starbrewer
Full Member
God can go to hell
Posts: 226
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Post by starbrewer on Apr 17, 2009 22:49:43 GMT -5
To open a thread about it at our new forum...
We often use "good christian" in derision. However, if there ever was such a thing as a truly good christian, it could have been Mark Pryor, Arkansas senator, interviewed by Maher. I also liked the Vatican astronomer, who rejected literal and fundamentalist interpretations of scripture, citing Pope John Paul's call that evolution is compatible with Christianity. I briefly considered joining the Roman Catholic church back in 2005, but right then Benedict became pope, and I opted out.
I enjoyed Ken Ham as much as Maher himself did. Maher expressed his distaste of Ham in the commentaries, go to root menu to access. Ham was much too smug to be good company, and seemed to hate science. Science and Christianity can be bridged together, why the continued animosity?
EDITED for misspell/mispunctuation
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Pwnzerfaust
New Member
Arbiter of all things arbitrary
Posts: 41
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 17, 2009 23:24:27 GMT -5
I don't see a reason for trying to reconcile science and religion. Science is dedicated to uncovering secrets of the world. Religion is (often) dedicated to throwing up their hands and calling it "god's work".
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Post by MozMode on Apr 17, 2009 23:44:55 GMT -5
To open a thread about it at our new forum... We often use "good christian" in derision. However, if there ever was such a thing as a truly good christian, it could have been Mark Pryor, Arkansas senator, interviewed by Maher. I also liked the Vatican astronomer, who rejected literal and fundamentalist interpretations of scripture, citing Pope John Paul's call that evolution is compatible with Christianity. I briefly considered joining the Roman Catholic church back in 2005, but right then Benedict became pope, and I opted out. I enjoyed Ken Ham as much as Maher himself did. Maher expressed his distaste of Ham in the commentaries, go to root menu to access. Ham was much too smug to be good company, and seemed to hate science. Science and Christianity can be bridged together, why the continued animosity? EDITED for misspell/mispunctuation That Vatican Astronomer was fucking hilarious! Loved it. And I'm going to have to agree with Pwnzer. In bridging Xianity with Science, there still is a point that the Xian will still throw up his hands and trust in his deity. You just can't do it. Take my father, for instance. He's a youth minister for a Catholic church. He believes in Evolution, yet still accepts some form of the creationist myth and still accepts Noah's Ark. In order to accept science for what it is, it's nearly impossible to still look at the myths of Xianity the same. You can't look at the holes in Science with a "goddidit" attitude. Just like you can't look at the holes in Xianity and say "science!" because then you'd be doubting the validity of all biblical claims.
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Post by Paradox on Apr 18, 2009 0:03:34 GMT -5
I'm not a bad guy...
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Post by Undecided on Apr 18, 2009 0:06:03 GMT -5
The problem is that science finds truth by removing as many a priori assumptions as possible from consideration by relying on evidence alone, whereas religion finds truth by the analysis of some faithfully held axioms. How can an ideology built on faith in the truth of particular ideas be reconciled with one which is bound to systematically reject them?
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Post by kiwimac on Apr 18, 2009 0:08:54 GMT -5
Strange, I'm a Christian and a Priest. I have no problem with Evolution etc.
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Post by Paradox on Apr 18, 2009 0:11:22 GMT -5
Strange, I'm a Christian and a Priest. I have no problem with Evolution etc. Most Catholics I've met don't. In fact, most protestants outside of America don't.
