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| Seal of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople [Gr. Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο Κωνσταντινούπολης] |
Introduction
The reason for me writting this article is the fact that some people today believe that Christians are not so educated and not so intelligent as people who believe only in science. Some people think that "exact science" is the only way to reach the truth and that Christians have chosen to follow the "wrong" path of just believing things that do not exist.
I have dealt with the philosophical problems of existence and purpose in some of the Knols I have written. One can visit Religional Science and The limits of science to see an analysis of these issues.
However this article is not focused on these big philosophical that trouble humankind, but it deals with the person we call "Christian" today. The goal is to describe that person in depth and give an insight to those who see Christianity as the "dark place where science is denied" so as to understand that a Christian can also be a scientist at the same time.
I have dealt with the philosophical problems of existence and purpose in some of the Knols I have written. One can visit Religional Science and The limits of science to see an analysis of these issues.
However this article is not focused on these big philosophical that trouble humankind, but it deals with the person we call "Christian" today. The goal is to describe that person in depth and give an insight to those who see Christianity as the "dark place where science is denied" so as to understand that a Christian can also be a scientist at the same time.
Religion has been used wrongly many times in the past. If there is one thing to which most people agree is that "dogmatism - in any form - is simply wrong".
However I made the choice to write "What a Christian is NOT" and not "What a scientist is NOT" for some specific reasons: Today our society is intensly "materialistic". That means that most of us take it for granted that only matter exists in the cosmos and nothing spiritual (and as I say in many of my other Knols, that is a pure dogma and not a proven case - see Limits of Science and Religion and Science Unification). That is why religion seems to be - wrongly - cornered nowadays and that is why I chose to write that knol.
However I made the choice to write "What a Christian is NOT" and not "What a scientist is NOT" for some specific reasons: Today our society is intensly "materialistic". That means that most of us take it for granted that only matter exists in the cosmos and nothing spiritual (and as I say in many of my other Knols, that is a pure dogma and not a proven case - see Limits of Science and Religion and Science Unification). That is why religion seems to be - wrongly - cornered nowadays and that is why I chose to write that knol.
Definition of a Christian
It is more difficult than one might think to give a definition for the word "Christian" [Gr. Χριστιανός]. I will however make an attempt to do so. Knowing the correct definition of the words we use is the most important thing to know if we want to discuss and analyze religious issues.
Christian: A person who believes in God and the teachings of Jesus Christ. A person who believes in the Christian teachings for love, forgiveness and behaving good to each other.
Someone might say that this definition is vague. Others might argue that the abovementioned definition is simply not correct because it leaves out a great number of religious christian dogmas. My opinion is that it may be true that Christian dogma entails many more than just the teachings of Christ, but the latter ones are the essense of what we call today "Christianity".
Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex.
Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church,
everyone present knows what is going to happen that night,
but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church,
everyone present knows what is going to happen that night,
but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The beginning of Christianism
Christianism begun with Jesus Christ and was spread throughout the world via the Greeks who first adopted it (Jews remained faithful to their Judaism and quickly separated their position from the teaching of Christianity). In every discussion about Christianism we should all remember that Christianic philosophy and traching were freely accepted by logically thinking Greeks. Christianism was not imposed through brain-wash to any idiots but was accepted by free-thinking individuals based on their logic and not through violence.
Christian dogma theory vs. Reality
Many people wishing to maintain a imaginary "war" that is supposedly going on for years between science and religion tend to use more general definitions that contain also all the dogmas of church that have to do with the explanation of the physical world (e.g. the dogma that Earth was created in a certain number of days from God). This is not an innocent attempt to define Christianity but quite the opposite: these people try to attach ideas that are "secondary" when compared to the basis of Christianity, as "primary" beliefs that all Christians uphold, so as to base their criticism on them.
However that is not true. Although the Christian dogma has many sectors, when you ask a Christian to define the basis of his/her belief he will answer "God and Jesus Christ" and not "the ceration of the Earth 4,352 years ago", even though the second may be a dogma of a specific Christian religion.
