Why are so many scientists atheists?

[humble_catholic]

Add to that that these “miracles” occur under less-than-rigorous conditions, so there’s no way to properly study them. The acceptance of an incident as a miracle is generally one which lacks skepticism, and scientists are skeptics. An image of Jesus on a shower curtain is one of pattern recognition in a random arrangement of mold, and given enough shower curtains you will end up with images like this. It’s nothing that violates physical law. Yet some will revere it as a miracle.

Exactly Dex, that is why the vatican employs some of the most stringent methods of studying Miracles and it took them many years to accept Even Fatima as a miracle. The Vatican even sends Atheist doctors and scientists to check alot of these miracles out. That is amazing in and of itself. Its like saying Dawkins investigating a miracle and using theists to check it out for him. The miracle of Fatima isnt comparable to some of these other miracles like seeing an image of a saint on a piece of cheese because many people were there and the things that happened (drying and cleaning of clothes, prediction by the kids etc etc) cant be explained by scientists. This was the most documented miracle of our time.

 

[ThomasToo]

This was the most documented miracle of our time.

I’m not quite sure it is fair to call 1917 ‘our time’…

 

[Black_Rose]

Add to that that these “miracles” occur under less-than-rigorous conditions, so there’s no way to properly study them. The acceptance of an incident as a miracle is generally one which lacks skepticism, and scientists are skeptics. An image of Jesus on a shower curtain is one of pattern recognition in a random arrangement of mold, and given enough shower curtains you will end up with images like this. It’s nothing that violates physical law. Yet some will revere it as a miracle.

Yes, that is correct, since such an incident happens many times. It would seem that you intuitively understand the concept of a “Bonferroni correction”.

 

[sinnerdexter]

Exactly Dex, that is why the vatican employs some of the most stringent methods of studying Miracles and it took them many years to accept Even Fatima as a miracle. The Vatican even sends Atheist doctors and scientists to check alot of these miracles out. That is amazing in and of itself. Its like saying Dawkins investigating a miracle and using theists to check it out for him. The miracle of Fatima isnt comparable to some of these other miracles like seeing an image of a saint on a piece of cheese because many people were there and the things that happened (drying and cleaning of clothes, prediction by the kids etc etc) cant be explained by scientists. This was the most documented miracle of our time.

Can’t be explained is a bit of a dodge. Scientists can’t go back and get data, because it was a one-time event, so in that sense they can’t explain it. Can they give alternate, plausible, non-miracle explanations? Sure

 

[Moonstruck888]

I would wager that there are a higher percentage of believers amongst astronomers and astrophysicists than amongst biologists, and I’m not sure why that’s so, unless the astronomers get the message of Psalm 19a–the heavens declare the glory of God.

It’s because Biology offers the only explanation to the diversity of life that does not involve miracles.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Interesting Dexter, but I have to disagree. It seems to me that most scientist are very rigid in their belief in the allmight scientism to be able to prove everything around them, but once you show them a miracle like the one that ocurred at Fatima most either go blank or say that isnt enough to convince them. that isnt being honest or inquisitive. That is being stuck in a narrow box where they put roadbloacks against belieing that are unreasonable. In short they almost become the ultimate conspiracy theorists.

Most scientists have probably never heard the word “scientism”.

The first time I ever heard it was a few months ago on this forum whereupon I looked it up and found that it is nothing more than a derogatory label to be placed on someone who has a viewpoint one doesn’t approve of.

It’s the same kind of derogatory label as “the looney left” or “a fundamentalist bampot”.

 

[larkin31]

HEY!!! I was born in '56, it wasn’t that long ago.

Science requires proof.

God requires faith.

Some people can find common ground between the two. Some people can’t.

Indeed

Expresses my pov on this matter as well

I have read The Language of God, by Francis Collins, the former head of The Human Genome Project and a devout Christian. Very enlightening. He explains how he reconciles science and faith for himself.

And he is brutal on ID and Creationism…

 

[reggieM]

And he is brutal on ID and Creationism…

He makes an exception for his own acceptance of ID and Creationism, though.

 

[larkin31]

He makes an exception for his own acceptance of ID and Creationism, though.

Only for the first moment of the creation of energy/matter at the beginning of time/universe

not of DNA or planets or life, etc

This is NOT ID and Creationism. Those folks reject Collins’ position.

 

[edwest2]

Miracles happen.

themiracleofthepacocha.com/

Why do atheists and some agnositics deny it?

God bless,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

Only for the first moment of the creation of energy/matter at the beginning of time/universe

not of DNA or planets or life, etc

This is NOT ID and Creationism. Those folks reject Collins’ position.

As I said, he makes exceptions for his own acceptance of Intelligent Design theory. He sees the fine-tuning of the universe as evidence for God. That is ID.
He has also claimed that God directly created the moral law. That is Creationism.

I think it’s important to remember that ID and Creationism are not “folks” but, rather, ideas.

All Catholics must accept ID – that there is evidence of intelligent design in the universe.
All Catholics are necessarily Creationists – that God directly creates.

In The Language of God, Collins argues strongly for scientific evidence of intelligent design (though he doesn’t call it that) in cosmology and human psychology. He adduces the fine-tuning of the universe’s physical constants at the Big Bang, and human moral instincts, as features of physical existence that defy purely material explanations. “I cannot see how nature could have created itself,” he writes. And “In my view, DNA sequence alone…will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God.”

“He invokes certain methodological principles to rule intelligent design out of court in biology, he has already violated those rules in his design arguments in cosmology and physics,” writes Logan Gage in the American Spectator. “Collins cannot consistently employ design logic in physics and cosmology and then say that such logic is invalid in the biological realm. In biology, Collins should have retained the sound logic and high standards of critical judgment he used to skewer the cosmological prophets of scientific materialism. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
discovery.org/a/10491

 

[larkin31]

As I said, he makes exceptions for his own acceptance of Intelligent Design theory. He sees the fine-tuning of the universe as evidence for God. That is ID.
He has also claimed that God directly created the moral law. That is Creationism.

Only tangetnially, and not in the scientific sense. Look, he believes in the Christian God, all the way.

That is “Creationist,” too, for that matter.

All Catholics must accept ID – that there is evidence of intelligent design in the universe.
All Catholics are necessarily Creationists – that God directly creates.

These aren’t the definitions that he uses. He is a scientist. He is careful about this. He calls ID and Creationism–the scientific aspects of their claims that God interceded to make life AFTER the formation of the planet–to be “intellectually bankrupt.” We should let him speak for himself, I think.