- There are differing views on the relationship between science and religion - exclusivism claims they are incompatible while accommodationism claims they can be compatible.
- Exclusivists make three claims: that religion supports science (proreligion thesis), science and religion necessarily conflict (conflict thesis), and religious beliefs are irrational (irrationalism thesis).
- Accommodationism acknowledges that science and religion do not always conflict and that it is sometimes rational to hold both religious and scientific beliefs.
- The development of beliefs is influenced more by heuristics like believing authorities than by objective consideration of facts. Religious traditions often accommodate new scientific findings over time.
- While science can disprove some specific religious claims, it
In this lecture, we explore whether and where science and religion intersect, and if there’s harmony or hostility between God’s word (the Bible) and God’s world (science).
Presentation by Dr. Dennis Wilson
Science & Religion: Conflict or Conversation?Maya Bohnhoff
Is religion opposed to science? Has science made religion intellectually implausible? Does science rule out the existence of a “personal” God? What does "personal" mean? Does evolution do away with Divine Providence?Haven’t recent biological and neurological discoveries made illusions of the concepts of soul or spirit?
These are all questions that I've fielded from correspondents for some time. They're good questions because they call on people who hold to diverse models of the universe to do a reality check.
Evolutionary epistemology versus faith and justified true belief: Does scien...William Hall
This presentation explores the basis for scientific rationality by testing our claims about the world against nature as described by Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology versus accepting claims based on justified true belief. The presentation is particularly concerned to show the philosophical problems with religious fundamentalism.
In this lecture, we explore whether and where science and religion intersect, and if there’s harmony or hostility between God’s word (the Bible) and God’s world (science).
Presentation by Dr. Dennis Wilson
Science & Religion: Conflict or Conversation?Maya Bohnhoff
Is religion opposed to science? Has science made religion intellectually implausible? Does science rule out the existence of a “personal” God? What does "personal" mean? Does evolution do away with Divine Providence?Haven’t recent biological and neurological discoveries made illusions of the concepts of soul or spirit?
These are all questions that I've fielded from correspondents for some time. They're good questions because they call on people who hold to diverse models of the universe to do a reality check.
Evolutionary epistemology versus faith and justified true belief: Does scien...William Hall
This presentation explores the basis for scientific rationality by testing our claims about the world against nature as described by Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology versus accepting claims based on justified true belief. The presentation is particularly concerned to show the philosophical problems with religious fundamentalism.
The relationship between religion and science has been a focus of the demarcation problem. Somewhat related is the claim that science and religion may pursue knowledge using different methodologies. Whereas the scientific method basically relies on reason and empiricism, religion also seeks (at times, primarily) to acknowledge revelation, faith and sacredness. There is no insoluble contradiction between faith and science, because there cannot be two kinds of truth. There is only one truth to which
both faith and scientific reason refer.“There exists 2 orders of knowledge” which are distinct, i.e., the order of Faith (Fides) and that of reason (ratio), and the Church recognizes that “the arts and human disciplines (...) serve one another, in their proper sphere with its proper principles and its proper method; therefore, “by recognizing this proper freedom”, the Church affirms the legitimate autonomy of the sciences.”
Life, Knowledge and Natural Selection ― How life (scientifically) designs its...William Hall
This presentation presents a biologically-based theory of knowledge and life explaining the similarities between evolution by natural selection and the scientific methodology. The theory is based on Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology in the context of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's autopoietic theory of life. The theory is applied to understanding the past evolution of humans to an attempt to understand our future evolution.
Join Oxford University's John Lennox in an evening at The University of Chicago at the Chicago Festival of Thought, with "Has Science Buried God?", a great evening of Christian thought from one of our faith's finest defenders!
Event transcript made by Victor Tan.
LinkedIn: my.linkedin.com/in/victortanws
Book references:
1. "Seven Days That Divide the World" - John Lennox:
http://amzn.to/1Wv3J6h
2. "The God Delusion" - Richard Dawkins:
http://amzn.to/23d5S6F
3. "Systematic Theology" - Paul Tillich (Not mentioned, but a personal recommendation!):
http://amzn.to/1r1XKdb
http://amzn.to/1VXB3ng
http://amzn.to/1TjdfUZ
The relationship between religion and science has been a focus of the demarcation problem. Somewhat related is the claim that science and religion may pursue knowledge using different methodologies. Whereas the scientific method basically relies on reason and empiricism, religion also seeks (at times, primarily) to acknowledge revelation, faith and sacredness. There is no insoluble contradiction between faith and science, because there cannot be two kinds of truth. There is only one truth to which
both faith and scientific reason refer.“There exists 2 orders of knowledge” which are distinct, i.e., the order of Faith (Fides) and that of reason (ratio), and the Church recognizes that “the arts and human disciplines (...) serve one another, in their proper sphere with its proper principles and its proper method; therefore, “by recognizing this proper freedom”, the Church affirms the legitimate autonomy of the sciences.”
