Uhhh... yeah... that's pretty much what we have all just finished saying. We leave faith to the religious. Science can't comment on faith; likewise faith has no place in science.

A bit late to the discussion, but welcome none the less.



Of course not. That's not my job. That is the job of the religious, you perhaps. That way your interpretation can contend with other religious interpretations... you leave us scientists out of any "religious interpretation" since as I've said above, we are perfectly content leaving that up to religion. Of course, when you interpretations and our facts contradict, there will be a rumble... but we can work through that peaceably as we have in the past. And thus if your interpretation of faith as per that quote above and my statement are the same, then that's great! One more data point to validate my opinion!

since when is modern Protestantism cowardly? the teachings of the New Testament are quite clear that since Jesus' first coming, traditions save no one and all that we need to believe is that Jesus is the Son of God and He died for our sins, and rose again. it makes no attempts to be more modern -- it still (in general) believes active homosex is a sin and that you should save sex for marriage. where has it tried to be more modern? it only tries to go back to the roots of Christianity: Christianity as Jesus and the Apostles said it should be.
i wouldn't take "evidence" so literally (especially in such an old translation as the KJV). other translations say "conviction", among other things.
but it doesn't disprove Christianity as Christianity doesn't depend on some peoples' interpretations and calculations leading to a 6000 year old earth.

i know in general we're in agreement that science and religion are compatible, but i just had to pop-in where you guys put across that Christianity is incompatible with science.

julz

No, that proposition was neither proven nor tested because it becomes obviously false when applied to religion in general. I just want to point out that a generalization of religion, like most such generalizations, is wrong.

Of course I see that the whole discussion in PHYSICS TODAY has a certain religion in mind: the special world creation dogma by some US fundamentalist groups. They should however not be confused with religion in general or Christianity in general.

When you look into a science book, you'll learn that according to our astronomical and physical observations gravity needed 9.1 billion years for creating the earth. You may calculate yourself how many days this took.


Most Protestants would object. They think that they are interpreting the bible more correct and literal than you, and that the idea of a 4000 BC creation is neither Christian nor biblical.


If a certain interpretation of the Holy Book does not fit with science, then the interpretation itself is weak, and not the the people who recognize that.

It requires extreme courage to change fundamental religious views. Protestantism was up to this challenge. Many parts of Christianity followed. Some still haven't found the courage to perform that step. Who is the coward here?

That is correct. This is why it is a proposition that is to be applied on a per religion basis. Certain religions, like the Jesuits do not have an immutable world view and thus are at compatible with science. Others, like the Young Earth Creationist do have an immutable world view and thus are incompatible with science.



No doubt. Though it does not invalidate his statement when applied outside the US and outside fundamentalism.

But it does disprove Young Earth Creationist Christianity. Sorry if I wasn't specific on that. I clearly do not put those nutjobs as representing the majority of Christianity as evident by my first "Jesus" example. The idea being that when science says something is impossible, religion has no clout to say otherwise.

okay cool. that's clear now.

julz

Yes, he did not change his opinion on that specific occasion. Otherwise he changed his opinion many times - often after haggling with humans.

Read the bible! You can easily see your God's flexibility in his dialogs with Abraham or Moses. Don't just pick some quote from the bible that supports your idea and ignore all the rest that contradicts it.


Then Jesus is for you a traitor too? He said "Turn the other cheek", knowing that his God JHWH said 1000 years before "Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound."

The bible is full of examples how your God changed over time and adapted to the changing ethics of human society. Just read it with a open mind and learn from it. If the bible would have been continued in the last 2000 years, you'd probably read how your God some day accepted the Copernican system, Newtonian mechanics, Relativity Theory, the Big Bang, and eventually even the UN charter of human rights.

And yet there's a problem with making this distinction in my humble opinion, because what exactly would be a "real" Christian then? I'm pretty sure Christian fundamentalists think of themselves as real Christians. I'm aware of how this will be different depending on who you'd ask, but at least when it comes to scientists we can simply objectively measure if they are 'real' scientists or not (as in; do they use the scientific method and so on).

It's like the debate on whether or not the Pope has really anything to do with 'Christianity'.



Of course scientists can believe whatever they want about such claimed historical events, however if they are honest they should know it's as much a theory as it is a myth when it comes down to evidence. Perhaps such beliefs are comforting and therefore valuable, but when it comes to truth finding such beliefs are pretty pointless and without any uhhhm "real" value.

I think there are still multiple reasons for believing in God as a possibility regardless of the truth-value of the Bible and these claimed to be historical but largely unproven events though. The combination scientist+religious person is very possible, hence ID-like theories.



In this context it's also interesting to see how the Quran tends to be more consequent with these kind of things than the Bible.

@jcl you have deleted my entire post and replaced it with replies to only certain parts of it. Why did you do that?

God never changed the system of justice...life for life,eye for eye, and tooth for tooth was fulfilled when Jesus gave His life for all.



There are very few things you can count on, the immutability of God is one of them.