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Robin_des_Bois
Guest
Title says it all.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Do you mean authenticate?
I would say that scientists generally would not be willing that science can be used to authenticate religion. That does not mean that certain discoveries in science may not confirm certain religious revelations. For example:
Genesis, 1000 B.C. : In the beginning God said: “Let there be light.”
Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.
“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out:
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
I would say that scientists generally would not be willing that science can be used to authenticate religion. That does not mean that certain discoveries in science may not confirm certain religious revelations. For example:
Genesis, 1000 B.C. : In the beginning God said: “Let there be light.”
Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.
“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out:
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
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edwest2
Guest
I used to like Carl Sagan, but his view, like many other leading scientists, means the answer is no.
Peace,
Ed
Peace,
Ed
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Linux
Guest
No. The scientific method is intrinsically limited to describing physical phenomena. Its not about whether or not scientists like or hate religion; its the wrong tool for the Job. However Science can free us from flawed interpretations of physical reality that are based on scripture. For example, the belief that the world was created in seven days is clearly an unwarranted belief if you respect the scientific method. Science indirectly purifies religious interpretation and frees it from superstition.
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CJeplin
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Let’s say for the sake of argument that we could “authenticate” religion by means of the scientific method. Now how do we authenticate the scientific method? By what does one prove that its conclusions are undeniably authentic and a reliable measure of religion and its concepts?
One of the main concepts of religion is that of the existence of deities. The God of Judeo-Christian religion is, by definition of its own theology, supposed to transcend the capacity of the mortal’s mind to fully comprehend as well as be immeasurable and physically unapproachable. What formula, approach, means of study, and manner of sampling does one propose to use to approach, measure, and comprehend a Being that, in order to prove exists or does not exist, must in the process accept that He is unapproachable, immeasurable and transcendent?
One of the main concepts of religion is that of the existence of deities. The God of Judeo-Christian religion is, by definition of its own theology, supposed to transcend the capacity of the mortal’s mind to fully comprehend as well as be immeasurable and physically unapproachable. What formula, approach, means of study, and manner of sampling does one propose to use to approach, measure, and comprehend a Being that, in order to prove exists or does not exist, must in the process accept that He is unapproachable, immeasurable and transcendent?
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edwest2
Guest
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edwest2
Guest
Uh, the Bible gives us God’s attributes. Jesus Christ did things recorded in scripture, and constantly taught us about what God and Heaven are like. Miracles happen today. Pope John Paul II is one miracle away from sainthood.
Jesus lived, died, rose from the dead and is alive right now. Who do we pray to?
Peace,
Ed
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InJesusItrust
Guest
I think it already authenticates it. Studies on the shroud, stigmata, Eucharistic miracles and documenting miraculous cures.
That does not mean people are willing to accept science when it argues in favor of religion. It would demand a sudden and unwanted change in lifestyles.
That does not mean people are willing to accept science when it argues in favor of religion. It would demand a sudden and unwanted change in lifestyles.
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SMA_12
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Father Spitzer can come pretty darn close 
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Al_Moritz
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Precisely.
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Al_Moritz
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Yes, but these are philosophical arguments from science, not scientific arguments proper. As Linux says, science itself is the wrong tool for the job.Father Spitzer can come pretty darn close
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Christy_Beth
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In some caes the history of the Bible has been proven. Archeological “evidence” has brought up many finds that line up with the Bible. Of course, we aren’t meant to use the Bible as a “scientific” textbok, but it is historical.
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CJeplin
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I agree with where you are coming from, Ed. That isn’t what I was talking about in my post however. All the points you bring out are exceptional reasons I use for my faith as a Catholic, but the leading question of this thread is about using science to authenticate the concepts of religion.
Unfortunately none of these fine points you have presented (which are good enough for me) qualify as measurable data if we were required to use nothing but the scientific method to prove religious concepts. To illustrate what I was saying, in order to prove deities exist according to the critical method of science we would have to be able to locate, test, and even take samples (if possible) from the being that was supposed to be a deity. But that is where we run into problems.
First of all there are no objective standards as to what does and doesn’t qualify as a deity in scientific terms. So until those standards can be established and universally accepted in the realm of science, the scientific method cannot authenticate this part of religion.
And if you can’t authenticate deities, you can’t authenticate much else about any religion since it all mostly surrounds the “reality” of deities.
And when it comes to our concept of God, a God “who dwells in unapproachable light,” according to 1 Timothy 6:16, how does the person gathering the data on God approach He who is “unapproachable”? You can’t take a sample of God, can you? Where would you hold such a sample? And even if you could, what could tell you what the sample was, especially since there are no scientific standards for transcendence?
Scientific methodology demands that a subject must be critically studied and that the results of the study, including physical samples taken to support one’s conclusions, be verified by an independent and uninterested party. Now while the Bible can tell us a lot about God, because the scientific method demands something different, the scientific method isn’t necessarily the proper means to measure or state what qualifies as a God or religious truth.
It’s like someone asking if you have a creative imagination. You might answer in the affirmative, but then the person hands you a yardstick and says: “Okay, use this yardstick to prove you have a creative imagination.” When you object, the person looks at you funny and says: “Uh, a yardstick is a perfectly acceptable measuring tool. If you can’t prove your imagination with this scientific tool of measuring, then obviously you don’t have a creative imagination!”
Regardless of how well one can measure distances with a yardstick, it still is not the tool to measure one’s imagination or prove how creative a person can be, is it?
