Awe in Science

by PSacramento 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  PSacramento

  I don't think it's an exaggeration. Religion has done more harm than good to the advancement of mankind and knowledge. In the past, they burned entire libraries, suppressed scientific research, persecuted those who tried to learn.

  Yes, soem have done that but lets not forget thjat it was the church that funded and supported many of the past great scientists also and that for a long time, the chruch supported universities and schools.

  I disagree that it has done more harm than good.

  Some of history's greatest scientists -- Newton, Pasteur, Galilei, Lavoisier, Kepler, Copernicus, Faraday, Maxwell, Bernard and Heisenberg -- were all Christians, and the list doesn't stop there. Some important scientists, such as astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, were actually Catholic priests!

  Besides the biologs website, you cna go hear for more info:

  http://www.defendingthebride.com/code/sci.html

  Today, they do it by politically fighting and outlawing research, such as stem cell research. (A whole 'nother topic, I know.)

  Not stem cell research but embyronic stem cell reaserch.

  http://www.americancatholic.org/news/default.aspx?categoryid=35
• 

  cofty

  For example, if you are doing a study of epidemiology in connection with a cancer treatment how do you factor in how often god decided to answer a prayer in spite of an ineffective treatment? - Me

  I don't know what you mean here... - Psac

  If you believe god answers prayers for healing how do you conduct an epidemiological study of the efficacy of a new treatment?
• 

  PSacramento

  Newton stop being a scientist and started talking nonsense when he fell back on the supernatural as an explanation for things we now understand.

  He fell back on the supernatural to comment on what he did not know, he was still a prisoner of his TIME, not faith since it was his aioth the drove him to question and to seek.

  Religion and science are enemies that can only co-exist by the benevolent hypocrisy of religiously minded scientists.

  Disagree and how you can make a blanket statement like that, in fact calling all scientists that have some sort of faith or spirituality hypocrits is remarkable.
• 

  PSacramento

  If you believe god answers prayers for healing how do you conduct an epidemiological study of the efficacy of a new treatment?

  Good question, don't have an answer for you.
• 

  SunnyDays

  So, on the whole and historically, you are saying that religion has supported and promoted science?

  How interesting.
• 

  cofty

  I said benevolent hypocrisy.

  Any scientist who believes god answers prayers has to suppose that god does no such thing in order to gather useful data.

  [edited due to overlap of posts]
• 

  cofty

  If you are doing a study of epidemiology in connection with a cancer treatment how do you factor in how often god decided to answer a prayer in spite of an ineffective treatment? - Me

  Good question, don't have an answer for you. - Psac

  Thank you.

  Therefore I am justified in saying every theist-scientist can only do science by means of benevolent hypocrisy.
• 

  PSacramento

  I am not sure what tomake of this "benevolent hypocracy" thing, LOL !

  Before I agree ( or diagree) can you expand on that for me?
• 

  jgnat

  Look at the damage that religiously motivated archaeologists have done. Instead of asking, "Look, there's a Tell. I wonder what's inside?", they say, "Look, there's a Tell. It must be Bethsaida!"

  "Instrumental in the struggle for Jerusalem's past, a seemingly objective science exacerbates rather than ameliorates a nationalist dispute. Siberman (2001:503) concludes: The digging continues. Claims and counterclaims about exclusive historical 'ownership' weave together the random acts of violence in a bloody fabric of bifurcated collective memory. Both sides remain prisoners of their mythologized past." - Peacemaking in Divided Societies
• 

  PSacramento

  So, on the whole and historically, you are saying that religion has supported and promoted science?

  I guess that would depend WHICH religion of course, BUT I think that Christianity has supported science MORE than gone against it and when it has, it was because of some moral and ethical reason ( real or imagined).