Addressing conflict between religion and science

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Let’s address the conflict between religion and science one by one. I’ll start with creation of earth issue. IMO, the Bible doesn’t say the Earth is 6,000 years old. That figure was arrived at by a human adding up the Ages of people. It’s the literalists that make life difficult.

Except for Adam and Eve the account of creation isn’t even against evolution. The Bible makes no real mention of timeframes or the method employed. Yes it does mention “days”, but the comment is also there that “A day for the Lord is as a thousand years”, or something like that. Literalists take that thousand years as definitive, but in the customs of the times it was written it simply means a very, very, very long time. It has similar etymology as the Chinese proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. It obviously doesn’t apply only and literally to journeys of one thousand miles, it simply means any long journey.

Thoughts?

Would anyone be able to provide a list of other contradictions if this is indeed the case? And let us discuss…
 
cho_pilo said:
Let’s address the conflict between religion and science one by one. I’ll start with creation of earth issue. IMO, the Bible doesn’t say the Earth is 6,000 years old. That figure was arrived at by a human adding up the Ages of people. It’s the literalists that make life difficult.

Except for Adam and Eve the account of creation isn’t even against evolution. The Bible makes no real mention of timeframes or the method employed. Yes it does mention “days”, but the comment is also there that “A day for the Lord is as a thousand years”, or something like that. Literalists take that thousand years as definitive, but in the customs of the times it was written it simply means a very, very, very long time. It has similar etymology as the Chinese proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. It obviously doesn’t apply only and literally to journeys of one thousand miles, it simply means any long journey.

Thoughts?

Would anyone be able to provide a list of other contradictions if this is indeed the case? And let us discuss…
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Cho Pilo,

This topic is one that is near and dear to me, and one that I have written extensively on. To put it bluntly, there is no conflict between religion and science, or more specifically between Catholicism and science. In my book I do exactly what you want to do in your post, take the apparent conflict point by point using modern science. If you want more info, feel free to PM me.

To briefly address your post: you are right on the money. The Bible does not say the Earth is 6000 years old, neither does His other book of divine revelation: Creation. Unfortunately what the literalists do is throw the baby out with the bath water. They think the Bible has to be understood in a literalistic sense from cover to cover, else none of it is true, which is ridiculous. And no, saying the Earth is 4.6 billion years old does not diminish God’s omnipotence in any way, shape, or form, or make the Bible anything less than God’s inerrant Word. We do a disservice to both God and His Word when we put them in a box so that they conform to our preconceived ideals. You rightly quote 2 Peter 3:8, and I would also recommend reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 109-119 and 159.

Of course, Catholics can believe whichever way they so want (old Earth or young Earth), as it is not a matter of salvation and the Church does not pronounce on scientific matters such as these. I do have a hard time, though, believing that either Augustine or Aquinas would be young-Earthers were they alive today and given modern scientific evidence.

One final thought. I do take exception to the statement that the 1st Creation account (Genesis 1) mirrors evolution save for Adam and Eve. It is somewhat similar to evolution as displayed in the fossil record, but trees and plants (day 3) did not precede sea and sky creatures (day 5) nor the sun (day 4). And birds and flying reptiles (day 5) did not precede land animals (day 6). The creation of man last (end of day 6) is actually correct, as humans are very recent to the history of life on Earth.

Hope this helps, and I look forward to the next topic 😉
 
There are two words which fly around about so-called fundamentalists which i think Christians should take back. Understand I am not saying fundamentalists are necessarily non-Christian as I think of myself as a fundamentalist just not in a socio-political fashion.

The first is Literalism. A literalist is someone who looks at the Bible as a collection of books and as such it is literature. What that means is not that the Bible should not be taken seriously but rather the Bible should be taken for what it is. For example some things in the Bible are history (the Pentatuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) some are wisdom/ proverbial (Job, the Psalter, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Ben Sirach, Lamentations,) and some are Prophetic (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve) there are letters (Paul and the catholic epistles) and some are apocalyptic (Daniel, Revelation). As such the way we use these books should change based on the type of literature they are.

A good example is one I hear all the time of the Jesus TV, the guy who is trying to dupe people into sending him money will say, “The Bible says that if you sow richly you will reap richly; that is a promise from God you can take it to the bank.” Well… no. The Bible does say that if you sow richly you will reap richly, but it also says that God gives the increase. This statement is not a promise it is a proverb; that is it is something that is generally true. Of course if you do not sow you will not reap, however if God does not send the rain then now matter how much you sow you will not reap.For this reason it is unwise to try and provoke God into action by making a proverb a promise because this sort of, “If I do this for God then God will do this for me” thinking is the sum and substance of idolatry. This is why God very specifically reminds us again and again that He does not change, His purpose is not thwarted by men, He needs nothing from our hand, etc. It was the idols the people tried to appease with their good works but God, while requiring good works, makes no promise to us concerning our well being here and now because of them.

