There is an article in today's New York Times by Cornelia Dean called Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables. It's a review of several books dealing with science and religion. In the article are the following quotes from two of the writers.
“I have been struck,” Dr. Roughgarden writes, “by how the ‘debate’ over teaching evolution is not about plants and animals but about God and whether science somehow threatens one’s belief in God.”
Or as Dr. Collins put it, when religions require belief in “fundamentally flawed claims” about the world, they force curious and intelligent congregants to reject science, “effectively committing intellectual suicide,” a choice he calls “terrible and unnecessary.”
The second quote is from Dr. Francis Collins, who wrote The Language of God. While not specifically abbut JWs, it certainly fits. The Witnesses certainly require belief in fundamentally flawed claims. Several interesting books are mentioned in the article, if anyone is interested.
Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25books.html?th&emc=th
S4
JW "Science" - Committing Intellectual Suicide - NY Tiimes article
by Seeker4 3 Replies latest jw friends
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Seeker4
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jgnat
Great find. I'm keeping it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25books.html?th&emc=th
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Seeker4
jgnat,
Thanks for posting the link. I'm on my Mac with Firefox at work, and formatting is a bear with this thing.
S4 -
Borgia
I espacially like the the final part of the article:
Quote "Human reasoning is “beset with logical problems that include overdependence on authority, overemphasis on coincidence, distortion of the evidence, circular reasoning, use of anecdotes, ignorance of science and failures of logic,” he writes. And whatever these traits may say about acceptance of religion, they have a lot to do with public misunderstanding of science. " Unquote
JW explanations do clearly not suffer from these illments.
Quote:"This is where the scientific method comes in. If scientists are prepared to state their hypotheses, describe how they tested them, lay out their data, explain how they analyze their data and the conclusions they draw from their analyses — then it should not matter if they pray to Zeus, Jehovah, the Tooth Fairy, or nobody.
Their work will speak for itself." unquote
This does clealy only apply to scientist.......
Seeker4, thanks for showing us this article. I really enjoyed it.
Cheers
Borgia