support to the organisation that:

1) rapes our children (it seems, almost routinely, despite their protestations to the contrary);
2) protects the rapists as a matter of policy (the Vatican banned clergy from cooperating with civil authorities investigating abuse in 1962: any who break the rule are excommunicted – and the rule is still in force. That means it’s OK – in fact the required practice – to move a paedophile to a new parish with nice fresh new children to rape. But helping the police deal with the paedophile gets you sent to hell).
3) tells appalling lies all over the world about condoms. A Bishop in Mozambique tells his flock (such a telling word) that condoms are deliberately infected with the aids virus. A better example of deliberate wickedness would be hard to imagine. The vatican refuses to intervene and correct him, despite much pressure – and he is one of many such;
4) While apologizing for historic misdeeds is deeply implicated in current ones (note Rwanda and Croatia in the 90′s if you like).

Their biggest crime though, was inventing a god who does not exist and terrorising millions of people in a million ways over centuries with that invention.

Etc, etc, etc. I could go on but you get my point. If you are a Catholic, then this is your church. They are the easiest target for me because I very nearly became an RC priest – so I know the institution pretty well. But others exiting other faiths and denominations have their own lists of atrocities…

So: some differences on this and that are one thing. But science is science and is, by definition, not open to opinion. And membership of, say, the International Child Rape Mafia (aka the RCC) is just that. I’m not trying to be offensive here: but before knocking me back tell me which of the facts I mentioned above is wrong, and therefore why my representation of the church is wrong. There are after all no ‘good deeds’ that can overcome that little list…and fairly clearly if this institution is led by a deity (‘you are Peter and on this rock…’ then that deity is unbelievably wicked.

Was something wrong with this woman’s three weeks of prayers? Or will her death by sky-god bring untold others to glorious slavation (oops, interesting typo there!) and will that mean her death was worthwhile??? As usawife says,
This submission is just another piece of evidence of how different we are in our thought processes and how wide the gap is between those of spiritual faith and those of worldly fact.

The question of whether or not change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations happens over time has not been an issue of scientific debate for many decades, just as the fact that unsupported objects generally fall to earth has not been a subject of debate for even longer. I was not proposing a debate, but rather attempting to provide a simple explanation of what a scientific theory is, and to differentiate between the body of repeatably-observed relevant facts and the set of explanations that has been derived from them, in response to what I took to be a sincere question.

First of all, the word “theory” in “the theory of evolution” is used in the scientific sense, as opposed to the sarcastic or ironic sense (as in “well, that’s the theory” or “theoretically, that should work”). Scientifically, a theory provides a unifying explanation of a set of observations. For it to be a real scientific theory, it must be usable to predict future observations, and it be at least conceivable that future observations might contradict the theory’s predictions. (Note that goddidit fails this test, in that there are no conceivable observations that would contradict it.)

Secondly, change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations happens whether people like it or not. It is observable in the wild and in the laboratory. Sometimes such a population gets split into smaller groups, e.g. by geographical separation. Sometimes those groups’ inherited traits change in different ways over time so that if/when members of different groups meet, many generations later, they find that cross-group matings either fail or have sterile offspring (e.g. mules). This, too, happens whether people like it or not. Evolutionary theory is about how and why, not whether.

If somebody tells you indignantly, “I never saw a dog give birth to a cat!” they are doubtless telling the truth. But this has nothing to do with gradual change of inherited traits over time. Genetic shift happens.

In the UK in a survey of members the Royal Society (our most eminent scientists), 3.3% described themselves as theists of some kind – with the rest being either agnostic or atheist.

In a survey of the American National Academy of Sciences found that 93% described themselves as atheists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism)

I think the issue is that there is a direct contradiction between science as we know it and religion – simply put like this: science is about repeatable, provable, evidence based fact. Religion is about faith – which is kind of the opposite. Faith is about believing things for which there is no evidence. Once there is evidence, you don’t need faith any more. Right?

So the debate is whether it is reasonable to believe things for which there is no evidence, I think.

I really appreciated your post. I hope I can say this without offending… but your comments on what prayer means to you don’t sound very Christian to me! (That’s my best compliment by the way: perhaps I should work on that..). OK – so before I go down in flames I’ll try to explain what I mean – with a story.

Back in 2001 my wee lad, aged 21 months, was diagnosed with a pretty bad leukaemia (this isn’t a sob story: he’s doing really well now – and you’d never know he had ever been ill). At the time though we were given 40% chance of recovery if he had a bone marrow transplant (which he subsequently did). I happened to live 20 minutes from the hospital that arguably has the best survival stats in the world for his specific condition – so in very good hands – but still: that statistic is the wrong side of 50% to allow for good sleep.

