your thinking to much, do deer pay for their sins when they run out in front of cars and die? do deer suffer for their sins and catch brain wasting disease? You had a begginning and you will have an end, at least in this earthly life, life being short you really should eat dessert first. Happy Father day weekend to all our Fathers out there
What is it that sets the boundaries that we live in in the world and why have they been set like that? ----------------------------------- I like that question. I'm going to have to go with control. Then we can leave out the theological arguements because man can introduce God into the equation but it won't apply to animals. People can over eat due to lack of control, the only thing they can control or try to control someone or something else (ie food supply). Some say manipulation begins with the babies first breath, a cry for food. The more the baby cries the more food the stronger it becomes (survival). This would apply very well with a litter of animals. Same goes with any other human needs. Sex, alcohol etc, it's a control issue. Granted my opinion doesn't bring me to a satisfactory conclusion but this is where I would begin. ----------------------------- Does Mother Nature Punish Rotten Kids? http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=ted_bergstrom
Wrt the first statement above, I believe that all scientific knowledge we've accumulated throughout the centuries is perfectly consistent with religion, as it regards a different sphere of human experience. A religious man prays to thank God for his life, and then builds a chair out of wood, explains the role of the speed of light to his children and then ponders the way stars are pulled together though gravity, etc etc... No problem here, no collision of ideas and experiences: science helps him in his "external" life and religion guides him in his "internal" life. In your second statement, ..., you've got something there: quantum burp/jump, a fundamental source... all this sounds familiar. That's the domain of religion: what could that source have been? How do we perceive it? Your last statement is also close to my understanding: people tried for a long time to grapple with the question of, essentially, what created this universe and what makes it tick, and made some progress along the way. Some better than others. Don't misunderstand the Thor thing, it's a lot deeper than you think, as it postulates that the source of everything must be above/beyond what we humans can understand and control. If a 'scientist" thinks that researchers like Maxwell, with the theory of eletromagnetism in the 19th century etc etc, explained Thor away, they are badly mistaken. Modern science is just another way of postulating a different Thor, perhaps with more experiments and tangible logic in the manual, but leaving the fundamental question unanswered: what/who/how/why created the E&M field, the space it manifests in and the time it feeds on? My younger brother, a judge, an agnostic, whose intellect I respect a lot, answers "I don't/can't know and I don't care." I take the opposite path.
In your example you are keeping science and religion separate one from the other, that does not make them compatible. With respect, it is nonsense to say science, or scientific knowledge, is perfectly or otherwise compatible with religion when it patently is not. There is nothing remotely scientific about imaginary supernatural deities or their fanciful miraculous doings. No, not the domain of religion. In science the explanation comes along with proof, though without certainty. In religion that source is thought certain but arrives without proof. That's what faith is, what religion is. But it's no explanation. People have not made some progress. They have made amazingly extraordinary progress, especially considering the sheer enormity of the haystack they look for needles in. I don't think you have a clear perspective if you think only some progress has been made. For goodness sake, just look at the amazing technology of the last 100 years alone, which even establishes the workings of the universe down to the tiniest fraction of time. None of it did religious belief explain. God did it was never an explanation at all. The Thor thing suggests quite the opposite to what you say. Whilst one religious man was just praying to the God of Thunder, science discovered how in fact it was nothing to do with the mystical son of Odin, but was down to electrostatic discharge. That man is now either superstitiously worshipping a different divinity which might do lightning, or he's up off his knees dealing with the reality of that incompatibility between science and religion. Also the question is no longer the what , why or how of E/M fields. You can get a thoroughly comprehensive understanding of all those thanks again only to science. I have to say with all due regard to your brother, I know I'd be pretty depressed if I felt I had to say I can't know and I don't care , because to me that is basically a defeatist's approach, smothering natural human desires to scientifically inquire and from it broaden knowledge. To my mind nothing should be considered beyond what can ever be understood. Because you believe the fundamental questions cannot be answered, does not mean it is true. By all means believe it religiously if you're so inclined and keep praying to Thor or to God whatever. But it will never be the way of science.
All you are telling me is that you believe that your perception of science is superior to faith or any religious thought that someone else might have. I disagree but will not try to change your mind. Imo, the true scientist sees his domain as complimentary to religion: like the sense of touch vs the sense of sight. But how can he explain that to someone who's been born blind? The blind man yells "you're an idiot to believe to such stupid myths, that there's a way to "see" things from a distance. Everybody knows that you've got to touch something to perceive it. Look, I've built so many good things with my hands, trust me... Abandon those things you call eyes, stick to the tangible truth." How can such a disagreement be resolved? You are welcome to your opinion. Btw, I'm not a stranger to science, I hold a PhD in Theoretical Physics from UVA. And I'm also religious, it's a good combination.
How come you want to turn everything being said inside out to defend religious belief? My perception of science is irrelevant. It's about what science actually is and what science actually does, and because of that, it is not consistent with religion - period. Science is not complimentary to religion. Religion ultimately requires blind faith to support it. That's the antithesis of science. I'm sorry, but making weak analogies to blind men and touch is really not anything to do with how much science and religion are incompatible. They are two separate things. For instance science requires hard, practical, observable, testable evidence as proof, religion does not. For all your achievements, you're science and your religion will have to be, and remain, entirely separate, not compatible. Otherwise it isn't science.
Like religion, science begins with faith as well, the faith that its premises are best. And its most zealous advocates prove it is a religion.
The use of the word faith in true religion is not the same as some think it is, gullibility. Faith in religion means openness, willingness to accept a different order of things. Of course the religious person needs reassurance, feedback, experiential confirmation of the divine. Or else he doesn't stay religious for long. A person who blindly listens to words in a book or from a preacher and pretends to follow is not religious, he is wasting his time. The equivalent travesty over in the (psudo)scientific realm is a blind acceptance that simple cold logic, a la 2+2=4, can provide real knowledge to humanity and address its needs for the long run. That's how you build a chair or a spaceship, not how you live. That (pseudo)scientist leads a shallow, wasted life, while, at the same time, thinking that he's so very smart. Oh well.