Thread: God and science

I read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins a few months back. He is an entertaining read on this kind of subject and I would recommend him. Not saying I agree or disagree with it all but worth a read.

This is a flavour of his take and some of it pertinent to this - apologies for not spouting my own thoughts, just think it's worth listening to folk who have thought about it for a bit longer than I have! I am so used to referencing everything - don't have thoughts of my own anymore! However I should say that I do believe there are many unexplained things and I like it that way.


I want to end by returning to science. It is often said, mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic.
At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?
The trouble with the agnostic argument is that it can be applied to anything. There is an infinite number of hypothetical beliefs we could hold which we can't positively disprove. On the whole, people don't believe in most of them, such as fairies, unicorns, dragons, Father Christmas, and so on. But on the whole they do believe in a creator God, together with whatever particular baggage goes with the religion of their parents.
I suspect the reason is that most people, though not belonging to the "know-nothing" party, nevertheless have a residue of feeling that Darwinian evolution isn't quite big enough to explain everything about life. All I can say as a biologist is that the feeling disappears progressively the more you read about and study what is known about life and evolution.

"One of my biggest problems with some scientists is that they don't follow their own rules. Ex: The Big Bang. One explosion, created everything right? What about the 2nd law of thermodynamics that says everything tends towards disorder? An explosion would not become more orderly over time but less orderly."

The condensation of matter from energy and subsequent formation of elementary particles, notably hydrogen, and the formation of stars (leading to higher elements) is not in violation of the 2nd law. This is particularly true given the expanding nature of the universe. It's like dissolving salt in boiling water and watching crystals grow as it cools. Crystal growing is the result of heat leaving the system to the surroundings, in doing so the air outside the jar is warmed and moves faster. The disorder lost in the process of crystalization is made up for in the movement of air molecules (gas). The 2nd law has never been disproved, if it were perpetual motion machines would exist and the human race wouldn't have to worry about and energy crisis, we could make machines that release more energy than they consume (including their construction). This is nonsense.

Please do not misunderstand, this is not intended as a personal attack, I'm just trying to clarify the 2nd law.
G

Gomez, thank you for the explanation but I still don't understand how elementary particles came together randomly to form something so complicated and wonderful as the human body. That's all I'm sayin'. But hey, to each his own.

For a long period of history, science and religion were very close to one and the same thing. Then the Church dug its heels in on geocentrism, and that might well have been the first real schism. Then Darwin came along and finished it off.

Originally Posted by alpinmack

One of my biggest problems with some scientists is that they don't follow their own rules. Ex: The Big Bang. One explosion, created everything right? What about the 2nd law of thermodynamics that says everything tends towards disorder? An explosion would not become more orderly over time but less orderly. Sometimes I think it takes more Faith to believe in some of the scientific explanations than the religious ones.

I think you need to pull out your P Chem text for some review!

Originally Posted by alpinmack

came together randomly to form something so complicated and wonderful as the human body.

There's your problem, and a very common misunderstanding. Evolution is NOT random quite the opposite. Richard Dawkins wrote an entire book devoted to correcting this misapprehension Climbing Mount Improbable. I've got an old copy I can send you if you PM me your address.

There are many opinions in this thread so far. Here is mine

Religion and science are not in conflict with each other. Intellect and faith are the two sides of a coin

The intellect plays a central role in religion. Indeed, the principle of submission to God, explicitly derived from the revelation, is considered essential for nurturing and developing the gift of intellect whose role in religion is elevated as an important facet of the faith.

Consonant with the role of the intellect is the responsibility of individual conscience. The role of the intellect has never been perceived within a confrontational mode of revelation versus reason.

Religion values intellect, logic and empirical experience. Religion and science are both endeavors to understand the mystery of God's creation.

Crossing the frontiers of knowledge through scientific and other endeavors, and facing up to the challenges of ethics posed by an evolving world is, thus, a requirement of faith.

This sounds like it's based on a shia islam approach, an interesting take. Not a religion I know much about.

Originally Posted by Amyn

There are many opinions in this thread so far. Here is mine

Religion and science are not in conflict with each other. Intellect and faith are the two sides of a coin

The intellect plays a central role in religion. Indeed, the principle of submission to God, explicitly derived from the revelation, is considered essential for nurturing and developing the gift of intellect whose role in religion is elevated as an important facet of the faith.

Consonant with the role of the intellect is the responsibility of individual conscience. The role of the intellect has never been perceived within a confrontational mode of revelation versus reason.

Religion values intellect, logic and empirical experience. Religion and science are both endeavors to understand the mystery of God's creation.

Crossing the frontiers of knowledge through scientific and other endeavors, and facing up to the challenges of ethics posed by an evolving world is, thus, a requirement of faith.

If it is not random, then it must have been intentional... i.e. intelligent design.

In relation to the 2 not getting along. I don't quite get it, personally I am "religious" and read the Bible pretty much every day... and have yet to find anything that contradicts any proven scientific laws or evidence (last I heard Evolution was a theory, and there is still no actual proof of an evolutionairy process between 2 species.. adaptation within a species but the Bible itself actually proves that).

What bothers me is any scientific evidence that seems to point toward a God/creator is immediately rejected by the scientific community. It seems predetermined that a God CANNOT exist so anything that suggests it is wrong. For instance I enjoy reading Hawkings books, and in breif history of time he was discussing how his doctoral thesis was to "prove" the big-bang theory, which he did successfully. The problem was the initiation of the "big bang" required a singularity not explainable by existing scientific laws... the Catholic church (according to Hawking) immediately endorsed the big bang theory because it proved there had to be a God, in order for this singularity to occur. Hawkings agreed that in order for that explination to be true there had to be a God (or some supreme outside force), and therefore set about to disprove his own proof because it had to be wrong since it wasn't in line with his/scientific rules.

Now, that's all well and good, since I know anytime you work with anything the first check you do when done with something is say "does this make sense?". However Hawking also points out that there very well may be a God who just happened to design everything to abide by the rules we see now, which is what I believe. What doesn't make sense to me is that the big-bang was "proven" and now attemting to be disproven.

Anyway, my .02

Originally Posted by bbshriver

If it is not random, then it must have been intentional... i.e. intelligent design.

Well simply . . . no . . . it doesn't work like that. The trouble is it's not easily explainable in a sentence or two - you really need to read some stuff about evolution to avoid elementary (but common) misunderstandings like this.