Science and Religion cannot overlap.

[Whateverist]

Still only a problem for a wee mind intent on literalism.

The overwhelming vast majority of believers, you mean.

Sadly true. Of course you can't judge the merit of theism based on its weakest forms even if those are in the majority.

[Mudhammam]

The overwhelming vast majority of believers, you mean.

Sadly true. Of course you can't judge the merit of theism based on its weakest forms even if those are in the majority.

I know, but there is no form of theism--or any faith that depends on it--that doesn't run counter to the very notion of science, which demands a skepticism not compatible with religious faith, as that makes a number of specific and unjustified claims about reality.

[Michael]

Jenny,

You mention Kierkergaard. I can very much relate to three key aspects of his view on faith: 1) all knowledge is ultimately subjective and nothing can ever be certain, 2) faith is born from an existential crisis often following on from (1)*, and 3) faith is a risk, and requires a 'leap to faith'. My own journey of faith reflects those aspects, though with much less drama and angst than experienced by Kierkergaard. That's not to say that all faith must follow that path, but it's a description of faith that really 'clicked' with my own experience.

It seems to me that Nietzsche and Kierkergaard followed the same path up to a certain point. Both looked into the abyss of uncertainty. But then each took a different direction.

*P.S. Just a note on my own 'existential crisis': for me that followed the development of a profound sense of the numinous that just wouldn't fit in with the atheistic world view I had at the time, but I also realised I could never (and still cannot) be certain that this subjective experience reflected reality. Faith, for me remains a commitment in the presence of uncertainty much more than a certainty in my life, but it is a commitment which has made more and more sense as I have journeyed onwards (and still journey). That sense of the numinous for me started after I started simply sitting in silence (in a church I used to walk past each day), so to this day I remain much fonder of silence as a path to God, rather than being an enthusiast for preaching, apologetics, or philosophical arguments for God. I since joined, as a lay member, a Benedictine monastic community, and it is that very quiet expression of Christianity that makes most sense to me (my life is framed by being a husband and Dad, a scientist, and an 'oblate', a lay monastic; all three gel very nicely together for me).

[Michael]

Just a little more on the OP. It was the evolutionary biologist Stephen J Gould who perhaps most famously argued that science and religion do not overlap. He described them as being 'non-overlapping magisteria' (NOMA). Richard Dawkins most vocally argued aginst this position writing "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims". For Dawkins, then, the magisteria of science and faith do indeed overlap and conflict.

I find myself taking a middle ground, a position that people have called 'partially overlapping magisteria' (POMA). I find science does shape my faith, and my faith adds a background that affects my view of science (as being one view of a larger picture). My experience is that they can't be cleanly divorced from each other as Sephen J Gould argued. I'm with Dawkins here as far as saying that there are times, at least, that religion (or faith) and science are overlapping, and if there is a conflict then we (or I) need to try and address any questions or issues and be prepared to re-evaluate things. That has happened to me in both 'directions'; science has challenged and informed my faith, and my faith has challenged, and enlarged, the bigger picture in which science fits for me. Science for me digs deep into one aspect of a wider understanding of who we are and what is the nature of what is around us.

That's obviously a personal view and, as ever, I am very happy to acknowledge that personal and subjective perspective (I dont shy away from subjectivity; I think it must always be acknowledged and embraced).

Here are Stephen Gould's own thoughts. They are thoughtfully and respectfully written (he was not a believer, though declared a respect for religion), which I appreciate, though ultimately I think he was trying too hard to keep faith and science apart (out of a wish for a peaceful concordat):

"The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven."

More at: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

Just as one final thought, something that I always come back to, and is something Stephen Gould quotes, that John Paul-II said and is echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that "Truth cannot contradict Truth". More fully, it reads...

CCC 159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."

[Michael]

Just a little more (in case anyone is interested in the development of the relationship between faith and science/reason). Here are some words from the natural philosopher, Francis Bacon, often credited with the formation of modern science as a disciplined activity. I find this still rings true to me today.

