Your two sentences have nothing to do with each other. Your second sentence is correct. However, science does not “discount” extra-physical situations except in the limited perspective of “not addressing” them. There may be persons who espouse a “scientific” approach to the world who “discount” the non-physical, but to do so they must step outside science and engage in philosophical ruminations. There are no peer-reviewed papers asserting that the “spiritual” does not exist (and I am not even sure what journal would be an appropriate venue to submit such papers).
I chose the word “discount” deliberately because that is exactly what science does concerning extra-physical allegations. Science does not say that no such things exist because there is no evidence either way. But it does discount, ie fail to give credence to, the suggestion that such things do exist because there is no evidence that they do.
There are no more peer-reviewed papers asserting that the “spiritual” does not exist than there are peer reviewed papers asserting that IPU’s do not exist. The reason in each case is the same: there is no evidence (and no peer reviewed papers) asserting the contrary.
I reject your suggestion that you must step outside science to discount the non-physical. You must step outside science to deny that there may be things for which we as yet have no evidence, but that is quite different. In fact, you must step outside science to give credence to the non physical, because there is no evidence for it.
Bring it back to the subject of the OP ie religion: Religion does not espouse mere philisophical possibilities. It posits certain definite facts: gods, miracles, efficacy of prayer on future events etc. but proposes that, by and large, people should consider these facts to be true through an unswerving determination to consider these facts to be true ie faith.
That way of thinking just has to be entirely at odds with a way of thinking that says “if you can’t observe it and test it, don’t consider it to be true until such time as you can”.
I don’t deny that people can and do decide to apply a scientific approach sometimes and another approach other times, but I don’t see anything about science that limits itself in that way.
“I have finally found the way to live…”
No offense Princhester, but do you even have any sort of science education? Or are you one of those people who studied humanities at university and therefore feel qualified to speak on science? Because as someone who holds a PhD in science (from a secular university) and as an evangelical Christian it really sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.
Have you ever even read a scientific journal? They have articles on a frankly minute range of topics, in the grand scheme of things. If you limit what you believe down to just “science” then you will have a very shallow life indeed. Science says nothing about things like beauty, or love or justice or a wide range of things. Nevertheless all these things are part of the human experience. No-one, not even scientists shut themselves off from all of these things. Science remains mute on these topics not because it assumes none of this stuff exits, it remains mute because it cannot be investigated with the empirical method, and therefore is outside the scope experiment.
Really what you are positing as the “scientific” view is really just a tarted up naturalism. Not all scientists (in fact I would say not even a majority) hold this view to be true. You can unify religious belief with science in any number of ways. For instance myself I reject the premise that there is a “natural” and a “supernatural” phenomenom. I claim that everything, from the miraculous to the mundane is all God’s action. That being said God for the most part works in precisely ordered ways, and as a scientist my job is to discover and rationalise how God chooses to work.
Joey Jo Jo
Don’t waste your time on arguments from authority around here.
Tosh. I’ve read scientific commentary on every one of the topics you name. Your basic factual premise is faulty.
Further, I can enjoy the beauty of a sunset or being in love without understanding what the heck it is or why I enjoy it. I just also appreciate the wonder inherent in the fact that I have a soggy bundles of neurones in a box of bone that has evolved for various reasons into something that sees and experiences things in certain ways that I experience as enjoyable.
I do try to limit what I believe down to “just” science but haven’t stopped learning since I took my first breath. If you find science limiting or shallow, I don’t think the problems lies with science.
I assure you that calling my viewpoint by certain names has me totally convinced.
So?
In other words you take the scientific bus some of the way, but then you jump off and go with faith.
I know many choose to do that. But nonetheless (to get back to the OP) if I were promoting religion, I could see the downside to having the scientific bus available: the more people who choose to take it some of the way, the more who are not going to jump off at any point.
So is that an admission that your scientific education is conspicuously lacking?