And it is the true essense of a word that we seek when attempting to draw a definition. If we include everything that each church is claiming to be true in our definition of a "christian" then we will end with having no "true" christian at all! There is absolutely no way to find even one person that upholds every single aspect of Christianity up to the very last detail. Does that mean that no one is actually a "christian"? No. It just means that we have to keep in mind reality when trying to approach the very difficult, complex and sensitive matter of religion and christianity.
Christians today are modern people who most of them accept science as the tool to search and analyze physical phenomena. It is really hard to find a christian today who goes to church to ask what is the explanation for the planets' movement or why electrones are attrached to protons...
Christian Paradosis
Many things in the Christian dogma are part of the Christian 2000-years tradition (paradosis - Gr. παράδοση). That means that a modern Christian may believe in these things in a way not impying "blind faith" but "respect to the tradition". One scientist may be Christian and say "I believe in the Christian dogma" but not in the way "I believe what Christian dogma says about the geological age of Earth" but in a way "I believe in the Christian tradition as an integral part of the Christian history". There is a great difference between someone who blindly believes everything and someone who is a Christian upholding some past traditions. The Christian church has not changed its texts for too many years and indeed some things in its dogma may seem a bit out of place. But that does not mean that the Church is not also evolving. For example all priests know that people have sexual relationships before marriage and they nevertheless bless weddings between such couples, even though the old (traditional) dogma forbids these relationships. The cosmos changes and so does the church. The fact that some texts have not changed does not mean that you must believe what they say is true up to the last word in order to be considered a "Christian". Most modern Christians believe in the teaching of Christ for being good to one another (see forgiveness, agape etc) but not in all the details of the hundrends of religious texts existing (which actually they may not even be aware of their existence). Most Christians love as Jesus taught them and "believe" in the ancient texts as respecting what they really are: part of a long tradition and not modern scientific papers. Respecting tradition is different than denying logic.What does "believe" mean
Many people critisize modern Christians about "believing" some old-fashioned or even plain (scientifically) wrong things their religion supports. However the phenomenon of belief is not a simple phenomenon to analyze in such a way. Most Christians believe various things for various reasons. In that way Christians may believe a thesis of Christian dogma because they agree with it as a philosophical system, because they have analyzed it logically and found it correct, because they see it as part of church tradition and respect it. One should analyze the underlying reason behing each belief and critisize accordingly. In all cases we have "belief". But the justification is different. We shouldn't critisize lightly without proper scientific analysis.What a Christian is Not
A Christian is many things, but he/she is NOT uneducated or irrational. A Christians does NOT deny science or logic. These issues will be addressed in more detail in the lines that follow.
1. A Christian is not uneducated. Many prominent scientists today are publicly verifying their belief in Christ and God. Surveys that were conducted among scientists indicate that the percentage of scientists believing in God is about 40% and certainly cannot justify the characterization of Christians as uneducated. When Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia in USA attempted in 1997 to repeat an older study conducted in 1916 concerning the percentage of scientists believing in God, he was surprised to find out that the percentage remained the same despite the great advances of science! A very stable 40% of the scientists surveyed answered that they believed in the existence of a God, despite all the astounding scientific breakthroughs in the years that have elapsed [1]. What is more, a 2005 survey of scientists at top research universities found that more than 48% had a religious affiliation [2]. Certainly these surveys point to "a belief in a God" in general (i.e. theism) and not to "being a Christian" specifically, but the point here is that believing in supernatural entities is not as illogical as some want it to be: religious people (like Christians) are not the un-scientific beings some think they are.
Alfred Russel Wallace and Francis S. Collins are just two famous examples of first-class scientists (biologists to be exact) who believe in God, with the former being a renowned Christian.
Wallace was the person who first published the theory of evolution (one year before Darwin) and was elected head of the anthropology section of the British Association in 1866, president of the Entomological Society of London in 1870 and head of the biology section of the British Association in 1876. On the other hand Francis S. Collins is a genetist that was the head of the Human Genome Project. Another famous example is the philosophy colossus Ludwig Wittgenstein who embrassed Christianity that he had previously opposed [3]. And certainly one cannot blaim Wittgenstein for not thinking or for being uneducated...
