why do people have a problem combining spiritual truth and scientific fact?

Question

Religion and science have always lived together, untill the last couple of hundred years. Why do modern 'science folk' dismiss spiritual things so quickly?

ok if science dismisses god because of no evidence....what about 'love' and 'hate' ....do things not exist as well? and if they do could someone please measure how much my girlfriend loves or hates me!

Answer 1

Complete lack of evidence.

It's hardly like we're dismissing it "quickly": spiritual folks have made claims for thousands of years, and the vast majority of humans have been believers in those claims, and yet in all of that time and effort, not one tiny whit of evidence for anything spiritual has ever been found. As a result, spiritual people have taken to simply referring to their claims as "truth", as though that somehow changes the facts of the matter. It doesn't.
==================
JackHigh, there is a complete lack of evidence for anything spiritual.

I can't help but notice that you found the time to be rude, but not the time to present any of the boundless evidence you claim there is. There's an obvious reason for that.

Answer 2

In the past Science was based on Religion, nowadays Science is based on Evidence. Spiritual things are not a form of evidence and thus when ‘ science folk ‘ or any folk for that matter dismiss spiritual things quickly they are just using their common sense.

Answer 3

Religion and science used to walk hand in hand in many early civilizations, including the Greeks and Romans. The problem actually came with the rise of religious states during the middle ages/dark ages. Many city-states and territories dictated religion through a state church, that was the spiritual authority, and in many cases the ruling authority, of the kingdom. Since the ruling body and the church were such cozy bedfellows, ruling bodies found it much easier to control its citizens through holy mandate and dogmatic precedence.

In those centuries, education in any form came at a premium and was rare. Science was frowned upon, and often even considered heresy, since the the church's answer to life's big questions typically was, "because God said so." It is believed by many historians that the rulers and their associated churches sought to control their stuarts/citizens by keeping them shrouded in a veil of ignorance, relying on the church to be the know-all/end-all of wisdom and answers.

The dark ages produced a rift between religion and free though. Science was sometimes accused of witchcraft and sorcery...works of the devil. Science, in turn, accused religion of fueling ignorance. Throughout the centuries, to the present, there has been an uneasy struggle between science and religion.

I recommend a DVD that is showing signs that science and religion might one day resolve their differences. "Down the Rabbit Hole" is an entertaining, yet educational, effort at trying to explain how modern research in Quantum Physics and the power of thought might just actually prove the existence of God (or at least some form of higher being) and spirituality. What many might think would be just one more step science is trying to take to disprove spirituality actually strengthened my faith.

Answer 4

I respectfully disagree they have always lived together. I think they have always clashed. I also don't believe science simply dismisses spirituality. It's just that science by it's very nature goes on facts that can be tested and proven, and religion has none to offer. Not one single shread of proof or evidence has EVER been found. Religion is totaly word of mouth and faith that what some person many years ago said is true.

Answer 5

because before modern science folk, anything could go as science - spontaneous generation, taking the "word of god as written by kooky A or Lonny B" as proof,///

now - science is about logic, demonstration, replicability, creating theory that states in which conditions they can be proved false ( no dogma )

all of which is missing in the religious area ( dogma, lack of logic, paradox, ...)
science evolves -

there are a movement by religious people to preach creationnist now in classroom - as science -

keep spiritual truth away from the science classroom and you wont get clash

Answer 6

The "spiritual" by its very definition is outside of the purview of science.

One look at the Bible is enough to convince you that it is not a science book. So many internal contradictions that almost nothing in it could be taken on face value.

Lets take for example the verses from the Bible that "webboffin" referred to when he says that the Bible corroborates science.

The exact verse is from Job 26:7 (I'm using KJV version):
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."

whereas 1 Samuel 2:8 says:

"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them."

and

Job 9:6
"Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble."

and

Job 3:4
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding."

If the earth was set on nothing as per Job 26:7 where did the pillars and foundations suddenly emerge?

This is just one example of Christians cherry picking verses to prove a point. When shown other verses that contradict the verses that they picked, they usually cry that the other verses are being taken out of context or say that they're supposed to be interpreted metaphorically.

Scientific education is never imparted in metaphorical terms or vague poetic verses which could be interpreted any which way you want. Science demands a certain level of accuracy and falsifiability, which the Bible does not satisfy. Hence I say that the Bible is in direct contradiction to the findings of science and should not be used as a science book.

As for why do people of science believe in God if they were mutually incompatible, I would urge you to look up the psychological term "compartmentalization".

Love, you ask? Its mysteries are slowly being unraveled by scientific scrutiny.

Read: http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/love-science.html

Answer 7

Apart from the fact that they see there is no evidence I think they are scared or too ignorant to allow the fact that there are spiritual 'things' out there. You can't actually see the wind - you can see what it does but you can't SEE it - does that mean it doesn't exist? There is very sophisticated machinery and cameras these days to prove that spiritual beings exist. Therefore it is not just a question of believing......

Answer 8

Because science is about discovering what's real whereas 'spiritual truths' are a load of made-up garbage.

Galileo might have disagreed with your picture of religion and science skipping merrily along hand in hand - and he was hardly the first one.

Copernicus would have made the point even more strongly - at least up until he was burned alive by the church for daring to talk about facts.

Answer 9

Why do modern "religious folk" dismiss science so quickly?

Answer 10

Because they kind of disproved it all, or at least can find absolutely no evidence what so ever for any thing spiritual, anywhere. And maybe because "spiritual truth" is an oxymoron.

Answer 11

Spiritual Truth tends to be observed through subjective personal religious experiences, which by definition are not open to cold scientific examination.