Are Science and Religion both correct?

Question

Believers and non-believers will forever argue who’s right & wrong, if God exists or not, which religion is the truth or not. Science will continue to make discoveries towards finding truths and answering “Why”. Humanity will continue to have violence, wars, atrocities, hurt and happiness, and may never understand “Why”.

In my view, there’s only one possible way for everyone to be correct. For believers and non-believers to both be correct, for hurt and happiness to make sense. Namely, none of the above really exists in the first place.

Human intelligence as we understand it, would be intelligence controlled by a higher intelligence in another dimension, and everything we think and believe to be true is virtual. Such a possibility would account for all the madness that seems so prolific in humanity, but leave open a curious dilemma as to why a higher intelligence would be playing with an inferior intelligence. A bit like humans observing the behaviour of rats.

Answer 1

why did you write so much my child. Jesus doesnt want to read all that.

Answer 2

Science and religion can both be 'correct' in that they come up with their non-contradictive models for describing the universe and, maybe, pointing to the mystery of existence. When either is taken as fundamental truth as opposed to fluid models that are open to modification based upon new data and understanding and experience, the problems arise. Although science is touted as an objective mechanism for truth, it is still in the perceptual realm -- meaning, the observer still is separate from the observed and models things according to this dualistic view. People who have direct experiences of reality -- reality as it is without any separation of the experiencer and the experience -- go beyond all these conceptual/perceptual models of both religion and science. Along the way, however, they rightfully use these models as tools (much like a person who wants to get to a particular destination uses a map; once at the destination, the map is no longer needed). As far as a higher intelligence in another dimension, I don't find this to be a useful concept/tool for discovering reality. I've found the concept of god as the 'Void' that is the ultimate ground of Existence and knows things only in their non-dualistic (no self versus other) state to be helpful. Again, this concept/model is in no way truer than yours; it's just something that I find more helpful.

Answer 3

to brenda: you responded to my question about the "urge to seek god". did you even read the passage? You don't seem very intelligent with your response, b/c my passage does not relate to your response. Killing people is wrong, and I stated that in my passage. The teachings of Jesus states that. I'm not religious. I'm righteous. I dislike evil acts such as murdering innocents, raping, deceit, so forth. Actions that cause harm to others. Forces that's good and forces that's evil... what entities represent the ultimate truth, the ultimate good. You seek greater knowledge. That knowledge you seek, however, is in the form of scientific evaluations. You are saying we are the only entities that exist, b/c you can't sense or understand anything else. If we didn't have microscopes, we wouldn't know germs and other microscopic entities exist. Does that mean they don't exist? Do you believe having sex with 2-year old children is wrong? And, if you believe it's wrong. Then, there must be a right. Therefore, there is wrong(evil) and right(good). Therefore, there are beings who perform evil and good. What governs over evil and good? Are we the only beings that exist? There aren't any higher beings that exist that knows more about the universe, good, evil, so forth; only b/c we can't sense them.

Edit: To martin s: I like your response. Science and spirituality can coexist. I, also, believe phsychology and spirituality should coexist. But, i'm not talking about the constrained spirituality of most religions. We as humans in a big bubble with limited access to anything outside of that bubble are faulty. Science is faulty. Religion is faulty. One is attempting to describe the concrete facts, while the other is attempting to explain the abstract (unsensed and unknown). Scientific theories have proven to be wrong. The problem lies with no one wants to be wrong. Our minds are limited by our experiences, imaginations, and concrete surroundings. The imagination attempts to explain the unknown. Science tries to physically prove it.

Answer 4

In my view, thinking is overrated. Intelligence is simply a tool. The question isn't "Why?" but "What?" What is the truth as one sees it - what is your truth? Control is, in my view, a fantasy. Higher intelligences in other dimensions are fantastic and have nothing to do with my truth along the continuum of my life, moment by moment. Within science and religion among myriad other things, I may find my truth in any given moment. Yet, whatever my truth there is mystery. Science is inaccurate. Religion, though born of spirituality, too often is a prescription and not a direction.

Answer 5

Well said. It's all a matter of perspective. That's why science can't agree with science let alone religion and vice versa.

This world has been called insane and where do experience other insane and illogical situations .... in the world of our dreams. Which leads to the conclusion that this can't be real either. The trap is that we get so wrapped up in our bodies that we make this real. While we have to react and live in this world, we can change our perspective on how we view it and how we will react to it. That allows us to live in peace within our selves and it allows us the freedom to search for the ultimate truth.

