Science Text Attempts to Reconcile Religion and Science

terrymaster69 writes "The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences has just published their third book outlining guidelines for the teaching of evolution. 'But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"

Comments

Slashdot and religion..

[jadin]

I've read slashdot for a long time. And the one thing that irritates me the most is the hatred everyone has towards religion and god. Post after post moderated to +5 insightful for saying "it's stupid to believe in god". What happened to open-minded?

The bible actually agrees with science on a fair number of things. Here's a couple quick examples:

Big Bang - e=mc2 basically a lot of energy can create matter. God is stated repeatedly of having abundant power or energy. Now imagine the beginning of time, empty universe or what have you and God begins creation. He puts his finger to the empty 'canvas' and pours out his energy, and matter 'explodes' from his fingertips outward. (I'm not aware of) anything in the bible that contradicts this. But it would easily explain how science sees the big bang, and how God could've created it. There are also many verses talking about God 'spreading out the heavens', seems fitting for an expanding universe.

Dinosaurs - Everyone loves saying the bible is wrong on the creation account due to the lack of dinosaurs in the bible. All writers were inspired by Holy Spirit (according to the bible). Most people have had in their lives a moment where everything makes perfect sense. They can think about anything at all, and everything about it is absolutely crystal clear. You can think about war, the past, even sex. Whatever, doesn't matter, it just makes sense. I (personally) believe this is how holy spirit works. However, there is a limitation. If you don't think about it, it won't become clear. This means that Moses while writing about the history of creation, would only write down what species were known about during his life. He would not have known about dinosaurs to place them on the timeline in creation.

There's more but I can't think of them atm.. So I'll close with an anecdote:

A few years ago I was into drugs and alcohol, I became depressed and not happy with life. Since I grew up religious my solution was to pray about it, that very day I was watching people download some songs from my computer (napster days). I messaged one to tell the user I had a few more albums of the same band they might want. The way he spoke made me wonder where they were from. He said Germany. About this time the Iraq war protests were going on. So I asked what he thought about the war. His response was basically "I believe god will make things better soon." I recognized the answer growing up as a Jehovah's Witness myself. So I asked what religion he was.

He told me he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I told him how I was raised as one also, and we chatted for quite sometime. The significance was that if my parents were to ask me about faith, I would've thought nothing of it. But the chances of this person across the globe I've never met seemingly respond to my prayer made me take note. Soon after that time he told me he was going on vacation. During the three months that followed, I returned to my drugs and alcohol and soon became depressed again, never doing anything with religion. Once again I prayed. That very same day I received an email from this same person in Germany saying nothing more than "Well? How's your faith?"

Two prayers three months apart. Two answers on the same exact day of the prayers. It was a coincidence I couldn't ignore. This is the basis of my faith. Something I can't just dismiss because it's "stupid to believe in god" or "religion is to keep the masses under control". Stop assuming that people are religious because they are stupid, or gullible. Perhaps theirs more to their faith then you know about. I consider my logic to be one of my strongest characteristics. And based on the events in my life, belief in God is the only logical choice.

Re:Logic vs Faith

[cHiphead]

I'm inclined to say that faith has been effective in keeping peace, its the organized and centralized power structure in a religion that has done well disturbing that peace...