Science, faith, and theists

[Natachan]

I've made this rantette but I feel like a full on rant.

I am a senior engineering student. I have taken a set of courses on physics from simple Newtonian motion through special and general relativity. I have taken two years of chemistry. I have taken courses in currents and circuits, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and a lot of courses in materials and environmental engineering. I have taken elective science courses in Geology, anthropology, archeology, and alternative energy. I work in a lab doing research on reinforced concrete. And I have to say this: science is not faith. Science is hard work.

Nothing in science is taken on faith. In a lab, we have our eyes, our instruments, and our minds. We test, we observe, we measure, we repeat ad nauseum. We reserve any judgment until after all the data is in. Only then do we examine the data and form hypothesis and conclusions. Every theory must be corroborated. Everything is suspect. I was lucky enough to take a physics course where we actually had to do experiments to derive the equations for current, gravity, inertia, and other phenomena. Because of this I feel fairly confident in the workings of physics. Not because I read it in a book, or because it was told to me, but because I have seen it, measured it, and confirmed it for myself.

A theist would say I have "faith" that my instruments are working. No. I test the instruments. I calibrate them before I start. I make sure that they are working. If I measure something that I know to be 1cm and it tells me it is 6m across I know I have a faulty instrument and I adjust it. They will tell me I have faith in my senses. My senses provide a reliable way to tell my surroundings. If they stopped doing so I would no longer trust them. I do not trust my eyes just out of faith, I use the input from my other senses and from my continued well-being to corroborate them. If my eyes tell me a pink giraffe is in my living room, but I can't touch or hear it, then I will stop trusting my eyes.

To corroborate and test is not faith. To be able to independently verify is not faith.

Science. Is. Not. Faith.

Your faith in a God is not equivalent to science and the respect we give it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aetj7sX9eog

[Michael]

Natachan

I too am a scientist. I have a Ph.D. in pharmacology (I specialised in intracellular messenger systems, especialy phosphoinositides), and 25 years post-doc work in Pharma, and now back into academia working on what is broadly called 'translational science' or 'evidence-based medicine'.

Yes, science and faith are different. But I love them both, and both play a role in my life (as do other perspectives on life, such as an amateur interest in history).

I hope you continue to get as much enjoyment out of science as I have had, and continue to have.

[Minimalist]

Nothing in science is taken on faith. In a lab, we have our eyes, our instruments, and our minds. We test, we observe, we measure, we repeat ad nauseum. We reserve any judgment until after all the data is in. Only then do we examine the data and form hypothesis and conclusions. Every theory must be corroborated. Everything is suspect. I was lucky enough to take a physics course where we actually had to do experiments to derive the equations for current, gravity, inertia, and other phenomena. Because of this I feel fairly confident in the workings of physics. Not because I read it in a book, or because it was told to me, but because I have seen it, measured it, and confirmed it for myself.

Religion cannot allow such examination else its claims would be dismissed and the preachers would have to get a real job.

[Natachan]

A further rant/rantette.

Walking to diff equ class today I encountered this lovely gem of a preacher. I have video of him I am thinking of uploading. At he's standing in the middle of the campus between the library and the classroom building with a huge sign yelling at students that their education is empty and meaningless and that they need Jesus. No one is paying attention, and I'm the only one stopped.

This sort of attitude is rather distressing. The anti-intellectualism, the discounting of education, the spreading of woo, all while standing in front of the library. I do support his right to free speech, and since he's not selling anything he is permitted on campus, but the fact he's doing it on the grounds of the library, that he's using that spot to say that the education is useless and meaningless, bothers me.

[Diablo]

He's just deluded, like all such people. Ignore him.

[Surgenator]

Walking to diff equ class today I encountered this lovely gem of a preacher. I have video of him I am thinking of uploading. At he's standing in the middle of the campus between the library and the classroom building with a huge sign yelling at students that their education is empty and meaningless and that they need Jesus. No one is paying attention, and I'm the only one stopped.

Back when I took classes, I found these college preachers really entertaining and a great ego boost. Because the classes were hard, these preachers made me remember how smart I was compared to them.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I would like to make it VERY plain that I am NOT a scientist. Not remotely. I took the bare minimum of science course to qualify for a BaSC in history.

But there isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that science trumps faith. When geologists, petroleum engineers and physical chemists combine their skills (not gifts) to put petrol in the tank of my car, I get much further than if I simply had faith that the tank was full.

When constructing a bridge, an engineer chooses the appropriate materials (wood, concrete, steel) because his experience and the experience of countless engineers before him gives him the information he needs to make the best choice. He doesn't leave the choice up to faith.

I had relatively minor back surgery almost a year ago. I had brain surgery to correct an aneurysm about eight years ago. I've have various other medical procedures over the years and in NO CASE did I doubt that the doctors, nurses and orderly were operating on their training, experience and skills. I wasn't the least bit worried that they left the proper procedure up to god.

If anyone (scientist or not) wants to be a 'person of faith', by all means do so. But don't build my bridge, manage my health, or design my car based on your fuzzy and nebulous conceptions of how god thinks these things should be done.

Boru

[Michael]

A further rant/rantette.

