Christianity: A History - God and the Scientists Part 1

[IceMasterPT]

Religion is religion, God is God.

Religion is Man-Made, God is there

[MrJohnnyrace]

Man created god in his own image.

[Teltaminoru]

Golden phrase: "Science is quite simply the biggest challenge that Christianity will ever have to face"... what does that mean??? Look into the first centuries of Christianity and you´ll find a lot of christian scientists who preserved the ancient classic cultures: Isidoro of Sevilla, Venerable Bede, Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, and what about medieval scientists as Theodoric of Freiberg, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, Nicholas of Oresme, Alcuin of York...

[Teltaminoru]

Interesting, but too much tendencious for me. It is false that the scientific movement of XVII Century "challenged the christian view of the world". Catholic scholars and priests were the key persons that nurtured Science since Renaissance. It is false that the Church burned the people who denied the divinity of Jesus, then all the jews in Europe would´ve been burned. About Darwin... well, I don´t think the guy did the great "remotion" Dawkins says.

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru I believe the word you're looking for is the Holocaust. While I am aware it isn't as bad as people make it seem to be, religion and science really are quite conflicting. Science is based on facts, experimentation and thinking rationally. Religion is based on faith, belief and doctrines. The more educated a person is, the less likely he is to be religious. The more we know about reality (spherical earth, evolution, etc.), the less we take the doctrines seriously (Adam & Eve, etc.).

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo I disagree. History proves that religion and science are not in conflict. How can you explain the existence of believer scientists? How can you explain the faith of Newton, Pasteur, Lemaitre? If religion tries to invade the scientific work field, the conflict appears, and the same for science. While science and religion are in their own matters, there is no conflict, but armony and progress. There are very educated people that believe in God, that disproves your second statement

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru It is easily explained by 1.) Scientists who speak ill of the church/religion will be killed or slandered in no time. Therefore some have to fake their religiosity. 2.) Among those who are really religious, it's because their field of study are NOT in direct conflict with religion. 3.) People knew less than we know today. Where there is gap in science, superstition takes its place. Lastly, this is a trend, not a rule. It's a fact that educated people tend to be less religious.

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo Without a proper statistics, I don´t accept your opinion that education is inversely proportional to religious beliefs. About the scientists, you can´t prove that they "faked" their religiosity. Some of them were/are fervently religious, some of them were/are priests. The conflict only appears when science and religion invade each other. If not, there are armony and cooperation. A scientific problem can be solved by a christian and atheist working together. Why promoting a conflict?

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru wiki/Religiosity_and_intellige­nce

huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingc­hristians.htm

This doesn't necessarily mean all religious people are dumb, but there's an obvious trend here. Furthermore, even for those intelligent believers, they are very less likely to take the Bible literally (again, evolution instead of Adam and Eve and Big Bang+millions of years instead of 6 days of creation), therefore they're usually less devout than the common person.

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo I´m not a brilliant scientist, but I´m one of those who don´t take some biblical passages literally. No problem in accepting evolution. Evolution doesn´t mean that there is no God. Evolution doesn´t solve the biggest question: Why does something exist rather than nothing? I don´t measure the devotion of people. I´m talking about the religious belief in God. A person can be a good scientist and a good believer, therefore, there is no conflict between Science and Religion.

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru That is my point, you have to compromise your religiosity as your learn more. At first (stone age), everyone thought God made and caused everything (universe, life, diseases, earth, sun, stars, sky, earthquakes, pretty much everything). And then, scientific explanations pop one by one. Life wasn't created by God in its present form, they evolved. Diseases and earthquakes aren't punishments, they're caused by bacteria and tectonic plates. The earth isn't the center of the solar...

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru ...system, the sun is. You get my point. As our knowledge broadens, the room for God narrows. And assuming God can fill those gaps is just that: blind assumption. Who knows, perhaps one day we will know exactly why something exists, perhaps we will never know. There's no shame in simply saying "I don't know", we don't need to supplement this with "therefore God made it!". We might as well say "a flying unicorn made it" when we say "God did it"...

