Thanks for the article David

It seems like the sociologists and scientists in that article are happy to embrace the potential existence of a higher power out there, in light of all the gaps that research could not cover... And that makes complete sense to me, but then why are so many scientists professed atheists or agnostics?

Perhaps because they think that being in science means that they know everything. (They don't) There are many things they haven't yet even come in contact with. It's great to question. Normal people spend plenty of their life questioning, especially questioning those things they don't understand. Some people like to tell you they've got it all figured out.

Perhaps the middle ground lies in the statement "the more we discover the more we realise how little we know".

Those were the words I was looking for!!! (Thanks!)

the religious ones do , i am guessen

well to call higher power science you would have to prove it

maybe later when , if we live that long , make time travel or stop using stored up farts in an empty beer can for get up and go
<shrug>

I need to point out that religion and belief are not the same thing.
Religion is the social exercise of belief.

Science requires belief but belief doesn't require science.
For something to be proven it must first be believed and then scientific method is applied to prove that belief by testing and observation.

Science explains what exists.
Religion explains the reason it exists.
Human beings live in both those worlds.

A robot only understands what it is programmed to understand.
It operates on a given set of instructions.
If it encounters an object that has not been defined, it will not acknowledge it and bump into it. It has no capacity to ask why or what is that?
The robot is operating on pure science of its programming.

A person that operates only on religion, is 100% gullible to what they are told. They require no explanations for the things they are told. In a way, they are like the robot, operating on pure religion of their programming.

Most people are a combination of both aspects.
Science and religion exist together.

of course, one can question and research and still be religious.

people must come up with the questions, but they can range from how, where, what, why, and even IF. So there can be a belief in something before it is proven. the proof only verifies it was true, but it was true before the proof.

Exactly...

Reality is reality.
It doesn't care if you believe in it or not, it just is.

Atoms existed before we could prove it.
They didn't just suddenly start existing because we found out about them.

I think religion has nothing to do with being a scientist or not, Religion is just somebody decision to decided depending on his/her believes.

Perhaps it's all a question of existentialism, is that more religious or scientific, or neither

I think many people can't deal with both so they feel they must choose one or the other.
There are many forum topics that deal with the science/religion either/or arguments all over the web in many different themes, mainly science and science fiction sites.

People tend to get one-sided about things.
They seem to have a hard time accepting someone that embraces both science and religion.
Some actually think to be scientific, they must give up their religion but fail to understand that many of the scientific 'great' minds were/are religious too.
They think they must convince you that they are atheist or agnostic for them to be taken seriously.

That makes sense nickistaken

I'm open minded about these things going for a song so that would certainly be MY middleground. Thanks!

In the article Dodo David used as a reference, there were some scientific experts who were genuinely willing to give religion the benefit of the doubt in the areas science couldn't explain. And from what I recall though I only read that article once the scientists assigned 2 separate roles to science and religion , one being the mechanics of how things came to be and the other being the meaning or values assigned to events if I paraphrased correctly.


It did make sense to me but I do think there is a crossing over at times where religion does try to explain the mechanics of thimgs from a divine stand point , and I don't think the majority of scientists are cool with that lol, but to each , his own as you implied Dat :)

Science pioneers such as Copernicus and Galileo were considered enemies of the religious establishment. They dared to be opened minded enough to carefully observe the physical world using they're perhaps "God given" senses and logical reasoning. When they had the audacity to publish their findings, that were considered contradictory to the prevailing dogma, they were branded blasphemous heretics.

Fast forward a couple of centuries. The academic establishment becomes a powerful and respected authority figure. Many academics entrench themselves in scientific dogma. Theism becomes viewed as the enemy of rational thought and provable fact. Then many of the heretics became the pontiffs.

I think the best scientists and religious leaders are open minded and don't become entrenched in scientific or religious dogma.

Sure. It's a matter of how you approach the question, and what your expectations are about it.

If you want, in advance, to have a narrowly defined borderline drawn around each and every issue or concern that might come up, then you'll have a LOT of work on your hands. Mainly because the amount of education you'll need in scientific and religious areas alone, will take you at least decades, before you could begin to make advance decisions.

What I'm talking about, more or less, is that science deals with human understanding of the mechanical world around us. Wherever it is possible for humans to find functional certainty in this world, science will give us the answers (eventually).

There are areas that science can't function in. Faith about MEANING OF EXISTENCE, for example, can't be addressed via the scientific method.

If, for a simple example from the past, where someone declared that god lived in a visible palace on top of a certain mountain that no one could climb, and was using weather to communicate complicated detailed instructions to the people below. When scientists and technologists manage to actually see the top of the mountain and reveal no visible palace, and further document how the physics of climate and terrain are what causes the weather to be as it is, then the science will be recognized to take precedence over the imagination of the person who thought up the god to explain things. But explaining that rain or snow is NOT a detailed message from a god, does not prove that there is no reason to behave well, or to bit behave well. That remains outside of the scope of physics and other natural sciences.

I understand what you are saying tom but take the phenomena of miracles for example, which some of the established religions assert as factual , and which have no scientific explanation by the very nature of it being outside of human constraints.... It is what it is , and by trying to always trace a scientific link, some believers might call that lacking faith.

e a more pointed example, one of the tenants of the Christian religion is the Crucifixion of Christ , and his resurrection and the tripart being of God the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yes?

I fully accept and embrace this by faith , With there being no real proof , how does the devoted Scientist make it a foundation that he builds his world around?

[quotepeggy122[/i[
The conflict of interest Dat, is that science pronounces fact based on scientific evidence, Religion asserts truth often based on faith.

Where is the middle ground?

This so-called "conflict" can be easily resolved by understanding the nature of a "science." Merrian-Webster defines science as "a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study." My old scienc4e teacher used to define this word as "the study of."

Science is just the organization of knowledge collected and stored.

Evolution, for example, is a study of species of animals on this planet. It does not definitively say that because a man might be classified as an animal, he may lack a soul. Science asks, show me a soul.

I have spoken to several Scientists who are also Christians. They don't seem to have a problem with this.

and yes people do have the habbit of looking through the words with shaded glasses (you tryen to get me in trouble) but there are different levels to bibles thumpers just as an example , some follow the word of god or god's in a good way , and some wanna kill you if you are not one of them <shrug>

same as are someones out looks
just cause they are religious dont mean they find god under every rock

lol just remembered what i was thinking about many messages ago
to the Pope : would it hurt religion if another alien life form was to be found
Pope : why ? he never said he made just use

was a good answer : )

but any who it runs right up there with never a straight answer = NASA with only looking for intelligent life forms on human like planets
who is to say it would be like us <shrug>
could drink liquid nitrogen and move really slow but have high intell (why did i just picture a very cold chillen sloth)

or live in the clouds and only come down to eat or work on there bean farms
eat bean's , live in clouds <shrug> ruff crowd
you are maken me write books lol

added to the list of how many licks does it take to get the center of a tootsie roll lolly pop : )