Quote:
Originally Posted by dark_crystal
I just think that religion only ever has anything to fear from science when we insist on seeing God as an entity with a consciousness similar to ours...i don't see how we lose anything by seeing God as a force, or even four forces.
although, i guess it is harder to imagine how he knows the number of hairs on our head or has his eye on the sparrow, etc, but that just shows the limits of our imagination. i can see how it's not personal enough for some people, though |
If people want to view god as a force or a person, that's fine. I think religion does fine if it doesn't try to answer scientific questions. Religion gets itself in trouble when it tries to answer questions better left up to science. The problem is that a world where there is an activist, interventionist, creator deity is going to look *very* different than one that is the result of blind and impersonal forces.
I'm not a theist and I don't have a lot of kind words for theism--but I recognize that humanity is stuck with religion and thus theism for any foreseeable future. So I'm trying to be at peace with that. However, I will demarcate and defend the boundaries of science against attempts by religious people to make science conform to their parochial, sectarian interests. That's not what science is for. Science is for discovery and understanding. Most modern science is complicated enough that cluttering the subject up with religious beliefs that must be conformed to. (For example, creationism being taught as if it were a viable alternative theory to naturalistic evolution when it most manifestly is not.)
Cheers
Aj