If you want to talk about the philosophy of science and assert what science says then I would assume that you should have at least some idea as to how science is conducted and the philosophy underlying it. Because your posts show that you understand very little. And in my experience the ones that are quickest to tell you what science is all about are the ones that understand science the least.
Care to cite some journal articles. I must have missed the “justice” and the “beauty” issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics. Also note that I am looking for peer-reviewed articles, not some populist pseudo-science.
First off, I think either you don’t understand what “science” really is, or you are lying. Take your pick.
Secondly, you do realise that if you don’t personally understand the arguments that scientists use for justifying their theories, but believe them anyway, you are engaging in “faith”. All you have done is substitute the priest for the scientist. Do you believe in evolution? If so I hope you can provide an extensive and up-to-date summary of why evolution is true, otherwise you are no better than the religious people that you denigrate.
It should, because what you believe is not “science” at all
If there is a isgnificant disagreement amoungst scientists about the correctness of your worldview, how can it be deemed “scientific”?
One of the things that you seem to be missing is that the scientific method relies on a few assumptions about the natural world. One of these is that the world operates in a uniformity of cause and effect. In other words if you de something a certain way, repeating that initial conditions will lead to the exact same outcome. Reuslts are reproducible. Without this the scientific method is doomed to failure because without a uniformity of cause and effect there is no natural laws, only randomness.
So, if your view is so free from any matter of faith, how do you know that there is any uniformity of cause and effect in the world. Do you have some sort of proof that this is the case and that therefore the scientific method may work, or do you just take it on faith that this is the case. You can claim to be free of the “faith bus” all you like, but I would suggest that the only reason that you think you are free of faith is that you haven’t really thought through your own worldview.
Besides you are completely misunderstanding my view of God and science. In my view there is no distinction between the two. There are no “scientific events” and “miraculous God events”, there is only the work of God in all things. I am not saying that we should believe “science” for some things and “religion” for others. I would say that both ultimately are about the work of God. Religion is about how God has specifically revealed himself to us. Science is about how God works in creation. There is no disagreement between them because they are both about the same God. I am not thinking in different ways about the two subjects, I am thinking the same way about both.
Joey Jo Jo.
Why? Are you saying that science is the only valid path to knowledge? If so, then what scientific methodology did you use to determine that to be true? For that matter, what scientific methodology did you employ to establish that science itself is a valid way to gain knowledge?
Shalmanese writes:
> As an empirical matter, however, that does not seem to be true. On the whole,
> around 9 in 10 Americans say they believe in a personal God. When scientists
> are surveyed, that figure falls to 4 in 10. Among the scientific elite - members of
> the National Academy of Sciences - fewer than 1 in 10 say they believe in God,
> with the biologists in particular professing agnosticism or atheism at a rate of
> 95 percent.
I’m a little dubious about polls like this. All this says (at most) is that in a particular place and a particular time there’s a correlation between belief in a personal God and scientific training. This is like saying that in the present-day U.S. there’s a correlation between religious belief and one’s political beliefs. Quite possibly that’s true at the moment, but it’s not clear that it was even true in the U.S. fifty years ago. It’s not clear that it’s true at the moment in other countries. I also wonder if scientists and nonscientists are defining the idea of “belief in a personal God” in the same way. I know I have a similar problem with the claims that most journalists in the U.S. are more liberal than the average person. This is done by simply asking people if they are liberals or conservatives. The problem is that journalists may define liberalism and conservatism differently than most people.
I suspect that the sort of people you hang around with are more important to your professed religious beliefs than your scientific training. Ask the scientists this question: “You must have some friends and family with little scientific training. Are they religious?” I suspect that the answer will be “No.” Ask the people who say they are religious this question: “Do you have any scientifically trained friends or family? Are they religious?” I suspect the answer will be “Yes.” I suspect that scientists and nonscientists come from different social groups. I suspect that your socialization is more important to your religious beliefs than your scientific training.
As I seem to find myself saying every other post in this thread, let’s bring it back to the OP. We are not debating the validity of science nor of my views. My point is just that a scientific viewpoint does not sit easily with a religious viewpoint.
