Can science really co-exist with religion?

Question

How can the scientific outlook be effective in a world where most people believe that there is an invisible man in the sky that controls their lives, people can be brought back from the dead, the earth is only 6-10,000 years old, etc?

Not only do they believe these things but they believe them without any evidence at all and often as a default.

Answer 1

Only Spinoza's pantheism is compatible with science.

Answer 2

Not all religious people believe that the earth is only 6-10,000 years old. There are many scientists that believe in a deity and still understand that the universe is 13 billion years old and that evolution has occurred. So while fundamentalism has significant problems co-existing with science, other types of superstition have little difficulty.

Answer 3

Yes, it can. Many scientists are religious.

Science and most peoples religion do not conflict.

Nothing in science contradicts the idea that the Universe was started (with a Bang 13 billion years ago) by a Creator who designed the process and watches over us today.

There are "Old Earth" creationists who believe in a 4 billion year old Earth where life evolved from simpler forms to more complex. They just have a belief as to why. Science deals with how, not why.

Here's my favourite example of how science and religion can be compatible. This is straight science, with a religious interpretation as a punchline. When the Universe first formed, it contains only hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen condensed together under gravity and made stars.

The other elements were made by nuclear reactions in the stars. Late in their life, some of those stars exploded with inconceivable violence, scattering the elements in the universe. Some of them pulled together under gravity and formed Earth.

We are the stuff of exploding stars, gathered together in this tiny place in a most fortunate and highly unlikely way. If someone wants to give those scientific facts a religious interpretation, nothing in science proves them wrong.

The only requirement for compatibility is to acknowledge scientific fact. Beliefs about who did it or why are the territory of religion.

They're perfectly compatible, although extremists on both sides promote unnecessary conflict (Richard Dawkins and some fundamentalists may be very surprised to wake up in the same place one day) .

Answer 4

Clearly they can coexist, since they have done so for all of recorded history. But that isn't really your question.

If you really understand both the Bible and science, there is no fundamental conflict. Nearly everything in the BIble is:
1. outside the realm of science,
2. confirmed by science, or
3. unknown by science

The fundamental teaching of Genesis 1-3 is that God created the heavens and the earth. Science offers big bang theories of the earliest history of the universe, but has nothing to say about where it all came from, or how the physical laws came to be. I'll concede the 10,000 year age of the earth and that it was created in 7 solar days. The literary content and style don't rule out a much older earth and universe, or a longer and much more complex creation process.

There is abundant evidence for the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. The historical accounts and fulfilled prophecy have all proved correct.

You are 100% correct that most people's beliefs about God are by default. That's really pathetic, since it's the one area with potentially eternal significance.

Answer 5

Yes it can. It is true that, " Every question leads to an answer scientifically, but yet leads to another question" Science, while being mankind's greatest tool, is incapable of proving or disproving the existence of God, and when I say God, I don't mean the bible, etc.,I mean the belief in a supreme being who is responsible for our existence or however you want to define it. Science will always grow in knowledge, yet be eternally incomplete. One can believe in both. Science, however powerful, does not explain our existence, consciousness, or our own innate beliefs, intuition, faith, etc. Belief can be a powerful tool also as it can help enhance and improve our lives and make us ultimately better people.

Answer 6

I am Christian and I believe in both Creation and Evolution. God created the world. However, He didn't create everything to be "fresh out of the box." He meant for the mountains to be a little old when he created them. I mean, you can't deny evolution because it is a characteristic of an organism. All living things will adapt and evolve because of their surroundings both are true.

There are just too many ideas, and people look for facts, not common sense.

Answer 7

Oh, it can absolutely co-exist.

What is remarkable are the laws written in the oldest portion of the bible (Pentateuch).. and how many of them protected the Israelites from disease and chaos. But.. what is more remarkable is how they had NO IDEA why they performed many of those rituals, or how they were preserving their lives since they had no science to back up the practices.

We now understand (because of science) why all the regulations surrounding 'mildew' .. food choices .. diseases .. etc .. actually allowed them to reduce the spread of illness and disease. The concepts of 'bacteria, viruses, fungus' .. none of those were known.. it really boggles the mind how well they kept these in check without the scientific understanding afforded to us today.

Answer 8

I think they can...they just have to respect each other and stay seperate. Religion doesn't belong in science class...period.

To say they have co-existed for centuries is just naive. Galileo said the earth was not the center of the universe. The Church made him recant everything he said and if he ever was to say it again they would have burned him at the stake.

Even now when religion gets in the way of science (stem cell research, intelligent design).

As long as they stay seperate they can co-exist.

Answer 9

There is circumstantial evidence that God exists, or that certain events in Bible might have actually taken place, so it is inaccurate to say that there is no evidence "at all".

In contrast, the idea that the Earth is really 4.5 billion years old, and that all life arose by random probability through purely natural means is also based on circumstantial evidence, since no one was around to see it. It requires some faith to be an atheist, since you cannot prove your point for 100 percent certainly either.

Another guy in some other post raised the point as to why someone who does not believe in God spends so much time thinking about how to prove that he doesn't exist. Good question.

Answer 10

I'm not gonna write a big long speech, everyone else has done that for me, the answer is 'no'. Get rid of the religion and we'll all be better off.

Answer 11

in my opinion, religion should be based on only known scientific facts.no talk about things yet unknownscientifically.