POLL: Science Vs Religion

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I am not sure if this has been done before so sorry if it has

Do you believe in science (evolution, the big bang etc.) or religion (that god created the earth etc)?

I am not religious myself and know very little about religion other than Christianity, (forgive my ignorance)

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 36 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Science Vs Religion (36 votes.)

Science Vs Religion (Choose 1)
* Science - 89% (32)
* Religion - 11% (4)

 

Some might say that the two arent mutually exclusive. I am not sure that I agree, atleast in some instances there is a clash. Can a religion that adapts itself to new scientific knowledge and incorperates it truly be thought of to be the eternal truth?

 

I believe that science provides the basis for how the universe works. I do not, however, discount the possibility that some intelligent being (call it a god if you wish) set the wheels in motion. I do not believe in the creationist version of the universe or in the idea of a god which watches over us.

 

Science and religion are completly neutral versus eachother in principle. Science is a bunch of workable assumptions, religion is preoccupation with transcendal things. Science helps to better organize or build things better. Indeed, religion usually absorbs the fruits of science, as a phone helps to better organize churches and greek philosophy made the whole thing deeper. The existence or non-existence of a telephone does not interferre with transcendal things. Nor does ones profession as theoretical phycisician exclude being deeply religious or that one findings would contradict with beliefs, they would only make them more clear. Anyway, judge the book by its cover and read what you want, words are patient and there potential meaning is indefinite.

 

False dichotomy, kiddos.

Science explains how the material world works. Religion explains how the spiritual world works and why there is a material world and science. Why would anyone choose to ignore one or the other? Even the holiest monk does not reject science.

Edit: Please cue Joacqin to make false assertions (the Bible and science differ) and silly claims about religion (you have to say it's all metaphors) because it gets in his way when chasing tail.

[ December 05, 2003, 17:59: Message edited by: Shralp ]

 

If we look at creationism and evolution. if you look at the bible it pretty clearly states how everything was created and how man and animals were created just as they are. While science on the other hand has a pretty well based explanation that differs from that. Here there should be a clash and indeed there is for some people who believe whole heartedly in the bible. My point was that many christian denominations incorparates the scientific theory and explains the bible as a bunch of metaphors and the like. Thus they have changed their religion and their faith to better fit with the modern world. I just dont see how that can hold any credibility as to be the holders of any eternal truth.
If you are going to be a christian for example then you better believe in anything in your holy book or you might as well create a whole new religion that better fits with the knowledge of this day and age.

 

I am strongly disappoving of any organized religions,as I believe they are one big hoax. People ae allowed to have their own opinions, and I won't try to influence anyone, in any way, if they just act the same, towards me...

And the reason I dislike religion? I believe the reason for existence and life at all, is chaos. I can find any understandable reason, proof or whatnot, therefor, it must be chaos...

 

There are two creation stories in the Bible. The Adam and Eve and the 7 day one. If there are two different creation stories, which one do you choose? They both can't be true. . .

 

I can't vote in your poll because both answers are incorrect. The scientist who disregards religion is merely a well educated fool, the theologian who ingores scientific fact has lost a tenuous grasp of truth.

As Shralp has indicated, the two are mutually exclusive branches of thought that grow off the same human tree. Both bear leaves to nurture the entire being, and to remove one or the other is to do significant damage to the organism as a whole.

On the questions regarding the Creation story as presented in the Bible...one must first ask themselves what kind of literature are you reading? If you were to pick up a fantasy novel and expect to find an accurate history of Texas, you would be sorely disappointed. If you read a structural mechanics text and hope to enjoy a rousing tale about Dark Elves, you are again in the wrong place.

Come to terms with what kind of literature that we encounter in the book of Genesis, and your understanding of what you read will benefit. Is it a history? Is it a scientific treatise? Is it a fable? Is it a uniquely ancient Hebrew writing...that seeks not to reveal a rigid methodology of creation, but rather the place of God, of Man, and of all Creation in an eternal plan?

One of the most dangerous objects in the world is an ignorant person with a Bible in their hand!

 

I have heard many christians talking about Genesis as a collection of metaphors, about one godly day to be millions of years, that is the stuff I was talking about. Nor can you claim that the creation of all creatures as they are today, among them man, not differs from the theory of evolution.
My point being that atleast the fundamental fanatics who believe every letter of the bible and dont try to explain stuff away can atleast be said to truly believe in an ancient religion that may have been inspired by a divine being while all those people who change their faith and religion to keep up with what the scientific community says is no different from if I should start my own little religion with my vacuum cleaner as God.