Life, Knowledge and Natural Selection ― How life (scientifically) designs its...William Hall
This presentation presents a biologically-based theory of knowledge and life explaining the similarities between evolution by natural selection and the scientific methodology. The theory is based on Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology in the context of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's autopoietic theory of life. The theory is applied to understanding the past evolution of humans to an attempt to understand our future evolution.
Join Oxford University's John Lennox in an evening at The University of Chicago at the Chicago Festival of Thought, with "Has Science Buried God?", a great evening of Christian thought from one of our faith's finest defenders!
Event transcript made by Victor Tan.
LinkedIn: my.linkedin.com/in/victortanws
Book references:
1. "Seven Days That Divide the World" - John Lennox:
http://amzn.to/1Wv3J6h
2. "The God Delusion" - Richard Dawkins:
http://amzn.to/23d5S6F
3. "Systematic Theology" - Paul Tillich (Not mentioned, but a personal recommendation!):
http://amzn.to/1r1XKdb
http://amzn.to/1VXB3ng
http://amzn.to/1TjdfUZ
Relationship Between Science And Religion
Science Vs Religion Research Paper
Science Vs Religion
Religion In Science Vs Religion
Science Vs Religion Research Paper
Research Paper On Science Vs Religion
Religion vs. Science
Evidence Based Science Vs Religion
Relationship Between Science And Religion
Essay on Science vs God
Religion vs. Science Essays
Religion vs. Science Essay
Science and Religion Essays
Science Vs Religion Research Paper
Religion vs. Science
The Nature Of Science Vs. Religion
Scientism Vs Religion Research Paper
Essay on Science vs. Religion
Cosmology: Science Vs Religion Essay
C 1C 2JProfessor Philosophy xxxx March 12, 2017P.docxRAHUL126667
C 1
C 2
J
Professor
Philosophy xxxx
March 12, 2017
Philosophy
A philosophical argumentative essay involves a reasoned defense of some claim by scholars, individual or a group of people. It must, therefore, offer an argument and it can't consist of the mere report of your opinions, nor in the mere report of the opinions of the scholars and philosophers, and instead defend the claims you make and offer valid reasons to believe them. The question of whether God exists or not is a major concern to most people worldwide. It is agreed on by different communities on a different basis, and therefore every prevailing mind of humankind will choose opinions based on their culture and origin.
In the ancient times, most people believed in the existence of many gods, of course apart from the Jews who believed in the existence of only one God. Obeying the first commandment was a bit difficult because the Jews had believed that Baal, Moloch, and Dagon were real gods but otherwise wicked since they collaborated with their enemies, therefore, the transition in the belief that these gods were wicked to the fact that they dint exist was impossible and very difficult to believe. Monotheism, which at the beginning of Antiochan persecution had been creed one part of the small nation, was adopted by Christianity and later Islam. It did not, however, succeed from the Hinduism part because they had very many gods; Buddhism had none since they were relatively primitive, the Hinduism had many gods instead (MacIntyre 31).
Christians are now faced with the problem of atheism, and the worst part being they aren't certain about the whole idea and no one can provide a conclusive argument on the side of theism. I think it's high time we abandoned this political and geographical nature of categorizing religion of people, which has occasionally been rejected by educated people ever since the time of the ancient Greeks. They were not contented by the religious beliefs of their neighbors but however focused more to consider what the reason and philosophy had to say about that particular issue.
I will not attempt to set forth in the argument about the existence of God. However, I still believe I one theory, which however still holds water, even amongst the many philosophers, is the existence of the first ever cause, from which the entire whole series starts. Some Hindu think suffers the defects of an argument, because he once said that the universe rests upon an elephant when asked what the elephant rested upon, he said it rested upon a tortoise; the argument, however, continued, because scholars now wanted to know what the tortoise rested upon (Beiser 65). On questioning, his words were then quoted, ‘I am tired of this, suppose we change the topic.' This clearly shows his uncertainty and illustrates the unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument (Beiser 101).
Basing on some modern treatises on physics, which show that some physical processes traced back in tim ...
