There is a persistent tendency in some Christian to attempt to use science to bolster claims of the literal truth of the bible. Creation science and Baraminology are examples of this.
Another aspect is the use of science or expert opinion to proclaim the veracity of miracles. Alexandrina Balasar’s case, involving a lengthy fast, includes a statement from a doctor.
Such use of (pseudo)science is incompatible with Christianity. Christianity is based upon faith in Christ, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). If one is compelled to use science to “prove” the divinity of Christ, one is not demonstrating this faith.
I don’t think that most people who try to use science to support the idea that a miracle has occurred are trying to convince themselves. They are trying to persuade those who don’t believe. Their efforts do not conflict with their faith.
I fully agree. In fact, I would expand this to include any (ostensibly) logical argument for theism. Faith is faith, reason is reason, and rarely do they meet.
Unfortunately they meet all the time. Try as you might, you can’t deny the fact that we’re all living in the real world with certain physical properties and laws inherrant. So when a theist of some stripe or another pops up and says – “shit just happened that can’t happen,” we are forced to deal with those two concepts meeting, aren’t we?
No; historically it was considered perfectly compatible. The idea that science has nothing to say about Christianity was created when science kept coming up with the answer “it’s wrong”.
Indeed - it’s interesting to note that not only had Charles Darwin the much reviled started out as a man of faith - he’d studied to become a clergyman ; but his voyage on the *Beagle *was originally intended to prove creationist theories.
It’s only later in his life that he really started doubting (partly due to his newfound understanding of natural selection, and partly due to the problem of evil). And consequently died a very conflicted agnostic.
If so, it’s a very poor method, since the science is invariably junk. Only actual, sincere, spiritual conviction can convince someone to have faith in Christ.
I agree with your expansion.
The theist’s (Christian, anyway) belief should be motivated by faith, not a scientific proof. If so, such intersections would be far less frequent.
Yes, the advancement of science has weakened the scientific case of Christianity, but it should never have had a scientific case to begin with, as it’s built upon faith as a supernatural act. Such an act is, by definition, beyond the laws of the natural world.
I read a dissertation that studied the large amount of science done by the clergy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Much of this work was done with the belief that studies of the natural world would support the veracity of the Bible. There was a segment of Christianity even then that found this dangerous. Of course the more they studied the less accurate the Bible seemed, but they were able to explain it away for the most part. One of the reasons Darwin had such an impact was that he kicked away the last prop of Biblical accuracy - special creation of humans. The result was that the scientists of the cloth were discredited, and the more fundamentalist types felt they had won, in that if you truly believed you had to reject science.
Today science has such a strong reputation as the way to find the truth that even creationists call their blather creation science. Those who actually understand science, and are honest about its findings, like the Catholics for the most part, are left saying that Jesus was necessary to save us from the sin of an Adam and Eve who really didn’t exist.
You have to remember that at a certain point, religion took the role of science. Old mythologies dealt with questions like “why is there a day and a night”, “why do people grow old” and “from whence did this all come?” Later it came to encompass things like “why do we act this way” and “why do bad things happen to good people?” This is why you have stories like Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi being mad at each other, thus separating day and night. Or Pandora opening the box and thus we experience things like jealousy rather than being perfect. Or the reason that lightning might hit a good guy is that he’s secretly impious, or hey, maybe Zeus is just being a jerk today.
To suggest that religion should never have meshed with science is ignoring that religion basically was the same thing before we had concepts like the scientific method and fancy slide rulers and abacuses to test things with. People observed something, and then came up with a reason why it was so that fit within a (semi-)consistent worldview.
It happened to turn out that the reasons they developed were false, and they were missing those things like “falsifiability” that makes modern science work so well, but to say that religion should never have tried to embrace science is ignoring that when science was developing it was in an attempt to bolster religion, to a degree. It was answering questions like “why did God do this” or “did God really make this this way” or even “what is the nature of God?”
The fact that eventually it became clear that science and God weren’t getting along together very well is immaterial, they both stemmed from the same place and were pretty close friends until relatively recently.
Nonsense. The only reason science is bad at convincing people to be Christian is that Christianity is wrong. And the only reason we hear about how all-important faith is, is because again and again Christianity and other religions have been shown to be wrong. If Christianity was right, if the scientific facts supported it then no one would claim that there was an incompatibility between science and Christianity, nor would we have this emphasis on faith since there’d be no need for it.
More revisionism. The only reason that science can’t study the supernatural is because there is no supernatural, not because it’s beyond the purview of science. If the supernatural existed it could and would be studied and analyzed and I’m sure eventually understood like anything else.
Emphasis mine. As well they should have; the Bible isn’t an instrument to understand the physical world the way science is, and shouldn’t be used as such. That’s not what the Bible is for.
I agree that such was a role of ancient religion, and a source of much of the tension that’s been descibed. That said ancient religions did not have the same concept of faith that Christianity does. Christians shouldn’t have meshed with or competed with science, especially after the dawn of science as we know it today. My criticisms are aimed more at modern Christians who should know better, than pre-Enlightenment ones.
Christianity isn’t “wrong” in opposition to science, which is “right”, because they are tools to achieve wholly separate ends: divine grace; and understanding of the natural world. They needn’t, and shouldn’t, be in opposition.
The scientific facts needn’t support Christianity, because it is built on non-scientific claims and ideas.
The supernatural is beyond the purview of science by definition.
The universe being created in 6 days, several thousand years ago is a scientific claim. As is the idea that humanity was formed out of dust. Christianity has to live with the fact that the very beginning of their Bible has such a hilarious myth. You can’t pretend its not there, and you can’t pretend its not incongruent with current scientific understanding of our origins. And to suggest that its merely metaphorical or some other such nonsense isn’t going to get you very far. It is written as if it is literal, as with the rest of Genesis. If you can claim that the Bible’s creation myth isn’t literal, then the same logic can be applied to the entire Bible.
And then you’ve got a meaningless book and a meaningless religion. Original sin isn’t real and redemption is unnecessary.
Who’s definition? Which dictionary?
I keep hearing this time and time again, as if it were an established fact universally agreed upon…and I don’t think it is.
The idea that religion can’t be proven is a recent one. Remember Doubting Thomas? Jesus’s response to his skepticism was to show him his wounds. In other words, have him observe and gather evidence for his resurrection.
And generally speaking, almost all of religion’s claims are observable and have real effects on the universe. Did Jesus turn water into wine? Did he walk on water? Those things can be observed. The supernatural is not by definition outside the purview of science. Science can study anything that can be observed.