2. A Christian does not deny science and he/she does not use God as the explanation of physical phenomena. It is a common misconception among opponents of Christianism that God is the explanation religion proposes for physical phenomena that science cannot yet explain and that when science finds the explanation, religion "retreats" to the remaining area of unexplained phenomena. That view of religion is old-dated and the "God of the Gaps" (as this view is called) is not at all the way modern Christians see the world. Opponents of Christianity must understand that religion deals with the questions of purpose and meaning in life. It does not deal with physical phenomena. As the Interacademy Panel (IAP - Global network of Science Academies) stated on an announcement it made for the theory of evolution on 21 June 2006 (see the whole statement here): "Human understanding of value and purpose are outside of natural science’s scope". Not many Christians today believe that God is the explanation for the Higgs bozon or for why apples fall on Earth... God is the explanation of why our existence has meaning, not another physical law to research.
3. A Christian does not deny Logic. Another common misunderstaning of Christian thought is that believing in God automatically means that you don't believe in Logic. In order to clear that misunderstand we must first define logic: There are two kinds of logic. First, the strict mathematical logic. That logic uses mathematics formulation and respects specific rules first posed by Aristotle and then refined by mathematicians. The second kind of logic is the everyday logic all humans apply to reach to conclusions about everything, a kind of "soft" logic not using mathematical furmulation but as valid as our mathematical knowledge. When you say "A is true, B results from A => B is true", that is the strict mathematical logic. When you say "Yesterday it was cold and it snowed, today it is more cold => It will probably snow today as well", that is the everyday "soft" logic. It is important to note that Christians use BOTH kinds of logic! First of all Godel has proved by using modern modal logic the existence of a perfect being that Christianity calls "God". Secondly, when we say that "All parameters of the Universe are set in the exact values required to create life => Someone / something must have set them + That probably is not the result of chance", that is "soft" logic. Both kinds of logics are valid. However many people have different kind of "soft" logic than others. It is natural. That is why people argue. But that does not mean that Christians do not use logic! Don't forget that the word "theory" is derived from the word "theos", which in Greek means "God" (greek: Θεός).
Let's not forget that it was Aristotle who first postulated the "First Cause" argument. [4] And noone can blaim Aristotle for being blinded by Christianic dogmatism...
4. A Christian does not deny the need for physical evidence. It is completely wrong to say that being a Christian is "believing without seeing". In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite. When Jesus raised from the dead, he appeared in front of those not believing so as they were convinced. So He used and provided physical evidence, He did not just required for them to believe without seeing! It is very important to remember that those believing in Christ believe in Him because there were many eye-witnesses of His miracles, while the ones who deny the existence or the God-attribute of Christ simply deny it without any evidence at all! They just deny the historical data, without having other sources indicating that Christ did not do what the sources Christians use indicate! All people "know" that a past historical fact took place from the few eye-witnesses that lived then to see it happen. We "believe" in things that happen in the past simply because some other people told us. Not believing in the things written for Christ with no reason is not scientific at all! Christianity uses physical evidence, while atheists don't - not the other way around!
You can find more extensive analysis for the abovementioned arguments in the knols Religion and Science unification - Towards Religional Science and The limits of science.
Christianity bad vs. Christianity good
The bad perception many people have about Christianity is based on the errors it has made. No religious person with good-working mind can deny the fact that the Holy Inquisition was wrong and bad, or that the killings of non-Christians in the name of God was also (at least) criminal. However it is usual for opponents of religion to see only these negative things and stay there. One must understand that Christianity is a vast sum of people and that the actions of a bad Christian do not reflect the nature of good Christians. If someone wants to be objective, then he must treat Christianity as a set of behaviours and see and analyze all of them, not only the ones he prefers. The official Christianity has many times been the source of good and if the mistakes are an argument against Christianism then this good should an argument in favour of the Christian church. As Christianity was lined to the "dark ages" of the West, it was also linked to the enlightened Greek Byzantine Empire of the East - the Empire which lasted for more than 1,000 years and which was the major beacon of the writting of Aristotle and Plato for the years to follow. As Christianity was oppresive in the Western Europe, it was liberating in the Eastern while playing a major role in the liberation of the Greek nation from the oppression of the Ottoman Empire in 1821 [5]. Christianity also played a major role in the liberation of Korea from Japanese oppresion [6]. In Korea, Christianity was seen as a "liberator" and not as an "oppressor" like in the French revolution. Different cases, different perspectives. These examples demonstrate what opponents of religion fail to see: that Christianity is not as simple a set of behaviours as they would like it to be. Good coexists sometimes with bad - but the important thing to note (at least for me) is that in that case the good prevails and that is what characterizes the modern church.
