Bill Powers 2008-06-04 2
From Summa Bergania
Date: Wed Jun 4, 2008 7:49 pm
From: David Bergan
To: Bill Powers
Subject: Re: Christianity and Conflict
Well, I can't reply in full to all your questions. But maybe we can find a starting point.
Truth is truth, whether it's spoken by the lips of Jesus or Balaam's donkey.
...or found in a test tube. The conflict between religion and science comes only when religion says one thing and science says another. There's no conflict in religion saying that Jesus loves me and that we should help poor people, because those are not scientific issues. There's no conflict in saying that hot air rises or iron rusts in the presence of water, because those are not religious issues.
But we do have conflict if "religion" says the earth is no more than 10,000 years old, and "science" says it's 4.5 billion... or "religion" says that the whole Earth was flooded with water, and "science" says that there is no evidence of flooding in the Antarctic ice core samples. (Personally my faith neither holds to a 10K year old Earth nor one that was fully immersed.)
For me, the biggest issue of conflict where science and religion comes in contact is in understanding free will. When science explores human choice, it necessarily has to approach it from a deterministic/naturalistic perspective. And when Dennett, Pinker, et al, write books on that subject their conclusion comes out that there is no free will. This should surprise no one because science is the study of physical cause and effect - just as gasoline propels the automobile, brain chemicals cause thinking, which causes action. But the concept of free will suggests that humans actions ultimately are directed by 'the self', not merely brain chemistry (although the chemistry certainly plays a part).
'The self', therefore, is not a naturalistic thing... it exists independently of nature's vast system of interlocking cause and effect. 'The self' is supernatural.
Kind regards,
David
