Many scientists today have religious convictions, such as Alister McGrath (who earned two doctorate degrees from Oxford, one in theology, the other in molecular biophysics). Examples like this of course prove nothing about the validity of Christianity or religion in general, but they at least demonstrate that it is possible to be a knowledgeable person of science as well as a religious believer. So how exactly do science and religion co-exist with each other in the world? There are basically three options …

>> Read Science & Religion: Competitors or Companions? on PowertoChange.com

Some previous posts about religion & science:
On ‘Scientism’ and Faith – Why the belief that science is the only way to true knowledge is ridiculous
Scientists with Faith – Discusses an article about Francis Collins which appeared in the Times

Click the “more” link to view (the embedded video unfortunately auto-plays so I had to add the extra step to avoid it playing every time people came to the site).

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

Good to know!

I have to wonder though about some people’s comments regarding the tests that will be performed using the LHC. One commenter on the news.au.com article linked above stated “hopefully this thing will show that god does NOT exist!” It’s his/her right to hold that opinion of (s)he wants to, but I think the idea that God could be disproved by any experiment such as this is a bit misguided.

As far as I can see, the experiments that will be run can tell us a lot about the conditions at the earliest moments of the Big Bang. But they cannot tell us anything about what precipitated the Big Bang. How can we, as members of the universe created by said Big Bang, living within its confines & limitations of time and space and matter, discover what lies beyond time and space and matter?

The results of the studies will no doubt be very interesting, but I don’t think we should look to them for proof or disproof of God’s existence.

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it “within a pro-choice realm,” and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance. [Source: National Post]

Apparently everyone has the right to free speech … as long as it’s not the “wrong” speech. (See the link above for the full story of how this happened and the school administration’s response; Hat tip to the STR blog for noting this article.)

I’ve posted on abortion before, though it’s important to note that my objections to abortion are not due to “religious” reasons. The case against abortion (although of course also mandated biblically) is based on logic, science, and shared “common ground”. Unfortunately, the arguments in favor of the pro-life view often get lost during emotionally-charged debates on the subject.

For anyone who is interested in pro-life issues, two great websites are:

• Life Training Institute
• Stand to Reason’s Bioethics section

And two highly recommended books on the subject are:

• Pro-Life 101 A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively by Scott Klusendorf
• Common Ground Without Compromise by Stephen Wagner

This is not a trivial topic: Over one million abortions occur each month. This is 15x the number which perish from all STDs combined including HIV/AIDS. Something to think about, anyways … though not at York University, and perhaps soon not anywhere else in Canada either? From the same article:

Meanwhile, similar controversies are unfolding across Canada, with anti-abortion groups at Capilano College, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Lakehead University and Carleton University stripped of official club status and funding, at least once by fiat of a single member of student council. Some clubs have regained status, while others appealed their cases to human rights commissions.

• Population
• Births
• Deaths (sorted by method)
• Abortions
• Number of cars, bicycles, and computers produced
• Etc …

You can also click the Year, Month, Week, Day, and Now buttons at the top to limit the results to a specific period of time. For example, since I started writing this post, 200 abortions have occurred. In the last week, the number of abortions that occurred was approximately 258,000, compared to 17,000 from all STDs including HIV/AIDs. Now, all of these figures are sad and alarming, and I am in no way trying to belittle the AIDS epidemic. In fact I regularly support the blood:water mission in their efforts to provide clean drinking water and clean blood to help battle the HIV/ADS crisis in Africa.

However, although the shockingly large number of abortions does not itself prove anything about the ethics of abortion, it should lead us to think seriously about the morality of this issue: Year-to-date nearly 31 million abortions have occurred. If abortion does take the life of a human person, that is 31 million murders.

• For more on this subject, please see my previous post Abortion = Profits?.

One of the threads on the FORU.MS discussion board was deleted recently, and one of my old posts went along with it. (Not sure why the thread was removed.) A mod was kind enough to forward my post in the thread to me before it was removed, so here’s my reply below to someone who posted some comments on science and faith, which I have edited & expanded a bit for this blog: (original poster’s comments in italics; assume all spelling errors in his/her writing were in their original post)

Christians don’t trust in Science because it clean’s their clock. I mean Noah’s ark? Camon.

There are several different theories regarding Noah’s Ark. Many believe it was a local flood; ie, it covered the entire world that was known to people at that time. Others claim that it was indeed a worldwide flood, which is buttressed to some extent by the other flood stories that appear in other ancient documents. Still others take it metaphorically. Personally I think that may be stretching the account to interpret it that way. But, we can’t really know for sure which is more likely the correct approach.

The bible is full of contradictions, I could name thousands. Do a google search.

Let’s keep in mind what a contradiction is: “a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical inversions of each other.” What are usually cited as contradictions are actually purported errors, but nevertheless, if Google searches are your fancy, do a Google search on answers to the supposed contradictions and you’ll find solid answers for most of them (for example, one of J P Holding’s lists, or this refutation of a Muslim “101″ list). There have been times when certain alleged errors or contradictions have been cleared up by further research or archaeological finds, so for the few questions that are as yet unknown, it doesn’t really bother me that we may not understand every word of the Bible completely. There are of course good reasons to believe the New Testament is trustworthy and reliable.

