God vs. Science debate and the manner we conduct ourselves
Monday, 30 of July , 2007 at 9:09 pm
There seems to be a big debate lately about God and Science… and God seems to be losing. There is a huge anti-God backlash in America which is led primarily by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Pharyngula. As a Christian, you would think I would be really upset about it, but I’m not. I think it is really healthy for Christian beliefs to be challenged. The church seems to only thrive when it isn’t complacent.
However, I strongly disagree about how both parties are conducting themselves. It seems that these “debates” often escalate to the point of personal attacks. Although we are dealing with a volatile subject, I don’t see any need to resort to this kind of behavior.
I think the root of the problem is the lack of respect for the opposition. I think the first misconception is that Religion and Science can’t co-exist. The Christian view of science has been skewed for a very long time. I do not agree with creationism, intelligent design, or any other pseudo-science. I am not saying that God is “incapable” of creating the universe in this manner. However, we are not given any evidence that this is actually how the universe was created. Although many people would disagree with me, the truth is that there are no scientific journals publishing articles supporting creationism or intelligent design. This isn’t because scientists are ignoring the evidence towards creationism or intelligent design, either intentionally or unintentionally, but rather because there is indeed no evidence supporting these world-views.
However, after saying that, I don’t believe that Evolution somehow disproves God’s existence. If you are a reductionist, I can see how you make that conclusion. However, I don’t believe truth can be reduced to the scientific method. There are very convincing arguments against reductionism and I don’t believe a person should be deemed “irrational” if they aren’t a reductionist.
If we could get past seeing our opposition as “irrational” or “evil”, I think we could have more fruitful discussions. The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to smite our opposition, but rather to learn something about the world and ourselves.
There seems to be a big debate lately about God and Science… and God seems to be losing. There is a huge anti-God backlash in America which is led primarily by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Pharyngula. As a Christian, you would think I would be really upset about it, but I’m not. I think it is really healthy for Christian beliefs to be challenged. The church seems to only thrive when it isn’t complacent.
However, I strongly disagree about how both parties are conducting themselves. It seems that these “debates” often escalate to the point of personal attacks. Although we are dealing with a volatile subject, I don’t see any need to resort to this kind of behavior.
I think the root of the problem is the lack of respect for the opposition. I think the first misconception is that Religion and Science can’t co-exist. The Christian view of science has been skewed for a very long time. I do not agree with creationism, intelligent design, or any other pseudo-science. I am not saying that God is “incapable” of creating the universe in this manner. However, we are not given any evidence that this is actually how the universe was created. Although many people would disagree with me, the truth is that there are no scientific journals publishing articles supporting creationism or intelligent design. This isn’t because scientists are ignoring the evidence towards creationism or intelligent design, either intentionally or unintentionally, but rather because there is indeed no evidence supporting these world-views.
However, after saying that, I don’t believe that Evolution somehow disproves God’s existence. If you are a reductionist, I can see how you make that conclusion. However, I don’t believe truth can be reduced to the scientific method. There are very convincing arguments against reductionism and I don’t believe a person should be deemed “irrational” if they aren’t a reductionist.
If we could get past seeing our opposition as “irrational” or “evil”, I think we could have more fruitful discussions. The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to smite our opposition, but rather to learn something about the world and ourselves.
Category: Philosophy
Comment by TC
Made Thursday, 23 of August , 2007 at 11:18 am
I agree both sides should be respecable in their debates, but my dear author the timeline in the Big bang says that the earth and all that is became after to random prexisting atoms who clash at the same point in the whole void of outer-space, and after 0sec. we have records of how things are at 10^-35sec, 10^-6 and next on the line is… 300,000,000 years, so there is a definate lack of info, where as in the words of the God of creation (aka the Inteligent designer) gives a day by day plan of how He did it. and a personal problem that comes in, evolutionists believe they come from a soup of energy, how is it then that we as humans mean anything at all, if we are no more than a combination of atoms and energies then we should just give up, where as in the fact that God made us, we have a name, a purpose a reason for that purpose created by Him.
Comment by admin
Made Thursday, 23 of August , 2007 at 12:49 pm
I agree with you TC that there is a lot of stuff in science that we don’t understand. The problem with the Intelligent Design movement (including Behe and the Discovery Institute) is that they make claims that God must intervene for evolution to work. However, all the scientific proof they bring up are completely bogus and are filled with verifiable faults. To make matters worse, the ID movement is pushing for it to be taught in schools as science. How can it be science when there is no scientific evidence supporting it?
I am not saying that there is no room for God to intervene in the universe. However, at this moment, there is no evidence supporting that God intervened in the evolutionary process.
Comment by Lane
Made Tuesday, 13 of November , 2007 at 8:50 pm
I think that you have the right attitude to this problem. People like Dawkins and Hitchens didn’t arrive out of a vacuum, though. (Poor pun intended.) They are reacting to a real threat to intellectual discourse. Their rhetoric is extreme but they are not silencing the religious discourse. I am sure that most people taken in by the ID or Creationist argument are honest people trying to preserve meaning in life for all of us. They are well intentioned. They should not be considered evil. But we should not overlook the duplicitous tactics employed by the Discovery Institute, and make no mistake that there are people out there taking advantage of the uncertainty of others for their own gain.
Comment by eldila
Made Wednesday, 14 of November , 2007 at 1:18 am
I understand that people like Dawkins and Hitchens are reacting to a real threat in intellectual discourse. I am appalled at what the Discovery Institute is doing. However, I don’t think any good can come out of alienating both parties (which both sides are responsible for). In the end, I think it will only polarize these two groups.