Faith + Science

[Portia]

I'm going to take a somewhat different tack:

I do have a decent background in science (a couple o' years in a DNA sequencing lab will do it to you), and many of the claims of science and claims of religions are, in fact, incompatible. The solar system and this earth we live on have been around for millions and millions of years, not anywhere even in the ballpark of a few thousand. Half-man-half-horse beasts never have, do not, exist. Virgins cannot conceive a child except by in vitro fertilization. Jews were not the inhabitants of the New World before any other white people.

None of these are controversial or really hard calls from a scientific point of view. The exact mass and shape of a Higgs Boson (a particle)? Sure. Whether the seas could rise negligibly or considerably due to global warming? Definitely. But science nerds don't lie awake at night fretting about whether Noah fit all the species fit onto the ark, they simply know it didn't happen, the way you know blue is not red.

For most scientists, it pretty much ends there. They base their ethical behavior on more humanist thinkings and philosophies, and don't worry about religions. Most scientists are pretty busy and a bit of workaholics, and read fewer philosophical or literary tomes which may make them fret about this a way a Bible Studies major might.

Then on the other end are whackjobs who believe they were abducted by aliens back in '78. Most people laugh at those people anyway.

In the middle are educated, rational people who accept most the previous propositions, and yet may hang on to some religion or other from sentimentality, family reasons, compartmentalization, or a view of the transcendent as inexplicable by the scientific method. I think the culture war in this aspect is immature and shall not bear fruit, but I see where the science types are coming from. You're an artist, right? If someone, say, insisted against all evidence that an obvious forgery was a real Vermeer, wouldn't it be frustrating? If people want to believe that photography as a profession and art and what they do with their iPhone is "basically the same," fine, whatever, but do you really want someone to act like they know more about a subject which you are objectively better-educated in?

The best scientists I know, the ones I most admire, aren't the pompous crusaders for SCIENCE! They're the ones who turn down the higher-paying job to get high school kids fired up about chemistry. They're the ones who mentor the young kids in the lab and make them feel like part of the process. They're the ones doing a slog of long, hard, frustrating research which will hopefully (maybe! who knows?) yield a cure for a debilitating disorder.

If you want to be more educated on science in general, I can't recommend Scientific American highly enough. The best op-ed section in print, bar none. If you're interested in intelligent scientifically-minded atheists to challenge your viewpoint, there's a whole slew out there, from Christopher Hitchens to Richard Dawkins to Ricky Gervais. I like Steven Pinker, mostly because he doesn't focus on his atheistic superiority, but uses a scientific-based approach to actual stuff, whether it's linguistics, cognitive theory, etc. And if someone challenges your deeply-held, important religious belief on scientific backgrounds, better to simply admit ignorance and say "my ethical worldview is not based in the minutae of mitochondrial migration theory."

I think having true, solid scientific information, even if it's at a beginner level, is more helpful for discussion than pseudo-science which starts out with an objective (say, proving the Nephites were real or whatever). Find something you like--maybe it's astronomy, the wonder of the constellations and supernova explosions--and subscribe to astronomy photo of the day, maybe read a bit on that topic on a reasonable website. Personally, I find any religion to be more plausible when approached from a pure science view than a FARMS-type one, because in the former, the universe is so vast that it truly does not care what we insignificant, piddly homo sapiens do. A study which shows which modern-day South American country Moroni supposedly lived in is not verifiable, reproducible, funded by objective interests . . . it's ethically dubious in the way stealing candy is ethically dubious to people.

I think both atheist scientists and theists religionists can agree on pretty basic values of honesty, justice, and preserving the world's beauty, and maybe both camps would be better served than just screaming past each other. Both have what they deem as immovable positions ("God is real;" "scientific propositions are a correct way of explaining the world") which have not really changed that much since the Enlightenment.

[Marduk]

You're wrong in your suggestion that most scientists are atheists, among other assumptions.

