religion vs. Science in Angels and demons or in general?

Question

Im writing a paper about how science and religion should be able to co-exist using beowulf and Angels and Demons as examples. I already have the reasons for beowulf but i was wondering if anyone knew passages in angels and demons talking about how religion and science work together instead of contradicting each other. Or does anyone have their own personal opinions. Im open for any. Mainly for the affirmative of this argument but i will also explore the negative. So im open to all opinions

there is a chapter in angels and demons that explains the whole scienctific religion concept if anyone knows what chapter that is its greatly appricieated!!!

it may seem wierd to be basing a thesis on two fictional stories. However, my class finished reading beowulf and we were asked to come up with a thesis using examples from beowulf...hence the fiction part

Answer 1

Hereafter a long text I have written some time ago. I paste it here unshorted.

There are two main attitudes upon God and religion.
The one is the real true faith and confidence in the sciences. Scientific people search for the truth; they don’t pretend that they have found it definitively. Their knowledge is based on researches and on serious verified proofs that can be verified again at any moment.
Religious people pretend that they have already found the truth and they believe without serious proofs what they are told. Many of their believes are against common sense and in contradiction with the scientific knowledge of their century. Their believes have not been researched, not been verified and cannot be verified again at any time.
If somebody pretends something out of experience, out of science, out of common sense, he must prove it very seriously.
For example: if I pretend that tomorrow it will snow in the desert, I must prove it much more seriously than if I would pretend that tomorrow the wind will blow there by 40miles/hour.

The real true faith is that the human spirit has invented God and has attributed him innumerous intelligently to most stupidly invented qualities. For example: God helps us, he gives us His attention. Thank you God for Your attention during all the genocides, the wars, the wars accomplished in Your Name and the organized criminality today. I thank You in the name of the Native, the colored men, and the slaves in the USA. I thank You to have helped Hitler to survive to 43 attempts while You have let burst millions of innocent children, women and men. Thank You for having let Himmler, Stalin, Berija, Mao, Ho-Shi-Min and other sweepings of society doing innumerable atrocious crimes which the most ferocious beast would have refused to accomplish.
I am astonished that religious people are unable to see the contradictions between a God Who apparently helps and permits such atrocities without interfering. If such a God existed he might be “ashamed” for being co-responsible of so much evil. So I think such a good helping God doesn’t exist. Religious people have invented what they desire, it’s “desiring-thinking”.
By interbreeding of dogs it is possible to get an extremely aggressive race. When now one of these dogs aggresses a child and kills him, who is then responsible? We all know that before the law and before men, the one who has “created” that race of dogs is the most responsible.
When religious people pretend that their God has created the men, then he has created also the aggressive and criminal impulses that put men to crimes and politicians, and militaries to declare wars. What is true for the elevator of ferocious dogs must also be true for those of the gods who have “created” these men or their extremely aggressive impulses. Consequently these gods are at the origin responsible for the crimes accomplished on earth.

If this is not so then the twelve fundamental impulses of men have been developed during the evolution of the world and the Powers that have created the universe don’t pay any attention to all what happens in the universe and on our planet. They have created the universe and they let it go. It must be so because there is not a single serious proof that these Powers have ever interfered and helped anytime anyone. Furthermore men don’t know anything at all about the Powers that are at the origin of the universe. Our planet is in the universe so insignificant as a grain of dust, and men are comparable to quarks. Religious people are very pretentious to believe that their God pays attention to so totally insignificant beings.

Some people think that by praying God, He would help them. Psychologists know that it is not God or any other supernatural powers. It’s the sub-conscience of men that helps. If you activate consciously your sub-conscience by sentences (or prayers) like these: “I will be successful” or “My extra-sensible tooth will not hurt anymore”. If you repeat these sentences very often, the best before falling asleep and by waking up, you will put more attention to your tooth, you will start to make massages with silken threads, and you will heel it in short time. Up to you to find out, if some obscure God has helped you, or if you have helped you yourself. And that domain of the placebo effect, of positive thinking and so on, is all the mystery of that so nice, so good and so almighty God.