"So it must be confessed that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have, by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice, justice and wrong, good and evil? Thus, because the light of nature is used in two several senses: the one, that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not to inform the duty. So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation from God."

[pocaracas]

Michael, presupposing the existence of a god is not the right path, if you want to be intellectually honest.
As a scientist, I'd assume that you try to be as intellectually honest as possible with everything in your life.... however, on this particular subject, you enter in conflict, or what looks like cognitive dissonance.

Religion is one aspect of our mental beings, whereby we can easily hold an unwilling Suspension Of Disbelief. Ok, the link goes for willing suspension of disbelief, but it's enough to get the picture, as standard suspension of disbelief is attributed to fiction - movies, books, etc...
Religions are usually imbued at a young age, when the individual is unable to distinguish the fiction that his caregivers supply from the reality that science attempts to describe. The individual is then, for the most part, trapped in an unwilling suspension of disbelief. Nothing from your senses tells you that there is such an entity as a god, and yet... your mind believes there is.

Of course, you already knew all this, but still you trudge on with your belief. I'm curious as to how that works. How can you, an otherwise rational human being, live in that cognitively dissonant and intellectually dishonest state?

[Michael]

Pocaracas. Could you please be a little more specific - could you point out to me where you think I have been dishonest, intellectually or otherwise, in what I have written? I'd rather deal with a specific accusation concerning what I have written, that we can then discuss, rather than just a general insult and ad hom argument against my proposed character.

[Whateverist]

*P.S. Just a note on my own 'existential crisis': for me that followed the development of a profound sense of the numinous that just wouldn't fit in with the atheistic world view I had at the time, but I also realised I could never (and still cannot) be certain that this subjective experience reflected reality. Faith, for me remains a commitment in the presence of uncertainty much more than a certainty in my life, but it is a commitment which has made more and more sense as I have journeyed onwards (and still journey). That sense of the numinous for me started after I started simply sitting in silence (in a church I used to walk past each day), so to this day I remain much fonder of silence as a path to God, rather than being an enthusiast for preaching, apologetics, or philosophical arguments for God.

I wonder if it matters to you that God be an entity unto itself or if you would consider the possibility that God is a layer of being within everyone. Given the experience you describe here it seems to me that the numinosity you experienced could be explained equally well either way. To my mind, the second possibility seems less extravagant in the demands it makes on my reason while fully accounting for the experience itself. I also don't see how it diminishes God if that is understood to be a primordial otherness within. A presence that is intimately aware of your subjective struggles by virtue of making them possible. There is something that makes our normal sensibility, our conscious minds, possible. We don't (almost by definition) consciously do that. The ground is prepared for us by ancient, transitional forms of psychic experience which are more generic than we are, less individuated. They are like the titans of Roman mythology which perform grand, essential tasks like holding up the heavens. In that sense, they do 'create' the universe, at least as we experience it. They also stand watch over our affect and insight, granting or withdrawing these for reasons that flow from a logic unique to themselves. I believe this model can pretty well account for most of Christianity and other religious beliefs too. If God is conceived of as 'on board', what really is lost? You might say then God is only in our heads, but then so are we.

[pocaracas]

Pocaracas. Could you please be a little more specific - could you point out to me where you think I have been dishonest, intellectually or otherwise, in what I have written? I'd rather deal with a specific accusation concerning what I have written, that we can then discuss, rather than just a general insult and ad hom argument against my proposed character.

yeah... you would... But I'm not giving you the satisfaction.
You claim to be a scientist. You also claim to be a christian.
The dishonest position is your agreement with those who presuppose a god, hence your own presupposition that such a god exists.
As a scientist, how can you accept such an extraordinary presupposition?, unless you are being dishonest to yourself.

Oh... "proposed character"... so you are not who you show yourself to be... interesting....

[Michael]

Pocaracas. You won't give me the satisfaction of backing up your accusation of dishonesty? Well, I have no interest in, and no respect for, ad hom argumentation and those that pursue it. I shall leave it there.

Whateverist. Those are interesting thoughts, and ones I am not totally averse to. But there are reasons why I don't go down that path, which I will elaborate a little later when I have some more time.