Sinful pride isn’t quite the same thing as being influenced by this demonic demigod known as Satan. If there are a variety of different theories as to what scientists are really up to, I would like to see a breakdown as to how many people of various religious stripes believe in each theory.
It’s those secular humanists!!
It is essentially a rationalisation. They cannot let themselves believe that their opponents arrived at their beliefs as honestly as they themselves believe they did. It *must *be via some evil design or hidden agenda (I see this is US political debate too; neither side grants the other the courtesy of granting that, at least, they hold their mistaken beliefs honestly - it has to due to some evil purpose).
What exactly they think that agenda is no doubt varies greatly, but at heart they cannot allow themselves to admit that their opponents are at least as smart, good, and well-meant as they are. They can only be stupid, evil, mislead, or some combination thereof - no-one could hold such a vile position out of honest conviction or ratiocination.
According to Aquinas, it’s exactly the same thing:
“[M]an’s first sin consisted in his coveting some spiritual good above his measure: and this pertains to pride. Therefore it is evident that man’s first sin was pride.” Summa II, part II, Question 163, Article 1.
Specifically, he continues, the pride consists of aspiring to be like the Creator by acquiring knowledge. So there’s your agenda, right there at the beginning.
I don’t understand why contemporary preachers claim that scientists are lying. It would be by telling the truth as they see it that they would do the devil’s work. Naturally, as unwitting but still culpable agents of the devil, they would get some things wrong, but the devil’s work would be in trying to get them right.
The belief that Christianity is and ought to be antirational goes back to Paul and is celebrated by a lot of smart people like Tertullian, William of Ockham, Pascal, and Kierkegaard.
Edit: Not Aquinas, of course.
What about scientist who also happen to be theist? The list of Roman Catholic clergy scientist is pretty impressive after all. The father of modern genetics Gregor Mendel for example. You don’t have to be an atheist to be enthusiastic about science.
They tend to be inferior scientists - the higher up you go in terms of accomplishments, the more of them are atheists. And they are also lopsidedly distributed according to specialty; there’s virtually no theistic biologists for example I understand.* Since religion and science are poison to each other, it all depends on how well the believer in question can keep his profession separated from his delusions.
*There’s plenty of religious engineers though; which has been given as a major reason why you see so many terrorist bombs, but not terrorist biological weapons. Anyone with the biological knowledge to make a bioweapon is unlikely to be religious at all much less a fanatic; but there’s no shortage of religious fanatics with an education in engineering, since engineering is so seldom touched on by religion and therefore not crippled by it.
That was then, this is now. If he’d live in modern times he’d probably have burned his results and abandoned science.
If you have an unshakable belief, and scientists demonstrate proof that your unshakable belief is wrong, you are going to need to come up with some reason the scientist is wrong.
If it’s one scientist, that’s easy. That scientist must be wrong. But if it’s pretty much all scientists? The only way that can be explained is that they are conspiring against your faith.
In other words, the belief that they have an agenda is not based on them having a motive for their agenda, but simply as a way to avoid cognitive dissonance.
But if 50 scientists, 50 scientists a day walk into the church and recite a paragraph of Origin of the Species and walk out, they’ll think it’s a movement.
I don’t get the argument-Jesus himself defined religion as “my kingdom is not of this world”. This means:
-there is no conflict with rationalism-Christianity is distinct and has no relevance to the physical world
-the Biblical accounts of creation are completely allegorical, and should not be taken as literal truth
So why get all worked up about this non-issue?
Which people are you talking about, specifically?
If I read something about science and religion, I usually scroll down to a “comments” section of the story. It’s there where I see people say things like; “Stephen Hawking’s mad at god because of his disability.” Or; “Bill Nye is ignorant and knows nothing about science.”
It’s usually a Yahoo! headline, because that’s my homepage.
The whole issue here is the science and religion are orthogonal concepts. And the agenda arise when people on either side of the issue conflate the two. Certainly, we all see the issue when religious people believe that religious scripture is intended to convey scientific fact, but to the extent that science is used to argue for religious or spiritual truths is just as ridiculous. To that point, I will agree that it’s reasonable to say creationism shouldn’t be taught in school, it is religion masquerading as science, but to argue that God doesn’t exist because of our scientific understanding is science masquerading as religion. I’d love to just be able to see us talk about things like evolution and cosmology without both religious people saying it’s bad science and atheists saying it says anything about the nature of God. Or similiarly, I’d also love to see us talk about various religious scriptures and beliefs without religious people asserting it has any scientific meaning or atheists asserting that by believing those things they are anti-science.
And certainly not all well known atheists actually have agenda, but some clearly do. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say someone like Richard Dawkins has an anti-religious agenda, he’s made a career out of it. But it doesn’t seem true to me when it comes to someone like Stephen Hawking. But ultimately, I think it’s an issue of the loud few creating a stereotype for the silent majority. On a personal note, most religious people I know perfectly accept evolution and the big bang and don’t have conflict with their religious beliefs at all; similarly, most atheists I know seem perfectly okay with agreeing to disagree on the existence of God. But I do know a few rabidly anti-evolution religious people, and a few dickish atheists too. That’s just human nature as with any polarizing subject.
However, they are not Non-Overlapping Magisteria.
The popular conception many people have is that scientists are big bullies who have never let more open-minded people have their say.
In reality, scientists are the open-minded ones: they’re saying let’s test ideas and believe (if believe is the right word) whichever one makes the most accurate/useful predictions.
And also, it is science that is the new kid on the block. For most of human history, spirituality, mysticism etc have been the dominant ideas, despite their failure to deliver anything tangible.
That said, I share the OP’s annoyance when certain scientists make philosophical claims.
It seems to be a common thing among scientists, physicists in particular, to reach a certain level of success in their area of expertise and then believe they can solve well-known philosophical problems, at first glance, without bothering to study any of the debate that has gone before. And then papers print it like it’s a new discovery.
Hawkins unfortunately I would put in that camp. Dawkins gets accused of this often, but I have not seen him make unreasonable assertions and he always seems to do his homework.
Do you intend to seek out the explanation for every comment posted on the internet? That might take awhile.
That was a reference to Antitheism, a small subset of atheism that believes that religion is harmful and that if God actually existed, which they don’t believe to begin with, they would oppose him. They don’t hate God, because they don’t believe there is a God to hate.
No doubt. But, I recall a scene from Terry Pratchett’s [url=]The Nation: Mau’s Polynesian island is inundated with a tsunami while he is on another island for his manhood ritual. He is the sole survivor, and has to bury-at-sea the drowned bodies of everyone he ever knew. How could the Gods have let this happen?! Mau decides to become what we would call an atheist. Later, survivors from nearby islands start gathering on Mau’s island, including a priest, who tells Mau, in effect, “You want the Gods to exist, just enough that you can be mad at them for not existing.” In-universe, we learn later, the Gods of Mau’s people apparently do exist.
Yeah, like any Doper has anything better to do . . .
Nope. It’s just crazy how many people think that these scientists are out of their minds.