Religious Views On Science

[steve_bank]

AI Overview
Jehovah's Witnesses view science as a legitimate field of study that can explain the natural world but believe it cannot answer all life's questions, especially regarding purpose and morality. They consider true science compatible with the Bible and find that scientific evidence often supports biblical accounts, such as the Bible's ancient descriptions of the water cycle or the Earth's structure. While not denying scientific findings like the age of the Earth or the principles of evolution, they interpret them within the framework of a divine creation, where the Earth was created by God billions of years ago.

The Catholic Church's view on science is that faith and reason are complementary, not contradictory, and that understanding the natural world can reveal the wonders of God's creation. The Church has historically supported and participated in scientific inquiry, seeing it as a way to study God's creation and promote truth. While there have been historical tensions, such as the Galileo affair, the prevailing view is one of harmony, with popes and institutions like the Vatican Observatory actively engaging with modern science, including the theory of evolution.

AI Overview
Calvinist thought encourages scientific inquiry as a way to understand God's creation, with Calvin himself viewing scientific knowledge as a gift from God. The belief in a divinely ordered universe provides a foundation for science, and the doctrine of common grace suggests even non-believers can make valid scientific contributions. While acknowledging the distinction between God's supernatural act of creation and the natural laws that science investigates, Calvinism affirms that all truth, including scientific truth, ultimately reflects God's glory and should be embraced rather than feared.

Methodists view science as a legitimate means of understanding God's creation, not in conflict with theology, and they affirm scientific explanations like evolution and cosmology. The official doctrine of the United Methodist Church states that science accurately describes the natural world, while theology addresses spiritual matters. They do not interpret scripture literally, seeing it as a mix of history and allegory that conveys theological rather than scientific truths.
Key Aspects of Methodist Views on Science

Legitimate Interpretation of Creation:
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Science is seen as a valid way to interpret God's creation and understand the natural world.
No Conflict Between Science and Theology:
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The United Methodist Church holds that scientific accounts of the universe's origins and biological evolution are not in conflict with theological understanding.
Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture:
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Methodists do not read the Bible as a literal scientific or historical text. They view creation stories, like those in Genesis, as conveying theological truths about God and humanity's place in creation, rather than as scientific accounts.
Role of Reason:
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John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, emphasized the role of reason and intellect in understanding God's purposes and the natural world, and this tradition continues today.

Baptist views on science vary, but many affirm science as a gift from God and not contradictory to faith, while others hold a strong skepticism, particularly towards evolution, viewing it as a threat to the Bible's account of creation and human status. While some denominations or individuals hold to young-earth creationism, many also believe in a God-designed evolutionary process, emphasizing a faithful interpretation of the biblical account of creation.

Evangelical views on science vary from outright rejection to full integration, with many seeing faith and science as compatible and even mutually beneficial. While some evangelicals view science and religion as in conflict, particularly around topics like evolution, others believe that studying God's creation through science reveals His glory. A significant portion of evangelicals distrust scientists more than others, but organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals and BioLogos advocate for productive conversations and encourage engagement with scientific fields, seeing science as a way to understand God's creation and care for the world.

Jewish tradition views science and religion as harmonious, rather than contradictory, seeing them as two different ways to understand a single divine truth, as the universe is unified and makes sense according to Jewish philosophy. Science is considered a gift from a benevolent God, and its findings are expected to align with the Torah, which serves as the "blueprint" for creation. Critically, Jewish thought emphasizes logic and reason in interpreting scripture and understanding the world, which is seen as essential for scientific inquiry as well.

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

 

[bilby]

Can we PLEASE stop quoting fucking AI overviews as though they were actual sources?

You wouldn't post "According to my astrologer..." or "Dave down the pub reckons..."

Any text headed "AI Overview..." is of similar provenance.

If you want a discussion, post your own words, and be prepared to defend them. AI overview isn't a member here, and isn't available to clarify or defend their positions.

I don't care what AI overview has to say, and nor should you.

 

[pood]

You wouldn't post … “Dave down the pub reckons..."

Careful, now.

 

[steve_bank]

Feel free to post relevant to the OP title and associated comments.

Feel free to dispute the quotes with specifics. From experience and prior looks at evolution and different sects' views on evolution the summaries are reasonable.

I went to Catholic schools in the 50s/60s. Modern Catholicism is a mix of reason/science and theology. My science education was very good. The Vatican has a working observatory.

Cathodic universities along with Mormon Brigham Young have good science programs. I worked with with a guy with a physics degree form Georgetown.

Not unexpectedly there is no single monolithic Christian view on science. The ones making problems are mostly Evangelicals.

Feel free to not post in any thread you do not like for any reason.

