[quote=zk][quote=Blogstar]What does “science and religion are compatible” really mean anyway?
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I think it means that science can’t prove absolutely there’s no god. Of course, science can’t prove absolutely there’s no santa claus, either. But you never hear anybody say, “santa claus and science are compatible,” because nobody over the age of 10 or 11 really cares all that much whether santa claus is real.
So, what “science and religion are compatible” really means, is, “god, while it is an absurd proposition, can’t be proven absolutely not to exist. And we don’t want all the believers out there to hate us, so rather than pointing out the absence of scientific evidence for god, we’ll just say “science and religion are compatible.” Because it’s technically true, and therefore we’re maintaining our standing in the community while not technically lying.[/quote]
No, it means that things like the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe and the Biblical explanation are not incompatible. If you could set aside your biases for a moment, read the Biblical version, and then compare it to the scientific version. For many Christians, the Bible is not the actual “word of God” but the telling of the stories of God. Not everything is to be taken literally (such as the earth/universe being created in six Earth days), but if you look at the series of events, they are not out of line with one another. Many people believe that the “days” noted in religious texts simply refer to a period of time.
What you seem to miss, zk, is that your belief in the absence of a god/higher power is no different than another person’s belief in the existence of a god/higher power. We DO NOT KNOW what exists outside of our very tiny window of knowledge. To claim that we know, one way or another, is ludicrous.
Our differences seem to lie in the way we think. You seem to think more in terms of black and white, which is why your statements sound more absolute — whether about religion or vaccines, etc. I tend to think much more about all the grey, which is why I so often use terms like “IMHO/IMO,” “it seems,” “I believe,” etc. I will almost never speak in absolutes unless I know something for a fact. This is where you and I differ.
For the record, I am not religious at all. My kids have never stepped foot in a church except for their grandmother’s funeral (not saying that’s either right or wrong). Personally, I’m agnostic and anti-religious because I hate how religion is used to control the masses (which, IMO, is why religion is so dogmatic…it keeps people fighting against one another and creates an easy way for those in power to get people to do what they want). Like scaredy, I acknowledge the benefits of religion in giving people something to help them with their fear of dying or by setting up incentives/disincentives to do the right thing and not do the wrong thing.
But to claim that you KNOW that people who have a different belief system believe in a fantasy — assuming that a lack of evidence is what constitutes a fantasy — then you’re just as guilty as they are. There are so many things about the universe that we don’t understand — our knowledge is infinitesimally small — we cannot claim one way or another without sounding foolish.
Are there other intelligent life forms in the universe? Statistically speaking, probably so. Could they be so much more intelligent than we are that if early humans have had contact with them, they might refer to them as a sort of god? As you probably know, there are many examples around the world where primitive people seemed to indicate visitors from space.
The options are endless. None of us knows anything for a fact, so we all believe in a fantasy of some sort unless we just acknowledge all the possibilities and admit that we do not know. The fact that we do not know is the only fact that exists.