Princhester, we are criticizing your views because they are erroneous and (contrary to your claims) do not support the OP. (BTW, nobody claimed that we are “debating the validity of science,” nor has anyone remotely hinted at such. Our point is that science does not mean what you think it does.)
My point is just that a scientific viewpoint does not sit easily with a religious viewpoint.
[/QUOTE]
And you say that on the grounds that
and
It is on these grounds that you consider science and religion to be at odds.
Our point is that this is a false dichotomy. Religion may be based on faith, but this “faith” does not inheretly require abandoning observation, testing or logic. Contrary to your claim, religion does not require accepting doctrine “through an unswerving determination to consider these facts to be true.” That is certainly not the Biblical model, for reasons that I already elucidated.
And, as Joey Jo Jo said, science itself requires accepting a certain number of unprovable tenets, such as the uniformity of cause and effect. Can we prove that this uniformity is always true? Of course not! Yet we must accept that it is, in order to conduct science in a meaningful manner.
and
and
Thing is, JJJ, telling me I’m not qualified, telling me that I don’t have any idea, and that I don’t understand is just hand waving and is not going to convince me of anything. You’re wasting electrons. You will find that many if not most people around here are far too self confident to back down like frightened mice the moment some guy with qualifications tells them they are wrong with nothing more.
If you want to convince me that I’m wrong and you’re right you are going to have to set out, chapter and verse, what science is and why that differs from what I suggest it is. Facts, cites, reasoning.
Chemical Physics, eh? You’re just trying to make this hard.
Anyway, I don’t have the time or readily available resources to be able to dig out actual papers, but the sort of stuff you deny exists is everywhere. Cast your eyes over these:
Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness
“Sexual selection and the biology of beauty” (listed part way down)
The “Beauty” of Homo sapiens sapiens: standard canons, ethnical, geometrical and morphological facial biotypes. (can’t get into paper, requires registration, but it clearly exists)
A Cross–cultural comparison of Organizational Justice between an American and Indian Sample.
Oh wait, don’t tell me, let me guess: I have no idea how to recognise or understand a True Scotsman.
Science is not a democracy.
But if you want to try to decide the issue by popular belief, as Shalmanese points out, US scientists are less religious than the US average. Which suggests that I’m right.
No, the scientific approach is to adopt the simplest theory that fits the facts until such time as empirical evidence suggests that some other theory is necessary. There may not be uniformity of cause and effect. But there’s no evidence that it isn’t so we’re using that as our working hypothesis.
Sure you are. What are God’s characteristics? What is your empirical evidence for each of those characteristics? Would the standard of empirical evidence that you consider sufficient to conclude that there is a God with certain characteristics be sufficient for you to be able to get a scientific paper on a particular phenomenon in your field past peer review?
Don’t make me laugh.
Go back and read your last post. I have never said science was valid. It could be total crap for all that it matters as far as my point is concerned. And yet you said “Are you saying that science is the only valid path to knowledge? If so, then what scientific methodology did you use to determine that to be true? For that matter, what scientific methodology did you employ to establish that science itself is a valid way to gain knowledge?” Which is totally irrelevant.
I’ve already pointed out why you are wrong about this, and you ignored my comments. But I’ll try again. Religion may not “inherently require abandoning observation, testing and logic” and “Christian faith does not require that one ignore all evidence” and “religious faith does not (necessarily) mean abandoning all observation and evidence whatsoever”.
Listen to yourself. You carefully qualify your statements, now face up to why you need to do so: you need to do so because religion may not *require * an abandonment of empiricism, but is sure helps the pill go down more smoothly.
Done and dusted, see previous post.