Most of the major religions that pretend that there is a God-Creator of the universe believe with variations in a same sort of God. This seems to prove that the human spirit has created the principle of God.
We have not a single scientific prove that there exists a species of a presence of one God or the presence of more Gods or a system of Gods. About God we don't know anything at all. Religious people just want to be eternal and therefore they invent and have invented innumerous more or less intelligent ideas, often against all sense, about their God. Their main interest is, that they want that he lead them to that uncertainty of their totally invented eternal life.
One of these invented ideas is the principle of an existing demon responsible for all the evil in the world. Responsible for the evil in the world are men, and not the so welcome idea of a demon.
So we have a Godfather, a Holy Spirit, a Godson, a Godmother and a Main Demon. Just like the Royals in the UK, here the goddess Royals. And the Godmother was a virgin and had four sons and at least two daughters. And that is written down textually in the new testaments.
And then there are the Archangels and the angels: the grand dukes and the dukes. Not to forget the devils, one devil for every kind of sin, I suppose. The hierarchy goes on with the
the Saints and the Sanctimonious: the counts and the viscounts, the sorceresses and the sorcerers. At the glorious end the souls of normal people in paradise, or in the purgatory and those in hell: such as in real life people who have a good life, those who suffer sometimes and those who suffer their whole life.
And Godfather has created all this.
My congratulations. I estimate that this holy hierarchy is comparable to the creations of our best fairy-teller. And very similar too to the hierarchies in the churches, the army, the factories and enterprises of a certain importance.
Saint August, beginning of the 5th century, one of the main thinkers of the catholic church pretended, that God is the divine Essence, the Being of God; the Son is the Word i. e. the Truth; and the Holy Spirit is Love by that the Father begets the Son. Congratulations Saint August very well found! But who believes all this still nowadays?

So where are the proofs that people have souls? A soul has not yet been found, nevertheless it should be eternal and goes on living after the death, where?
In what part of the body are located these souls? How are they constituted? Where are the proofs that they will go on living after death? Who the first has invented the principle of the soul?
Why do you believe so easily totally unproved stories unable to give serious answers to questions of common sense?

Furthermore there is not a single serious proof that Jesus was sent by that invented God in three persons. Joshua (Jesus) has "sent" himself. By the way the representation of Joshua is not in conformity with the texts one can read about him, and with the opinion people had about him who knew him.

For me being religious is a matter of education and constitution of the brain when it is impressed with esoteric and mysticism.
Religion is unscientific answers to questions about the fundamental cause of the origin of the universe, of the forces which rule the universe, of the forces on earth, of the energy of life, of the origin of mankind and so on. Mostly these answers are full of imagery and invented to be understood by most men and for all by ordinary, simple-minded, simple hearted people. The scientists have found many of these answers wrong during the last centuries. Nevertheless many religious people, sometimes intelligent people, stick to their believes even if these believes are proved unrealistic, against common sense or totally wrong.
Examples: The "virgin" Maria, the mother of Jesus had four sons and several daughters; a mother of God and a God in three persons is polytheism; the "wonders" of Jesus can mostly all be explained by natural reasons. What miracles? Tell me only one miracle Jesus has done, and I try to explain you what could be probably about these so-called "miracles".
I don't know any miracles, I only know people who believe in miracles.
Hundred years ago healing by placebo were miracles, today we know it is the placebo effect.
Many preachers had, and still have, their tricks to catch the attention of their listeners and to make them believe their theories. Certainly Jesus has been one of the best magicians in his country at those times.
Making wine out of water: Jesus probably did what we did when we were children, he mixed water with vinegar and honey and at once they had a good sweet “wine” probably better then the wine they had before.
Nobody goes to the desert without taking something with to eat and to drink. The Jews had hidden it under their wide cloth, because they didn’t want to share with others. When the young boy offered what he had brought with they were ashamed and followed his example.
Heeling the beggars of all sorts of handicaps. Everybody knows that if you want to make appeal on the generosity of men you must look most miserable, ill, crippled. And if you are then “healed” by a prophet like Jesus, you get famous, and people give you money for listening to your story.
Waking Zechariahs up from “death” was not clever at all and a big mistake. Zechariahs was apparently dead and he stank terribly because he had stayed during three days in the tomb and had made in his frocks. But then the priests accused Jesus to make people think that he was God, a capital crime in Israel those days with deadly consequences for Jesus…