Conclusion
That being said, it should be clear that the image some people have drawn for Christians today is just wrong. Modern Christians are people who firmly believe in the philosophical system of Christianity as their logic dictates them and not because they are fooled by a priest to believe something they don't want. Promoting that message is something that all Christians should do when given the chance. Science if fully compatible with the philosophy of Christianism and that is the reason why most religious people have a phD in an exact science and why many scientists feel comfortable in admitting that they believe in God. There is no "war" between Christianity and science, except in the minds of people like Dawkins who try to earn money by selling books on the alleged "issue"...
dr_spork
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Speak for Yourself
"some people today believe that Christians are not so educated and not so intelligent as people who believe only in science"
Well, if you do some research, you'll find that the average intelligence among nonbelievers is actually much higher than the average intelligence of Christians. There have been dozens and dozens of studies that prove this. In fact, even the meta-analyses that examine these studies come to the same conclusions.
"Christianism was not imposed through brain-wash to any idiots but was accepted by free-thinking individuals based on their logic and not through violence."
What? Almost the entire history of European civilization is the history of violence committed because of Christians beliefs. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition were overt examples of Christianity (and what you call Christianism) forced upon people with violent means. Also, I think you're misusing the term "free-thinking." Look it up.
"A Christian is many things, but he/she is NOT uneducated or irrational"
Speak for yourself. There may be a handful of devout Christians with advanced degrees, but many of them graduated from Brigham Young University with a ph.D. in Jesusology. Just because a few scientists (around 3% of the National Academy of Science, at last check) still uphold bronze age superstitions does not mean that you can go around making blanket statements about all Christians.
The same goes for all your other claims. There are plenty of uneducated, irrational Christians out there that deny science and deny reason. They actively deny the need for physical evidence. Just because you and a few others have spent some time with a few science textbooks does NOT mean you get to rewrite the definition of a Christian.
Secondly, you seem to be completely unaware of how Christianism begun. The first nation to fully accept it were free-thinking Greeks by their own will and not by force. Except if you believe that the Holy Ghost gave St. Paul such a power that he could "force" himself upon the nation which invented Philosophy and Logic. How can you explain that?
As for the "atheists being more intelligent" I will leave that to you. Your words speak louder than your mind...I hope you do not include Godel or Newton in your calculations...
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P V Ariel
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Good Piece But..
Dear Writer, You have done a wonderful research work here but you missed several vital point about Christianity, A real Christian is a person who believes in Jesus Christ and accept him as his personal savior and Lord, others are just mere namesake Christians.
I can't understand some commentator hide their identity why? come out open and discuss the matter that will be good, in my opinion anonymous comments should be ignored.
Philip verghese ariel,
http://linkbee.com/G
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Julian
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A sermon!
Epistemologically, your assertion is false. The tragedy is that you know it.
Forgiveness
by Jaia Papitz
(reproduced with author's permition)
Kill me in the open view
Where the seen is unreal
Pick up a stone from that holy mountain or the other one
Let the liar cast first,
Let the believer
Ask the slayer for the lethal advice
Come, come throw a life taker from the holy pile.
http://www.iexile.co
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I strongly recommend that you read my post here: http://iexile.com/bl
Cheers!