[Digit]

Statistics on things like beliefs one holds in one's head that are self-reported on classifications that are not objectively defined (who is/isn't a scientist? how could you possibly prove to someone who believes they are a scientist that they aren't (by whose definition?)? ) are problematic.

[Waldorf and Sauron]

I'm going to take a somewhat different tack:

I do have a decent background in science (a couple o' years in a DNA sequencing lab will do it to you), and many of the claims of science and claims of religions are, in fact, incompatible. The solar system and this earth we live on have been around for millions and millions of years, not anywhere even in the ballpark of a few thousand. Half-man-half-horse beasts never have, do not, exist. Virgins cannot conceive a child except by in vitro fertilization. Jews were not the inhabitants of the New World before any other white people.

Aside from the whole virgin birth thing (which as a miracle is kind of outside the realm of science), I don't believe any of those "claims of religion." The virgin birth is a whole other issue, but if you accept the existence of a powerful God, the idea that he could perform an in vitro fertilization or what have you is not a stretch. There's quite a range of beliefs among orthodox Mormons, and I think it's fair to adjust our understanding of religious texts based on our scientific knowledge. For instance, many stories of the Old Testament I accept as divinely-inspired parables, because I think the question of whether or not they are literal misses the point completely. Lots of Mormons in good standing (and other faiths, I should add) feel the same way.

[Dragon Lady]

There can also be interpretations most people don't think of. The flood, for example. Science says there is no way the whole earth could be flooded in 40 days. And then where did all that water go? Yada, yada. But people forget that people in that day and age were very egocentric. To them, a flood that covered all of Mesopotamia could easily have been described as a flood that covered the whole world. Their whole world. And for all they new (without twitter, phones, etc.) it might as well have covered the whole world. Not that I'm saying that's what happened, but it offers a much more feasible interpretation. And the same can happen with a lot of other scriptural stories.

[Digit]

I think there are two types of outlook: that things are possible until proven impossible, and that things are impossible until proven possible.

The people subscribing to the former can be correct at the moment they say "we just may discover a new law of physics that will show it possible" giving the presently unknowable the benefit of the doubt. But they can do this indefinitely, even if the thing they believe is truly impossible, because they can always say "the principle that shows why it's possible just hasn't been discovered by us yet."

The people subscribing to the latter may turn out to be wrong if they go so far as to say "it'll never be shown to be possible," but if a genuine undeniable counterexample ever shows up, they can, nay, have to, immediately accept it, admitting they were wrong in times past, and move on, instead of waiting for Godot like the former group.

This is of course a simplified model. I don't think any humans are fully in the former group or the latter.

I personally gravitate more toward the second outlook, but don't have anything against people doing the opposite.

[krebscout]

Katya, yes, those are the points that have me confused. But I think there still is a type and shadow even of those things in our current parental relationships. But I also am in over my head in that area, and I would only discuss these ideas over a cup of hot chocolate and a bucketload of disclaimers.

Portia:

What you're saying makes sense, and I certainly am too uninformed to form strong opinions. That's part of the reason I started this thread in the first place - I recognize that I don't have anything educated or credible to say about the subject, and I'd like to start fixing that. On one hand, though, I feel like your post misses the main point of my question. I'm not exactly asking if science and faith can co-exist...as a theist, I kind of have to believe that they can...but rather I'm asking if I'm correct in believing that miracles and other divine processes are not supernatural, that they follow natural laws. Natural laws manipulated in ways that may be currently deemed impossible (which goes back to the little point Digit just brought up). I do believe in God first, and I'm willing to overlook strong arguments to the contrary in the belief that mankind's understanding is imperfect....and clearly that is a HUGE problem from a logical, scientific standpoint. In that way I "cannot be reasoned with," because I'm starting with a base assumption that cannot be empirically proved and you cannot change my mind. So I totally get that, from your perspective, you're talking to a yokel.

I would very much like to know your thoughts, given a universe where a God of miracles and personal revelation exists, about the place of science in those divine operations. If that even makes sense.