Faith and science, livin' in perfect harmony
Here are a few pieces worth noting regarding faith and science.
First, Jeremy Gunn of our Freedom of Religion and Belief project had this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Then there are two other articles worth noting, "Darwin Goes to Church" from the Washington Post and "Area clergy make room for evolution with the divine" from the Patriot News. (The latter may not be up much longer because pennlive.com pulls down articles after about two weeks.)
First, Jeremy Gunn of our Freedom of Religion and Belief project had this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Then there are two other articles worth noting, "Darwin Goes to Church" from the Washington Post and "Area clergy make room for evolution with the divine" from the Patriot News. (The latter may not be up much longer because pennlive.com pulls down articles after about two weeks.)
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 10/20/2005 11:59:00 AM
5 Comments:
Aargh! Why must people continue to repeat the nonsense about religious faith and the scientific method being compatible? They aren't, which is precisely why it's inappropriate to teach a religious doctrine in science classes.
Two different methods. Two different sets of standards. *Not* compatible.
Well, no the scientific method and religious faith are not compatible, but science and God surely are. Science does not disprove the existence of God. It never can. To me, that's compatible.
I think that's the point here. You can't teach a "theory" based on faith in the same way that you can teach a theory that has been developed using the scientific method. But you can believe in both evolution AND God.
The only God which science could never disprove is the God of the Gaps, a deity whose existence is indistinguishable in every way from his nonexistence - in short, one that not only isn't real, but cannot be real.
No one can serve two masters; either he will love the one and hate the other, or hate the one and love the other. You cannot think in a rational, scientific way and accept statements unsupported by evidence on pure faith.
People are very good at being inconsistent, switching between two masters as long as their demands remain compatible, but ultimately they have to choose between them.
The scientific theory of evolution says that life has evolved by unpredictable natural processes - no design, no designer. Theistic evolution is often said to show that faith is compatible with TOE by saying that God guides the process but does not do any zap zap stuff as in standard creationism or ID creationism.
But TOE says NO DESIGNER so theistic evolution is also not compatible with TOE.
I could, if I wished, claim that God is responsible for guiding the evaporative cooling of my cocoa.
But I would expect evaporative cooling to take place without guidance or direction, simply as a consequence of the nature of liquids and some basic stastics.
Without further evidence that what's going on in my cocoa requires more than just basic physics and mathematics to explain, the hypothesis that God is responsible is invalid, according to the Principle of Parsimony and Occam's Razor.
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