Not to mention Darwin himself was Christian… the furvor over ID is the same as the furvor over Darwin’s theories when they first started being taught (ala Scopes Monkey Trial)…
There is no firm concrete proof for the theory of evolution… so how exactly is it scientific fact… heck we found out that Newtonian Physicis (long held as THE scientific fact) was only applicible over a limited range… and only as a sutible approximation…
ID is another theory… and one that MANY scientists (both present and past) have held… Einstien himself saw too much order to believe that there was no structure… if you choose to call that underlying structure a designer, you are not in the ID camp…
What is happening, is ‘scientists’ are the new ‘priests’… that is they are held to be above reproach… they can NOT be wrong in the eyes of many (which is silly, just as priests of the past and present, there is significant divergance of theory within ANY field)…
What is ‘evolution’ anyway? It is an overloaded term meant to cover any NON-creator theory of how we came to be… everything from Natural Selection to Mutations within species… to divergance of species… it isn’t a single ‘theory’ but rather a family of them…
Those who close their mind to the possibilities (scientists included) are not doing themselves any favors…
The way to discredit a theory it is to attempt to gather evidence for it… and in studies such as creation/evolution there is no way to ‘prove’ it…
Evolution (no matter what anyone tells you) is NOT a ‘pure science’ you can not do an expirement to prove or disprove it… it is a philosphical arguement… and as such, how can you discredit one theory in favor of another?
To be absolutely clear… genetics CAN be tested… Evolution can NOT
No, it’s not. You specifically said “I do try to limit what I believe down to “just” science…” Why say such a thing, if one is not convinced that science not just valid, but the only legitimate form of inquiry?
Listen to yourself. You carefully qualify your statements, now face up to why you need to do so: you need to do so because religion may not *require * an abandonment of empiricism, but is sure helps the pill go down more smoothly.
[/QUOTE]
Nonsense. Sure, one can concoct a religious belief system that is well served bya bandoning empiricism; however, this is not characteristic of religion in general. It’s certainly not true of Christianity, for reasons that I’ve already listed (and which you have ignored).
Not by a long shot, IMO. None of the articles that you cited prove the uniformity of cause and effect. Indeed, they implicitly assume this tenet, as all science must.
Also, where do those publications touch on, say, why an action is just or not? How would you scientifically justify the claim that it is wrong to torture homosexuals for fun? You can’t. Psychology may provide insight into people’s minds, but it cannot justify moral claims.
Because religion lost.Go back 500 years, and religion had a religious explanation for just about everything in the physical world. Mainstream religion these days mostly confines itself to spiritual matters because the people who run it know that they can’t compete in any area where science has anything to say. Science at least tries to be right; religion is wholly lies/delusions/subjective, and therefore has nothing accurate to say.
Nor does religion have anything productive to say. “God says so” is not a good definition of morality, and quite a bit worse than “the government says so”, since governments actually enforce what they say.
Science at least can tell you the actual consequences for doing evil things; religion just makes stuff up.
Like Princhester said, there have been mathematical, evolutionary and psychological analysises of beauty; psychological, biochemical and physiological studies of love, and game theory at least touches on justice.
Hardly. Scientists on the whole are honest about their work, and they actualy produce and discover real things. That puts them a giant step above religious leaders, who have always been liars, useless parasites, predators, insane, or a combination. Science works; religion fails; therefore science can be ( largely ) trusted and religion can not.
Incorrect. There is an enormous amount of proof of evolution; it’s one of the most well evidenced theories in science. Also, evolution can and is proven in the lab, in everything from the evolution of drug resistance to the evolution of HeLa cells.
My personal beliefs are not relevant to this debate or my point. JJJ seemed to want to personalise the debate for some reason, and I responded.
The “reasons” you’ve listed are unconvincing. Some religious people may have said that religion in general and Christianity in particiular do not rely on faith, but that is at best a half truth and, frankly, more like total codswallop.[sup]*[/sup]
If you disagree, feel free to list empirical evidence supporting the major tenets of your religion. Start with the existence of God and work out from there, if you like.
Which is exactly what I said. The uniformity of cause and effect is assumed by science because it seems to work, so we stick with it. If someone comes up with a convincing reason for believing that cause and effect are not uniform, then science will adapt to that. It’s not a matter of “faith” in cause and effect, it’s a matter of assumptions based on the best evidence available.
