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Comment by darkmighty | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, scientific literacy does jeopardize the "personal God" concept, and in particular obviously the Christian mythology. There are still plenty of christian scientists though, some more keen on the moral teaching and community aspect of the religion, some interpret the texts as non-literal (a tiny minority I presume cling to literal texts).

I mean, I'm all for more engagement and scientific literacy, but let's not pretend there isn't some conflict here; specially for the more hardline churches -- while catholicism in particular seems happy to transition its role (into important lessons and social support) and turn dogma into allegory.

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let's not pretend there isn't some conflict here

Science and religion can get along just fine.

Half of the craters on the moon are named after priests. "Cells" are named for the places where monks live. The Vatican has operated scientific observatories for centuries. There's even one in Arizona that makes important discoveries to this day.

The whole science vs. religion meme is something that the internet has amplified out of proportion by latching onto fringe groups and smaller denominations and holding them up as the only kind of religion that exists, creating artificial levels conflict to justify their position.

> Half of the craters on the moon are named after priests.

Sure, religious folks often don't have a problem with simple empirical observations (I mean, the Catholic church _did_ get around to pardoning Galileo 350 years after they murdered him).

But Lord help you if you apply the scientific standards of empirical rigor or explanatory parsimony to any topics further afield. Most obviously, there isn't a shred of evidence - none whatsoever - for the existence of a divine being along the lines of what's posited by the Abrahamic religions.

> Sure, religious folks often don't have a problem with simple empirical observations (I mean, the Catholic church _did_ get around to pardoning Galileo 350 years after they murdered him).

There's a lot of people you can reasonably argue were murdered by the Catholic Church, but Galileo isn't one of them.

GP was probably thinking of Giordano Bruno... Galileo died of old age under house arrest after being convicted of heresy.

there isn't a shred of evidence

This isn't the place for a discussion about the details of religion, but I guess my response to this is, "So what?"

You may need evidence, but people who believe in God don't need evidence. To them, God exists whether there is evidence or not.

At one time there was no evidence that hydrogen existed, yet is was still there.

At one time there was no evidence that x-rays existed. But they were still there.

At one time there was no evidence of other galaxies or planets. But they still existed.

Something can exist without there being current scientific proof of it. That certain people can see beyond what is physically in front of them is called "faith."

My point is that an important scientific principle is that claims that are put forward without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The burden is upon the claimant. (See Russell's Teapot).

Adopting this scientific principle basically undermines all religious thought. Why am I bringing this up? Because it underscores a deep epistemological and methodological differences between religion and science.

So I'll bite. I'm agnostic, which means that I firmly believe that we don't have such "scientific" evidence because it's impossible to obtain. Given the existence of an Abrahamic God, He would have invented everything we call "science". By definition, He lives outside of the universe where these observable effects take place.

I'll just copy-paste another comment I apparently made 4 years ago... (Time flies I guess!)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7899626

Of a particularly relevant note here is agnosticism [1], or the viewpoint that there are certain things that are simply unknowable to humans. The implication being that humans can neither confirm NOR deny the truth value of the statements. Metaphysical statements often fall into this category. And hence, you can also have agnostic theists [2] and agnostic atheists [3], who both recognize that they are taking a stance on an unknowable truth value. Some would then define this as the very essence of the word faith, but I would like to at least point out that both sides are subject to the same definition.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

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