Re: Religion and Science -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 05:39:04 05/27/04 Thu
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: Religion and Science
In reply to: Tony Lang 's message, "Religion and Science" on 01:44:58 05/27/04 Thu

The issue of science vs. religion covers whole books and has a long history.

Overall I agree with what you write. I will pick out only one point which I think is worth a second thought.

It is the role of science to explain how the world was created. (What is a scientist? They are just observers of matter)

The problem is that science can only observe the world as it is now. It can make experiments which can be reproduced. It is based on the premise that the natural laws did not change or changed and are known completely. That premise, however, is not scientifially provable. You can give "scientif evidence" that wonders don't exist. You can make an experiment and ask people to walk on the water, and the scientific result will be that it is highly unlikely that Jesus did it. But you can't disproved it. God could have put the natural laws out of operation for a moment. It's only a matter of faith whether you believe God exists and is able to do that. You have the same problem with creation. You cannot make a reproducable experiment and try to create a universe and humans in a test tube. You can only make assumptions how in the frame of what you know about the laws of nature, without the concept of God, humans could have come into being. That's what science does. However, it cannot disprove that the world was created in a completely different way. Science cannot break out the frameset given by natural laws and speculate about a creation by somebody who is higher than natural laws and could have created the universe and its laws alltogether.

As you said, scientists are "ovservers of matter." However, the crucial point with creation is that it was never observed. Isn't this also the crucial question that Job was asked by God: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand."

So, science is wonderful and useful. But it has its limitations, and we should accept and see these. And, of course, we should also see the limits of religion. It was never thought as a replacement for science and common sense, only as a complement.

Coming back to the problem of mind control. I believe science can be very useful here. There are a few mechanisms in human behavior that can very well be examined by methods of science (psychology). We can even make reproducable experiments like the Milgram experiment or the Stanford prison experiment which tell us a lot about human behaviour and give us good explanations for some of the mechanisms which we can see at work in personal cults or lately in Iraq. And I think most people aren't aware of these dangerous susceptibilities of human beings. Usually people believe that humans are - basically - good (thought the Bible says the opposite). They also believe they are always in control. This is self-deception actually. See also the reaction of president Bush when he heared about the prison tortures. He said that this is not representative for America or all soldiers. Again, if the Stanford prison experiment had been taken seriously, it would have been predictable to some amount. Likewise, people believe they would never be so silly to get trapped in a cult, because they believe they are in control. However, the concept of mind control explains how this can happen to nearly anybody, not matter how intelligent.

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Replies:

Re: Religion and Science -- Mike K., 06:14:57 05/27/04 Thu