 

But upon what authority do you accept the fact that a literal interpretation of the Bible is correct? How do you know that a literal interpretation is the oldest or most original? What if a symbolic understanding to elements of Genesis can be proven to exist in the earliest accounts of Judaism and Christianity...are not then the "Literalists" the ones who no longer cling to truth?

One can study Christianity and not see the espousing of a literal creation story by theologians until the birth of Fundamentalism, which has occurred in the last 250 years. Just because an interpretation of scripture is the most literal or simple, it does not make it the oldest or most true.

BTW, tell me more about your vacuum cleaner, we may be on to a real moneymaking scam!

 

Can a symbolic meaning be proven in the most ancient texts? The biblical story of the creation of the universe is not where the most obvious clash is since even today thats almost as good an explanation as anything science has to offer. An obvious clash is instead in the story about paradise and the creation of Adam and Eve and the rest of the animals, that goes quite obvious against the bible "and god created man in his image", I am sure some people can manage to incorporate that passage to fit with the theory of evolution but that is stretching things quite a bit. Just look at all the hubbubb Darwin caused when he first published his work.

Off topic: I have a very old brown vacuum cleaner who is so ancient as to predecess many of todays religions, I think it would be a good deity for a new religion. The holy vacuum cleaner, keeper of the ancient secrets.

 

Allow me to clarify because I voted with Religion. I believe in evolution and I don't beleive that God only spent 7 days creating the ENTIRE Universe. But I also believe that as God is outside of time it doesn't matter. However, I do beleive in God and I don't believe in "the big bang" to me the idea of a God is more plausible. But I'm not one of those crazy Christians who beleives that evolution never happened and that God just created everything as it is now. (Hello? How do you explain dogs and wolves? Yellow roses??) I mostly agree with Hacken Slash and I think that science is an accurate way of describing HOW God works and religion attempts to explain the Why.

 

Please, the Bible was not written by 21th century Westerner couch potatoes who think they know everything that there is to know. The Bible was written in ancient East and in Semite cultures at that (Amorites and later Babylonians were also a Semite tribe). The purpose of Genesis was not to convey scientifically proven facts, but to put stress on creation. The number of seven and days are figures. It could as well be any multiplication of seven, and months, years, centuries, eras. From the point of view of religion, it's not important what and how many time units it actually was. BTW, note that the sequence is more or less correct - plants, animals, humans - not any other way round. And for eternal God, does it make any difference if it's a day or a millennium?

Evolutionism and creationism aren't mutually exclusive. The former isn't really full-fledged by the time being, and the latter is subject to various interpretations. Just as creationists go by their hearts' whims, evolutionists make more or less educated guesses - both often making conclusions first and only then seeking the fitting premise. There are bound to be differences and tensions.

 

What Silverwolf and Chev is saying here is exactly what I am speaking about. The adaptation of their religion to modern perception, I am baffled that they cant see the blow to the credibility of their faith.

 

You're making the mistake joacqin of misinterpreting the original meanings of these things, and accepting the mistakes of both some scientists and some christians alike as the truth. Science has it wrong on some things - and these are proved or disproved every day. Some religions, or sects of religions, also have it wrong - the thing is they cannot be proved or disproved if they are unwilling to bend. The same really applies to scientists. A religion is merely a philosophy of life, in this, science is a religion like everything else. It describes a moral philosophy, an ontology, and a cosmogony. This is what describes a religion. Scientists too, can be very unbending in their points of view, and the current dominantly accepted theory will brush of "anomalies" such as the flaw with Dark Matter, until the burden is too great too bear and it buckles under new evidence, and a new doctrine of the scientific faith.

Now Hacken Slash, chevalier, and Shralp have allready made it clear that your interpretation of what is the original or true story in the bible may be flawed, just as there is no reason why scienec and religion must be at odds at one another any more than scientists who hold opposing theories are at odds with one-another, and there are many.