Walking to diff equ class today I encountered this lovely gem of a preacher. I have video of him I am thinking of uploading. At he's standing in the middle of the campus between the library and the classroom building with a huge sign yelling at students that their education is empty and meaningless and that they need Jesus. No one is paying attention, and I'm the only one stopped.

This sort of attitude is rather distressing. The anti-intellectualism, the discounting of education, the spreading of woo, all while standing in front of the library. I do support his right to free speech, and since he's not selling anything he is permitted on campus, but the fact he's doing it on the grounds of the library, that he's using that spot to say that the education is useless and meaningless, bothers me.

You might want to remind him that the world's finest universities were nearly all started by Christians, and as Christian colleges of prayer and study. Colleges were usually started by monks (frequently Benedicitnes ), who had preserved knowledge through the 'dark ages'. And they didn't just preserve Christian thought; for example they preserved the writings of the Greek philosophers and poets, and collected and preserved the writings of Islamic mathematicians. A large part of the reason for the development of these libraries is that the Benedictine rule prevents individual ownership, but allows communal ownership. Books were therefore kept in common rather than in an individual's room (his 'cell'). This rule provided the seed of the monastic library and several monasteries became famous for their libraries (if you want to read some excellent fiction based on this then I can thoroughly recommend The Name of the Rose, a rather gruesome murder-mystery; made into an excellent film with Sean Connery)

It was also Christian scholars who gave this preacher his English bible. The King James Bible did not, contrary to some people's views, fall out of the sky leather-bound and with a thumb-index. It depended on a large number of scholars, particularly the great humanist Erasmus, who compiled the Greek text for the New Testament that would form the basis of Tyndale's translation into English (which makes up the large part of the KJV).

Mind you he might well be a person who doesn't think Benedictines and other great Christian scholars were/are real Christians, so perhaps it's not that good an idea.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You might want to remind him that the world's finest universities were nearly all started by Christians, and as Christian colleges of prayer and study. Colleges were usually started by monks (frequently Benedicitnes Wink), who had preserved knowledge through the 'dark ages'. And they didn't just preserve Christian thought; for example they preserved the writings of the Greek philosophers and poets, and collected and preserved the writings of Islamic mathematicians.

True as far as it goes, but this is hardly the whole story. Christian monks preserved the knowledge that was in accord (or at least not in conflict) with Christian teaching, and that knowledge only, and they didn't always do even that - there's a reason that translating the Bible into English got poor old Tyndale burnt alive.

Throughout its history, the Roman church has been merciless in its persecution of heretics and heretical thought (slowed in recent years ONLY by the growth of secularism, I might add). There's no doubt whatsoever that the monks preserved a lot that would otherwise have been lost, but to hold these intellectual bigots up as some sort of champions of free inquiry and investigative thinking simply beggars belief.

You seem a perfectly nice fella, Michael, but don't ever forget that you're only a very few generations removed from being a book-burner yourself.

Boru

[Michael]

True as far as it goes, but this is hardly the whole story. Christian monks preserved the knowledge that was in accord (or at least not in conflict) with Christian teaching, and that knowledge only, and they didn't always do even that - there's a reason that translating the Bible into English got poor old Tyndale burnt alive.

No, that's precisely the point I was making - they preserved (and translated into Latin) a very broad spectrum of Greek philosophers among other writings. They preserved and translated many writings that were considered 'heretical'. Elsewhere in the Church Robert of Ketton translated the Q'Ran into Latin so scholars could have access. Certainly these 'heretical' writings had restricted access; they were for scholars not for the people, but these works were carefully preserved and studied.

One thing to remember about the Catholic Church is that it has never been, contrary to popular opinion, a great monolith controlled exclusively by the Pope and the Bishops. The Vatican has often been at odds with the monastics, and has frequently had a complex relationship with local political powers. Did the Church control Charlemagne, or did Charlemagne control the Church, for example. Many would say that Charlemagne firmly kept the Church in the place he wanted it. But the monasteries have often been outside of these conflicts (though they do get caught up from time to time, most notably with the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII).

Tyndale's story is a complex one: he was killed (unjustly and savagely) at a time after Henry had separated the English Church from Rome and was quite open to an English translation. Henry's own approved translation, 'the Great Bible', was started two years before Tyndale's execution. Henry had the power to save Tyndale but didn't. Elsewhere, translations in the vernacular, such as Jacques Lefèvre's French translation had already come out; the opposition to bibles in the vernacular had passed by the time of Tyndale's death. The humanists had already won the argument by the time of Tyndale's execution. Though the story that Tyndale was killed for translating the bible into English is a neat little one; it doesn't fit the history of the time particularly well. Yes, he had to flee to work on the bible in English, but that was earlier. Much more likely is that Tyndale ultimately suffered for writing The Practyse of Prelates, an opposition to King Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. A bible in English was one thing (King Henry VIII would welcome it, so long as he got to give his imprimatur). A priest saying that King Henry's divorce, and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, was invalid was quite another.

I think it's also important to note that the Benedictine model eschews central control: each monastery is independent and did/does not take kindly to interference by the local secular bishops or by the Vatican. They remember the admonition of the desert fathers, to "Flee women and bishops" :-)