Worldviews and their (im)plausibility: Science and HolismJohnWilkins48
Since Kant used the word Weltanschaungen with reference to the mathematical sublime in the Critique in 1790, this notion of a foundational grounding that determines, or at least influences, our way of experiencing and comprehending the world has been taken up, at first by Fichte and Schilling and later by theologians, as a fact of cognition. Englert (2022) calls this the “worldview maneuver”, but by the end of the nineteenth century, this had become a doctrine, or theory, and I will call it the Worldview Theory (or WVT). Over a century after Kant, in 1908, James Orr wrote A Christian view of God and the world, which made the term and notion more or less ubiquitous.
"although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge [Guyer and Horstmann, 2023)"
and this was echoed and amplified throughout the twentieth century, by linguists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, educational theorists, political theorists of the Frankfurt School, and of course philosophy, with Wittgenstein in the Investigations and On Certainty one of the more influential amplifiers. And of course, in the philosophy of science, we have theory-dependence of observation, Kuhn’s “paradigms”, disciplinary matrices and their consequent incommensurabilities.
So a lot of weight is carried by the WVT. But just how plausible are worldviews? I will argue there is a spectrum ranging from hard determinism of beliefs and actions through to soft influences, and that WVT equivocates on this spectrum. I will argue further that the acquisition of belief structures inevitably occurs piecemeal, and that no overarching belief systems ever develop, or could. Finally, I will suggest that we actually acquire such views of the world as we typically have through the populating of our belief nets by picking prêt-à-porter beliefs from epistemic authorities.
Is it true that most scientists are atheist, that Christianity inimical to science, and that science turns believers into unbelievers? In this lecture, we discuss what scientists really believe, based on several surveys of U.S. scientists.
A talk based on my chapter in _Species Problems and Beyond_ (CRC Press, 2022) in which I argue that some concepts are neither model-based as Nercessian argues, nor theory-derived, but come from the operative traditions as they develop out of folk concepts.
The use of Nauplii and metanauplii artemia in aquaculture (brine shrimp).pptxMAGOTI ERNEST
Although Artemia has been known to man for centuries, its use as a food for the culture of larval organisms apparently began only in the 1930s, when several investigators found that it made an excellent food for newly hatched fish larvae (Litvinenko et al., 2023). As aquaculture developed in the 1960s and ‘70s, the use of Artemia also became more widespread, due both to its convenience and to its nutritional value for larval organisms (Arenas-Pardo et al., 2024). The fact that Artemia dormant cysts can be stored for long periods in cans, and then used as an off-the-shelf food requiring only 24 h of incubation makes them the most convenient, least labor-intensive, live food available for aquaculture (Sorgeloos & Roubach, 2021). The nutritional value of Artemia, especially for marine organisms, is not constant, but varies both geographically and temporally. During the last decade, however, both the causes of Artemia nutritional variability and methods to improve poorquality Artemia have been identified (Loufi et al., 2024).
Brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) are used in marine aquaculture worldwide. Annually, more than 2,000 metric tons of dry cysts are used for cultivation of fish, crustacean, and shellfish larva. Brine shrimp are important to aquaculture because newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii (larvae) provide a food source for many fish fry (Mozanzadeh et al., 2021). Culture and harvesting of brine shrimp eggs represents another aspect of the aquaculture industry. Nauplii and metanauplii of Artemia, commonly known as brine shrimp, play a crucial role in aquaculture due to their nutritional value and suitability as live feed for many aquatic species, particularly in larval stages (Sorgeloos & Roubach, 2021).
hematic appreciation test is a psychological assessment tool used to measure an individual's appreciation and understanding of specific themes or topics. This test helps to evaluate an individual's ability to connect different ideas and concepts within a given theme, as well as their overall comprehension and interpretation skills. The results of the test can provide valuable insights into an individual's cognitive abilities, creativity, and critical thinking skills
Remote Sensing and Computational, Evolutionary, Supercomputing, and Intellige...University of Maribor
Slides from talk:
Aleš Zamuda: Remote Sensing and Computational, Evolutionary, Supercomputing, and Intelligent Systems.
11th International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering (IcETRAN), Niš, 3-6 June 2024
Inter-Society Networking Panel GRSS/MTT-S/CIS Panel Session: Promoting Connection and Cooperation
https://www.etran.rs/2024/en/home-english/
Professional air quality monitoring systems provide immediate, on-site data for analysis, compliance, and decision-making.
Monitor common gases, weather parameters, particulates.
