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The Relations Between Religion and Science
How religion plays a role in science
How religion plays a role in science
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Science and religion has always been in debate since mankind's sanity.while sceince has proved itself with logical truths, religion has thrived with its people's faith and customs. Can both survive together?
While the mere existence and origin of the human kind has made us belive on multiple God theories with various supernatural beings playing its part, does it directly deny the Darwin theory where all mankind are the successor of apes. Or is it that the Big Bang theory is just a redundant theory of all scientific research.
So lets head back to where all life started. Times when our ancestors lived in caves, hunted for food in berries and trees. A natural phenomenon would start maybe a thunder and our ancestors would look up at the sky with awe fearful eyes and hands holding in submission. There were times when the earth shook and even worst times when sea of water came flooding taking with it his shelter,food and freinds away. He started to feel and realize and associate his own life and fate in the hands of some far supreme invisible power which he gave the name of God. And this is how God was Born. But what about man's origin? Weren't we going to talk about Adam and Eve being created by God and the breaking up of paradise and all hell loosing because of a apple? No . We are talking about a long essay here with logical thoughts and rational words to choose from. And more ever i am an atheist.
The basis of science is believed to have been observation and on experiences that man has lived centuries observing the natural phenomenons, experiencing of varied types. Yet religion is considered and believed to be older than science. Was it that God created man or is it that he was obliged to let him being created by man.
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...ith. Just like a scientist can be a religious guy so can a cleric use his sceintifically developed bike . While our life cannot be improved by any God, so does science cannot fill the gap of people's religion and faith. Each have their own purpose and place. It only becomes hapazard when both are inappropiately misplaced and overlapped. When sceintific theories are misnomed by religious dogma. Or when a persons religious space and way of living is violated with anti-religion blames and racist stance in the name of sceince.
Do they answer the same questions ? What is important is do they make us ask our purpose and how much are they successful of making our life more purposeful and meaningful. I will leave that to my readers to ponder upon. As someone had said-
"Religion is not to be discussed and urgued upon but is to be followed and belived" .
Who the mortal am i !
The theory of Evolution was developed by Charles Darwin throughout his life and published in 1859 in a book called "The Origin of Species." In brief, it states that all living things on earth evolved over time and that natural selection is how they evolve. Natural selection is the process by which entire populations change in response to their environment. It works because those who are better adapted to the environment reproduce at a higher rate than those who are less suited for the environment (Biology, 2001). It is widely accepted that humans evolved from primates. That is why the trial had the nickname of "Monkey Trial". In contrast, the theory of Divine Creation states that the universe was created in seven days by God and that animals have not evolved since. One can see clear differences between these two theories.
But not without the hurdles that science has faced before. Of course, in the past, we’ve seen times where the changes of reason and science did prevail. It just took its time to receive the following to be what was “right”. For example, the Roman Catholic Church was one of the most powerful organizations in the world in the medieval ages, commanding respect and penance from all the nations of the European continent, who did more than deny the works of dissenters to their teachings. From Giordano Bruno (a former Catholic who believed the universe was infinite and that the earth was not the center of God’s domain) to many others, the beliefs held by the church would not be opposed. Slowly, however, the balance of power would shift from religion to the state, releasing the scientists and philosophers to keep thinking of how the world worked. Today, we face a problem quite opposite to this one. Oversaturation of pieces by those who put feelings over the cold, hard facts. And shouting matches that have left the Internet for the real world, stifling progress, polarizing people onto a spectrum, making everyone choose one extreme or another, and rarely
The history of opposition between science and religion has been steady for about half of a century. As early as the 1500's, science and religion have been antagonistic forces working against each other. Science was originally founded by Christians to prove that humans lived in a orderly universe (Helweg, 1997). This would help to prove that the universe was created by a orderly God who could be known. Once this was done, science was considered by the church to be useless. When people began to further investigate the realm of science, the church considered them to be heretics; working for the devil. According to Easterbrook (1...
As said by Yale professor of psychology and cognitive science, "Religion and science will always clash." Science and religion are both avenues to explain how life came into existence. However, science uses evidence collected by people to explain the phenomenon while religion is usually based off a belief in a greater power which is responsible for the creation of life. The characters Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel, The Scarlet Letter, represent religion and science, respectively, compared to the real world debate between science and religion. Roger Chillingworth is a physician who is associated with science. (ch. 9; page 107) "...made [Roger Chillingworth] extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day... Skillful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony...They seldom... partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic." The people of the Puritan community traveled across the Atlantic for religious reasons, and because men affiliated with medical science did not tend to practice religion, they rarely inhabited this community. Chillingworth, falling under the category of "skillful men of the medical and chirurgical profession," would not be expected to reside in this community. The narrator through emphasizes this with his rhetorical questioning, "Why, with such a rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness?" These questions demonstrate that it was so strange for Chillingworth to appear in this community because of his association with science. Perhaps, the phrase "with such rank in the learned world" could yield the narra...
