RE: Have you had experiences you'd describe as sacred, mystical and/or religious?
August 20, 2014 at 4:08 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2014 at 4:13 pm by Michael.)
Hi Diablo.
Well I'm a scientist (25 years post-doc work in biomedical sciences). If you mean by 'critical appraisal' the application of scientific method, then I would say that faith lies outside of the purview of science. The scientific method explores a nature that could depend on a creator and sustainer God, or have no dependence on any God; there's nothing in the scientific method that is going to distinguish between the two. I'm happy to let science shape my wider world-view, but you should probably bear in mind that you rarely find people taking a highly literalistic reading of scripture here in the UK; so I've never tried to fit science together with young earth creationism, for example (that just has never been an option for me from the start; I start from the premise of an ancient Earth and life that has evolved, and is evolving, from the very simplest life to more complex forms).
Well I'm a scientist (25 years post-doc work in biomedical sciences). If you mean by 'critical appraisal' the application of scientific method, then I would say that faith lies outside of the purview of science. The scientific method explores a nature that could depend on a creator and sustainer God, or have no dependence on any God; there's nothing in the scientific method that is going to distinguish between the two. I'm happy to let science shape my wider world-view, but you should probably bear in mind that you rarely find people taking a highly literalistic reading of scripture here in the UK; so I've never tried to fit science together with young earth creationism, for example (that just has never been an option for me from the start; I start from the premise of an ancient Earth and life that has evolved, and is evolving, from the very simplest life to more complex forms).