Science and Christianity to not play nice together. Christians sometimes get angry and kill the bringers of science: “Galeao and his godless telescope for example”

This is unfortunately true. It’s sad when Christians abandon the teachings of Jesus and immorally commit acts that deny His teachings. But this is not proof that Christianity is false. Thousands of Christians are martyred every year by secular governments; that does not prove that atheism is wrong any more than the bad things done by some Christians prove that Christianity is wrong. For more on this topic, see Skeptical Christian’s “Evil Christianity” or my own (brief) post Christians do bad things. That said, as per Philip J. Sampson the story of Galileo has become a ‘modern myth’ and the real story is not quite so condemning once we acknowledge all the relevant details.

Science provides solid proof that Christians are ridiculous therefore Christians cannot allow science to invade their sacred space of Faith.

I’m sorry that you feel that way, but please keep in mind that many of the great scientists throughout history have been “religious”, and a large number today believe that God exists. A recent study of college professors demonstrated that the majority believe God exists (source). For example, Dr Alister McGrath, who holds two PhDs from Oxford, one in molecular biophysics and the other in theology, is a proponent of what he refers to as scientific theology.

Is there a fundamental conflict between science and religion? I don’t think so. Is there a fundamental conflict between science of the naturalism or scientism sort and religion? Naturally!

The idea that science disproves the possibility of miracles is, IMHO, extremely misguided. Science is able to confirm that certain things are testable and repeatable, that is, empirically verifiable in the present. Miracles, by nature, are none of these things. For example, today as I rode home on the bus I glanced out the window as the bus came to a stop. To my surprise I saw a rabbit sitting on the grass beside the road. I had never seen a rabbit here before (a fairly built-up area along a heavily trafficked road). This event is still not testable (you’ll have to take my word for it that I observed a rabbit earlier today) and not repeatable (even if we were to get on the same bus, drive along the same road, etc, the circumstances could never be exactly the same) and yet the event really did occur. There is no reason to claim that this was a miraculous event, but even here science cannot test whether this mundane event occurred.

Therefore it’s no surprise that science has not (cannot) confirm (or disprove) the miraculous. Richard R. Purtill notes in his essay “Defining Miracles” (also part of the aforementioned book) that scientists “tend to confine their investigations to the ordinary course of nature and to ignore such exceptions as might be made to the course of nature by God, since exceptions brought about by personal agency cannot be predicted from a study of what normally happens”.

Trying to test whether a supposed miraculous event occurred in history using the scientific method is sort of like trying to determine whether a banana is tasty by sticking it in your ear and listening to it. It’s inappropriate methodology. There’s nothing wrong with the scientific method for testing natural phenomenon. However a miracle is not natural, and therefore it is misguided to dismiss, say, the resurrection by appealing to science that shows that people rising from the dead is impossible. Of course we observe that dead people stay dead, and that’s entirely the point. This wasn’t lost on first century people either: Jesus’ resurrection was a big deal because people knew that dead people are supposed to stay dead.

This does not mean that science has no part in examining the truth claims of miracles, but only that as unique events in history, a miracle claim is more properly investigated as history rather than science.

Further reading: The Facts Concerning the Resurrection: Don’t believe the New Testament is a reliable historical source? I’d argue that the NT is historically reliable, but try let’s throwing out most of what it contains, and only focus on facts agreed upon by the vast majority of scholars, Christian or not. What we find might surprise you!

Planned Parenthood (whose services include “family planning, gynecological care, STI/STD testing and treatment, pregnancy testing, and abortion”) reported some shocking figures for their 2005-2006 fiscal year:

Total abortions performed: 264,943
Total income: $902.8 million
Total profit: $55.8 million

Of that $902.8 million gross income, $305.3 million came from taxpayer dollars, an increase of $32.6 million from the previous year.¹

The glaring number of 264,943 abortions (roughly equivalent to the number of people who live in the city of Buffalo, New York) should encourage us to take a calm but serious look at the issue of abortion.

That, of course, is the big question: What is the unborn? As Greg Koukl says, “If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate.” Irregardless of my Christian faith it is my contention that abortion is morally wrong and therefore should no more be allowed than any other crime. Of course, this doesn’t make the issues surrounding abortion any easier, but moral decisions are rarely easy.

Related reading:

• Confessions of an Ex-abortionist – Why Dr. Bernard Nathanson, MD, who performed over 75,000 abortions, now campaigns against abortion.
• Can I Destroy This? – Greg Koukl asks the important question in the abortion debate: What is the unborn? All other questions are secondary.
• “Active Euthanasia” or Infanticide? – A previous post on Why Faith regarding “infanticide”: Is it a logical outcome of legalized abortion?