Subservience
complacency, and vice versa?
It should not expect anything and vice versa.
It should not expect anything, but it does, even though science tells it to FO.
What do you think religion is expecting from science?
What did Religion eat for Breakfast this morning?
Nothing the two fields are mutually exclusive by the nature of religion. Philosophy is the mediator, it is not possible to talk scientifically about religion without some form of empiricism. You’ll find mixing the two without philosophy will only label you as a crackpot to scientists and a deserter to the fundamentalist lunatic fringe.
What facts and what religion?
Do you think science is going to accept the basic “facts” because some guy wrote it down a long time ago? Is it supposed to weigh in on which religion is the best based on a sliding scale or the holy hand grenade of Antioch, or perhaps it should weigh the Dalai Lama’s soul? What can science possibly talk about with religion in its own terms and vise-a-versa? Science can make no comment on whether the gods exist without some form of material evidence, if it can’t do that then everything else is metaphysical and out of its comfort zone.
Visit anthropology department of a university nearest to you
and ask if they have found an ethnic tribe in any inaccessible
land which did not have a religion.
Religion expects science to understand the facts about religion.
/ d_r_siva /
Much of anthropology is guesswork and not science. I’m talking about religion generally anyway, clearly its the job of philosophers to sort through the mess that is religion not scientists.
Religion will not get anything from the hard sciences, not because scientists don’t believe in gods, but because it has no place in their work generally. Asking what the attributes of God are for example is not a scientific question. Asking where the Israelites came from originally, or why their religion diverged is, but it places no weight on whether the religion is valid and it cannot tell; it is not equipped to say if it comes from anything more than human behaviour or our imagination or the gods themselves. These are after all the fundamental questions that matter to the believer who should seek his answers in his and others philosophy.
Science and religion are like oil and water, you can’t mix them together and expect a solution.
They have in the South American Piraha tribe. The tribe has never had any religion and has no concept of spirits, gods or anything that remotely approaches one. Not that it matters, their being religion everywhere means only that man is a social and itinerant species, not that religion is put their by God. The only thing that this tribe itself proves is that religion does not have to be present particularly if a language is isolated, and nothing more.
Theology and Physics
1.1 The New Physics
The 20th Century has been revolutionary for the study
and understanding of physics, which in turn has had profound
implications for contemporary history and society. Quantum mechanics
has opened up for us the very strange world of atomic and sub atomic
processes – which follow a very peculiar set of rules. Einstein’s relativity
theory has given us a new cosmology – a new understanding of gravity
and motion.
These are now established theories, supported by a very large number
of experiments, and lie behind the design of silicon chips and nuclear
reactors. The theories are complex, in many ways they are counter
intuitive, and the mathematics (as my aching brain still remembers
from my physics course 20 years ago) is just horrendous.
The question is what difference, if any, does modern physics
make for theology?
We draw our theology, our understanding of God, from a number of
different sources: the Bible, the church, our society, history, personal
experience of life and personal experience of God, and our experience
of the natural world. How we blend these ingredients together and form
any kind of consensus is not my topic here.
The new physics is of course reaching us through society, history and
contemporary life i.e. computers, smart weapons and nuclear devices,
and TV. Even now I am typing this on a PC. How does that affect the
content?
Again this is not my topic here. I am going to restrict myself
to the way the new physics changes our understanding of the natural
world and by that route affects our theology.
Even this is far too big a field so I propose to tackle the following:
the general impact of science on theology (the role of nature as a source
for theology, the relationship of science and religion, the ultra
Copernican revolution), quantum mechanics, cosmology
and a few final thoughts.
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alansharp.co.uk/physics.htm
Rev Alan Sharp BSc. B.D.
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I like your answer, " Sidhe".
So. If anthropology isn’t enough good proof for God’s existence
then the Physics ( in my opinion) will help me to understand
the proof of Religion’s essence.
Why ?
Because if God exists, He must work in an Absolute
Reference Frame and have a set of Physical and Mathematical
laws to create everything.
And if we find this God’s Absolute House
when we can understand Cod’s Physical Laws.
But of course, now there is a strong tradition ( scientific and
religious) that insists that any time we say we know who God is,
or what God wants, we are committing an act of heresy.
Nobody likes heretical ideas (in the beginning of course).
Your post is philosophy of science, rather than science. No ones saying you can’t discuss God alongside science but it is not in and of itself science as I said. I quite agree though if you are faithful then it makes sense to explore your interests or even your career in perspective with your beliefs. Too many people don’t and you end up with severe cognitive dissonance which is basically what creationism is.
I play the heretic card on Helptheherd all the time, but then he is a Catholic heretic because he doesn’t ascribe to the importance of faith over knowledge by esoteric means, which is quite gnostic. From my perspective though its just conversation, because I am not a religious person. As far as I am concerned, I only have an issue from the perspective of making some sense of what he’s saying in terms of his church. Trust me an authority on fundamentalist Catholicism is likely to call him much more than a mere heretic. 
what is about:
John Polkinghorne and his book ‘ Quantum theory’. ?
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I like to read his books because they raise many questions.
And these questions give information for brain to think.
John Polkinghorne took epigraph of his book ‘ Quantum theory’
the Feynman’s thought : ‘ I think I can safely say that
nobody understands quantum mechanics. ‘
Why?
Because, he wrote:
‘ ,we do not understand the theory as fully as we should.
We shall see in what follows that important interpretative
issues remain unresolved. They will demand for their
eventual settlement not only physical insight but also
metaphysical decision ’.
/ preface/
‘ Serious interpretative problems remain unresolved,
and these are the subject of continuing dispute’
/ page 40/
‘ If the study of quantum physics teaches one anything,
it is that the world is full of surprises’
/ page 87 /
‘ Metaphysical criteria that the scientific community take
very seriously in assessing the weight to put on a theory
include: . . . .’
/ page 88 /
‘Quantum theory is certainly strange and surprising, . . .’
/ page92 /
‘ Wave / particle duality is a highly surprising and
instructive phenomenon, . .’
/ page 92 /
Togetherness.
John Polkinghorne, as a realist, want to know
‘ what the physical world is actually like’, but until now
physicists don’t have the whole picture of Universe.
And in my opinion John Polkinghorne was right writing
what to understand the problems of creating the Universe:
‘ They will demand for their eventual settlement not only
physical insight but also metaphysical decision ’.
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