But is it more trite than “There are no atheists in foxholes” (i.e. “if you’re stressed by extreme fear, you’ll believe just about anything”)?
Someone should tell that to the shades of millions of Soviet citizens who died fighting Hitler.
Or for that matter, the Cubans who died fighting against the South Africans in Angola, or Tito’s partisans who died fighting the Ustache, or the communists in the French Resistance. (I’m sure not all of them were atheists, regardless of the beliefs of their leadership, but I’d bet a fair number were).
No. Not as a scientist, because the goal of science is to provide natural explanations for phenomena, just like the goal of medicine is to improve and prolong human life.
It’s only a problem, though, if you see the sciences as an overarching metaphysical framework, rather than a highly useful toolkit (the best we have) for understanding nature. Science is the best set of tools that we have to explain natural phenomena, and more specifically the regularities of nature, but I don’t expect it to explain everything, like 'was Jesus resurrected on the third day, or not."
Science is what you do at work, outside of work you can believe whatever you please about the metaphysical world.
I imagine childhood indoctrination is responsible for most religious belief in scientists (and others), and compartmentalization for continued belief.
Not in the case of Francis Collins, FWIW.
Between them, Hector_St_Clare and **monstro **have it figured out.
Except for a minority of fundamentalists, Christians generally have no problem with science. As has been point out above, that’s particularly true of the Catholic Church, which is the largest single Christian church, to which at least half, probably more, of the world’s Christians belong.
And there’s no reason for science to have a problem with Christianity, either.
I disagree. A person born into a Christian family and social and cultural environment remains a Christian until he renounces, in his own mind, to either become a non-believer or a convert to another faith. Many people are nominal Christians, accept the coating of Christianity that overlies their culture, but is skeptical about the literal interpretations of Christianity.
Whether you are a Christian or an Atheist, a person who does not display your own passion is no less a follower of your faith.
Plus at one time, (going back into say, the 17th century at the latest), the only way for some men to get an education was to become a priest. Think about it: you’re dirt poor, you come from a peasant family, and you want to go to school. But your entire family is illiterate and destitute, and your only option is to get married, have a bunch of kids (and if you’re lucky at least half of them will survive), and toil from sun up to sun down. OR, you could enter the church, become a priest, learn to read, write, learn Latin, and maybe have a chance at advancing up the ranks, if you’re smart enough.
I associate the idea of “thinking like a scientist” with a complex of ideas basically boiling down to “not believing things one doesn’t have good evidence for”. If Christianity requires believing Jesus rose from the dead (literal physical resurrection from actual death) then I don’t see how someone could be a Christian while “thinking like a scientist.” Some degree of compartmentalization (or ignorance concerning the state of evidence) would be necessary here.
There are plenty of Christians, though, who don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead in the literal, physical sense I just alluded to. If Christianity is just about something like “taking the story of the resurrection seriously as centrally and uniquely expressive of humanity’s relation to ultimate reality” there can be wiggle room. You still get empirical questions about uniqueness etc but it’s all very debatable. And many Christians don’t even require affirming the resurrection story is crucially “unique” in this sense either. So I can see a person “thinking like a scientist” while going for some such brand of Christian faith.
It’s where I was before I finally learned to stop worrying and love my atheism.
The former is trite, but the latter is an easily proven lie.
Right now, I’m running some code through R testing hypotheses regarding associations between chlorophyll and a number of water quality parameters. The results will inform some decision-making at work, so this is not a trivial task for me.
However, in the great scheme of things? This is an extremely mundane exercise–a giant mound of nothingness. It does not take a certain consciousness to carry out this work. All that is needed is the ability to organize huge datasets, write nifty code, understand statistics (and of course the nature of the data itself), and effectively communicate the results.
Philosophical/spiritual matters, almost by definition, deal in matters that are not mundane. I really hope no one is crazy enough to try to predict my philosophical leanings based on my work.
Scientists are just people, no different from anyone else. Non-Believers can hold us up as their priestly class if they want to. But they would only be falling into the same trap that so often snares the religionists: confusing one’s own understanding for what actually is.
Quick questions: Have you been trained as a scientist? Do you know what scientific education consists of?