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nuitarihw
Junior Member
What's holding up is a mirror
Posts: 90
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Post by nuitarihw on Apr 18, 2009 3:04:44 GMT -5
Strange, I'm a Christian and a Priest. I have no problem with Evolution etc. It's not so much that religious people and science are incompatible, but the ideologies of religion and science are incompatible. In religion you say, "This is god's unchanging and perfect word, this cannot be questioned because it was given to us by an all mighty being," whereas science says, "Question everything until you get satisfactory answers that produce a model that explains the most known evidence with the fewest unproved assumptions." Religion in general tends to rely on keeping constant in its beliefs and resists changing, because in changing that admits it was wrong; and admitting an all mighty being is wrong undermines your whole purpose. Now, obviously many people justify this by saying the bible is metaphor, but you can see the effects it still has in America in the number of people that prefer the 6-day creation myth over modern science. Now compare this to the scientific community that is willing to throw out theories that have lasted hundreds of years, because a far better theory has emerged. Science is founded in questioning, whereas Religion was an early attempt at answering those questions, and now in some cases (fundamentalists) trying desperately to hold onto those as true; rather then question the answers they provided to see if they still are truly the best we can do (they aren't).
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Post by MozMode on Apr 18, 2009 6:42:05 GMT -5
Strange, I'm a Christian and a Priest. I have no problem with Evolution etc. And thats fine. That is why I used my Father as an example. Where does the scientific questioning end and your faith begin? You say you believe in Evolution, which is possible, but put the rest of the biblical stories up to scientific scrutiny and which side do you take? Again, you cannot successfully merge the two when you have one, science, that questions and attempts to debunk everything, and another, faith, that is reliant upon certain ideologies & belief in the invisible. Most (sane) Xians will say they do in fact believe in Evolution. But somehow, these same Xians cannot accept science's debunking of the creation myth or Noah's Ark. Because if they do, that would put every biblical claim up to scientific scrutiny.
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Post by MaybeNever on Apr 18, 2009 11:14:50 GMT -5
I don't see why a person cannot be both religious and a good scientist. How many purely secular scientists are devoid of their own blind spots? Are any? I'd doubt it; that comes with being human. A religious scientist just has his blind spots at least somewhat pre-defined. The trick is to pursue science such that one's blind spots are less relevant. Why can't a Christian be a physicist, for instance? Or a neurobiologist? Neither of these should impact or be impacted by his beliefs, so long as he is willing to exercise a scientist's favoritism for the evidence. This is probably most true of a deist or a pantheist, but there have been Christian and Muslim (and I assume Jewish, Hindu, etc.) scientists who took very seriously the duty of revealing and understanding the glory of god's creation.
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Post by skyfire on Apr 18, 2009 12:29:54 GMT -5
This is probably most true of a deist or a pantheist, but there have been Christian and Muslim (and I assume Jewish, Hindu, etc.) scientists who took very seriously the duty of revealing and understanding the glory of god's creation. In fact, one of the most famous Mormon scholars and apologists - James Talmage - was a geologist by trade and had earned a degree of respect in his field when he started doing theological writings.
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Post by peanutfan on Apr 18, 2009 13:55:39 GMT -5
I didn't really enjoy "Religulous". The parts where Bill just let the fundies rant on were funny and the parts where he talked with religious moderates were informative, but he seemed to be trying too hard in the parts where he was making the actual jokes.
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Post by Vene on Apr 18, 2009 14:44:56 GMT -5
I don't see why a person cannot be both religious and a good scientist. How many purely secular scientists are devoid of their own blind spots? Are any? I'd doubt it; that comes with being human. A religious scientist just has his blind spots at least somewhat pre-defined. The trick is to pursue science such that one's blind spots are less relevant. Why can't a Christian be a physicist, for instance? Or a neurobiologist? Neither of these should impact or be impacted by his beliefs, so long as he is willing to exercise a scientist's favoritism for the evidence. This is probably most true of a deist or a pantheist, but there have been Christian and Muslim (and I assume Jewish, Hindu, etc.) scientists who took very seriously the duty of revealing and understanding the glory of god's creation. The religious can most definitely make good scientists. Here's a personal example. My advisor is a Christian and an animal geneticist. Actually, I think he's the only (science) prof who's religion I know. The others, not a clue. Because it's irrelevant if you're actually doing science.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Apr 18, 2009 17:25:01 GMT -5
Still haven't seen it. Wonder if I can find it online? I'll have to try, later on.
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Post by Old Viking on Apr 18, 2009 19:12:15 GMT -5
Science and religion are diametrically opposed. Choose.
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