Please name one thing about the natural world described more accurately by religion than science can provide

[JackVk]

Sacrificial love.

Science can’t explain that one, eh?

Dawkins is confounded because he can’t find that in any grandiose Darwinian pattern.

Anyone who says that science and religion are at war doesn’t know history. Copernicus, Galileo, Pascal, Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Dalton, Mendel, and Einstein, would all disagree with them.

And it turns out the “torture” that Galileo suffered during his trial for his “heresy” was a 5-Star suite and house arrest, all the while being allowed to see his family. Contrary to atheist fable, the Bible is silent on the motions of the sun and planets.

 

[faithfully]

Any takers?

Job 26:7 He stretched out the north over the empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

(Earth is free floating in space)

Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth… (globe = round not flat)

Ecclesiastes 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow: unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again. (hydrologic cycle)

Genesis 2:1 So the heavens and the earth were finished… (meaning creation was finished…The first law of thermodynamics states that neither matter or energy can be created or destroyed.

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Seems to me that many things that science can finally explain were stated in the bible LONG before science could explain it, AND WAAAAAAYYYYY before much would be considered a truth that your average first grader could tell you the same thing. I think science explains what it knows much better than the bible. Some of what science has taken a very long time to prove from a scientific standpoint, in papers that are perhaps even longer than the bible, are just one-liners in the bible. Just stated as fact. No support. That’s just not going to cut the scientific mustard. This is where faith goes a LONG WAY!

My mother just gave me a book called :the Science of the Soul. She says it’s amazing… Looks like science might be catching up there too??? Not sure yet, I haven’t had a chance to read it.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

No.

Your neighbor’s desire to rape your nine year old daughter is objectively horrendous. His opinion about it is not relevant.

-Tim-

Although I myself see that it is evil to rape anyone, philosophically speaking what you have said here is an assertion and not a rational demonstration of the fact. I can easily say that this just happens to be your feeling according to your genetic make up or social development. You have acquired a taste that finds the raping of children horrendous (I assume you mean objectively immoral, and not just visually unsettling). I am sure that there has been times when it was not seen as horrendous to be sexually active with people as young as twelve or even younger according to some culture. Some cultures even sacrificed their children believing it was the will of God.

 

[fhansen]

Although I myself see that it is evil to rape anyone, philosophically speaking what you have said here is an assertion and not a rational demonstration of the fact. I can easily say that this just happens to be your feeling according to your genetic make up or social development. You have acquired a taste that finds the raping of children horrendous (I assume you mean objectively immoral, and not just visually unsettling). I am sure that there has been times when it was not seen as horrendous to be sexually active with people as young as twelve or even younger according to some culture. Some cultures even sacrificed their children believing it was the will of God.

Is this an argument for relative morality? All evil is done in the name of some perceived and desired good.

 

[patricius79]

Yes, why human beings can be altruistic. Science cannot answer that. :yup:

nor why we can make truth judgments and objectify the body–i.e. “I have a body”

 

[Della]

nor why we can make truth judgments and objectify the body–i.e. “I have a body”

That’s good! I like that. Senience/self awareness cannot be explained by science.

Also, science might be able to explain how we got here, but it cannot explain why. What is our purpose? Do we have a purpose? Science cannot answer those questions, either.

 

[Della]

Just saw this while reading Fox News and thought it relevant, although the author of the article shows his ignorance when it comes to what the Church has taught and claims the Church got an “anti-science” tag put on it because of the Galileo case (simply not true, but that’s another topic for another thread): reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7052OC20110106. He quotes Pope Benedict:

He said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans, while not in conflict with faith, left many questions unanswered.

“In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality … we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth,” he said.

It seems the pope has said pretty much what we have been saying here.

 

[Ad_Pondus_Omniu]

How about Creation and the age of the earth? We all know Evolutionists have nothing to say (at least nothing that makes any sense) about those things .

 

[Windfish]

Science contradicts genesis, therefore science is God. What do you say to that windfish?

I like the last part of your paragraph. I suppose that could be a good argument; that the intelligibility of the universe corresponds to the intelligence of a mind so much so that it would seem that the universe sprang forth from a mind?

I think you are being sarcastic with your question, right?

