Science and religion aren't friends
usatoday.com
usatoday.com
Oh really?
We can't even explain biogenesis, and you really think we've explained the origin of the universe? Describing what something does is not the same as explaining where it came from.
And he is right. Based on our current knowledge of physics & cosmology we don't need a creator to explain the universe. A creator may still be involved but he is un-necessary. So the question is now: "Why should we even discuss about a creator when he is both un-necessary and there are NO evidence whatsoever for his existence?"
PS: I hope I will not hear the "What was before the Big Bang?" question.
That is aside from our amassed knowledge of physics [cosmology is a subset surely?]. This is like one of those "everything has been discovered" considerations.
Anyway it seems you're taking as your axiom that the universe is uncreated/self-created (or what-have-you) and your faith in this matter should be enough for anyone. You admit we don't have any generally* objective evidence one way or another I assume (by which I mean objective truths that can be observed by anyone at arbitrary time).
>PS: I hope I will not hear the "What was before the Big Bang?" question.
I quite like that one because it seems like it would force a reductio for those who argue against the need for a creator:
An atheist (or multi-theist, or ...), say, argues that if God created the Universe then who created God? The common theist responds that God is eternal and uncreated. The atheist (in this case) argues that is absurd, if the Universe were created by God then God must have been created too. The theists position is now one arguing that a creator is necessary for existence. Reductio ad absurdum as they are arguing the counter argument to their initial objection that a creator is not necessary.
Is that why you didn't want anyone to mention it? ;0)
[Yes, I know this is a naive rendition but the atheist/multitheist/recursive-theist objection has rarely been followed in any of these fora to it's logical conclusion. I can see one easy out from the side of Zeno; But I think overall Parmenides comes off better. Very happy to hear objection to this latter analysis.]
[1] To be fair, "importance" here only goes as far as "not making a fool of yourself in intellectual discussions by repeating the same intellectual mistakes people made centuries ago". It's not important in the sense that it impacts your ability to live your life and do useful things.
somehow... I think the nature of engagement with religion of the very intelligent 'believers in religion' is probably very different from the type of engagement of the typical beliver (in religion), baring the inevitable exceptions.
For a person who can distinguish between the 'good' and the 'bad' within the teachings of a religion, for one who likes to have some guidance(or examples) in how to behave 'morally' in different situations in life, there is a quite some good stuff in the teachings of most religions of the world. (I am most definitely not referring to the 'faith' part of the religion, here)
Moreover.. in spite of the many horrible things that religion has caused over ages, in the society, I think it can do more damage if 'religion' was completely removed from many socieities of the current age. Not all.. the more advanced and legally stably societies/civilizations can probably deal with its removal lot better than some on the other side of the spectrum.
I like to think, that it is becuase of recogonizing this, that some of the most intelligent people, capable of some of the most brilliant logic and strategies (read the biggest of business tycoons or the past and the best scientists) did a lot to promote religion.... I had to find a possible reason to why the heck such intelligent people would support religion.
I once was reading a book on the history of science that was published shortly after Darwin's books on evolution came out. This history book discussed how many people thought that Darwin's ideas were meant to do away with God. This, the author claimed, was not the case: just because we have better understanding of how the world works does not mean that it is any less or more the result of a purposeful creation. It simply means that we understand more about how it functions.
The second way is a political conflict, like Galileo having to say that the Earth was the centre of the solar system. Stem-cell research being discouraged in the States, and a number of other issues faith/the religious have with areas science reaches into.
Another thing this article is saying is that religion and faith as a way of discovering or deciding on truth and morality are waning as we move into the future.
Says who? How does my belief that God intervenes by the Holy Spirit, say, slow down science. I'm trying to think of a mechanism. [Getting OT] Why is it a bad thing to slow down science - what objective moral law requires that scientific enquiry proceeds quickly without thorough inspection or introspection?
Certainly many of the greatest "Western" scientific thinkers were inspired by God and the concept that knowledge of the creation leads to knowledge/understanding of the creator has been probably the greatest single driver of scientific discovery in the last couple of millennia [speculative I know].
Galileo had to do nothing of the sort. The church felt there was not enough evidence to confirm Galileo's findings (research funded by the Church) and so intervened to prevent publication. Ironically he was sort of wrong, we can choose any point as a centre no reference point is any more valid than any other. It is equally right to say the Universe revolves around one point as it is to say that of any other.
Stem-cell research is an interesting question but one I know little about. I suspect that the variance in attitudes within the Church, say, is little different to that outside it's corpus. I think the stop here is around agreed moral values WRT human life as opposed specific beliefs.
Finally, I'd like to see these figures showing that there are less people than previously ["waning"] that carry out religious practices or use faith in questioning morality. The ascendency of irreligion, for example, does not required the decline of religious behaviour. It sounds like propaganda - I'd be happy to be proved wrong either way but I suspect population studies will bear out that religious practice (faith is currently impossible to measure IMO) is not growing as quickly as it has in the past. Indeed it is possibly growing more slowly than global population growth.
Its just that, I doubt it is limited to just religion and politics... When dug deeper and when looked across a person's behavior across different aspects, most people seem very inconsistent.
true consistency in idea/ideal and action...hmm...I would say that is an incredibly tough thing to achieve and probably impractical from many perspectives.
Quite some time ago I read somewhere.... that the mark of intelligence of a person is how well he can function while simultaneously holding conflicting viewpoints on an issue..... I would have to agree with it.... it probably goes towards explaining some of the somehow in your statement.
It is like me updating Firefox and then don't brother to upgrade everything else. As a result, Firefox work and play in a sub-optimal environment.