Your belief that things are “wrong” or “just” is just a construct of your brain. And your brain is susceptible to scientific study. Your beliefs about why an action is or is not just, similarly.
- It’s a funny thing, but when one is not having this sort of argument with a Christian, but rather just observing them “in the wild” as it were, they talk about faith endlessly. But get into an argument like this one, and suddenly its “Faith? Moi?”
Well, its just nice to know that those that want to tell you what science is all about actually have some idea as to what they are talking about.
Anyway, the way in which you talk about science reeks of what could be called inductionism. That is we make observations and then from these we induce the way in which the world works. According to this view man essentially starts with a blank slate, and as work continues he knows more and more.
This view of science hasn’t been the dominant philosophy for more than 50 years. It was replaced by Karl Popper’s philosophy of falsificationism. In this view science is not determining how the world works, but more to the point determining the way in which the world does not work. Popper’s philosophy is that science discovers things by making falsifiable predictions about the world, and then seeing if these match with experiment. If they do not then we have learned that the thery is not true and can be discounted. If it does agree then ironically we haven’t really learned much, because while that theory may be true, so to may any other theory that accords with those results. In contranst to the “inductionism” philosophy in this view of science humanity starts with every possible theory about how the world works, and progresses by discounting those that do not fit experimental evidence
In essense science is NOT the “discovery of truth” that you seem to think it is. Science is like the Sherlock Holms quote, “When you eliminate all the impossible, whatever left, no matter how improbabile, is the truth”. No theory in science is ever “true”, it only is “not yet falsified”. Besides if you wish to claim that science reveals “truth” then you have to admit that “truth” has changed significantly over the years. There is another famous quote from a scientist (I can’t remmeber which one) that “It is disconcerting the number of students that we have failed for not knowing what we have later on found to be incorrect” 
The other point though to make about falsiificationism is that if a statement is none falsifiable, it does not mean it is necessarily true or false. All that it meas is that the validity of the statement cannot be tested via experimentation, and therefore the truth value of the statement is unknown. So for instance the statement “I love my wife” is non-falsifiable. Doesn’t make it not true, nor does it mean that me saying that to her means nothing.
I’m not trying to make it hard, I am a chemical physicist by training, so that is what I lean to.
The cites, while interesting, don’t actually prove your point. The point I was making is that there is no scientific definition of what things like beauty actually are. The studies in these cites are all about cataloging what people say beauty, justice, ect are. They are not about trying to determine what beauty, justice, ect actually are. It is a subtle but important point.
Again it comes down to the distinction between falsifiable and non-falsifiable. The statement, “Person A is beautiful” is a non-falsifiable statement. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and therefore it is impossible to determine whether that statement is inherently true or not. The statement “a majority of people would say person A is beautiful” is a falsifiable statement, and therefore can be the subject of a scientific study. Such a study though would not be about what beauty actually IS, only what people say that beauty is.
The other thing particularly about the face studies is that even if we can determine what people generally see as “beautiful” in a face, that still doesn’t mean we understand beauty in any meainingful way. Faces are probably the easiest thing to study, because there is not a lot of variance in faces. When you move to things that are more subjective (art, music, ect) there is very little agreement as to what is beautiful, and there really isn’t much of a way you could find the average or whatever.
- Science may not be a democracy, but it certainly not a toltalitarian regime run by you
- Despite what George Bush thinks, the US != the world. Besides most of the great scientists of the past were devoutly religious. People like Mendel, Darwin, Newton, Faraday, Pascal, ect (note that I said “religious”, not “Christian”).
- Please forgive me if I am skeptical of an unreferenced survey quoted in an opinion piece. Didn’t you know that 56% of statistics are made up on the spot?
No, the scientific method is to discount whatever doesn’t fit the facts and acklowedge that everything that fits the facts could be true. If there is no evidence to discount the non-uniformity of cause and effect it is NOT scientific to discount it.
