R
Rhys_Thomas_00
Guest
I’m Catholic, I’m also a Physicist. A lot of people I know question me on how I can be both scientific and religious at the same time. I question why they aren’t: why do they believe the two are incompatible?
Why do so many people still think science and religion are incompatible?
- Status
C
Cruciferi
Guest
Quite frankly, because they’re not very bright. 
G
george.s.v
Guest
For fundamentalist religious people as well as fundamentalist atheists, religion and science will always be incompatible. It is perhaps because of a kind of insecurity; each one’s identity is based upon the overall exclusion of the other. Next time, you can just refer some deeply religious people that are known for their important contributions to science; and this not instead but because of their faith.
S
SuscipeMeDomine
Guest
A lot of people have minimal understanding of both science and religion. In the US, in particular, there’s a lot of influence from fundamentalist Protestants so that many Catholics believe in biblical literalism.
S
Struggling1
Guest
I think it’s moreso that you can’t prove God exists through science and people view that to mean they are incompatible when in reality it’s just the scientific method cannot measure a non physical being.
T
TheOldColonel
Guest
I suppose many find it hard to believe that there may be two valid perspectives on the same reality.
S
Struggling1
Guest
This is totally it it is so hard to accept the fact there is more to the universe than can be observed with any method. It’s not a easy thing to wrap your head around there may be an entire existence outside of all that is measurable.
V
Vouthon
Guest
Because a number of fundamentalist religious people, in denying scientifically corroborated theories ranging from evolution to climate change, make it easy for others to make the case that religion is an irrational belief system at odds with empiricism and reason.
But in reality, there’s a reason why the Scientific Revolution took place in Early Modern Europe. It didn’t pop out of a vacuum like a miraculous virgin birth: a long-standing intellectual climate and framework, characterised by a set of concrete assumptions derived from a cultural milieu shaped by Western Christianity, underpinned it. Earlier cultures like the classical Greeks made important contributions but the “revolution” did not occur in these civilizations in its fully developed form.
In his Mechanics, for instance, Hero of Alexandria (10 AD – c. 70 AD) who was an important Roman era mathematician and engineer, states unambiguously and uncritically on the authority of Aristotle that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Now, this is a fundamental error that could have easily been proven wrong were Hero to have engaged in the simplest of experiments. Yet Hero did not do this and nor did it occur to any of his pagan, pre-Christian contemporaries to do it either. He and they simply accepted the authority of Aristotle on this question, rather than subjecting this theory to an empirical test.
It was not until the Christian worldview started to loosen stringent attachment to the ideas of Aristotle, that a Christian philosopher named John Philoponus (490–570) was in a position to actually perform one of the earliest recorded experiments to support his theories (which were critical of Aristotle courtesy of a set of Christian presuppositions), by dropping a heavy and light ball in the sixth century AD.
Philoponus discovered that both balls fell at almost the same speed: the objects (regardless of their mass) experienced the same acceleration when in a state of free fall. He had uncovered the equivalence principle, one of the fundamental principles of modern physics: drop two different weights, and (ignoring wind resistance) they will hit the ground at the same time.
This experiment demonstrated that the Aristotelians were wrong and showed that, to truly understand the laws of nature, empirical investigation was essential.
But in reality, there’s a reason why the Scientific Revolution took place in Early Modern Europe. It didn’t pop out of a vacuum like a miraculous virgin birth: a long-standing intellectual climate and framework, characterised by a set of concrete assumptions derived from a cultural milieu shaped by Western Christianity, underpinned it. Earlier cultures like the classical Greeks made important contributions but the “revolution” did not occur in these civilizations in its fully developed form.
In his Mechanics, for instance, Hero of Alexandria (10 AD – c. 70 AD) who was an important Roman era mathematician and engineer, states unambiguously and uncritically on the authority of Aristotle that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Now, this is a fundamental error that could have easily been proven wrong were Hero to have engaged in the simplest of experiments. Yet Hero did not do this and nor did it occur to any of his pagan, pre-Christian contemporaries to do it either. He and they simply accepted the authority of Aristotle on this question, rather than subjecting this theory to an empirical test.
It was not until the Christian worldview started to loosen stringent attachment to the ideas of Aristotle, that a Christian philosopher named John Philoponus (490–570) was in a position to actually perform one of the earliest recorded experiments to support his theories (which were critical of Aristotle courtesy of a set of Christian presuppositions), by dropping a heavy and light ball in the sixth century AD.
Philoponus discovered that both balls fell at almost the same speed: the objects (regardless of their mass) experienced the same acceleration when in a state of free fall. He had uncovered the equivalence principle, one of the fundamental principles of modern physics: drop two different weights, and (ignoring wind resistance) they will hit the ground at the same time.
This experiment demonstrated that the Aristotelians were wrong and showed that, to truly understand the laws of nature, empirical investigation was essential.
Last edited:
V
Vouthon
Guest
The very concept of the universe operating according to pre-existent, immutable “physical laws” or the “laws of nature” courtesy of an underlying mathematical order, is a profoundly theological one derived from the Christian worldview: which presupposes the existence of a Supreme God who created the world and ordered it in a rational, comprehensible manner. And yes, the first forays into empiricism as well.
The earliest scientists like Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Newton et al were motivated to employ the scientific method for that overarching purpose. Their shared Christian worldview was not a mere unfortunate appendage to their scientific endeavours.
If I might quote the cosmologist and theoretical physicist Paul Davies, writing in Edge magazine:
https://www.edge.org/conversation/paul_davies-taking-science-on-faith
The earliest scientists like Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Newton et al were motivated to employ the scientific method for that overarching purpose. Their shared Christian worldview was not a mere unfortunate appendage to their scientific endeavours.
If I might quote the cosmologist and theoretical physicist Paul Davies, writing in Edge magazine:
https://www.edge.org/conversation/paul_davies-taking-science-on-faith
T
TheOldColonel
Guest
Yes. That’s a nice way to describe it.
L
littlebird
Guest
God created science…no biggie
- Status