The second word is inerrancy. To say that Scripture is inerrant does not mean that the Bible is the sole source of all knowledge in the world. (BTW that is not what Sola Scriptura means either even though my protestant brothers have tried to make it seem that way) For example if I want to know how a man may approach a holy and terrible God the Bible is where I need to go, but if I want to learn how to assemble or repair my Apple laptop the Bible is going to be little help.

What inerrant means is that everything the Bible purposes to teach it does so without error. In Genesis God is not attempting to tell Moses exactly how the universe was formed from the first nanoseconds of Creation. Rather God is telling Israel, through Moses, that the Gods of the Egyptians did not create the Heavens and the Earth. God is telling them that there are no gods for Egypt and gods for Canaan and Gods for the Philistines, but that He Jehovah is the Creator of all things. Furthermore He purposed in creating man to commune with him and placed man in a Garden. Man refused this communion and thus fell into ruin, but God has purposed to restore man to Himself.

Israel is a prefiguring of this relationship. It is to be a type of the communion which be fulfilled in Messiah.

Does the Bible teach this truth without error? Yes.

Does the Bible give and exhaustive scientific explanation of Creation? No.

So is it a tempest in a tea kettle to say Genesis is not a scientific book? Of course.

Hope that helps.

God Bless
 
geoformeo said:
Cho Pilo,

This topic is one that is near and dear to me, and one that I have written extensively on. To put it bluntly, there is no conflict between religion and science, or more specifically between Catholicism and science. In my book I do exactly what you want to do in your post, take the apparent conflict point by point using modern science. If you want more info, feel free to PM me.

To briefly address your post: you are right on the money. The Bible does not say the Earth is 6000 years old, neither does His other book of divine revelation: Creation. Unfortunately what the literalists do is throw the baby out with the bath water. They think the Bible has to be understood in a literalistic sense from cover to cover, else none of it is true, which is ridiculous. And no, saying the Earth is 4.6 billion years old does not diminish God’s omnipotence in any way, shape, or form, or make the Bible anything less than God’s inerrant Word. We do a disservice to both God and His Word when we put them in a box so that they conform to our preconceived ideals. You rightly quote 2 Peter 3:8, and I would also recommend reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 109-119 and 159.

Of course, Catholics can believe whichever way they so want (old Earth or young Earth), as it is not a matter of salvation and the Church does not pronounce on scientific matters such as these. I do have a hard time, though, believing that either Augustine or Aquinas would be young-Earthers were they alive today and given modern scientific evidence.

One final thought. I do take exception to the statement that the 1st Creation account (Genesis 1) mirrors evolution save for Adam and Eve. It is somewhat similar to evolution as displayed in the fossil record, but trees and plants (day 3) did not precede sea and sky creatures (day 5) nor the sun (day 4). And birds and flying reptiles (day 5) did not precede land animals (day 6). The creation of man last (end of day 6) is actually correct, as humans are very recent to the history of life on Earth.

Hope this helps, and I look forward to the next topic 😉
Click to expand...
For the record. There are two, true, sole, first parents of humanity. Regarding the science of anthropology, I intend to respect this forum’s ban
Temporary Ban on Evolution/Atheism Threads
 
cho_pilo said:
Let’s address the conflict between religion and science one by one. I’ll start with creation of earth issue. IMO, the Bible doesn’t say the Earth is 6,000 years old. That figure was arrived at by a human adding up the Ages of people. It’s the literalists that make life difficult.

Except for Adam and Eve the account of creation isn’t even against evolution. The Bible makes no real mention of timeframes or the method employed. Yes it does mention “days”, but the comment is also there that “A day for the Lord is as a thousand years”, or something like that. Literalists take that thousand years as definitive, but in the customs of the times it was written it simply means a very, very, very long time. It has similar etymology as the Chinese proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. It obviously doesn’t apply only and literally to journeys of one thousand miles, it simply means any long journey.

Thoughts?

Would anyone be able to provide a list of other contradictions if this is indeed the case? And let us discuss…
Click to expand...
For the record. There are two, true, sole, first parents of humanity. Regarding the science of anthropology, I intend to respect this forum’s ban
Temporary Ban on Evolution/Atheism Threads
 
This doesn’t look look like it was moved. So how about continuing it on something that more reflects that thread title? How about, without getting into the atheism issue, sharing some ideas about why science and religion don’t get along sometimes? You know, as a general thing, as what areas they each properly encompass and what the bridges are/aren’t?
 
