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While we're talking about religion and science, science is by no means infallible. People hold science up to be such a shining beacon, but it really isn't. There are plenty of answers science hasn't found.
Let me tell you a little story. August 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida. According to the scientists, i.e. meteorologists, it should have made landfall somewhere around Tampa. Instead it came roaring into Charlotte Harbor, and up the Peace River. There are two towns that sit on opposite sides of the Peace River near that point. Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. They hadn't seen a storm since Hurricane Donna in the '60s. They weren't expecting a storm, especially since those weather-guessers told them it wouldn't hit them, it was going to hit quite a bit north. They'd probably get some rain out of it, but nothing serious.
They were pretty much unprepared for the swath of destruction a Category 4 hurricane could deliver.
The weather-guessers can't even tell me with 100% certainty if it's going to rain on me between 7 and 8 p.m. as I make my way to work (estimating, I like to arrive at least 15 minutes before 8, and it takes an hour to walk it). If they can't be 100% certain, I might as well check the Farmer's Almanac (a decidedly "unscientific" bunch, not known for their intellect, to be sure), or have an astrologer cast my horoscope. After all, if one's going to simply guess, what does the source matter?
Here's another one for you. Doctors have not cured schizophrenia. They can control the symptoms--by frying the brain with chemicals so much that the person can barely function, but they can't cure it. They don't know the answer. What's shameful about it is that they won't simply admit to not knowing. They'll tell you it's treatable.but only by removing so much of the afflicted's capacity, that they aren't themselves any longer. At least religion isn't saying that they have an answer for it. Bunch of quacks, in my estimation.
That's an opinion piece. Not a declarative article stating a fact. So there's nothing from that piece that is really different than arguments that have been made (without a clear resolution) for thousands of years.
While we're talking about religion and science, science is by no means infallible. People hold science up to be such a shining beacon, but it really isn't. There are plenty of answers science hasn't found.
Let me tell you a little story. August 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida. According to the scientists, i.e. meteorologists, it should have made landfall somewhere around Tampa. Instead it came roaring into Charlotte Harbor, and up the Peace River. There are two towns that sit on opposite sides of the Peace River near that point. Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. They hadn't seen a storm since Hurricane Donna in the '60s. They weren't expecting a storm, especially since those weather-guessers told them it wouldn't hit them, it was going to hit quite a bit north. They'd probably get some rain out of it, but nothing serious.
They were pretty much unprepared for the swath of destruction a Category 4 hurricane could deliver.
The weather-guessers can't even tell me with 100% certainty if it's going to rain on me between 7 and 8 p.m. as I make my way to work (estimating, I like to arrive at least 15 minutes before 8, and it takes an hour to walk it). If they can't be 100% certain, I might as well check the Farmer's Almanac (a decidedly "unscientific" bunch, not known for their intellect, to be sure), or have an astrologer cast my horoscope. After all, if one's going to simply guess, what does the source matter?
Here's another one for you. Doctors have not cured schizophrenia. They can control the symptoms--by frying the brain with chemicals so much that the person can barely function, but they can't cure it. They don't know the answer. What's shameful about it is that they won't simply admit to not knowing. They'll tell you it's treatable.but only by removing so much of the afflicted's capacity, that they aren't themselves any longer. At least religion isn't saying that they have an answer for it. Bunch of quacks, in my estimation.
Science certainly has not solved everything. Nor has it been perfect in its theories. But it seems more willing to be tested against stringent measures (scientific method) than most religions, which get defensive, if not violent, before bending after the fact (i.e. world is flat, earth is center of the universe, etc).
In some cases it's very hard to turn science, but as hard as it is, it's much easier than to turn any religion -- show that the literal application is flawed because the initial context did not have the benefit of today's knowledge.
I view that as sort of an open vulnerability in science, something that is a credit to it and invites faith in its process, even if not in every one of its theories. Religion seems inherently intransigent, mainly because of power and how most of us tie our identities to our faith -- possibly through centuries of indoctrination across humankind. The science that has stood the test of time and challenges invites more faith in me than the religion that has survived through war and sometimes-forced conversion and indoctrination.
That's not to say there is no value in faith, or that there is no higher power, or that there is no connection between religion in science. For example, I sense that science is the language of that higher power. That the miracles are within the consistency in science, not within the acts that defy it.
god exists, science is wrong. Praying works. science doesn't make sense. the solution to all problems is god.
Man, I feel better now.
Nope. Never said that.
I said that I don't believe in doctors because they're a bunch of quacks who don't know what they're doing.
Isn't it funny how many inventions and discoveries have not come from dedicated and directed study--but completely by accident?
Penicillin, vulcanized rubber, Teflon...Not to mention the diseases that they haven't found cures for, or have to admit they don't know why people get them.
god exists, science is wrong. Praying works. science doesn't make sense. the solution to all problems is god.
Man, I feel better now.
As a matter of fact, I'd even go so far as to say that praying doesn't work, but if you're going to leave it up to anything less than 100% certainty to begin with, it can't do any worse.
You wouldn't consider farmers to be scientists, but they could make predictions about the weather with the same accuracy as any other weather guesser out there--and without the benefit of radar or computer screens.
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