I read a year ago part of a works which was written in the 17 or 1800's. Now this work aimed to clarify the meaning in various holy texts which had been publicly misconstrued, while collaborating from far older texts, and, lo and behold, they all said the same thing, only in different ways. They also agreed with many philosophical ideaologies, though of course their are many with which they did not, and with the scientific discoveries of the time. The only argument was what these discoveries meant. Now I cannot remember exact examples, and the text was not focused on such so they are not indexed either, but it said where many of the scientists had gone on an incorrect tangent, what the evidence meant, and what science would discover about their theories, and new evidence. Of course, I was not reading it in the 18th or 19th century, so I knew that what this author was saying was absolutely correct (especially as she worked mostly with physics) The incorrect theories were shortly disproved (though in some situations other incorrect theories took their places) and evidence was soon discovered, and is still being uncovered today, that entirely re-inforces the claims she made, as she said it would. It is my own, and many others, steadfast belief that some day soon a scientist will receive the highest accolades and awards in his profession for bringing to light what has been known by the ancient world, initiates of the mysteries, mystics, and students of occultism for many many years.

Neither religion nor science is in itself false nor contardictory, it is only our interpretations and applications of such which lead to confusion. My own faith does not adapt to science, nor must science adapt to it. These modern discoveries of science and belief alike merely reinforce what I allready hold as true.

The final point to consider is this. No set of totally beliefs is pure, none is equivocably beyond doubt to each and every member of the human race. Their tenets may indeed be right, their cosomology true, but what this means to you may be not, for once any thought is held by a man or woman it ceases to become what it was and vbecomes something new. There is an undeniable universal truth out there, but it is beyond our approach. The lesson is not to find a series of beliefs and stick with it, but to come to your own conclusions, to draw your own faith, your own beliefs from your own lessons and experiences, and understand that while you may indeed disagree with some, that this is all to be expected, and forms a part of many doctrines; that each one believes their own thoughts for some purpose, for some reason, and to some end- and that in the end, each thing comes back to itself, that all are indeed the same. I am forever amused to hear the arguments of some, and myself included, knowing either at present or in foresight, that they, or we, are arguing the same thing, only in different words.

These men, all men, must adapt their faith, and to their faith, just as science must adapt it's own, for how else would we learn from our mistakes and better ourselves? This does not mean there is a flaw in either belief, but only in our interpretations of such. The meaning of such works as the bible, or any other, may indeed be beyond doubt, beyond reproach, absolute, with no doubt, but remember that we may not always know what that meaning is, nor may all the ones who wrote it, for no-one has written a thing in it's entirety, and every copy of such. Nor has a singular mortal mind (and daresnt I say any other, for what is truly absolute has no mind with which to grasp. No, I daresnt not, for that would invite trouble- I am sure many such divine minds have come so close so as there to make no differnce) contained all those thoughts in a solid co-hesion. Everything changes with each mind that grasps it- this is entirely the point.

Remember, that we are a far cry today from what we once were, what was once taught, and even then only to the select few. You cannot expect someone to spell everything out to you, you must do that for yourself. You have. You will.

 

It's not about bending my religious views or making concessions. Adapting - perhaps yes. The message of the Bible was adapted to match the understanding capabilities of ancient Eastern Semite tribes. Hebrews, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Edomites - all those folk that had contact with ancient Hebrew beliefs. However, the message is no less relevant in times present. The Law is subservient to the message. Depictions are further subordinate. Historical relations are somewhere in the end of importance hierarchy. As relations, they're subject to the limitations of beholder - an ancient Semite, man of the East. Exceptional in his intellect, perhaps, but more in wisdom. More concerned with eternity than with the current turmoils. In the East, facts serve to illustrate principles, not the other way round.

It helps to try to think and feel like a man of the East and an ancient one if someone wants to dabble with the intricacies of Biblical symbolics.

There are bits we don't understand. There are bits that seemingly contradict one another. Yes. Well, aren't we limited, anyway? It appears that some humility is in order. Also, it's necessary to bear in mind what is really important. Certainly it's not exact dates, timespans, kinship degrees and the like.

 

@Firestorm...
Does that mean you're a nihilist?

Anyway, I live in a home where Christian views are accepted and believed in by most of my family. I certainly believe in God because my father is extremely spiritual and has told me how he has performed "exorcisms" where the people hiss and slither on the ground like snakes. He's witnessed some truly supernatural things that can only be explained by demons and malevolant spirits.

I also live in a society that accepts the Origin of Species. I KNOW evolution exists. There is physical evidence. For instance, a type of salamander who lives in a cave where no light reaches evolves and end up having no eyes at all. But I think that scientists have it wrong with the evolution of humans. There's so many questions that can't be answered. (Or at least I've never encountered the answer.) Why are there apes today? Why did we lose all our body hair? How is it possible that our brains developed to such a complex stage?

