Faith and Science: Two sides of the same coin?

Question

Do you think there's a level of faith people put into science? I get told all the time to question my beliefs as a Christian and not to just blindly follow what my pastor tells me on Sunday (I started out atheist and found God through reason not by going to church). I propose that people put every bit as much faith in science. Their bibles are the textbooks they read in class. They have full trust in experiments they didn't perform themselves nor even know the people who did them. In addition science is not objective. It is very much subjective. One only needs to look at the global warming debate to see that. In the end if someone wants to beleive something they will find reason to believe it. So wheter you don't beleive in God or you do. I think it comes down to what you ultimately want to believe. What do you think?

Answer 1

I think there is a grain of truth in what you are saying, but it is mostly wrong. Your view of "science" is a view from outside of science, looking in as a nonscientist. Someone taking a science class and reading textbooks is not conducting science. If the science class has a lab section where they really do conduct experiments, then they are verging on doing real science, but even they they are not yet doing real science. Real science is only done when someone is trying to learn something new or provide an explanation for something that is not well understood, and they make careful observations, and then publish the results so that other people can reproduce the results. Scientific knowlege is only advanced when the new knowledge has been checked and confirmed (or disproved) by multiple scientists acting independently. Note that the other scientists are generally attempting to find mistakes. They don't want to simply rubber stamp what the original scientist published, they want to be sure that the original scientist didn't leap to a wrong conclusion due to wishful thinking or poor experimental technique. Science works because there are a large number of people cooperatively working together to advance knowledge and correct past misunderstandings. When scientists are checking the work of other scientists they are definitely NOT taking things of faith. In fact, they normally take a "devil's advocate" approach where they try to be as skeptical as possible.

Now, most people don't do this kind of science. I read a lot of popular science books written for well-educated people who are not experts in the field. When I read about theoretical physics, I do have to take a lot of it on faith. I don't have the advanced education necessary to be able to critique what is said, and I certainly don't have access to the kind of equipment that is used to conduct useful experiments.

However, I know that there are a lot of scientists who do have the necessary training who have scrutinized the ideas presented in the book. In fact, all such books have bibliographies of published papers that I can go get and read. There is a well defined "paper trail" that I can follow to see were scientists agreed and disagreed.

Now, consider religion. In particular, let's consider all of the monotheistic religions that trace their roots to the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). These religions include: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and probably others. The latter three each added more "holy books" to the Old Testament to make a new religion. If you squint your eyes hard enough, this is kind of like science. A new chunk of knowledge is published, which in theory advances the 'state of the art' in the field. However, it's really nothing like science at all. You either believe the new work is holy or you don't. If you want to believe it is holy, you are generally forced to believe that all of it is holy. If you try to critique any part of it, you are generally considered a heretic, and your only choice is to be quiet or to try to start a new religion. The scientific method is not used at all with respect to holy scripture. The broader dogma that comes from "interpretation" that religion develops can change over time, but it changes very slowly. As such, it takes hundreds of years for religions to admit their mistakes of interpretation.

So, as I said, there is a grain of truth in what you said. But it is like one grain out of an entire beach. Faith and Science are not two sides of the same coin. They are almost completely unrelated.

Answer 2

I think science are religion are meant to answer two different kinds of questions. Science is concerned with how things happen, but religion is concerned with the whys. Even if science could explain how the whole universe and everything in it came to be, that wouldn't tell us anything about the meaning of life.

Of course, plenty of people misuse, misunderstand, and misinterpret science--as in the global warming debate, which is, btw, not nearly so subjective as the mainstream media makes it look. But then again, some people willfully misinterpret their scriptures in order to do whatever they want, too. I think it comes down to how you ultimately want to use them.

Answer 3

I find it much easier to believe in the theory of evolution for example, than some story about talking snakes, and big boats with magical floods. Yes, there's a certain amount of faith (Having not carried out the majority of basic experiments myself), but I take comfort in the fact that science is constantly being re-examined, and adapted based on new knowledge. Whereas the bible does not.

Answer 4

I think that there are many similarities...and as far as the theory of evolution, it's not stupid, however, that doesn't mean God didn't put the primates here knowing they would evolve. Someone had to create all of this; think about it, do you realize that if jupiter was 1 inch bigger, we may be pulled too far from the Sun and freeze? Or if it was 1 inch smaller, maybe we'd be barbequed by now?

But I do agree with your theory that they are similar and somewhat tied together...(if that's what you are saying.)

Answer 5

There's one huge difference between what us scientists believe and what you Christians believe.

In our "bibles" - these text books, the experiments can be done over and over again. By you, by me and by any one who wants to. They are PROVEN to be true and real.

Nothing to this day has been proven from that ridiculous book. Just a bunch of coincidences that have a vague similarity to some general prediction.

Answer 6

I've said it before. Science is mans attempt to understand the universe God created.

Answer 7

mainstream science, for the most part, is not much different from religion.

Answer 8

I like it!!!