RE: Death Threats After Supporting Evolution
August 30, 2012 at 1:16 pm
(This post was last modified: August 30, 2012 at 1:18 pm by CliveStaples.)
(August 30, 2012 at 12:08 am)padraic Wrote: Bollocks.
Faith and science are innately incompatible. Faith is based on authority. Science is evidence based. EG There are still many thousands of Christians who remain so ignorant and bloody minded that they still argue young earth creationism. The Catholic Church forbids stem cell research and in vitrio fertilisation.
Traditionally, Christians have killed or imprisoned anyone who challenged dogma,including scientists. Today they mainly demonise or excommunicate people who have the audacity to challenge dogma,especially scientists, as they have always done.
Science relies on certain assumptions (or axioms). Articles of faith are essentially assumptions.
I don't think that the two systems are necessarily in conflict--it is possible to affirm both the assumptions of science and an article of faith (which is pretty trivial to prove, since you can simply construct an article of faith that is by definition compatible with the assumptions of science).
Given how fractured modern Christianity is, I don't think the notion of "excommunication" carries much weight.
(August 30, 2012 at 11:27 am)Faith No More Wrote: "Evolution or christianity" is definitely a false dichotomy. In fact my dad, the christian chemist, told me if science and the bible conflict, the bible is wrong.
That seems a bit flawed, don't you think?
What if the Bible claimed that, say, the laws of quantum physics hold. In the 1700s, the Newtonian view of the universe would have disagreed with this view. So would the Bible have been wrong then?
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