 

[DLH]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

 

[steve_bank]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

 

[DLH]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

Still pretending not to get it so you can keep your ideological delusion. I don't care about science. I don't have to. You don't care about religion. You don't have to. You do you. I do me. I never tried to force God on you, in fact I advise atheists stay as far away from God as possible. You can stop seeing me as the enemy. I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

So, as no human is a god, everyone should avoid religion. Good idea.

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

Still pretending not to get it so you can keep your ideological delusion. I don't care about science. I don't have to. You don't care about religion. You don't have to. You do you. I do me. I never tried to force God on you, in fact I advise atheists stay as far away from God as possible. You can stop seeing me as the enemy. I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

What is your god? Certainly not that that Bible believing theists and Christians believe in.
You have an obsession that other people have a fake ideology, but your own beliefs are incomprehensible (because you don't express them logically) and irrational.
Your god is supposed to be everywhere, so how can atheists stay away from it, unless you are admitting it doesn't exist, and is merely an idea that atheists can stay away from.
That you don't care about science puts you in the same category as an amoeba, who also doesn't care about science.

 

[DLH]

So, as no human is a god, everyone should avoid religion. Good idea.

Humans can be, have been gods. Moses, the judges, Jesus, Tammuz, Kim Jong II, Kim Jong Un, Eric Clapton are examples.

What is your god? Certainly not that that Bible believing theists and Christians believe in.
You have an obsession that other people have a fake ideology, but your own beliefs are incomprehensible (because you don't express them logically) and irrational.
Your god is supposed to be everywhere, so how can atheists stay away from it, unless you are admitting it doesn't exist, and is merely an idea that atheists can stay away from.
That you don't care about science puts you in the same category as an amoeba, who also doesn't care about science.

Ah, you see, I think - since I don't know you from Adam - that maybe you are ignorant and making assumptions about what I believe based upon mythology that other people have adopted over the centuries. "Not that Bible believing theists and Christians believe in" I myself have to assume means Jehovah of the Bible? If so, yes. Jehovah is my God. Just one of the many gods mentioned in the Bible, some of them I referred to above. As well as Satan, Molech, Baal, Ashtoreth, etc.

I don't have an obsession with other people having a fake ideology, it's just the biggest part of the problem with atheism, just as it is with theism. A lot of your phrasing doesn't make sense for someone apparently accusing me of both not expressing my beliefs "logically and irrational." And again, I don't recall ever hearing from you since 2007 when you joined. My memory isn't great, but still, how much do you actually know about my beliefs and how I express them?

My God, Jehovah, like most God's of the Bible, aren't originally meant to be everywhere. For example, Jehovah God can't come to this universe he created any more than we could go inside a birdhouse we made. (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 6:18) That could be confusing with the sentiment expressed, for example, in Psalm 139:7 and Amos 9:2 but that's only because the first two verses are literal and the second two are figurative. God literally can't come to earth but he can figuratively be "present."

That I don't care about science is, as I pointed out, as significant as you not caring about the God you accuse me of not expressing belief in well. When I say I don't care about science that means it doesn't interest me. I have nothing against it. That doesn't put me in the same category as an amoeba that just means I don't have - you guessed it - a dumb fake ideology about science which is dogmatic and overzealous like the primitive religious fanatics you seem to object to. Which as I mentioned, reflects very poorly on real science and real scientists.

Science is a method of investigation not a belief system.

 

[bilby]

I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

Nobody here thinks your God is stupid; We know your God is fictional, and think that you are stupid for not grokking this obvious fact.

 

[bilby]

Science is a method of investigation not a belief system.

Science is also the body of knowledge obtained via the scientific method.

It is perhaps confusing that we call both the methodology and its results "science";

Certainly those who want to declare science to be a religion or a belief system often like to equivocate on these two different meanings as a means to fallaciously support their own positions.

As I said elsewhere on these boards:

Science (A) is a methodology for testing whether statements about reality are false.

Science (B) is a body of statements that have not been found to be false by science (A).

People who don't deal much with those who do science (A) as a career, often don't know, or don't stop to think, that science (A) is much of a thing. They don't need to; They learned some science (B) at school, and can look up any science (B) they need, so as far as they are concerned science (B) is all there is.

And from that perspective, science (B) looks exactly like any set of claims about reality.

Engineers seem very prone to this (as we see in this thread, and from the astonishing number of creationist engineers out there). They live in a world in which the fundamentals are found in reference books, and only the application of those fundamentals are important, not their origins.

It's easy to see how someone who is used to relying on what it says in the manual, the book, or the regulations, would see a close similarity between science (B) and religion, and would barely consider science (A) when asserting that science (B, though they don't know or care, so they assume, incorrectly, also A) is of the same general form as religion.

Schools don't help; They teach everything the way that religion is taught (schools began as religious institutions) - The teacher is an authority and not to be challenged; The right answer is the one in the book; And as long as you remember the rules, you need not understand them.