Nucleophilic Addition of carbonyl compounds.pptxSSR02
Nucleophilic addition is the most important reaction of carbonyls. Not just aldehydes and ketones, but also carboxylic acid derivatives in general.
Carbonyls undergo addition reactions with a large range of nucleophiles.
Comparing the relative basicity of the nucleophile and the product is extremely helpful in determining how reversible the addition reaction is. Reactions with Grignards and hydrides are irreversible. Reactions with weak bases like halides and carboxylates generally don’t happen.
Electronic effects (inductive effects, electron donation) have a large impact on reactivity.
Large groups adjacent to the carbonyl will slow the rate of reaction.
Neutral nucleophiles can also add to carbonyls, although their additions are generally slower and more reversible. Acid catalysis is sometimes employed to increase the rate of addition.
Deep Behavioral Phenotyping in Systems Neuroscience for Functional Atlasing a...Ana Luísa Pinho
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provides means to characterize brain activations in response to behavior. However, cognitive neuroscience has been limited to group-level effects referring to the performance of specific tasks. To obtain the functional profile of elementary cognitive mechanisms, the combination of brain responses to many tasks is required. Yet, to date, both structural atlases and parcellation-based activations do not fully account for cognitive function and still present several limitations. Further, they do not adapt overall to individual characteristics. In this talk, I will give an account of deep-behavioral phenotyping strategies, namely data-driven methods in large task-fMRI datasets, to optimize functional brain-data collection and improve inference of effects-of-interest related to mental processes. Key to this approach is the employment of fast multi-functional paradigms rich on features that can be well parametrized and, consequently, facilitate the creation of psycho-physiological constructs to be modelled with imaging data. Particular emphasis will be given to music stimuli when studying high-order cognitive mechanisms, due to their ecological nature and quality to enable complex behavior compounded by discrete entities. I will also discuss how deep-behavioral phenotyping and individualized models applied to neuroimaging data can better account for the subject-specific organization of domain-general cognitive systems in the human brain. Finally, the accumulation of functional brain signatures brings the possibility to clarify relationships among tasks and create a univocal link between brain systems and mental functions through: (1) the development of ontologies proposing an organization of cognitive processes; and (2) brain-network taxonomies describing functional specialization. To this end, tools to improve commensurability in cognitive science are necessary, such as public repositories, ontology-based platforms and automated meta-analysis tools. I will thus discuss some brain-atlasing resources currently under development, and their applicability in cognitive as well as clinical neuroscience.
ESR spectroscopy in liquid food and beverages.pptxPRIYANKA PATEL
With increasing population, people need to rely on packaged food stuffs. Packaging of food materials requires the preservation of food. There are various methods for the treatment of food to preserve them and irradiation treatment of food is one of them. It is the most common and the most harmless method for the food preservation as it does not alter the necessary micronutrients of food materials. Although irradiated food doesn’t cause any harm to the human health but still the quality assessment of food is required to provide consumers with necessary information about the food. ESR spectroscopy is the most sophisticated way to investigate the quality of the food and the free radicals induced during the processing of the food. ESR spin trapping technique is useful for the detection of highly unstable radicals in the food. The antioxidant capability of liquid food and beverages in mainly performed by spin trapping technique.
BREEDING METHODS FOR DISEASE RESISTANCE.pptxRASHMI M G
Plant breeding for disease resistance is a strategy to reduce crop losses caused by disease. Plants have an innate immune system that allows them to recognize pathogens and provide resistance. However, breeding for long-lasting resistance often involves combining multiple resistance genes
ANAMOLOUS SECONDARY GROWTH IN DICOT ROOTS.pptxRASHMI M G
Abnormal or anomalous secondary growth in plants. It defines secondary growth as an increase in plant girth due to vascular cambium or cork cambium. Anomalous secondary growth does not follow the normal pattern of a single vascular cambium producing xylem internally and phloem externally.
DERIVATION OF MODIFIED BERNOULLI EQUATION WITH VISCOUS EFFECTS AND TERMINAL V...Wasswaderrick3
In this book, we use conservation of energy techniques on a fluid element to derive the Modified Bernoulli equation of flow with viscous or friction effects. We derive the general equation of flow/ velocity and then from this we derive the Pouiselle flow equation, the transition flow equation and the turbulent flow equation. In the situations where there are no viscous effects , the equation reduces to the Bernoulli equation. From experimental results, we are able to include other terms in the Bernoulli equation. We also look at cases where pressure gradients exist. We use the Modified Bernoulli equation to derive equations of flow rate for pipes of different cross sectional areas connected together. We also extend our techniques of energy conservation to a sphere falling in a viscous medium under the effect of gravity. We demonstrate Stokes equation of terminal velocity and turbulent flow equation. We look at a way of calculating the time taken for a body to fall in a viscous medium. We also look at the general equation of terminal velocity.
Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser. - Populism in Europe and the Americas - Threat Or...
Accommodationism talk
1. John S. Wilkins
University of Melbourne, Australia
Can religion
accommodate
science and must
science
accommodate
religion?
* All opinions given here are independent
of anything my university might choose to
think. Not valid in the state of California
2. Accommodation versus Exclusion
Many advocates of science
take one or the other of two
views:
Science and religion are
incompatible – I call this
Exclusivism
Science and religion are
compatible - Exclusivists call
this Accommodationism
3. What is being argued? Three contrasts
1. That there is/is not a single way of knowing about the world
2. That there is/is not a single rational outcome or way of thinking
3. That religion does/does not have necessary irrational or contrary-
to-fact beliefs
4. In this talk I want to
Discuss what the viewpoints actually
claim (to avoid straw arguments)
Discuss how beliefs are formed
Argue that under certain conditions,
science can accommodate religion, and
religion accommodate science, while
under other conditions, they cannot:
When theology is contrary to facts
When religion overrules science
A straw man: easy to knock over
5. What is Exclusivism?
There are several high profile exclusivists. I
shall use
Richard Dawkins (an ethologist)
Jerry Coyne (evolutionary biologist) and
Lawrence Krauss (physicist)
as my sources.
They make three broad claims:
Proreligion Thesis
Conflict Thesis
Irrationalism Thesis
Dawkins
Coyne
Krauss
6. Proreligion Thesis: accommodation = support for
religion
Accommodation[ism] is
“truckling to the faithful”
(Coyne),
“having faith in faith”
(Dawkins, who calls them
“faitheists”) and
self-defeating
supporting or promoting
religion
(Coyne, Dawkins, Krauss and
too many to list)
7. Conflict Thesis: necessary conflict
Science and religion are
incompatible ways of viewing the
world (Coyne, Krauss)
Religion is not another way
of knowing
Religious beliefs will always
tend to trump scientific
claims
This is an old view, formulated in
the 19th century. Historians of
science now reject it
8. Irrationalism Thesis: religious belief = irrationality
It is irrational to believe in
religion if one accepts science
Science rules out any
acceptance of religious claims
to knowledge
One should always believe
what science tells you over
religion
The outcomes of religious
belief are irrational (what
counts as “rational”?)
9. Further argument: Argument from Consensus
Nearly all scientists reject a personal god (Coyne)
Of course this means some don’t
Gerrymandering of surveys: being a member of a religion is not the
same as having religious beliefs
A personal god is not the sole theological alternative
Where was the survey done? (WEIRD?) – e.g., Islamic scientists?
This is a fallacy of argument: Nearly all scientists probably support
the “wrong” football team too
Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic
10. Disproof of God: religion as a failed scientific
hypothesis
Claim: Science shows that God
does not exist (to varying degrees of
certainty)
The basic claim of exclusivism is that
science and religion necessarily
conflict, and to that if science has
validity, religion does not.
This is independent of the theories
discussed, although evolution is
usually the one under consideration.
11. What is Accommodationism?
There is a Strawman Accommodationism, and a number of
Real Accommodationisms
It depends on who is describing it:
Exclusivists often strawman accommodation
Accommodationists try to be more nuanced (usually)
12. Straw Accommodationism holds that
Science and religion are compatible
(compatibilism)
Science and religion need each
other (proreligionism)
Science and religion are
complementary ways of knowing
about the world (complementarism)
[There are religious people who hold
straw man accommodationism too –
Capra, Zukav, etc.]
