Scientists cannot be Catholics

  • Thread starter Thread starter devonsams
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I would tell your friend we all entitled to our opinions, so our good and others not so much.
 
devonsams said:
My atheist friend said to me that a Scientist cannot be Catholic, because the Church accepts a lot of things such as: Incorruptile Bodies, Stigmatas of Saints (Padre Pio), Miracles to make saints… All this things were never accepted my science, and they would never be accepted by the scientific community. So, a scientist which is catholic is accepting all this things as true without evidence, he is accepting that Our Lady appeared in Fatima, that saints has some supernatural powers, he accepts the existence of Exorcisms, he is ignoring the scientific proccess and he is accepting as true incredible events without strong evidence. How can a scientist that works with hard skepticism and investigation could accept this things and still be a serious scientist? Isnt it incoherent?

Help me to answer that folks.
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The Father of modern biology, (something that tha ape-headed darwin can thank), was a Catholic Priest. Catholics deveolped the scientific method. Also thats like saying Catholics cannot be philosophers because it too rational. Please, the smartest man to ever walk this earth was St. Thomas Aquinas-big time philosopher. He would have intellectucally run richard dawkins through the washing machine AND dryer.
 
Why should they be separate? Faith and reason are complementary means to the truth.
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I agree. However, devonsams friend may not. He could try to explain how faith and science can go together, however, I think it is much simpler and shorter to point out that his friend’s logic isn’t all that sound.
 
devonsams said:
Okay, but what he meant, is that how can a scientist be catholic when a catholic believe in miracles such as the saint miracles, and Fatima appearences and stuff ?
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Ask your friend which science he is referring to. Get a specific answer. I will bet that whatever science he mentions, a Catholic could be working in some phase or some part of it.

The key is that none of the natural sciences formally deal with Incorruptile Bodies, Stigmatas of Saints (Padre Pio), and Miracles to make saints. A scientist, on his own, may study some of these, but they are not the prime subject of a science discipline.
 
Regular_Atheist said:
Your friend isn’t all that smart. Anyone can be a scientist, regardless of religious beliefs.
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Current Theory on the Origin of the Universe - Fr. Georges Lemaître (Catholic priest)
Heliocentric Cosmology - Nicolaus Copernicus (Catholic cleric)
Founder of the field of Genetics - Gregor Mendel (Augustinian friar)
Founder of Modern Geology - Nicolas Steno (Catholic bishop)
Founder of Cell Biology - Jean Baptiste Carnoy (Catholic priest)
Founder of Accounting - Luca Pacioli (Franciscan friar)

and of course

Founder of the Scientific Method - Roger Bacon (Franciscan friar)

I agree with the other poster your friend is very dim. It seems your friend needs to get off the militant atheist train and read up on his history and science instead of reading a Richard Dawkin’s book and thinking he knows all there needs to be known. 👍
 
Before the Catholic Church canonizes a saint or proclaims a particular miracle to be worthy of belief, an exhaustive investigation of the people and events is first undertaken. These investigations are conducted with an extremely high degree of skepticism (after all, the Church does not want to ever make the mistake of giving an official endorsement to something that turns out to be a hoax). Ask your friend to examine the actual investigations of the people and events that he mentioned and challenge him to come up with something that he feels was lacking. If he cannot, then he has to admit that these procedures were, indeed, exhaustive and ruled out any natural explanation. If there is no natural explanation, then there is nothing irrational about positing a supernatural explanation.

Also, ask your friend to explain the origins of the universe and the origins of life in the universe, especially in light of the incredible odds required for such things to happen as random acts of nature. Such explanations usually involve the existence of alternative universes and such which, of course, has not been proven by the scientific method. In my opinion, it seems that many people who reject an explanation based upon religion are happy to embrace an explanation based upon science-fiction. Either way, a person is drawing conclusions beyond what the scientific method can collaborate.
 
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