I was emerging from nearly 30 years drowning in religion (mostly Catholicism but with some flirtations to Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, via the Baptists). While I really had some pretty serious doubts by that stage (the ranting about homosexuals really upset me for eg: how could god create them that way and then condemn them!). But I did not yet describe myself as an atheist. And so I prayed – and so did a very large number of people all over the world.

Through the usual process (observation) I realised that praying really does not do anything tangible for the target (and suggesting it did was just open to science proving otherwise). Plus it would have been insulting to the doctors to credit god with a cure if it came when a) I’d be dissuaded from blaming him if Fynn died and b) I would blame the docs (to some extent)! The very Catholic solution: god used the doctors struck me as a ridiculous cop-out. After all: those same doctors cure believers and non-believers alike. Prayer has no impact.

The intellectual compromise I came up with was that prayer changes the prayer.

Not great I know – but then…I was really struggling to work out what the point of praying was! The idea of prayer as a slot machine is just offensive (ie I prayed for your kid and he got better). I had a fair bit of that stuff afterwards from theists who couldn’t work out why their words were so offensive. I suggested to those poor souls a discussion with the mother of the child in the room next to us whose child died – and asked them to come back to me when they were done. After all: hundreds from all over the world had prayed for him too. Didn’t they pray hard enough? Or does god just ignore us? (In which case why pray?). Clearly there is no causal link between praying and events. Prayer does not cause a deity to intervene. And if it did – why that particular deity?

So I had my compromise. “Prayer is good because it changes the way I see the world.” I happen to believe that this is probably still true – but only insofar as sincere contemplation of the world does that to us. I had to conclude that there was no chance that there is a good, interventionist god. No CS Lewis ‘The Problem with Pain’, no sympathy talks from relatives, no preaching on ‘gods mysterious ways’ actually cut the mustard when it gets down to the reality of your child dying of a horrible disease. One’s thinking becomes acute at such moments – as I think you are clearly aware.

However, if god doesn’t intervene – and prayer doesn’t actually do anything, then…there is a problem. A very big problem.

But that’s as far as I want to go: I don’t want to convert anyone to atheism (though I must in good conscience note that I am much happier and much freer than I was, now I’m rid of all that baggage). I am delighted to live in a world with Christian’s as moderate as you sound. I am sure I have lots to learn from people like you. I see absolutely no conflict. And I do not believe that many atheists would disagree.

The conflict comes from those who are aggressive in their defence of their god (it’s a difficult point: but it is not unreasonable to ask such people for some evidence of his/her existence and there really is none). The intellectual idiocy of answers like ‘the Bible tells me so’ makes me want to scream! And of course there is a problem with those who want to impose their morality on others either directly or through the ballot box. Conflict arises there too of course.

So I wonder if you agree that what you have said about prayer does not really evidence a strong conviction of the existence of a personal, interventionist god? You don’t seem to expect god to do anything when you pray (which strikes me as healthily realistic!). The sorts of Christians that atheists get into fights with, would likely have quite a lot to say about your beliefs too!

Those who would insist that praying does change things, and cite experience as evidence (a common but poor quality error) are always going to get a strong response. Likewise those who want us all to belong to their club or their god sends us to burn. Horrible! But sort of funny when you get a perspective on it that sees the plethora of conflicting claims from different theists on a level platform: they have about equal merit… But while theists are happy to get along happily without imposition on others, then that’s all just tickety boo! I believe in that too.

All the best,

Jim

Janet – I so appreciate your son’s service.

Sandy – Yes – Fox News. PW is the human interest story that never, ever, ever, ever ends. Ha ha!

And yes – The IT Crowd rules. So freakin’ funny! Moss is my secret boyfriend. I LOVE that guy!

Kind of ironic seeing as they are completely against it until they need to, you know, buy that new car, type on their computers, go see a doctor, buy food at the grocery store, and so forth. All those things were made possible due to major advances in science.

It is offensive to scientists who work to the bone to make a scientific breakthrough, toil to reproduce the results, and then have it evaluated by a jury of their own peers, have it published, only to have it waved off by a religious zealot as puffery.

I always say I am willing to take any religious claims as fact as long as there are 3 unbiased sources backing the claim with tangible evidence, and can reproduce the results. So far I have seen zilch.

I am so weary of them saying they have proof that their god exisits, then quote the bible, and relay anecdotes as their proof. I don’t even care anymore, I just let them show me how stupid they are, and it reaffirms just why I started looking for real answers as a young child. Yes, even at the age of 8, I knew that something was fishy with religion.

Oh, and Long Live Richmond!