13. Real Accommodationisms hold that
Sometimes science and religion
need not conflict (denial of the
Conflict Thesis)
It is sometimes rational to be both
religious (of a certain kind) and
pro-science (denial of the
Irrationalist Thesis)
It does not aid in the advance of
scientific understanding to tie it to
atheism or the rejection of religion,
but this is not to promote religion
(denial of the Proreligion Thesis)
14. The actual history of science and religion
Until the late 19thC most scientists were very
religious, and those who weren’t were usually
respectful
Darwin for example, rejected the conflict
thesis
Exceptions in post-Enlightenment
Germany (late 18th century)
Religion is rarely in conflict with science
overall, but often on matters of detail
Example: Heliocentrism not rejected but
the claim it modelled the cosmos was
Example: Catholicism did not reject
evolution, but did reject the idea that
natural selection was sufficient
15. NOMA: to each their own
Gould’s idea that they have different “non-
overlapping magisteria” (NOMA) is historically false,
however
Science and religion do elbow each other for
cultural primacy
Some religions make claims that do contradict
science
The idea of “knowledge” in religion is distinct from
the idea in science
Theological knowledge is knowledge of
doctrine
Science cannot validate or invalidate doctrine
16. Why do we have the beliefs we do?
We do not adopt our beliefs in general due to considered reflection and
attention to the facts
Humans mostly adopt beliefs based on a number of heuristics, handed to us
by evolution
One is “Believe what everyone else believes, because they aren’t dead
yet”
Another is “Believe what the most (socially) successful individuals believe”
A third is “Believe what you see”
These heuristics compete with each other. Most of the time seeing is believing,
but we rarely get to see everything necessary to make science believable, so
we go with authority figures (including scientific authorities)
What criteria do we use?
18. Empirical inoculation
If a religious tradition holds beliefs that are contrary-to-fact, so much the worse
for that tradition
Unless one treats scientific knowledge as a religious belief
If so, the debate is over
But many religious traditions hold to the One Truth doctrine:
“Truth cannot contradict truth” – Aquinas, Summa Theologica
So they revise doctrine to accommodate new knowledge
Consider the heliocentric theory, theory of mental illness, seismology
Harnack’s 1894 A History of Dogma shows that Christian doctrine is a
dynamic, fluid, adaptive thing
Theology becomes empirically inoculated over time (slower than we might like)
19. Is science able to resolve metaphysical disputes?
Consider the rise of atomism (Dalton’s chemistry, early 19th century):
Classical theology employs the form-substance distinction of Aristotle
(hylomorphism), for instance in the doctrine of transubstantiation
The form (species) of the Host
remains the same, but the
substance is replaced
Substance gives individuality to
objects, form gives the perceptual
properties
By the 1870s, Daltonian atomism
is seen a challenge to this idea
So theologians revise the notion of substance to mean any
underlying metaphysical reality
20. Is science able to resolve metaphysical disputes?
Lawrence Krauss argues that science has answered the question of
why there is something and not nothing
Has he?
Quantum foam is not
nothing
It is something (a
spacetime field) that
has properties
Krauss redefines the
philosophical issues
away
21. What is left after science knows?
It is a truism of logic and mathematics that if you eliminate a finite number of
objects from an infinitely large set of objects, an infinitely large set of objects
remains
Eliminating [some of] the religious claims that have been made does
not eliminate all religious claims
Dawkins even admits this in the God Delusion, saying that he attacks
“folk” beliefs, which is fine
This, however, does not mean that he, nor Krauss, Stenger or any
of the other Exclusionists, show that all religion is false
Just that form or version of religion (e.g., biblical literalism)
“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave | To tell
us this.” [Hamlet] We knew that already
22. Religion, like any intellectual
and cultural tradition, is in flux
Traditions evolve in culture over time like
species do in biology
Like species, traditions have no essence
It is the nature of traditions that they adapt
to the social ecology in which they exist
So the strategic question is, how will we
confront these traditions so that science is
not constrained or ignored?
By excluding the
religious from science?
A losing strategy
By excluding the
scientific from religious
beliefs? Also a losing
strategy
By accepting anyone
who defends science: a
winning strategy
23. So?
In sum, religion must
accommodate science,
but not science
accommodate religion
And religion always
has, to some degree
Religion is a rational
bet by people acting
under uncertainty
even if the beliefs are
unreasonable
Exclusionism is itself not
a rational bet
It ignores the facts of
strategic
communication
It asserts contrary-to-
fact claims about
actual scientists who
are religious
It assumes without
evidence that religion
is going away
24. The Metaphysical Delusion
That: metaphysics rules our thinking
It does a bit, but not a lot (there are
no real worldviews/paradigms)
Science has metaphysics (but many
scientists are unaware of this)
Religion is not entirely metaphysical
beliefs either (it’s mostly ritual
behaviours)
Rationalists and skeptics give way
too much weight to propositional
beliefs (the Christian bias)
25. Thanks
I hope to have a book published next year that discusses this in more
detail. The working title is Faith, in Reason? Keep an eye out for it.
My blog is evolvingthoughts.net