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo Interesting, but once more I disagree. The rise of knowledge can lead us to God too. Like Francis Collins, who was an atheist, but after complete the Human Genome he converted to christianism, because for him, it was absurd that the complexity of genome was the product of chance. It must be an Intelligence behind, he concluded. God isn´t a patch, God is a logical conclusion of what we know about the universe. The universe doesn´t explain itself, then, it must be something else

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru God is NEVER a logical conclusion of what we know about the universe. It is what it is: blind assumption and wishful thinking. We would like to think we are special, when we are not. I don't know x y z, therefore x y z was created by God! I don't understand a and b, therefore a and b are caused by God! Believers assume that God/s exist and created everything, but have no proof to back it up or to even prove his existence. Legendary claims demand legendary evidence.

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo My friend, we are in front of a wall, I say that I believe in God by thinking, by reasoning. To me, God is a logical conclusion if we analize the universe. That´s it. You say "no". So be it, different opinions. Have yours while I have mine. I don´t think we can go further.

[MrJohnnyrace]

@Teltaminoru In other words, you dont allow the science that debunks your superstition. You not logical, your nuts.

[Teltaminoru]

@MrJohnnyrace You should use the word "superstition" carefully. Believing that the universe is too much complex to be the result of a mere chance, is something beyond superstition. Science doesn´t debunk that. Science can´t prove there is no God. Science is the best tool to study and understand the universe and its laws (matter and energy), but what about love, kindness, hope? spiritual truths that we all feel everyday. Science, my friend, is not everything we have.

[MrJohnnyrace]

@Teltaminoru Science debunks the Buy Bull. If there was a god and he was as stupid as the Buy Bull god than he wouldnt be smart enough to make popcorn.

[Lhein33]

@MrJohnnyrace Science debunks the Bible? Interesting... Of course "science" is a very blurred term. Who is the science? Dawkins, who made a chart and counted in it the percent of faith? Let him do the same concerning love. I am 10% in love, you are 25% in love, my friend is 50% in love. What a stupid, air-tight, sclerotic & dry way of thinking! You can't count art, love, fantasy, faith & courage.

Robert Boyd, Th. Dobzhansky, G. Lemaître, Max Planck, Eric Priest & Jen. Wiseman are not scientists?

[MrJohnnyrace]

@Lhein33 We dont need religion to tell us how to behave. As a matter of fact the buy bull speaks of killing young children, genocide, how to treat slaves. I am very happily religion free. It seems religous people dont behave nicely. And, we certainly laugh at things like noahs ark, talking snakes, adam and eve and other fairy tales.

[Lhein33]

@MrJohnnyrace I see you didn't write anything else about science and I'm happy for that.

Ofc I didn't say you need religion to know how to behave. In fact, if the Church was just a moral code I would say the same; I deeply hate moralism & pietism. But all the christian saints & teachers base their faith on ontological/empirical facts & not moral/idealistic.

The Old Testament indeed speaks of crimes etc, exactly cus it's not a moral book; it says the truth about the cruel ancient world.

[TheYipedo]

@Teltaminoru ...Because both God and the unicorn have no proof of existence. However, if you can somehow believe in God and be a good student of science in the modern world, good for you.

The first few minutes of this video presents a good explanation as to why scientists in the past were religious: watch?v=oJBbAOmJtIQ

[Teltaminoru]

@TheYipedo The unicorn joke has no meaning to me. God has the atributes of a creator of a universe that can´t be created by itself. We see the universe, composed by contingent things, and we conclude that there is cause behind the universe. God is a reasonable explanation, not a mere whim of believers, as many atheists seem to think. Comparing God with the unicorn, is like comparing a rock with steam

[tyburcio100]

297 views? I'm going to past it on craigslist all around the world!

[sharpezor]

@tyburcio100 Yeah i could not believe that, nobody is watching it. As soon as I saw this existed and couldn't find it, I was willing to pay money to see it, luckily it was on youtube