However, they should always be entitled to the first hearing in the court of science. I see a lot of comments here seeming to suggest that theistic beliefs are delusional or irrational because there's not good science to support them. Sometimes I worry that science has become our answer to everything. I definitely believe that science should be our means for determining the origin of the physical universe and the processes of living organisims, etc. But can it answer all the questions? I wouldn't claim that it can't, because it may just be that we haven't devised the right experiments yet because we don't yet understand the underlying phenomena, but there seem to be other issues that science doesn't have the right framework to deal with. Like love, or morals, or why people argue about gods and religions.
A lot of religions and the idea of the gods behind them is that they provide answers to these questions. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but given that science doesn't seem well equipped to provide meaningful insight on some of these issues, it actually doesn't seem unreasonable to me to look to other sources for explanations and guidance. If you can find a religious framework that fits with the science (it had better!), then you have a complete worldview that can inform the whole set of questions we face.
I thought Francis Collins' book 'The Language of God' was very interesting. He's a rigorous scientist of the highest caliber and a theist.
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A lot of religions and the idea of the gods behind them is that they provide answers to these questions. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but given that science doesn't seem well equipped to provide meaningful insight on some of these issues, it actually doesn't seem unreasonable to me to look to other sources for explanations and guidance. If you can find a religious framework that fits with the science (it had better!), then you have a complete worldview that can inform the whole set of questions we face. I thought Francis Collins' book 'The Language of God' was very interesting. He's a rigorous scientist of the highest caliber and a theist.