Answer 6

1. God isnt playing with us; he expects us to give Him praise and worship

2. Yes! Both Religion and science to a certain degree are right. The problem comes when questions arise that science cant easily answer or not answer them at all. Where did the universe come from, How did the universe start, who made the planets? Theese are questions science cant answer. But the Bible can and does have answers to some of theese questions; buy we have to be wise enough to recognize the answers when we see them.

Answer 7

I read your post/ question with interest.

Sounds like you are saying that all of the physical universe is illusion? (virtual reality)...

Comment re some of your other comments above:
I find that the Data of Science do not contradict Christianity. Some of the theories of Science might.

Please be aware that there is scientific and intellectual evidence for the existence of God. E.g., see http://www.godsci.org/gs/godsci/evidence.htm

Cordially,
John

Answer 8

Those are interesting points of view but as a rational and intelligent Christian I would have to disagree with your perspective.

1. Science and the Bible are in complete agreement when science is limited to facts that can be proved. It is only scientific theories that run counter to some of what is found in the Bible or that reach the same conclusions but assign the cause of the results to something other than God.

2. One truth does not contradict another truth. When two things that are both true seem to contradict one another then it means that there is another piece of knowledge missing that would explain the apparent contradiction.

For example, if a scientist counts the rings on a tree that has been cut in half he can tell how many years the tree has been growing. If the same scientist went back in time to just after God created life on this planet he would look at a tree and think that it had to have been growing for many years when in reality it was less than a month old. So the truth is that counting the rings on a tree is an accurate method for determining it's age at this time but at one time it would have produced faulty results.

Here's what one well known and respected scientist had to say about science and religion.

http://www.tektonics.org/scim/sciencemony.htm

Dr. Francis S. Collins is Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He currently leads the Human Genome Project, directed at mapping and sequencing all of human DNA, and determining aspects of its function. His previous research has identified the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchison-Gilford progeria syndrome. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.

Collins spoke with Bob Abernethy of PBS, posted online at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/transcripts/collins.html, in which he summaries the compatability of fact and faith thusly:

“I think there’s a common assumption that you cannot both be a rigorous, show-me-the-data scientist and a person who believes in a personal God. I would like to say that from my perspective that assumption is incorrect; that, in fact, these two areas are entirely compatible and not only can exist within the same person, but can exist in a very synthetic way, and not in a compartmentalized way. I have no reason to see a discordance between what I know as a scientist who spends all day studying the genome of humans and what I believe as somebody who pays a lot of attention to what the Bible has taught me about God and about Jesus Christ. Those are entirely compatible views.

“Science is the way -- a powerful way, indeed -- to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective -- in fact, it’s rather ineffective -- in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other. And it is a great joy to be in a position of being able to bring both of those points of view to bear in any given day of the week. The notion that you have to sort of choose one or the other is a terrible myth that has been put forward, and which many people have bought into without really having a chance to examine the evidence. I came to my faith not, actually, in a circumstance where it was drummed into me as a child, which people tend to assume of any scientist who still has a personal faith in God; but actually by a series of compelling, logical arguments, many of them put forward by C. S. Lewis, that got me to the precipice of saying, ‘Faith is actually plausible.’ You still have to make that step. You will still have to decide for yourself whether to believe. But you can get very close to that by intellect alone.”

Answer 9

The way I look at it, God (the creator) is truth. Science pursues the truth, to understand how all aspects of creation occurred. What is know are facts, or science. What we do not know is faith, which may or may not be right.

Both science and religion are faith based and reason based.

It took me 10 years of study and reason based thinking to get to my faith.

In science, it takes great faith to pursue new knowledge.

The greater the faith and reason in either religion or science, the greater the science or religion is.

Maybe a different way to look at it, but aligned with reality.

Answer 10

Science deals with learning the hows and whys of things, and we learn facts and theories. However, the goal is to discern the facts through testing, retesting, and observed consistency with the results.

With religion, it's more like an opinion - it's not really wrong, and there are many to follow (if you so choose), but it relies solely on faith instead of actual proof. If that gets you through the night, fine. Just recognize that many others won't agree to "just have faith" if they want to see results.

Answer 11

Try redoing your analysis with two belief systems in stead of one.
Revelation verses Science; God reveals, man observes. If you do that your answer would be yes within each belief system.