Ranklyfrank said:
This doesn’t look look like it was moved. So how about continuing it on something that more reflects that thread title? How about, without getting into the atheism issue, sharing some ideas about why science and religion don’t get along sometimes? You know, as a general thing, as what areas they each properly encompass and what the bridges are/aren’t?
Click to expand...
Good suggestion. Here’s a simple example of an extremely fundamental gap between religion and science, from Physics 301a.

Everything in the universe is a form of something which physics has identified, and can often quantify, called energy. Although energy as a word is part of the vernacular, it has a very specific meaning in physics. The science of physics is based upon the study and quantification of various energy forms, which include light, radiation, motion, gravitational potential, electric charge, a few other things, and of course matter.

The behavior of energy follows three fundamental principles known as the Three Laws of Thermodynamics. The first of these laws includes the declaration that the amount of energy in the universe is constant. In other words, energy cannot be created or destroyed.

This law is in profound fundamental conflict with the religious belief that God created all things.

Some apologists argue that God created the energy and then decided not to create any more. Not a good argument, because as the differences between Old and New Testaments clearly show, God can change his mind and his personality.

It has been argued that the First Law only applies to the physical universe. I find it a weak argument.

Of course I have my own solution to the problem, a necessity for a physicist of sorts who also believes in creation. But the thread might be more productively limited along the lines you proposed.
 
I’d go there, but it looks to be on the edge of the atheism question, which is not well regarded on here, though you own to be a creationist. It would seem to me that some of that, though, might be addressed in the dynamics of a scale of complexity, the higher orders needing more systemic energy both to exist and to function. But that is still within the whole of things, which is said to be constant.

That harkens to another thread where the idea of the dissimilar sides of an equation are different, and yet represent the same quantity, but in different forms solvable through permutations exactly because of the identity factor. All equations are variants of N=N, where N is in varieties of form, and in this discussion might be N=Nature. The question for many becomes is it X>(N=N) or X+(N=N), or (NX=NX) or deltaX=N, or what, where X is God or Spirit or Consciousness or? So is the = our awareness of the resolvability of the equation through which the process is experienced? So where is X in the equations of the physicists? The slit experiments and particles at a distance come to mind. So while some of this is the description of hooey, in all that is a dynamic that neither religion nor science can by themselves adequately address. That’s what I think this thread might be about, now that I’ve, I think, scared everyone away…
 
Ranklyfrank said:
So how about continuing it on something that more reflects that thread title? How about, without getting into the atheism issue, sharing some ideas about why science and religion don’t get along sometimes? You know, as a general thing, as what areas they each properly encompass and what the bridges are/aren’t?
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Don’t worry, they don’t hold the majority opinion.
 
OK then. Just looking at history and what ideas are used in looking at religions as a phenomenon, not as a matter of faith, the Church represents a form of thinking that values only the aspect of “spirituality” that has to do with overcoming involvement with materiality and “going to” God. It assumes a divorce between God and matter, as in God and an object outside god called Creation, which God yet permeates. Don’t quite get that, because then the Allness claims about God made by the Church are in question. It claims to “go inside” but does it in what is ultimately a materialistic way as it deals with forms, not substance, even if it says it is dealing with “soul.” Some of its own great Saints go to the direction of support in this, making a distinction between mysticism and religion, though religion tries to claim mysticism as its sub set. It isn’t.

Science, starting about with Descartes, strips the world of its interior and claims that mater is all there is, conveniently using something it can’t find in matter to describe this field. Even it’s God chemical theories ultimately fail. And what’s more, it, like religion, won’t use it’s own method to look inside. It claims that that is mysticism, and mysticism is not real. Having no material component to measure in terms of experience in the flat world of matter, it uses even results from obvious brain changes to support its material hypothesis and misses the point.

Other, less known paradigms, usually “goddess” related, have as their focus the manifestation aspect of God, or their version of that, and their focus is “coming from” God. this realm is usually associated with hunter/gatherers and agrarian cultures. It’s spirituality is aimed at gratitude, petition, and appeasement. while it heavily acknowledges the spirit world, it is not aimed even nearly at transcendence in the sense Christianity is.

So today we have a mix of these that we are aware of, because we have “gone global” in our contacts while using our parochial habits to interpret it all. And while each of the above claim to be universal in scope, it is pretty clear that they all deal in parts, emphasizing a segment of experience that discounts the validity of the others.

So my question is, if a person is associated heavily or principally with one of these, what measures can be taken to include the other aspects of what surely must be valid human experience, though appearing exclusively limited? I mean other than just baldly stating “mine’s right, because it’s mine.” You know what I mean?
 
