DMC

1. In order to believe in God, must one abandon the results of scientific research in favor of apologetics? Could a person follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, as laid out in the New Testament, and still revel in the discoveries of science?

It seems to me (and perhaps many others here) that the level of intellectual honesty required to ignore something as sound as scientific research would be really low, or am I missing something?

2. If science is so flawed as to be useless, why to Christians take their families to the hospital instead of praying for them?

Am I portraying a false dichotomy? Are there gradients of acceptance to science? If so, what determines where the upper and lower limits reside for each gradient?

Underseer

It depends on exactly what sect of what religion you're talking about.

The common vernacular uses "fundamentalist" interchangably with "religious fanatic." The more literal definition of "fundamentalist" is someone who believes that the Bible (or whatever holy scripture is appropriate) is 100% factual, literal and that it has been personally fact-checked by God(s).

Fundamentalism is absolutely incompatible with science because science insists that animals were made before man.

However, not all religionists are fundamentalists. The last pope even declared that evolution was not incompatible with Catholicism. While not exactly a ringing endorsement of science and reason, if the pope says they're not incompatible, then they're not, so no Catholic would be required to choose between science and reason and his/her faith.

Given the above definition of fundamentalist, all Muslims are fundamentalists. Science (or at least evolution and cosmology) is incompatible with Islam, however because Muslims have a strong academic tradition, many liberal/secular Muslims have found whatever cognitive dissonance is necessary for people to believe in both Islam and science simultaneously.

Bobinius

1. The conflict between faith and scientific discoveries is not universal. There are only some levels where they conflict, since religion is much more narrow in its scope than science. For example, religion does not have anything to say about DNA or transistors in processors. But when they provide us with different results, yes, the theist will usually sacrifice science. It is just a double standard.

This double standard has ethical consequences. There are Jehova's Wittnesses that will refuse blood transfusions, capable of saving lives. They refuse this for their innocent children too. This is not about intellectual honesty, it is just about intellect and its level.

The conflict between religion and science is also present at a deeper level, a methodological one. And this viciated way of thinking that religion imposes has catastrophic consequences, from denying evolution and geology, to killing people for their beliefs or dying for an invisible, hypothetical heaven.

2. I wonder that too. Your problems are usually solved by the Double Standard that the theists use. They all behave like naturalists in daily life, but when it comes to their beliefs irrationality and dogma jump in. If logic tells you there is a problem with your faith, well, too bad for logic, it must be wrong. It does not apply to God.

Alf

As others have said. It very much depends on which sect and which interpretation.

The christian bible give out a multitude of statements, many of which are conflicting and vague. The end result is that more or less no matter what opinions you might have to certain issues, you will find support for those in the bible.

You think slavery is a cool thing? People have used the bible to support slavery.

You are against slavery? You can again refer to the bible.

You think tolerance is a nice thing?`You can point to places in the bible where Jesus appearantly indicate that tolerance is a good thing.

You think people should not tolerate many things and we should tighten up the society? Again, the bible support your view and your intolerance have much support.

On and on it goes.

Same with science.

Nature - the universe - is appearantly God's creation. Of course, a christian scientist is then simply studying God's work and that is a way to come closer to god in a way. Many christian scientists have used this line of thought to both motivate themselves as well as encourage others to study science.

At the same time the church has been quick to burn to the stake any scientist who figure out something that is contradicting the bible.

This usually goes on until some new christian scholar come up with a new interpretation of the bible that is in accordance with the scientific finding. At this moment the church can change course and accept the scientific finding.

Then science and church is once again in harmony until the next finding that conflict with the official interpretation of the bible.

Thus, the church has a very ambivalent relationship with science and its love for science is always conditional.

If science can come up with a finding that can be said to support the bible, then the priests are very happy and they claim "Modern science such as the big bang proves that the bible is right and that there is a god". If scientists try to correct the church and tell them that the big bang theory proves no such thing they ignore that. If scientists come up with something that conflict with the bible the priests ignore that too and claim that science will soon come to the right path again and find something that allow it to come in accordance with the bible - or what has traditionally happened more often - that the church has changed its interpretation so that it is in accordance with the new science.

What experience can tell us very clear and without doubt is that it is never the religion that develop cures or find truth. While science discover truths, the church keep back-pedaling and dodging tactics in order to try to explain that "this is what we have been saying all along" even if they absolutely did no such thing.

Alf

John A. Broussard

Only if belief is totally outside the realm of science.

E.g., the Catholic Church has proclaimed, infallibly, that Mary was conceived without sin.

Not, by the most extreme stretch of the imagination, could science deal with that issue--and certainly can't refute it.

As long as religion sticks to the unprovable, there's no problem at all with adhering to all of the findings of modern science. Anything else leads to serious problems for religion.

DMC

Thank you all for your responses. I have been an Atheist all of my life, I just didn't know it until I was in my teens. I knew it was a game, but I just thought we were supposed to all play along. When I realized that I didn't have to play along, I got up and walked out. I have not been back. I cannot understand, for the life of me, how someone can go day in and day out with the fantastic notion embedded in their minds that an invisible deity is watching over them. Kids do this in their make believe games, and adults sometimes suffer from denial, but religion, to me, is a psychosis that should be listed as a mental illness.

If, hypothetically, a god did exist, this god sure as hell has given it's believers a hard row to hoe, because I have not seen one convincing argument for the existance of this deity, or any convincing reason why anyone should even investigate the concept further than debate.

John A. Broussard

But that's the whole point.

You get no credit for believing in god if god provides you with proof positive of god's existence.

Belief without evidence gives you lots of credit.

Belief where the evidence is completely counter to the existence of god gives you the most credit of all.

Tertullian said it all. "I believe because it is absurd."

See! It's all very simple.

Bobinius

You hit the nail in the head. Faith and absence of evidence is transformed into a value.

Why is there no evidence for God? Why doesn't God provide the believer with more evidence? Because there is nothing valuable in believing in the light of evidence, they say. The strong believers are proud of believing without evidence. This is special.

Of course, believing without evidence in any other God is not valuable. This is not a principle, is just Double Standard and arbitrariness. To judge identical situations in different ways (actually opposed ways) is Special Pleading. It is so damn obvious, but nothing can shake this people once they gave up rational thinking as 'without value'.

John A. Broussard

What amazes me is when they try to "reason" with me to make me believe what they do.

If they would just say, as some do, "I believe, period," I can then move on to have an entertaining discussion with those who insist that there are "reasons" for believing in god.

Bobinius

They don't try to reason with you, they try to impose their belief upon you. That's the difference. We both know that no matter what appears in the debate, they are not going to admit their belief was false.