Science (A) is nothing at all like any religion. And science (B) is only superficially like religion, and that's because religion defined the way that it is taught, and because both religion and science (B) give people comforting structure and rules to follow, that require far less effort than science (A).

Engineers often do trust science (B), whereas scientists have not trusting anything - including science (B) - as a fundamental element of science (A).

 

[steve_bank]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

Still pretending not to get it so you can keep your ideological delusion. I don't care about science. I don't have to. You don't care about religion. You don't have to. You do you. I do me. I never tried to force God on you, in fact I advise atheists stay as far away from God as possible. You can stop seeing me as the enemy. I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

Obviously you are unable to present any rational discussion on religious views on science. You are unable to have any kind of discussionj, all you can do is rant/preach, and say fuck.

You are one in a line of posters whose only resort is to say 'we just don't get it'.. Actually we do, religion exists in the human imagination.

Seriously, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit. Faith does work psychologically, it is just that there is no god or supernatural involved.

If you have nothing substantive to add to the topic may I suggest you start a thread, something likee The Religious Beliefs Of DLH. Then preach away and try to convert us to your way of thinking.

Recorded history shows that science was suppressed by Christianity when it showed interpretations of the bible were wrong. The most well known case was Galileo, but he escaped execution while others did not.

The RCC Office Of The Inquisition was not closed until around the early 1900s, and at that it was renamed.

1908: Pope Pius X reorganizes the institution and renames it the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.
1965: Pope Paul VI again reorganizes the office and changes its name to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), shifting its focus from punishment to promoting and safeguarding Ca

The American 1925 Scopes trial on evolution and the never ending Christian fight to suppress evolution and promote forms of creationism in public school science classes. Intelligent Design.

There is a cretinism museum that shows human with dinosaurs.

Do you think creationism should be taught in public school science classes as equivalent to scientific theories? Should creationism replace science in public schools?

 

[pood]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

Still pretending not to get it so you can keep your ideological delusion. I don't care about science. I don't have to. You don't care about religion. You don't have to. You do you. I do me. I never tried to force God on you, in fact I advise atheists stay as far away from God as possible. You can stop seeing me as the enemy. I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

And yet you came in here guns blazing, attacking all of as idiots, and starting numerous threads about your Holy Babble and your imaginary Jehovah. You stared a thread demanding evidence for evolution, and when it was supplied to you in abundance, you covered your ears and cried, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, can’t hear you! So why don’t you take your own advice and leave?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Issues with science versus region are mostly with Evangelical conservative republicans who have political influence.

How dare they! Infidels.

You don't get it do you? If you're not a scientist, leave science alone. If you're not a god leave religion alone.

The wrath god!!! Makes you feel powerful don't it?

Thank you for the thoughtful response on you religious views on science, may the peace of Jesus be upon you and sooth your troubled spirit.

Still pretending not to get it so you can keep your ideological delusion. I don't care about science. I don't have to. You don't care about religion. You don't have to. You do you. I do me. I never tried to force God on you, in fact I advise atheists stay as far away from God as possible. You can stop seeing me as the enemy. I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

Blah blah blah blah blah...

 

[DLH]

I never thought of you as the enemy, I just thought of your fake ideology as stupid. You think my God is stupid. No problem.

Nobody here thinks your God is stupid; We know your God is fictional, and think that you are stupid for not grokking this obvious fact.

You're right. Let me rephrase that then. You think the idea, the concept of my God, which you think is fictional, is stupid.

 

[DLH]

Blah blah blah blah blah...

Hell hath no fury like a woman (or idiot woke liberal from California) scorned.

 

[pood]

Blah blah blah blah blah...

Hell hath no fury like a woman (or idiot woke liberal from California) scorned.

Says the guy who is obviously furious that we don’t take his idiotic nonsense seriously.

As you said, you do you, we’ll do us. So why are you still posting?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Blah blah blah blah blah...

Hell hath no fury like a woman (or idiot woke liberal from California) scorned.

Blah blah blah blah blah...

 

[DLH]

And yet you came in here guns blazing, attacking all of as idiots, and starting numerous threads about your Holy Babble and your imaginary Jehovah. You stared a thread demanding evidence for evolution, and when it was supplied to you in abundance, you covered your ears and cried, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, can’t hear you! So why don’t you take your own advice and leave?

You. Pood. Obviously have me confused for someone else. I've done none of that and no one in their right mind would even think to suggest I leave. They know this is my happy home away from home. With you all. Without your generous outpouring of love and support I wouldn't be here.

 

[DLH]

Says the guy who is obviously furious that we don’t take his idiotic nonsense seriously.

No. You just think that.

As you said, you do you, we’ll do us. So why are you still posting?

Because I enjoy it. It's a nice break from working on . . .