There is a lot of interesting literature out right now on the history of science. Modern science arose in the Christian west because of two theological beliefs not found anywhere else: 1) that nature is not God 2) that nature is knowable because it was rationally created. Think about it. If nature is God, you don’t want to perform a sacrilege by performing tests on it. It would be unthinkable. In Catholicism, though, nature and God are distinct. And if nature is unknowable, then the whole endeavor of science is impossible from the start. And this was a widespread belief in the ancient world that the Church had to combat for centuries.

Point number two, as you observed, can be developed into an argument for the existence of God, and I think it is one of Aquinas’ Five Ways, actually. It is the argument from intelligibility. As Christians, we take for granted that reality is discernible, but this was not always the belief.

I am writing very quickly, here, but back to the point of this thread: I see a scientific explanation for a natural phenomenon as a Christian explanation in that 1) all truth comes from God 2) science is a subset of a Christian worldview.

 

[jwright82]

Why?

Explain why that is?

How?

Well its simple, so to speak. Every human being shares at least two assumptions about the world around us, the uniformity of nature and the validity of inductive reasoning (however limited that may be). The first assumption is related to the second because the second presuposes the first. If nature is not uniform than there is no validity to inductive reasoning because physical laws could change in an instance.

We assume that when we preform an experiment again the laws of nature will not magically change on us and gravity will work completly different. Now despite the quantum mechanics school of thought which does on one level leave open the possibility of really strange things being able to happen and the laws of nature changing, they still can’t explain why these weird things don’t ever happen. So now we are left with the problem of induction, what logical reason can one give to justify these assumptions?

This is another way of stating the problem of induction. When I drop a ball to the ground what logical reason can I give to justify my beleif that the next time I drop the ball it will do the same thing? That is a philosophical problem that has plagued western society to date. It can be complicated but there is no single answer to be given by philosophers to answer this question. The problem is no one, by my knowledge has settled this one. Every attempt fails to do justice to this rather common sense beleif.

The latest and greatest attempt is by the atheist community who has attempted to apply Darwinian logic to the issue of natural laws to try to make God an uneccesary explenation. The problem with that is that if our natural laws evolved into their current state what guarentee is there that at anytime they can evolve again? The problem is not solved but only crops back up so their assumption is unjustified and they simply have blind faith in science and they blindly hope that things will stay the same, and they would really love it if this were true.

The Christian on the other hand beleives in a self-existant all powerful being who created and sustains the universe. This beleif justifies our beleif in science because the regularity can be accounted by this fundemental beleif in a Creator. This is a transcendental argument for science, all be it very simple one.

 

[BKulash_eski]

First can I say “its complicated”, I saw your thread and my first instinct was “you”, but that answer was taken and it was the first reply. So I will say…
A hug, one where you never want to let go.
Rain after you get over being rained on. Mom’s cooking.
Music. and if you ever can let go… then that, and that, and that
The Eucharist
Helping someone when the help given being the reward,

 

[YankeeRC]

Why science exists in the first place. Science cannot on its own solve the problem of induction. Philosophy has tried and failed to solve this one too. Only religion, the christian religion that is, can provide an adequite answer to this.

I would say Science exists because God exists. Science is an aspect of God, His ability to understand and create. And humans were created in the form an likeness of God including the aspect of scientific inquiry.

As for the OP’s question I would say “Truth” I think God knows Truth, God is Truth. There are many relativistic “truths” but there can only be one Truth. As to which truth we as humans choose to follow is a matter of faith. I do not think Science can explain Truth, it can merely ascribes Constants to truth in mathematical formulae. My 2 cents

 

[Tsamp1006]