There are tendencies in the USA to come centuries back and to believe in creationism, i.e. the world being 10.000 years old and being created in 6 short periods (6 days?).
I can’t believe that people, as the actual president, who have got final diplomas at universities of the USA, believe such nonsense. So I guess that he says so, because he is conscious that many of his electors believe that nonsense. That is the scientific level of the children in the Kindergarten in most countries of Europe. A word about the churches and about the different sects all around the USA, such as Scientology. Most of the leaders of these churches behave like dictators, profiteers, eager for power and money. Scientology is considered as totalitarian ideology acting against articles 9 and 10 of the Declaration of the human rights. Greece has declared scientology as enemy public number one in 1973 (source Wikipedia). But I agree they are effective because their members are ignorant and naïve as people was in the Middle Age. When I read the questions and the answers by Yahoo Answers of the different countries of Europe, I can find scientific contributions founded upon history of mankind, on history of the religions, on psychology, on sociology, even in Italy, one of the most religious countries in Europe.

But at Yahoo Answers in USA the questions and the answers are much more often very unrealistic, unscientific and far away from the knowledge of our century.
Up to you, to build up your own mind about this, to verify yourself and to think whatever you want about people who believe all this without any serious proof.
Nevertheless I am pleased that I have grown up in a Christian society and in a Christian culture with their moral, social and intellectual levels.

Answer 2

Religion is frequently the only one on the offensive, and usually only the very conservative branches are the ones who declare war on science. Most of the moderate and liberal varieties accept scientific answers and don't see their faith in conflict with it.

The villain in A&D is wildly mistaken about the place of science and religion in the world...a character who seeks to instil deep fear of science through terror. He sought to use an ancient bogeyman to try to scare people back into the arms of his church...somehow mistaking ignorance for awe of the sacred. The character specifically goes into a couple of long rants about it towards the end of the book. What he doesn't understand is that his idea of "spirituality" requires a degree of deliberate ignorance, and that science actually inspires MORE wonder at the universe not less.

Religion should always be a personal matter, in my opinion.

Answer 3

ok i believe i will show you how to extra. in the beginning demons are actual and that they'll attack you in the event that they'd they don't purely attack unbelievers yet additionally believers, countless the time it somewhat is believers interior the wish that others will reject the thought God could love us if he "facilitates" this to ensue. we believe the spirit of God is interior us even nevertheless we nonetheless are open to religious assaults from demonic forces, yet however if God can not come down until eventually the final day he can supply those people help by way of many diverse techniques. in the beginning God would help that man or woman via giving a priest the potential to accomplish Exorcisms and banish the demon from the physique. The bible says Matthew 10 28 "do not worry people who kill the physique yet can not kill the soul. somewhat, be afraid of the only that could break the two soul and physique in hell" we are advised that however if our physique would nicely be destroyed our soul is in gods palms. people have been demonically possessed and function been exorcised and saved, Exorcisms are achieved interior the call of Jesus Christ. God is with us and could help us yet we do could help ourselves sometimes

Answer 4

It seems like a complete bust if you're basing your premise on two fiction stories. Sure you can use them as examples, but you're still referring to fiction. The point being, I could find hundred of books that show that neither work together or that one dominates or any other point of view that I want to support, but they would all be based on an author's viewpoint, not on facts.

Note: I'm not disagreeing with your premise, just your methodology.

Answer 5

[OOPs - i thought you were referring to Angels and Demons as entities - not the Dan Brown book! You can feel free to ignore my answer ;)]

Answer 6

science CONFIRMS tht the QURAN is the word of GOD.