A question about Religon and Progress

[fed1943]

Religious beliefs can help or hinder progress, it depends on what the
community understands them.
If you believe you must do nothing to avoid karma, it hinders; if you
believe you must work honest and hard to go on with God's work, it
helps.
If you believe you must not take loans because the time is a gift from God,it hinders; if you believe God shows you are on the path of salvation as you are sucessful at your job,it helps.
And so on.

[Elok]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Actually, it hasn't. Around the time of the revolution it was a lot more irreligious than it is today. There was a Great Awakening that swept the land around 1810 or so, and we've been religious nuts ever since.

Oh, so we've only been religious nuts for a little less than 200 years, not a little more. Well, that changes everything.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
I feel I should fine-tine my question a bit more.

Does religion, inbibit the accurate progress of biology?

It is difficult to say what slows progress, scientists can go down a dead end for any number of reasons, the Piltdown man hoax being the opposite of Religious influence for instance. Religion can be a factor but singling it out is not really productive.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Actually, it hasn't. Around the time of the revolution it was a lot more irreligious than it is today. There was a Great Awakening that swept the land around 1810 or so, and we've been religious nuts ever since.

Liberal protestant churches have been shrinking in membership for a long time. The fundamentalist churches have been taking on their loses though. You can trace the strength of the Christian Right to the strength of the Republican Party.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, what I will say will sound horribly arrogant, and I am regretting writing it, but, I think your opposition to evolution is a leftover from your protestant years (you were evangelical, right?)

What, like I'm gonna get offended at a perfectly reasonable supposition.

That's a good question. My skepticism to evolution came before I was even a Christian. Originally, I believed it was absolutely true, and then I read Darwin himself and he seemed unsure of himself in the Descent of Man, backing away from his earlier claims and pushing the idea that differentiation is correct, while he wasn't so sure about the origin of species. I remember being shocked by it, and the conclusion I took in the end is that Darwin's last statement was more accurate with the benefit of age and experience behind him.

Since then, as I've re-examined my position, I realised that there wasn't all that much evidence in support of evolution, and I'm a wary skeptic.

What you've said here may in fact be the truth, and if proven the same way other scientific theories are, then I'd wholeheartedly believe that God chose to work evolution for his own purposes. I've never been a YEC or and ID fanatic. I'm closer to my old position then I am to both of them. My skepticism on Darwin's theory doesn't come so much from my faith, but the lack of proof.

Catholics generally believe that we all come from monkeys, and previously fishes, and previously one single cell, what they don't believe in is in chance, they believe thats the way God wanted it.

Some do. There's never been any definitive doctrine on the issue, Catholics are free to their own conscience to come to a conclusion. You are right though that pure chance directed evolution is contrary to the Catholic faith, while rejecting evolution altogether is not.

[Ben Kenobi]

You can trace the strength of the Christian Right to the strength of the Republican Party.

Indeed, I just got my new leather jackboots in the mail so I can goosestep with the best of them! Want to see?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Indeed, I just got my new leather jackboots in the mail so I can goosestep with the best of them! Want to see?

You're Catholic. You just make babies to expand. You leave the goosesteping to the Christian Right.

[Ben Kenobi]

You just make babies to expand

Sadly a talent I've yet to master.

But goosestepping I've got done cold!

[ramseya]

I thought Ben was a Mennonite?

[ramseya]

Ben:

Planets have been discovered by astronomers not through observation of a planet but by deduction from indirect observations, such as the effect of a strong gravitational pull on stars causing them to 'wobble'.

No one has ever gone to the sun and taken a sample to prove that it is made up of hydrogen and helium yet through spectroscopy, we know its composition.

Similarly, we do not need to witness the direct change from one species to another to know of evolution's factuality. Genetic similarities between organisms, atavism, homologous structures, etc. all serve as indirect evidence for evolution.

but I am sure you have heard these arguments before so nothing will persuade you. Hell, I'm sure you've heard of the Enlightenment-era watch-maker concept of God which wouldn't preclude evolution and is in keeping with your apparently Catholic faith.

[Elok]

Originally posted by ramseya
I thought Ben was a Mennonite?

He converted to the RCC some time ago.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Then evolution is not science. One cannot observe the conclusions of theology first hand either, and yet we do not consider theology to be science. Evolution is a theology, in that it explains the origins of the world in a self-consistant manner that cannot be directly observed or falsified.

This is why Darwinists and Christians cannot be abided together, they have different faiths about the origins of the world. The fault is no more that of the Christian as it is the Darwinist. For the followers of Christ abide by him, and the followers of Darwin abide by him.

No. ramseya simply noted that certain subatomic particles can be proven to exist without directly noticing them. How does theology do this?
Theologists make reasonable arguments based on belief, but exactly that is the fatal flaw: it's a belief. That is why it's not a science, and evolution is. People who adhere the principles of evolution don't "believe" in it. Like you are doing now, religious people claim evolutionists believe in it, like if it were a competing religion.

You had better think from a neutral point of view, and perhaps then you'll see that's it not a belief, whereas theology is inherently based on a belief. That is why theology can't be a science like we would traditionally describe that concept. It's not because it uses similar methods of thinking about a particular religion doesn't make it a science altogether.

[Jon Miller]

Science is based on beleifs just like religion. Everything is.

It is just that a different subset of all people hold to the beleif of empiricism than that of the existence of God (those subsets do have an intersection though).

JM

[ramseya]

Traianvs:

At the risk of weakening your valid argument concerning the very common misconception that science is a belief system...

technically speaking, empiricism is just one epistemological method. A rationalist could argue against science's assumption of the validity of observations. It is somewhat of a leap of faith to be certain that observations are valid but it is no more of a leap than others which we accept readily such as that other people exist and that the universe isn't contained within my head.

[ramseya]

I suppose Ben takes his observations of life and assumes quite naturally that life must have been consciously created and organized. In a way, this is an inference and he could argue that certain aspects of life are good forms of indirect evidence for a creator.

I would question, however, if Ben would have deduced a creator following his observations or would the observations have 'proved' his creator for him?