I attended a top school of a science and engineering for four years and did graduate work at a top university for three more. My degrees were in computer science and math, which admittedly are not ‘hard’ sciences, but I took many science courses and interacted with the faculty and students of those departments quite a bit.
What I and others learned in college and grad school is that the process of scientific research is extremely different from what we learned in elementary, middle, and high school. In a grade 6 textbook, there’s always a section of each scientific textbook called “the scientific method”, complete with a candy-colored diagram showing the steps: 1. Identify the problem 2. Make a hypothesis 3. Design an experiment, and so forth.
Real scientists at work don’t follow this method, or any fixed method, with any regularity. The real scientific method would look more like this: 1. Decide which grant to apply for. 2. Write and your grant proposal. 3. Chew fingernails nervously while waiting to hear back about your grant proposal.
Most scientists do not believe that we must gather empirical evidence before accepting something as true. That may be generally true in our fields but not true for everything in the universe. A typical university has scores or even hundreds of departments, with only a few being devoted to hard sciences. The other departments are also involved in the search for truth, but they employ a much wider variety of means.
Thanks for the input all.
I note that some are indicating that it is I that has a flaw in my thinking, to which I say…Yeah…that’s my point. I don’t understand it which is why I’m seeking to learn about it.
Another point bantered about is this idea that science is something one does at work (only?). This is fundamentally different than how I view science, and that might be where the difficulty for me lies. I do science all the time everywhere in my life, not just at work. I make decisions and chose to believe things are true, or plausible enough, or untrue everyday. And I happily change my mind given enough evidence to persuade me.
Also, my training is pretty much in the hard sciences, chemistry specifically. So maybe I’m assuming that Ph.D. scientists in other fields have a similar training and thought experience.
I’m just befuddled how one can easily dismiss as ‘not true’ nearly all supernatural or paranormal occurances, except when it comes to the divinity of Jesus, or even the idea that prayer can influence and counter natural laws.
Hectar…thanks for the offer, I think I’ll take you up on it with a few PMs if I can get some time. I greatly appreciate your insight in clearing up my confusion
But what you seem to be saying is that scientists can be Christians only by putting their scientific thinking aside whenever they step outside their personal field of study.
I went to university with a guy who confided in me that a lot of what we were learning about conflicted with his views on his faith. This wasn’t even science: this was Medieval history. A lot of the problems were about the conversion efforts of the church in Scandinavia, and the way that Christianity was moulded by the consensus of man rather than the will of God.
His answer was just to serve God as well as he could.
It seemed to be the answer for the other guys who took that course and ended up becoming ordained as ministers.
So as an update, I guess I’m still not clear of the concept.
I’m really looking for Research type scientists who deal with discovering new things and confirming them with empirical evidence. I know many scientists who don’t really spend their time with experimentation and confirmation. I* think* I understand their point of view well enough (maybe not).
So other than Hector, are their others out there who work intimately with research, discovery and finding empirical evidence to support or prove the existence of natural phenomena?
I’ve PM’d Hector with some questions but haven’t gotten a reply yet.
I gave you a list back in post #40:
Here’s just the living Nobel Prize Winners:
Werner Arber
John Gurdon
Brian Kobilka
Gerhard Ertl
Charles Hard Townes
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.
William Daniel Phillips
So there are a lot of scientists who have different basic beliefs from you. So what? Did you seriously expect that only people with the same underlying philosophical beliefs as you are the only ones whose science you could trust? My experience is that that’s wildly untrue.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Virgin birth is an extraordinary claim, supported by not much evidence at all. As Greg Giraldo once said, “In catholicism, we have an entire religion based on a woman who really stuck to her story.”
The resurrection is another extraordinary claim that’s not supported by extraordinary evidence.
Like the OP, I’m at a loss to understand how someone can rigorously apply the rules of reason, logic, and evidence in their career, and simultaneously hold intensely strong beliefs - about anything - which do not get subjected to those same rules of reason, logic and evidence.
Thanks for the list, but I’m not looking for a list of scientists who may (or may not) have the same beliefs as me. I’m looking for a research scientist here who can clear up the cognitive dissonance I’m having.
Are you such a person?
Yeah, I was gonna say that Einstein may not have overly appreciated your calling him a Christian, in any context.