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You seem an intelligent being. Denying the oppression by religion (judaism, christian, muslim etc.) is like saying that Hitler was a prophet. it is completely irrational. In our known history there's never been a greater tyranny then the religious one. Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined are a mere novelty compared with the christian atrocities. You are from Greece and you strike me as a decently cultured being thus how can you omit the fact that in Ancient times we were on a path of wisdom, knowledge and evolution and the christianity forced us into the Dark Ages... yes, that it's not oppression, it's Secular Organized Crime.... the rest is history, repeating.
Http://www.iexile.co
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Indeed ancient Greeks had found science and the foundations of Logic, but they had their religion too. And in those time science and religion were considered two sides of the same coin.
But besides that, I think that we should make comments mostly based on our current age and place. We cannot talk against something's properties, if that "something" does not hold that properties any more. When was the last time you remember yourself being oppressed by a religious person or by a representative of an official church?
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We can hide behind the finger all life long. I'll always impeach the beliefs since I reason. Using "false" and "belief" in the same paragraph is illogical.
Trying to demonstrate that a modern christian has nothing to to with the christianity dogma it's, excuse me, moronic.
Demagogy is what brought us here: subculture, muddy ethics and fear. I was referring you to antiquity because, if you like, may find the same God & Jesus story way, way before christianity entrapped us.
if I'm oppressed by religion? As we all know, yes we are: mentioning Bush should suffice. Having one's ruler believing in ghosts is some scary stuff. Oh, the Bible is threatening everything that moves the other way, what am I talking about.
So, let's reason the law, not believe in it.
P.S. I was raised a christian orthodox and I studied at the seminar to become a priest.
All the best...
http://www.iexile.co
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Have there been people over the ages who have called themselves Christians, thought they were interpreting the Bible correctly, and who oppressed, killed, censored, and started wars over Christianity? Yes. And if I represented those individuals, I would apologize on their behalf. However, I do not side with those. I oppose those. I oppose anyone who distorts Christianity and uses it for selfish reasons, perverting the words of the Bible. My opposition is not a "war" but it is a quest for knowledge, both seeking it and sharing it.
I believe the point Spiros Kakos is trying to make is that if a Korean man robs a liquor store, this isn't an act of "the Koreans", it was an act by a single individual for his own selfish reasons. If five hundred men who all happened to be Korean started a gang called "We Are Korea" and this gang robbed liquor stores, this isn't an act of "Korea", it was an act by a group of individuals who decided to label themselves and wreak havoc for their own selfish reasons.
So yes, many Christians throughout history have oppressed and killed and fought, but these acts are not exclusive to Christians. You could also say these individuals were also all humans, but I don't see your crusade against humans and the oppression that humans have enacted on others. You are arbitrarily singling out one common aspect of a select group of people you disagree with, then deciding that the cause of these atrocities must be Christianity itself, and not simply the fact that these individuals were all human.
Take, for instance, the censorship in China. There is "the Great Firewall". Technology used to censor web traffic for the people of China. Should we therefore consider technology itself to be an abomination? Maybe we should all abandon technology because it is clearly evil? I disagree. Technology only gets a bad rap when it is used for immoral reasons. When taken as a whole, technology is a great thing.
Likewise, Christianity is all about forgiveness. Christianity is about loving your neighbor. Christianity is about loving your enemy. Christianity is about loving Jesus Christ. Christianity is all about love. Those many people who have given Christianity a bad reputation are those who completely missed the point of Christianity. Perhaps they were only reading from the Old Testament, which pre-dates Christianity.
Christianity is also all about freedom. If you have been to a church that you feel promotes oppression, feelings of guilt, and hatred, then I'd say you should leave that church. A church can go bad just as people can. You shouldn't put all of your faith in the church, because you'd be putting all of your faith in man. Christianity is exactly the opposite. It is about following Jesus' example and distancing yourself from the ways of man. Men will lie, cheat, steal, etc... Jesus did none of these. Men will crucify you for your sins, whereas Jesus allowed himself to be killed by man to pay for our sins.