Could it be that we didn't evolve from apes, we just evolved to walk more upright, be taller, etc.?

I certainly don't discount most science, but there are theories that are impossible to prove but scientist accept them readily and profess them as absolute truths.

 

Why are there apes today? I really, really, really, hope you don't think evolution is a "progression" from monkey to ape to human. Chimps and humans share a *common ancestor*. Humans did not evolve from chimps or gorillas . That is a key point (and it is one of the biggest and persistent myths about evolution). There are apes today because a number of ape lineages have survived... I don't see what the problem is. Chimps and humans come from the same stock population. The population split and our line became adapted to one environment and the chimp line became adapted to another. Was that ancestral population a group of chimps? No. Was it more chimp-like than human-like? Yes. Humans are a very derived species.

This point can't be emphasised enough so I'll explain it again. The evolutionary history of humans and chimps was identical for billions of years. Only in the last 5-8 million years did our groups split and go on their own evolutionary paths. Apes are still around because they evolved to fill certain niches. It is not the fate of apes to evolve into humans (is that what you were implying?).

By the way, humans are apes. Humans are more closely related to chimps than chimps are related to gorillas. Therefore when dealing with clades (family trees, sort of) of animals if we call gorillas and chimps "apes", we must call humans apes as well because they are nested in the clade. As an aside you might find it cool that chimps and humans share over 98% of their DNA.

A number of hypotheses have been put forth to explain hair loss in humans. The most accepted view is that Homo ergaster was probably the first hairless hominid. If an animal is to stay active during midday in a hot, dry environment (such as the African savannah where ergaster lived) then sweating would be a necessary mechanism to cool the body. Sweating is much more effective when a body is hairless. The concern is that body and brain temperature could reach critical levels (brain hypothermia is a major concern and could of been an agent of selection).

So now you're wondering why baboons and other savannah animals are hairy, aren't you? Well, let's remember that human bipedality exposes a greater amount of the body's surface area than a quarupedal body form (therefore there is a greater heat intake when compared to quadrupeds) As such, hominids living on the savannah had to adapt by losing hair. I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure that baboons have sparse hair relative to other primates. I'm not sure if they are active during midday.

Many hypotheses have been raised to explain brain expansion. One is that with increasing group size brain size must of increased in order to decrease conflicts and increase group stability. (There is a correlation between encephilization quotients [relative brain size] and group size in Primate species).

Tool use also could have spurred evolution of larger brains. In Homo habilis the first area of the brain to expand is the parietal region. Perhaps it is not surprising that PET scans show increased activity in parietal regions when humans use oldowan-style tools in studies. As soon as we see tools emerge we see brain size increase (2.5 million years ago). Were tools simply the result of larger brain size, or were larger brains selected for because they could make better tools? Your guess is as good as mine.

And, of course, anthropologists throw in sexual selection as a possible mechanism as well.

Humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor. This is indisputable. The hominid fossil record is one of the most complete and seamless records of evolution one could hope for.

Sahelanthropsis tchadensis -->
Ardpithecus ramidus -->
Australopithecus anamensis -->
Australopithecus afarensis -->
Republicans -->
Australopithecus africanus -->
Homo habilis/rudolfensis -->
Homo ergaster/erectus -->
Homo hiedelbergensis -->
Homo sapiens -->

The progression is somewhat debatable but generally accepted (that is not the case with the newer stuff, which is well accepted).
Admittedly, the exact place of the real old stuff (anamesis and older) is still sketchy, but there is no doubt that humans evolved from an ape-like common ancestor. But from ergaster on, the number of skeletons we have is absolutely ridiculous. Many of them fall inbetween the arbitrary catagories I listed above (I say that just to show you that the picture of later hominid evolution is continuous and well-understood).

"Lucy" (the real famous skeleton) was a member of A. afarensis and was essentially a walking ape (by ape I mean how the term is traditionally used).

Furthermore, there were a number of "offshoots" such as the neanderthals and the "robust" australopithecines whose lines went extinct. There were times during 'human' prehistory where there were four (or maybe even more) types of "human" species living together.

I hope what you get from my message is that evolution is not a progression. I think that is what you were implying in your post. Once you get over that hump evolution is much more easily understood.

[ December 09, 2003, 10:43: Message edited by: InquisitorX ]