Well in all honesty I would purport that the basis of the Natural world itself is something that is more accurately described in religion and in philosophy than it is in science seeing as how science provides none. I would argue this in terms of an at infinitum regressions. Taking for example fundamental institutions like gravity. Gravity is in and of itself a subset of force, force can be thought of as a subset of both matter and motion (F=M*A) Motion in turn can be thought of in a subset of euclidean geometry, which in turn can be a function of non euclidean geometry, and then brought back to the foundational principles of mathematics. by extension and regression these tenants in and of themselves must rest in something, but we have no idea what. Even mathematicians admit this, they have actually created mathematical proof to show that you cannot prove the tenants of mathematics (Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem) Also consider electricity, we know that it is caused from electrons which are themselves cause to interact by charge. We know that charge exists, we can measure it, we can quantify it, we know how to manipulate it, but we still have no fundamental idea of what it is. Likewise when we turn to the origins of life, contrary to popular belief Darwinian Evolution does absolutely nothing to answer this, all it really does is say that it was slow, and express how life changes, it accounts for why these changes stick with a species after they have occurred, It doesn’t explain where life came from nor why it changes in the first place (it just says that it is random, and frankly I don’t buy that). Religion and faith and logical philosophy provide us with this base level upon which the rest is all based. It may be argued by some that this is not a justified grounds from which to argue that science and mathematics are based on, but it is a grounds, and pure science is thus far, and I suspect always shall be, unable to provide us with a suitable base alternative

 

[tonyrey]

Well in all honesty I would purport that the basis of the Natural world itself is something that is more accurately described in religion and in philosophy than it is in science seeing as how science provides none. I would argue this in terms of an ad infinitum regressions. Taking for example fundamental institutions like gravity. Gravity is in and of itself a subset of force, force can be thought of as a subset of both matter and motion (F=M*A) Motion in turn can be thought of in a subset of euclidean geometry, which in turn can be a function of non euclidean geometry, and then brought back to the foundational principles of mathematics. by extension and regression these tenets in and of themselves must rest in something, but we have no idea what. Even mathematicians admit this, they have actually created mathematical proof to show that you cannot prove the tenets of mathematics (Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem) Also consider electricity, we know that it is caused from electrons which are themselves cause to interact by charge. We know that charge exists, we can measure it, we can quantify it, we know how to manipulate it, but we still have no fundamental idea of what it is. Likewise when we turn to the origins of life, contrary to popular belief Darwinian Evolution does absolutely nothing to answer this, all it really does is say that it was slow, and express how life changes, it accounts for why these changes stick with a species after they have occurred, It doesn’t explain where life came from nor why it changes in the first place (it just says that it is random, and frankly I don’t buy that). Religion and faith and logical philosophy provide us with this base level upon which the rest is all based. It may be argued by some that this is not a justified grounds from which to argue that science and mathematics are based on, but it is a grounds, and pure science is thus far, and I suspect always shall be, unable to provide us with a suitable base alternative

A warm welcome to the forum! A most impressive maiden post…

 

[Della]

Well in all honesty I would purport that the basis of the Natural world itself is something that is more accurately described in religion and in philosophy than it is in science seeing as how science provides none. I would argue this in terms of an at infinitum regressions. Taking for example fundamental institutions like gravity. Gravity is in and of itself a subset of force, force can be thought of as a subset of both matter and motion (F=M*A) Motion in turn can be thought of in a subset of euclidean geometry, which in turn can be a function of non euclidean geometry, and then brought back to the foundational principles of mathematics. by extension and regression these tenants in and of themselves must rest in something, but we have no idea what. Even mathematicians admit this, they have actually created mathematical proof to show that you cannot prove the tenants of mathematics (Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem) Also consider electricity, we know that it is caused from electrons which are themselves cause to interact by charge. We know that charge exists, we can measure it, we can quantify it, we know how to manipulate it, but we still have no fundamental idea of what it is. Likewise when we turn to the origins of life, contrary to popular belief Darwinian Evolution does absolutely nothing to answer this, all it really does is say that it was slow, and express how life changes, it accounts for why these changes stick with a species after they have occurred, It doesn’t explain where life came from nor why it changes in the first place (it just says that it is random, and frankly I don’t buy that). Religion and faith and logical philosophy provide us with this base level upon which the rest is all based. It may be argued by some that this is not a justified grounds from which to argue that science and mathematics are based on, but it is a grounds, and pure science is thus far, and I suspect always shall be, unable to provide us with a suitable base alternative

I don’t buy the whole “random” theory, either. I may not have the background in science and mathematics, but when I think about how everything had to fit together so precisely or we wouldn’t be here, and the wonder of who and what we are, I cannot accept that it was random. Nor can I see how evolution answers how life managed to create such complex beings after the many extinctions and restarts in the amount of time since earth was habitable as we see in the geological record. It just doesn’t add up (no pun intended).