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Have there been people over the ages who have called themselves Christians, thought they were interpreting the Bible correctly, and who oppressed, killed, censored, and started wars over Christianity? Yes. And if I represented those individuals, I would apologize on their behalf. However, I do not side with those. I oppose those. I oppose anyone who distorts Christianity and uses it for selfish reasons, perverting the words of the Bible. My opposition is not a "war" but it is a quest for knowledge, both seeking it and sharing it.
I believe the point Spiros Kakos is trying to make is that if a Korean man robs a liquor store, this isn't an act of "the Koreans", it was an act by a single individual for his own selfish reasons. If five hundred men who all happened to be Korean started a gang called "We Are Korea" and this gang robbed liquor stores, this isn't an act of "Korea", it was an act by a group of individuals who decided to label themselves and wreak havoc for their own selfish reasons.
So yes, many Christians throughout history have oppressed and killed and fought, but these acts are not exclusive to Christians. You could also say these individuals were also all humans, but I don't see your crusade against humans and the oppression that humans have enacted on others. You are arbitrarily singling out one common aspect of a select group of people you disagree with, then deciding that the cause of these atrocities must be Christianity itself, and not simply the fact that these individuals were all human.
Take, for instance, the censorship in China. There is "the Great Firewall". Technology used to censor web traffic for the people of China. Should we therefore consider technology itself to be an abomination? Maybe we should all abandon technology because it is clearly evil? I disagree. Technology only gets a bad rap when it is used for immoral reasons. When taken as a whole, technology is a great thing.
Likewise, Christianity is all about forgiveness. Christianity is about loving your neighbor. Christianity is about loving your enemy. Christianity is about loving Jesus Christ. Christianity is all about love. Those many people who have given Christianity a bad reputation are those who completely missed the point of Christianity. Perhaps they were only reading from the Old Testament, which pre-dates Christianity.
Christianity is also all about freedom. If you have been to a church that you feel promotes oppression, feelings of guilt, and hatred, then I'd say you should leave that church. A church can go bad just as people can. You shouldn't put all of your faith in the church, because you'd be putting all of your faith in man. Christianity is exactly the opposite. It is about following Jesus' example and distancing yourself from the ways of man. Men will lie, cheat, steal, etc... Jesus did none of these. Men will crucify you for your sins, whereas Jesus allowed himself to be killed by man to pay for our sins.
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William F. Hogg MD
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A seminal article!
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Anonymous
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My two pennies
In answer to the comment by 'Anonymous':
Your post shows your ignorance of what is actually written in the Bible. If you had read the Bible, you would know that the focus of the old testament is on the fulfillment of the Law, whist the focus of the new testament if on grace. The Old testament specified a detailed list of laws that had physical consequences and spiritual consequences. Only by fulfillment of the law could a man be saved. The New Testament shows how Jesus fulfilled the law of the Old Testament and he is the only man to ever completely fulfill the Old Testament Law. As such, death held no power over Jesus because He was blameless and without sin. Jesus NEVER sinned, never murdered anyone never told a lie... etc... The simple fact is, in Christianity, fibbing and murder have the same spiritual consequences (although they don't necessarily have the same physical consequences), that is: separation from God. Have you ever lied? Sure, everyone has! Even a simple white lie is enough to permanently separate you from God under the Old Testament Law. However, God in his mercy provided a way out in the Old Testament: Blood Sacrifice. However, in the New Testament, God provides a way out of sin into salvation that encompasses the former. Jesus was blameless and without sin, and offered himself as a sacrifice to God for all time. When Jesus' blood was shed, he became the token blood sacrifice for all humanity with the sole condition that you must accept Jesus' sacrifice and act on it in order to be saved.
In no way does belief in an omnipotent God defy physical laws. You see, a spiritual being cannot be bound by physical means. Thus a God [spiritual being] would not be bound by the law of conservation of energy [physical law], let alone the omnipotent, creative God of the Christian Bible.
Do you believe in quantum mechanics? Yes? Sure you do, its science! In quantum physics, matter pops into and out of existence right? So given that under physical laws matter is capable of popping into existence, would not an omnipotent, creative God (not bounded by physical laws) be able to pop matter into existence? Yes.