Besides, why is it that when you make unsupported assumptions it is called a “working hypothesis”, yet if any religious person does it is called “faith”. Hide behind Occam’s razor all you want, but if you can’t PROVE it then it must be faith.
Since I don’t claim that only things that are “scientific” are true, then I don’t have to prove to you that my religious beliefs are true using science. However using your inductivism approach, I would say that the problem with belief in God (at least from the Christian point of view) is NOT that there is no empirical reason to believe in Christianity. The disagreement comes over whether the stated empirical facts are true or not. So I am a Christian because Jesus really did rise from the dead, and the Christian view of reality best explains this. As best I can tell your argument would not be that Christianity best explains Jesus rising from the dead, your argument is that Jesus never actually rose from the dead, and therefore the empirical data that I am basing my claim on is false. Nevertheless the disagreement is not between an empirical vs non-empirical worldview. The disagreement is over the nature of the empirical evidence.
I think you are the only one who thinks that there was some sort of competition. The problem is that you are taking a modernist viewpoint and trying to claim that everyone must therefore think in this same way.
The overarching question of our age is “How?”. We live in a technological age in which we natuarally want to know how everything works. That is not the same outlook that people had 500 years ago. For the most part people in history really didn’t care how things happened. They were much more concerned with why, something that science cannot answer. And if you would actually bother to read the writings of religous people 500 years ago you would find that there is a conspicuous lack of any real falsifiable statements as to how the world worked, because they didn’t care.
All you are doing is inventing some sort of conflict and then proclaiming yourself the victor. And of course I suppose you have proof that all of religion is false. Because I would hate to think that you are using unscientific arguments to proclaim that science has won over religion :rolleyes:
And the atheisitic “I say so” is better than “God says so”… how? And by what standard are you judging “worse”. If by “worse” you mean “further from my personal belief system” then I hope you will excuse another :rolleyes:
It seems the only one making stuff up is you. Here you are falling into a fallacy so well known in philosophy it even has its own name. The ontological fallacy. You can’t determine what should be from what is. All a knowledge of science will do is assure that the actual outcomes of your actions match your intentions. Science doesn’t tell you what is food or evil, it just tells you what is.
Incorrect. There have been studies on what people say these things are, but their definition is non-falsifiable, and therefore cannot be studied by science.
“liars, useless parasites, predators, insane, or a combination”. Wow, that is a pretty sweeping generalisation, even for you. Of course we can’t all have your kindness and love of all mankind :rolleyes:
Of course that doesn’t answer the question. Why is your faith in scientists to be commended and someone else’s faith in a religion to be condemned. If you don’t understand the science, then you don’t know if you are being lied to or not. And let me assure as a scientist there is plenty of reasons to be suspicious of scientists. If you don’t think that more than a few scientists value personal glory over truth, then I think you need a reality check. There is plenty of intentionally sloppy, misleading or outright false stuff published in journals, especially the lower quality ones. There is a lot of good stuff too, but just because a scientist told you doesn’t make it true.
And again, I assume that you have some sort of proof that religion “doesn’t work”. Can you prove that every religious claim ever made by anyone is inherently false. If not, then you deserve another :rolleyes:
Joey Jo Jo.
To go back to answering the OP, I think that the premise that underlines the question is flawed.
First off historically science arose (in Europe at least) out of Christianity and was then later hi-jacked by naturalistic atheists and agnostics. And history bears this out, as much of the conflict between the church and scientists is mostly imaginary. So for instance Galileo’s problems had much more to do with the fact that
- His model of the solar-system sucked compared to the established Ptolomaic model, yet he insisted it was true regardless (kind of like what people accuse “fundamentalists of”)
- He had a go at the Pope, strongly implying he was a fool.
There were numerous astronomers throughout history who supported the heliocentric model that were left alone by the church. Galileo brought his problems on himself.
