I know about this study. What this study demonstrates are mechanical changes in the mind-body that point to mechanical causes. My point is this: today, science has classified man as a mechanism. All science wants to do is to confirm man is no more than a mechanism.
Pope Benedict has given a clear and precise definition of the proper use of science and what its limits are. No such limits are recognized here. Science does replace philosophy and revelation here - all the time. “That event in the Bible could not have possibly happened according to the scientific evidence.” To all Catholics reading this - what would the evidence of the miracles of Jesus be if a scientist was standing right next to Him? How did Jesus do what he did? Raise the dead, give sight to the blind? Surely, there must be a scientific explanation for removing leprosy from people instantly, without the use of technology. There isn’t an explanation. Yet people post here all the time and insist science has disproven this or that in the Bible. We must be on our guard against this sort of purely nonscientific interpretation.Not at allplease see my reply to Anselm post #146, which explains further.
You lost me there, but then some Christians also lost me long ago with their apparent antagonism towards learning more about ourselves and our world.
This is how I think of science, in the words of Pope Benedict. Is he wrong, anyone?
*Certainly the Church acknowledges that “with the help of science and technology…, man has extended his mastery over almost the whole of nature”, and thus “he now produces by his own enterprise benefits once looked for from heavenly powers” (Gaudium et Spes, 33). At the same time, Christianity does not posit an inevitable conflict between supernatural faith and scientific progress. The very starting-point of Biblical revelation is the affirmation that God created human beings, endowed them with reason, and set them over all the creatures of the earth. In this way, man has become the steward of creation and God’s “helper”. If we think, for example, of how modern science, by predicting natural phenomena, has contributed to the protection of the environment, the progress of developing nations, the fight against epidemics, and an increase in life expectancy, it becomes clear that there is no conflict between God’s providence and human enterprise. Indeed, we could say that the work of predicting, controlling and governing nature, which science today renders more practicable than in the past, is itself a part of the Creator’s plan.
Science, however, while giving generously, gives only what it is meant to give. Man cannot place in science and technology so radical and unconditional a trust as to believe that scientific and technological progress can explain everything and completely fulfil all his existential and spiritual needs. Science cannot replace philosophy and revelation by giving an exhaustive answer to man’s most radical questions: questions about the meaning of living and dying, about ultimate values, and about the nature of progress itself.
Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI* to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 6 November 2006 (pdf)
obviously science cannot disprove the existence of god since definitions for what god is can continue to retreat when confronted by scientific advances. but science makes a theistic conception of the divine a less and less relevant explanation for human experience.
Thank you very much. However, part of what happens here are posts insisting that since we have no evidence of this or that god, it renders the concept meaningless or invalid. No proof - no god.
The last sentence is a faith statement. It is commonly believed and/or promoted. Human experience is a meaningless term. You might as well be writing about automobile engines. Does it perform the function proper to its construction? Yes? No?
the concept is meaningful so long as you can say what experiences we can expect to have if this or that or some other conception of god is true or false. if there is a difference it would have to make a difference. whatever those differences are are open to rational inquiry.
i don’t understand what you are saying here.
there are lots of other differences. but evolution does put fruit flies and humans on the continuum biologically. but that is just biology.
“experiences” is device terminology. Since God cannot be put in a lab to verify or disprove any experiences, he would just be rejected out of hand as a possible explanation. There is no yardstick by which to measure experiences against any sort of empirical data. There would be no point.
Here, biology is often given as the last and final word about the concept of man. This leads to spiritual blindness.
Another statement by you that’s contrary to fact and unsupported by evidence… People do continue to pray, even when “healing medicines” are available. I see it every time I go to our local hospital as a Eucharistic Minister, and when I see prayers in Adoration Chapel. What’s with the evangelical atheism ???
Are you smiling because you enjoy insulting the Catholics here on a forum in which you are a guest?…some Christians also lost me long ago with their apparent antagonism towards learning more about ourselves and our world.
I would slightly modify your conclusion above.
Those are wise words and I hope I can learn from them.It has been noted all too often that atheists are haughty and angry people with a vendetta against God and those who follow God. All you have to do is read their prose to get that message loud and clear. A priest once told me that he had given up reaching out to atheists because it seemed to him that they would only get more entrenched in their resistance to God. Better to let them figure out their folly on their own, by the grace of God.
Yikes! If you, like me agree with that quote from Benedict then we presumably also agree that science is neither futile nor the only way to gain knowledge. I’ll apologize for not having added that the atheists who claim science is everything lose me in exactly the same way as the theists who claim it is futile.