I do agree with your statement: "In the end everybody is free to believe in what he wants. Even a scientist; as our brain can handle contradiction and incoherence.". This is a concept, introduced in the very first book of the Bible, known as 'free will'. God did not create humans as robotic slaves. We were created with a free will, even though humanity had the choice of rebelling against God, He still loved us enough to give us a free will.
Anonymous
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Christianity is more than UNscientific
[By the way, the just punishment for above "crimes" according to the old testament is stoning. I encourage every christian to read the old testament, look up the punishment for the various "sins" and write down how many tortures she should have beared in the will of her beloved Jahwe]
Science on the other hand is a building in never-ending construction, where the fundament can change and the sky is the limit. Science is experience instead of blind belief, innovation instead of tradition, doubt instead of acceptance etc.
If today someone says he believes in gnomes and faeries, people laugh. But if you say you believe in the bible, where some holy guy is said to have created matter (fish and bread) from nothing, then people keep still. Both theories can not scientifically be proven wrong... although the second story may violate the law of conservation of energy.
In the end everybody is free to believe in what he wants. Even a scientist; as our brain can handle contradiction and incoherence.
Opposing and comparing science to religion probably never goes out of fashion. After all, together with philosophy these are the pillars of our incomplete world model since ancient times. I think religion almost certainly is "belief in illusion" and sience could under bad circumstances be "illusion of progress".
The question "why do we exist" is not a question to be answered via science. It is out of the scope of science and as such, anyone has the right to believe what he wants about it. Saying that a God created universe is not less valid that saying that "matter came into existence out of the quantum void with no prior cause, while ALL things that happen in the universe DO have a prior cause"...
What I attempted to say (and I'm not quite sure if I was successful in that) was that a Christian today does not look up to the church to find answers concerning physical phenomena (which are the realm of science), but to find guidance for the metaphysical realm which is out of the scope of physics and chemistry.
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Very remarkable in this respect are also the grand physical theories, that are fighting for ground with philosophy. Many findings (especiall all things "meta", think Kurt Gödel) in my view also suggest that strict lines beween the various sciences and philosophy/spiritual
I'm perfectly fine with moderate christians or adherents to other religions. But I hate the church with it's bloody and disgusting history, the dogmas of the big 3 book-religions, the "I-have-the-ultimate
Christian scientists and other knowledgeable people can make an internal separation between scientific truth and religious belief. They also don't consult their religious texts if they want to know the product of a chemical reaction. You certainly succeed in defending christians in the eye of science.
What about defending science in the eyes of christians? One only has to think about the debate about darwinism and creationism. There are enough people that take the texts to the word and believe our world is a few thousand years old.
Historically religion has been at war with science. There are certainly a lot of reasons for this fact. I want just point out the function of both as a political instrument: religion is good at keeping populace docile and compliant, science makes them creative, adventurous, enterprising, enlightened, disruptive, and untimately more challenging to the reigning class.
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Keep in mind that one could ignore the "religious" aspect of things and say that the "bloody and disgusting history" was perpetrated by white men. Thus, you could say you hate white men. Or, perhaps the problem is with all men? Or maybe sex has nothing to do with it, and you just hate humans. Perhaps this "bloody and disgusting history" would not have been possible if LIFE itself didn't exist, so you hate all lifeforms.
As you can see, this type of logic has no bounds. As a result, it is often used to arbitrarily pin a label on individuals in order to exact revenge, redirect aggression, etc... For instance, some "witch burnings" were the result of cheating husbands. For fear their sinful ways would be revealed, they declared their mistresses to be "witches" in order to discredit them and silence them for good. In these instances, the mistresses were no more "witches" than the men were "good testaments to Christ".
The label we associate to a person should be used to define who the person is... but the person can never redefine what the label means. Otherwise, the label would have meant nothing in the first place.
So, yes... there are some who call themselves Christian and who also believe the world is only a few thousand years old. There are also white males who believe that the state of Alaska is a large island. Does this mean that all Christians are wrong, or that all white males are wrong? Or do people each need to be assessed individually, leaving the labels out of the equation?
