I'm personally an athiest and my main reason (besides disagreeing on certain values) is that I can't reconcile faith with science. I would really like to hear how different people do this, obviously there are many people who believe. How do you deal with seeming contradictions between your faith and science?

Why can't you reconcile faith with science?

quote:Originally posted by Beta69:

Why can't you reconcile faith with science?

There seems to be too many contradictions and things that don't go together for me to be able to believe in a god.

Can you reconcile them, if so how do you do it?

I don't utilize faith at all. To me, it's a useless word. By having faith in something, you concede that it cannot be accept on it's own merit. It need something more, somthing extra...faith.

For those that would say "LOL. You have faith in science don't you?! Everyone has faith in something!"...no. I make inductive assumptions that I can trust peer reviewed, analyzed, and reasonable science. These assumptions can be refuted by evidence to the contrary. I am not committed to them in life or death. If presented with solid evidence of the contrary, I would change my inductive assumption of whatever matter is being challenged and refuted. It's the way logic works.

Faith is different. In matters of faith, it is often considered virtuous to hold on to faith in spite of solid contradictory evidence. Faith is the surrender of reason.

That is why science and faith cannot be reconciled. Science is based on reason, and faith is rejection of reason. You either have to ignore science (reason) and be 'faithful' (which, like I stated earlier, is foolishly attributed by many to be an act of virtue when it is actually an act of ignorance), or you can ignore faith and be scientific.

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

I don't utilize faith at all. To me, it's a useless word. By having faith in something, you concede that it cannot be accept on it's own merit. It need something more, somthing extra...faith.

For those that would say "LOL. You have faith in science don't you?! Everyone has faith in something!"...no. I make inductive assumptions that I can trust peer reviewed, analyzed, and reasonable science. These assumptions can be refuted by evidence to the contrary. I am not committed to them in life or death. If presented with solid evidence of the contrary, I would change my inductive assumption of whatever matter is being challenged and refuted. It's the way logic works.

Faith is different. In matters of faith, it is often considered virtuous to hold on to faith in spite of solid contradictory evidence. Faith is the surrender of reason.

That is why science and faith cannot be reconciled. Science is based on reason, and faith is rejection of reason. You either have to ignore science (reason) and be 'faithful' (which, like I stated earlier, is foolishly attributed by many to be an act of virtue when it is actually an act of ignorance), or you can ignore faith and be scientific.



How do you explain people like my chem professor who are doctors of science and also christian missionaries or something similar to that?

Easy: God created everything, and science explains how everything God created works.

do you feel the need for proof that god exists?

also, I kind of feel like religion is a method of social control. Does anyone else feel like that?

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

Easy: God created everything, and science explains how everything God created works.

That's one way of putting it, but once certain people assume God did something, they are no longer curious of how it works specifically.

For example, people are glad that evolutionary biology is understood, because it lead to the further development of medecine.

quote:Originally posted by dog_man86:



also, I kind of feel like religion is a method of social control. Does anyone else feel like that?

I kind of feel like society is a method of social control. I kind of feel like it's for a good reason. What's your point?



[This message has been edited by The_Rabbi (edited 05-11-2006).]

Religion and faith are not the same thing.

Religion does not conflict with science as long as people use thier heads.

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

Easy: God created everything, and science explains how everything God created works.

Can you prove god created everything?

quote:Originally posted by bonkers:

Can you prove god created everything?



No, but he didn't ask me to. That's the fatih part.

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

No, but he didn't ask me to. That's the fatih part.

exactly. faith is not to reject reason. it is to know, when there cannot be absolute proof...at least for now.

the reason for faith is that we cannot prove God created everything, or that He even exists. but we happen to know that He did.

you'll see when you die. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

No, but he didn't ask me to. That's the fatih part.

Hence why you cannot reconcile the two beliefs. Science does not accept that "X created the universe" without that first being supported by the scientific method.

Those who believe in a god but also in science, are abandoning the scientific method when it comes to their belief in a god. That's not reconciliation, but a convinient abandoment of Science when it doesn't happen to support baseless beliefs you might have



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 05-12-2006).]

"Faith" is just a different way of saying "I can't prove it, but I really want it to be true."

Faith works only about unfalsifiable beliefs, like the existence of God. It can never be proven, or disproven. Even though it is superfluous to believe in something that has no evidence, it doesn't clash with science. The problem begins when the faithful begin using reason to form new beliefs based on those that can never have evidence.

Simply put, science and faith can only be reconciled in the area where science has no answers. And this area gets smaller and smaller every day.

My logic tells me that if a God were to exist, its existence would be incomprehensible to the human mind, so it becomes self-defeating to debate it either way.

My logic also tells me that to deny one's true nature in favour of a belief that no logic can support is a self-destructive act.

*waits for "My logic tells me you're a dumbass" replies*

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

- Richard Dawkins

quote:Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

- Richard Dawkins

Indeed.

"A person should accept a teaching only if one's own experience verifies it."

-Gautama Buddha

quote:Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

- Richard Dawkins

Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

Thursday, May 11 @ 13:17:54 WST

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.



Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".

"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.

quote:Originally posted by dog_man86:

I'm personally an athiest and my main reason (besides disagreeing on certain values) is that I can't reconcile faith with science. I would really like to hear how different people do this, obviously there are many people who believe. How do you deal with seeming contradictions between your faith and science?

There is one religion that has no incongruency with science, but its holy book provides scientific proofs within it only recently proven.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

There is one religion that has no incongruency with science, but its holy book provides scientific proofs within it only recently proven.



Don't make us ask Which one

fullywired

quote:Originally posted by Beta69:

Why can't you reconcile faith with science?

Because, by definition, science is based on evidence while faith is not.

quote:Originally posted by fullywired:



Don't make us ask Which one

fullywired

Oh I have some posts of my own up here, like "The TRUE religion: Which is Right?". The Religion I'm talking about is discussed there!