Ranklyfrank said:
So my question is, if a person is associated heavily or principally with one of these, what measures can be taken to include the other aspects of what surely must be valid human experience, though appearing exclusively limited? I mean other than just baldly stating “mine’s right, because it’s mine.” You know what I mean?
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Hi Ranklyfrank. You ask a good question, and I think that addressing the issue stems not from science, religion, or mysticism, but from philosophy. I think that if one understands the philosophical implications or requirements of their ideas in a particular field, it aids their ability to harmonize - or turn them against - ideas in other fields. What do you think?
 
cho_pilo said:
Let’s address the conflict between religion and science one by one. …
Thoughts?

Would anyone be able to provide a list of other contradictions if this is indeed the case? And let us discuss…
Click to expand...
Simple. There are no conflicts, no contradictions, no problem between true science and the true religion (Catholicism), except in the empty rhetoric of some anti-Catholics who have invented supposed “conflicts”. As Blessed-elect John Paul II put it, “Truth cannot contradict Truth.”
 
Of course, John Paul had it right in that statement.

What you say, Pieman, sounds reasonable. What happens, though, is that sometimes there are people who are speaking from mystical experience who have a qualitatively different understanding of the matters contained in those three fields. As I said somewhere else, it is like the difference between swimming playfully and carefree contrasted to some people arguing about illustrations and words in a manual about swimming. while they might be in the same town or even rec center, they are not in the same environment experientially, though all is there for all to be had. So while the folks in the pool are splashing around, the ones with the book are chattering about hand positions, breathing, feet, etc.

The book is an exact, honest, and even reliable guide, but it is not the experience of swimming in the pool. There is as well no difference between swimmers and readers except that one group is wet, and the others are thinking. And that, despite very sincere emotional feelings of devotions, many who are religious are not yet spiritual. Neither are many who are scientific spiritual either, as there is there a tendency toward scientism. And philosophy without experience is speculation, no matter how intricate or profound. So unless the tool of philosophy is in the hands of someone who has an experiential grounding in what it is that constitutes Identity and non dualism, they are yet not in the pool, even if they get splashed.

And there’s the conundrum: All the faithful, the scientists, and the philosophers tend to dismiss what is at the core of their ability to be limited or not limited. I have no clue as to how to fix that, though some of the Great Saints managed it through mysticism of a particular sort. And while the Church is happy to expound, it seems to me, on the scaffolding that they used, they don’t encourage inhabiting the structure that was meant to build. Again I’m stumped.
 
Petergee said:
Simple. There are no conflicts, no contradictions, no problem between true science and the true religion (Catholicism), except in the empty rhetoric of some anti-Catholics who have invented supposed “conflicts”. As Blessed-elect John Paul II put it, “Truth cannot contradict Truth.”
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Agreed. Good science and proper reasoning will be true. But then that is the problem no isn’t it?
 
Having never studied physics personally, I can’t hope to sound as intelligent as most of these posts, but I have this to contribute…
When I was in the process of returning to the Church, I asked my older brother, who is a research scientist (PhD in immunology) and a deacon at his church how he reconciled his faith with his science background. His answer, which at the time simply frustrated me, was this: My science background only confirms and strengthens my faith.
As I said, at the time it frustrated me. I work in healthcare and also have a strong science background (biological sciences) - this was giving me some problems at the time with my slowly returning faith. With prayer and study I finally understood what my brother so simply stated. Everything in science only serves to confirm God if you can only open your eyes and see it. God lays it all out in plain sight, but so many of us just can’t see the forest for the trees.
 
There is no conflict between the Church and science. In fact there hardly could be as the Church was the driving force behind science in the West for centuries and modern science is built upon those foundations.
 
Of course Science and religion are in conflict. Who better to flesh out this argument then Neil deGrasse Tyson:

youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY

A perfect example of this is Newton. He never invoked god for his research, because he knew how the mathematics and physics worked, and invoking god into that is not necessary nor required. But when he was at the limit of his knowledge, he invoked god. To the point where his superstitions inhibited him from going further with his research.

The historical fact that god is invoked at the edge of scientific knowledge implies directly that the two are mutually incompatible.
 
Or, Asemodus, it implies the yielding ot rationality to intuition, which some may construe as the Allness of God. It is not uncommon to exhaust oneself mentally with a problem to the point of acquiescing to ignorance, at which point the answer may come from an inconceivable direction or present itself full blown. If you know about the history of science, or have any life experience of great value yourself, you probably already know thins and just wish to appear rational. Intuition may be prepared for by the rational, but is itself always the arrival of the unexpected.
 
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