TheDiddleyMan

Okay, people talk about whether or not science fits with theism or atheism. Isn't it impossible for science to fit in with theism though? Doesn't theism entail that God personally enacts with his creation, and isn't detecting his personal actions outside the realm of science?
Deism seems more appropriate to me.

Kevin

emotional

The findings of science are compatible with naturalism, and also with deism, in case we want an easy way out of the "first cause" question (yet, this a classic case of ignoti explanatio per ignotius - explanation of the unknown by way of the more unknown).

The main thing is that the findings of science are not compatible with the personal deity as theistic religions describe. It takes just a little look at nature, at the series of extinctions even throughout prehistory, and at the ever-consistent thread of direct deed/outcome flow, to understand that the omni-max omni-good deity of the theistic religions is pure human fiction, the result of forcing wishfulness upon reality.

I don't think deism can be falsified (not with our current technological instruments anyway); theism, on the other hand, not only can be falsified, it has been and is being falsified all the time. You just have to look at the monstrously complex clockwork of theodicy that all theistic religions construct in order to maintain God's goodness in the face of an indifferent cosmos in order to perceive that theism is sheer make-believe that has nothing to do with reality.

Tercel

The Diddley Man,

Deism certainly fits science well.
But there seems to be no problems caused with science by a theist intervening God, so long as the vast majority of the time God doesn't meddle, and saves his meddling for religious contexts. Thus science can examine the natural world perfectly happily without having to take into account possible interventions by God.

Daydreamer

This doesn't work, any 'meddling' by any personal god in any situation would still be a violation of natural law, and would make scientific statements about that occurances plausability moot.

Also, labeling situations where this supposedly happened as being in a 'religious context' is nothing more than the standard "Your logic doesn't apply here" arguement.