How the Chrisitan Church confronts scientific discovery?

Question

The war between Christianity and science has raged so long and bitterly that even 100 years ago, Andrew White, a former president of Cornell University, was able to write a huge two-volume history of the conflict entitled The Warfare Of Science With Theology. (1) Exhaustively covering hundreds of historical cases, he was able to demonstrate that the Church generally repeats the same three-step process whenever confronted by a threatening scientific discovery:

* First, the Church tries to crush the "heretical" view, often through censorship and persecution of the scientist.

* But as the evidence supporting the scientific viewpoint inevitably grows, the Church struggles to find a compromise position that incorporates both viewpoints.

# Eventually, the scientific victory is complete, and the Church is left to indulge in apologetics, a field of study that explains away and defends the Church's actions. In this stage, it is common for apologists to claim that there is not, and never was, any conflict between the Church and science.


Yet the Church manages to breathe....What flavor of Kool Aid do Christians like?

Answer 1

With a blind eye and rationalizations.
A brain washed Xtian can't give it up.
It's sad for them and sad for the people they badger everywhere to share their beliefs.
Probably drink green or purple Kool Aid, matches the furniture in their trailer.

Answer 2

I don't see your point. Many devout Christians have helped shaped science and the scientific process, and without them we would still be in the dark ages. Here is a partial list of them:

Sir Frances Bacon

Robert Boyle

George Washington Carver

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Nicolaus Copernicus

Leonhard Euler

Michael Faraday

Johannes Kepler

Father Georges-Henri LeMaitre

Carolus Linnaeus

Matthew Fontaine Maury

James Clerk Maxwell

Gregor Mendel

Samuel F. D. Morse

Sir Isaac Newton

Blaise Pascal

Louis Pasteur

Sir James Young Simpson, Founder of gynecology and modern anesthesiology

Nicolaus Steno, Father of Stratigraphy

PLUS MANY MANY MORE!!!

If the church finds 'compromising' positions that's because they are afraid to stand up for the truth. Remember that it is always fallable people who are in leadership positions in churches, so they will believe wrong things, support wrong things, and persecute wrong things.

Real prove-able, repeatable science has never been against the real God of the Bible, he is the one who created the framework for us to study science in. He put up the limits, set the order in which things happen, implemented the rules of the universe and gave us an inquisitive mind and the intelligence required to acquire more knowledge.

Answer 3

I'm sorry that you fear the modern-day church so much.

For me, the reason that I dismiss some so-called "scientific" findings is because they do not stand up to scrutiny. Evolution as the source of all life comes to mind as one of those. Whenever I even ask quesitons I'm told "You're just stupid and don't understand." Well, maybe I am stupid and I certainly don't understand, so why don't you explain it to me.

But there's plenty of other scientific finds that do stand up to scrutiny. Lots of good science in the world, and it doesn't "fight" with theology.

And I will grant you that in the past there were religious leaders who persecuted scientists whose theories didn't fit in their little frame of the world. Don't hold Faith responsible for the stupidity of a few closed-minded church leaders from long ago.

Answer 4

Most Christians don't have a problem with the discoveries of science. It's the wingnuts who get all bent out of shape.

BTW: For the record...the Theory of Evolution is not at all about the origin of life. It is about the processs by which already living species change over time. Nothing more, nothing less. It says nothing about God, morals, or any of the other things that Christians get hysterical about.

Answer 5

Scientific research is good and the church accepts it, well mine. But the conflict arises from the interpretation of each discovery. Instead of attributing it to God it is automatically assigned to evolution which is just a theory and requires even more faith to believe in than God. The scientific evidences even points more to a intelligent creator than things evolving from a primeval soup, the complexity and arrangement is unmatched and cannot occur through random mutation or selection.

Answer 6

If the bible falls, christians the world over will be deverstated so much so that they would have no reason to go on and death might be their only way out, look at what happen to Jim Jones in Guyana. Therefore, at all and any cost the bible must not fall, even if it means keeping the masses fooled and brainwashed forever.

Answer 7

Boring

Answer 8

I really coundn't get through your long boring story, but ,I just wondered, Where do you get such screwed up ideas? Is there some kind of joke-book you guys study before you come on the site and stir up crap?

Answer 9

I don't have anything against science, and I actually welcome science as long as it is true science (means to test of observe)! And I am still a christian!