The theories of human evolution may always cause a heated dispute. Each theory presents its own evidence proving its acceptance, but lacks enough evidence to prove the other theories incorrect. All the theories that attempt to explain human existence fall under the categories of creation theory, naturalistic evolution theory, and the theistic evolution theory. The creation theory explains that a certain God created the humans, and evolution does not exist. The naturalistic evolution theory states that evolution is driven by purely natural forces, and is not controlled by any input from a god, goddess, or multiple deities. The theistic evolution is a mixture of both creation and naturalistic theories. The theistic evolution theory states that god created the world and guides the evolution process (Religious Tolerance, 2004).
Throughout history, conflicts between faith and reason took the forms of religion and free thinking. In the times of the Old Regime, people like Copernicus and Galileo were often punished for having views that contradicted the beliefs of the church. The strict control of the church was severely weakened around the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Old Regime ended. As the church's control decreased, science and intellectual thinking seemed to advance. While the people in the world became more educated, the church worked harder to maintain its influential position in society and keep the Christian faith strong. In the mid-nineteenth century, the church's task to keep people's faith strong became much harder, due to theories published by free thinkers like Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, David Friedrich Strauss, and others. These men published controversial theories that hammered away at the foundation on which the Christian church was built. As the nineteenth century progressed, more doubts began to arise about the basic faiths of the Christian church.
First, I will demonstrate Stephen Jay Gould’s argument against the overlapping between science and religion, which is as follows:
Gradually, science began to develop its own philosophy and methodologies. It even began to provide new answers to the "how" questions that religion had previously addressed. Then came evolution. In 1859, the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" (3) held a magnifying glass to the fissure that had been growing. The two giants found themselves playing with different sets of rules. Revelation and faith, fundamental 'methodologies' in religion, were simply unacceptable to science.
I believe that religion should not be considered the basis of reality since it is highly faith-based. People have different beliefs and that provides multiple versions of how they interpret their reality. I also feel that the “truth” that religion tends to glorify is not the truth because of its lack of empirical claims. In accordance to science, on the other hand, it is heavily evidence based. With science, we understand that it is solely based on observation. The theories and phenomenon that we know of today are solely from observation. Without this characteristic, we wouldn’t have an understanding on the universe and reality. Another characteristic that is quite important in science is that science is open to falsification. Scientists understand that they want to find the truth with different phenomenon. They also understand that they cannot find the absolute truth. Scientists always change their findings as new findings are being collected. Thirdly, it rejects faith as a method of evidence. Faith is based on ones’ belief on a specific subject matter. Science is not based on belief but on finding the truth. Scientists occasionally doubt their findings or evidence in order to find more concrete evidence. On the side of religion, it is primarily faith based. Most of the characteristics that science accept, religion denies. First off,
...eveloped, and especially during the Enlightenment, God and religion were relegated to a lesser role because it was thought that science could explain everything. Now, though, the farther we plunge into science, the more questions we find that can only be answered by religion. When science and Christianity are both studied and well understood, especially in the context of their limitations, it is possible to integrate them, or at least for them to complement each other, in my view of the world.
Every day God created something new and blesses it. God created nothing irrelevant or unworthy. Entirely everything he created served a purpose. Also all he had created came from nothing. The fish were undeniably produced out of the waters, and the beasts and man out of the earth; but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing. God created what is known as the world today and everything that exists on the earth. Reading Genesis 1 gives all mankind an idea of how life started and how the earth was formed to be this magnificent place. The earth is very complicated yet God could solve all of the problems and create blessings. He gave us light and darkness, day and night, water and land. He created all living creature including mankind.
Mankind’s origin was premeditated from God, formed from the dust of the earth, and made in His image and likeness. God confers with Himself and rouses Himself to make man in His own image and likeness (Bavinck 1). Because man is made in God’s image and likeness, he is set apart from any other creature or angel ever created. Man has a relationship with God that no other creature will ever have.
Arguments about religion can get extremely intense, especially when its a devote believer against an atheist. There are a lot of common arguments that are brought up in these debates, one of which is the inevitable, “Then were DID we come from?” argument. Since no atheist is the same as another I can’t say this is 100% true, but a good percent of atheists believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. This puts the origins of humanity into the hands of nature, I believe we evolved and adapted to the species that we are today. Another common debate is the argument of where our morality comes from. “A popular claim among religious theists is that atheists have no basis for morality — that religion and gods are needed for moral values.” (Austin Cline. About.com). As u read, most theists conclude that morals are given to us by a God, because you need a reason to have morals otherwise there is no basis for r...
The relationship between science and religion has been debated for many years. With strong personal opinions and beliefs, it is not surprising that no progress has been made in this argument. In my opinion, I feel as though religion and science have to be related in some way. There is no possible way people can separate two things that attempt to prove the same facts. My belief is that a metaphorical bridge has to be formed to connect the two. Personally, I feel as though science can be a compliment to religion, and that the scientific discoveries can and should be used to prove that God exists, not disprove it. If science did this, then the relationship between science and religion could be a friendly one. If that happened, people could stop debating and fighting over the two, allowing priests and scientists to talk and work together peacefully.
After wisdom is turned on, a lot of people start thinking about human origins. Many great people have tried to explain the origin of human, they also proposed a variety of unusual ideas and explains, but most people are not accepted their idea. However, the first part of the Bible have a good explanation of the origin of human. There are two different theory about the origins of humanity in the Bible. God according to his own image to create a human, designed to allow humans to communicate with him, to respond to his love, and to serve as managing the affairs responsibilities.