That’s the same thing about science. What I was saying was that since science demands that any subject it reports on can be tested by various parties, it isn’t the tool to authenticate transcendent realities like God. A religious book that requires faith for an adherent does not qualify as objective data according to the requirements of science critical methods, even though I personally have faith that it teaches us the truth about God.
Now I believe God is real, even if a yardstick isn’t the proper tool to authenticate his existence.
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shoe
Guest
I think it can in the sense that science has demonstrated that life, as the Law of Biogenesis states, can only come from life, never from lifeless matter; therefore, the scientific Law of Biogenesis authenticates, or at least indicates, that a Being, who is not part of nature, must exist in order for life to have existence. But on the other hand, since the founding fathers of modern science such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and Louis Pasteur used their religious beliefs that God had made an ordered universe that made it possible for them to discover and understand its workings, their religious beliefs authenticated real science as much as real science authenticated their religious beliefs.
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zro_x
Guest
It is theoretically possible to validate religion with science, though in practice, I doubt it will ever happen.
If God felt like it, he could set up the physical laws so that the message “God exists” is found when looking at patterns of far distant stars, nagnifying grains of sand, or etched on the glass of a test tube after a chemical reaction, as a couple of examples.
However, we have no such messages, which implies one of two possibilities.
If God felt like it, he could set up the physical laws so that the message “God exists” is found when looking at patterns of far distant stars, nagnifying grains of sand, or etched on the glass of a test tube after a chemical reaction, as a couple of examples.
However, we have no such messages, which implies one of two possibilities.
- God does not exist, or
- God does not want to be discovered by scientific means
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Robin_des_Bois
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So let’s say your religion (or the Bible to be precise) makes claim contrary to some irrefutable scientific facts, would you still believe in the Bible?
PS: I asked a similar question on a Muslim forum (but I talked about the Qur’an).
PS: I asked a similar question on a Muslim forum (but I talked about the Qur’an).
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zro_x
Guest
nope! If I were in a religion that said that the moon was made out of green cheese as one of its central dogmas, I wouldn’t be in that religion very long. It’s hard to imagine what the same situation would be in catholicism, though. Most of our claims are not empirically falsifiable.
However, I should mention that I, like most Catholics, do not take the bible completely literally. Therefore, a scientific fact would have to contradict infallible Catholic dogma before I would stop believing in the legitimacy of Catholicism.
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CJeplin
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It is a well-known taught fact and has been for centuries throughout the history of Judaism and Catholicism that the Bible does not teach scientific fact. In fact, basic Bible courses teach that the “science theory” of the Bible reflects understandings common to the eras in which they were written.
It is a common mistake of those who have not participated in the most basic of Biblical education and critical analysis that the religious truths therein (which are of a moral nature) and dependent and rely on the book containing scientific fact. I can list many of the places where ancient views on the cosmos which we know are not scientifically accurate appear in Scripture, but I am sure you can look all these up yourself in various Internet sources. Like those who have not let this keep them from believing in the religious teaching of the Bible in centuries past, it doesn’t make me view the Bible’s of any less value myself.
By the way, a current-day news or history report which might contain a scientific error does not suddenly lose its value as a report because some of the details may be incorrect, does it? Since science will likely make most of what we understand today obsolete in the future, does this mean we are to dismiss all reports until science ends its search and finds absolute truth?
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CJeplin
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Until transcendence, a central earmark of religious belief, can be defined and verified by a methodology that cannot, by its intrinsic nature accept that which transcends its basic logic (namely science), it isn’t likely that a theoretical model can be developed. By its very own rules and techniques which govern its manner of investigation, that which transcends the scientific method cannot be measured by it.
The scientific method relies on the examination of empirical and measurable evidence. To come to any conclusion necessitates reproducible results that do not change in the face of variants. As I’ve mentioned before, science does not even have such a definition of what a god is, an ingredient that would be required before it could even investigate to come up with a procedure in which to authenticate any religious claim.
In other words, it isn’t that God wants or doesn’t want to be found by science. It is that for some reason people believe science is equivalent to something like a law of nature, that it is something as reliably true and dependable as gravity is, that science is the epitome of any technique there has ever been or ever will be to guarantee a correct and reliable answer regarding the universe.
But science is just a methodology. There is no proof that it is the ultimate method of investigation, that another type will not someday be found that will work better than science, nor that science can give all the answers and the final answers to anything and everything.
First authenticate any claim that any answer science can give us about religion of any type is the final and most accurate of answers and that no answer found by any other means will ever prove more accurate than what the scientific method can give us today, and then we can see whether or not it is even important that science can or cannot say anything about transcendent reality.
Science is not only the wrong tool for this job, there is also nothing to guarantee that some even better method of learning about our universe won’t supersede and disprove any answer from science tomorrow.
And I don’t say this because I don’t believe in science. If it isn’t clear by now, I believe very much in it and use it regularly in my work. I am saying this because people are mixing oil and water and demanding that the mixture come together. It won’t.
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zro_x
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If I understand you correctly, you seems to be saying that, since science may not even be the best method of understanding the world around us, God may just not care about revealing himself in such a lowly method. The problem with this is that it is our method, and the best means we know of at this time to gain knowledge of nature. If we can’t find God through science, it is because he is purposefully hiding himself from that way of knowing him.
Science is not just about taking measurements and observations. It is also about forming the most simple, coherent theories that explain those observations. So, for example, if we observed that on every grain of sand a message from God were written, we would form a scientific theory that God does indeed exist and that whatever the message says is true, unless a part of the message contradicts what we already scientifically know to be true. A definition of God would not be necessary; we would just make scientific theories, which would validate theism.
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