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Victor Hugo said (translation) "I hate the church, I love human beings, I believe in God.". Because someone criticizes an institution, organization or group of people for their collective goals or morale, this does not mean that "all apples in the basket are rotten".
Read the following statements and consider if you would use your above logic to come to these other groups's defence:
- I hate the Khmer Rouge with their bloody and disgusting history
- I hate Nazism with it's bloody and disgusting history
- I hate the Ku Klux Klan with their bloody and disgusting history
This should be enough to convince you, that one can criticize the "ensemble" without judging the individual part!
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However I made the choice to write "What a Christian is NOT" and not "What a scientist is NOT" for some specific reasons: Today our society is intensly "materialistic". That means that most of us take it for granted that only matter exists in the cosmos and nothing spiritual (and as I said in a comment of mine above, that is a dogma and not a proven case). That is why religion seems to be - wrongly - cornered nowadays and that is why I chose to write that knol.
In that context we must remember that the idea of a "First Cause" or a God existed from the time of Aristotle. And nobody can accuse Aristotle of being blinded by Christianism. Both sides have arguments to use and both sides should be respected.
And I do not agree at all with the idea of "war" raging between science and religion. With almost a stable (from 1906 to 2009) 40% of the scientists believing in a personal God (with leading biologist Collins in them), I find it hard to believe that this war exists anywhere but in the mind of Dawkins who just wants to sell more books.
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Probably it's useful to make a distinction between past and present. There is the story of Galileo Galilei that everybody knows and anecdotically illustrates the historical conflict of ideas between religion and science. I don't know if this conflict is stronger toaday than it was in the past, but at least today we have free speach.
It's hard to deny the existance of a conflict of ideas between religion and science. One may be reluctant to call it war, because in western societies it's uncommon to die in this war. It was completely different in Afghanistan under the Taliban, where people - to name one fact - weren't allowed to have pictoral representations of any kind under the threat of draconian punishment. Even if the Taliban didn't target science foremost, their rule made science effectively impossible.
This is a special case, I agree, and one can differentiate between religion on one hand and the conrete forms/institutionali
Today I think that the conflict religion versus science can be compared to other "battles of ideas", like liberalisms versus repression, free market versus state property, free trade versus protectionism, free speach versus censorship, etc. If not in their nature, then maybe in their vigor.
In the past science was on the defensive, but now sides appear to have swapped and quite obviously some people, like Dawkins are (pun intended) in an eye-for-an-eye mood.
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The other thing I find interesting is that those who oppose actions of "the church" years ago put the blame on Christianity. If you read the New Testament, you would see that even Jesus opposed the corrupt church and brought its walls tumbling down. The reality of it is, man took God's words (Old Testament) and corrupted them, twisted them, and created a corrupt church in God's name. God has a choice. Restart and wipe everyone out, or give us Grace and forge a new path for us to reach Him. He chose the latter, by walking in our shoes (as Jesus Christ) then dying for our sins (forgiving us for our imperfections). This is the foundation of Christianity, and yet most who choose to oppose Christianity pervert it and twist it and ignore the Grace of God and focus on the Old Testament and the ways of various corrupt churches throughout the ages. If Jesus were around at any of the times you mention, He would have been on your side. If Jesus had been around for the witch trials, he would have brought the walls of the church tumbling down and would have defended the innocent women who were not practicing witchcraft but were caught up in a corrupt church of men.
Yet, when you look to today, and you look forward, nobody is burning witches. Sure, there are still some groups stick in the pre-Christ ways of the Old Testament, and there are some metaphorical witch hunts going on, but I see a world that is growing more and more loving. Centuries ago, homosexuals would have been beaten by the majority. Now, gay marriage is being talked about openly in public court and changes to laws (man's laws) are being discussed. I believe that 50 years from now (or perhaps much much sooner), gay marriage will be commonplace and hardly looked upon as different by the majority of people. Sure, there will always be groups who are angry and vengeful and who keep fighting for what they feel Christianity is all about, but regardless of how powerful these groups appear to be, society moves forward and God's true Grace shines through.
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