On the Alleged Christian Origins of Modern Science
1) Richard Carrier destroys such a claim in my anthology, The Christian Delusion. As you might guess, I love how he opens his chapter. He excoriates it!
IS RELIGION COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE? by Dr. David Eller (pp. 257-278). [This is a 4000 word excerpt out of 8600 words. Get the book!]
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to my 2016 anthology, Christianity in the Light of Science, pp. 20-23. If you don't have it this is one of the best books I've ever published:
In this volume is found the evidence, the scientific evidence, the objective evidence that can convince open-minded people. Open-minded people will be open to the scientific evidence. Closed-minded people won’t be open to it, but will instead try to denigrate or deny it. To help believers be open-minded to scientific evidence I have argued quite extensively for the Outsider Test for Faith.5 Professor Jerry Coyne, a scientist specializing in evolutionary genetics at the University of Chicago, says “the wisdom of this . . . quasiscientific approach” is “unquestionable.”6 It asks believers to rationally test one’s culturally adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject.
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: "Faith", Denigrate Science to Believe
Scientific theories are only good till the next fact that throws doubt onto the theory comes along--and that is precisely why I find it surprising that John Loftus etc rely so much on scientific 'truth' as if the scientific view of reality at any given time really does reflect that reality. I would have thought the history of science would have shown one should exercise caution with such a position. Science is great but lets not, ironically, make it into a god.When I say believers must denigrate or deny science in one or more areas to believe, Realist1234 is our example of the day. Let's put it this way, if we want to know anything about the nature of the universe, how it behaves, or how it originated then the only way to gain this knowledge is through science. It's not just that science is the best alternative. It's rather that there is no other alternative. Does this make science a god? What could that possibly mean? Scientific minded people don't worship science. They question it, relentlessly, by testing hypotheses under peer-review until there's a scientific consensus on a matter [See the 700+ page book for this]. Has science been wrong? Yes. It can be corrected with subsequent objective evidence and shown wrong by other scientists. Religion however, never shows science wrong. Science always corrects religion because science deals with objective evidence, not faith. Believers who accuse scientific minded people of worshiping science do so because they feel everyone worships something perceived as greater than themselves. That's it. They feel the need to worship something so they think everyone does. But that's just one of the delusions they have. Evolution shows us there is nothing to worship. We just exist. We are alone in the universe. Are there things science doesn't know? Yes! Are there things science can never know? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Science is still in its infancy, so I cannot say. If there are things science cannot know, we'll just have to admit there are unsolvable mysteries. It does no good and advances nothing to substitute one mystery for another, say in a god.
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Actually, John, I would say that almost all scientific evidence COMES TO US as historical evidence. Science is, in effect, almost a branch of history, as it transmits knowable and systematically collected and interpretted facts to our brains.What then? Does the fact that you're not a scientist, and therefore have to trust what scientists say, entail that you don't have to trust science when it contradicts what you find in an ancient pre-scientific holy book based on the supposed historical evidence? Historians do not have at their disposal very much evidence to go on in many instances, especially the farther back in time they go. A miracle cannot be investigated scientifically since if it happened then the past is non-repeatable. Science however, progresses in the present with experiments that can be replicated in any lab anywhere on the planet. The only reason you want to bring science down to the level of the historian's very difficult but honorable craft is because you need to believe your faith-history is on an equal par with scientific results, only you place it above science because you say science is a branch of history, and not the other way around. You are therefore an ignorant science denier. You could become informed. You could visit a lab. You could notice the consensus of scientists on a vast number of areas. But no, you'd rather stay in your ignorance in order to believe in talking asses and that a sun stopped and moved backward up the stairs. Science or faith it is, and you choose faith. I choose science. The divide could never be more clearer.
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: "Talbott", Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe
Labels: Denigrate Science to Believe