Of opposition of religion to science the only real example I can think of is Christianity against evolution. But even then the dabate is highly nuanced. So for instance evolution was initially widely adopted by racists and other elitists and used to bolster arguments that some people were just plain better than others. In the Scopes trial it was this attitude more than the actual science that people objected to. To frame it as a purely science vs. religion battle is to miss many of the shades of the debate.
Secondly the OP reveals a false dichotomy between religious people who have faith, and non-religious people who have no faith. I think everyone takes things of faith, different people just choose to trust different things. Since science cannot prove, only disprove, if you assert anything to be ture then it must be on faith. There is no-one who has no faith in anything. Even the scientific method itself rests on certain unprovable assumptions that we must merely take on faith. The uniformity of cause and effect. The ability of our senses to correctly view the world around us. Even to believe in science you have to have faith.
In terms of Christianity, I think that the central tenets of the faith are non-falsifiable, and therefore cannot be studied by science. I respectfully disagree with the YEC creationists that the bible necessarily describes a 6,000 year old earth. Therefore since Christianity is not falsifiable, then it will never be proven wrong by science. Of course nor will it ever be proven right. The point is that scientific enquiry is no danger to Christianity.
Joey Jo Jo.
While I don’t disagree with your basic points, I don’t think this statement is really justifiable. What we now call “the scientific method” goes back to Aristotle; it’s true that the mediaeval theologians and philosophers spent a lot of time reconciling Christianity with Aristotelanism, but there was, and still is, a definite conflict between the two. And remember that much of the mathematical groundwork for science was done by Islamic, rather than Christian, philosophers.
Science, as a distinct discipline, has three basic roots: Practical engineering (mining, metalworking, architecture, ballistics) with no philosophical underpinnings, Christian or otherwise; astrology, which is based on a fatalistic/deterministic view of the world that’s not really compatible with the Christian view of free will; and alchemy, which is based on some rather woolly post-hoc mysticism that we’d describe as “New Age” today - and the universal desire to make money, of course.
It’s true that modern science did arise in Christian countries. But I would say that’s just an historical coincidence, rather than making any claims about the superior qualities of Christianity itself.
My point really was to say that historically the statement that “science is the enemy of faith in general” is clearly absurd. Science was not invented by materialistic atheists, but throughout history has been nurtured and furthered by people of faith.
I don’t doubt that Aristotle had a profound impact on medieval philosophers. However the general acceptance of the empiricism of Aristotle within Christianity shows that I think there isn’t really much of a problem incorporating that into the Christian worldview. Many people here (yourself included) have made vauge references to some sort of theological conflict between empiricism and Christianity. I have yet though to see any good argument why this is necessarily the case save for “but, but…FAITH!!!”.
Also I think that historically monotheism (which includes Islam, which you are right did contribute valuable things to the European scientific knowledge) was central in the rise of science. When push comes to shove many of the early scientific theories were of little practical use. Astronomy, which was probably one of the most advanced sciences in the ancient world is a classic example of this. Most things that were actually worth knowing were generally discovered by trial and error as exercises in engineering, without real concern for the underlying phenomena. For science to flurish what is needed is some extra reason why science is useful beyond the practical.
Historically monotheism provided this reason. In a monotheistic world where all things are done by God, then the study of science is valuable. In this world the study of science is the study of the actions of God, and therefore can be seen to be valuable in of themselves. In an atheistic worldview, or in a polytheist worldview, where there is either a weak connection between God and nature, then there is no real reason why any piece of information is valuable in of itself. And as such many such societies have typically shown little interest in science. A good example is the Romans. They were outstanding engineers, yet quite poor scientists. The Romans had the resources and the talent to become great scientists, yet they seemed to show very little interest in it. In contrast medieval Christians seemed to show a much greater interest in science.
I don’t think you can dismess the rise of science in monotheistic nations as a mere coincidence. There are many other societies around the world that were as advanced as the medieval Europeans, yet did not make the same efforts at fundamental science. The fact that it occured in Europe and not in other places requires some explaination, and I think monotheism certainly has a lot going for it.
Joey Jo Jo.