Science & Religious Beliefs
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Three Approaches To The Relationship Of Science & Religious Beliefs
The Smithsonian National Museum Of Natural History has a useful summary of three main positions in the debate between science and religion:
• Conflict - science and religion are seen in competition for cultural authority
• Separation - treats science and religion as two separate areas of human endeavour and belief, each with valid ideas to contribute.
• Interaction - this approach welcomes a dialogue between scientific and religious approaches to major questions of life and death – in particular between creationist and evolutionary theories about the origins of the world and human beings.Source:
The National Committee of The American Academy of Science produced a statement in 1999 entitled: The Origin of the Universe, Earth, and Life. It also represents a balanced view of the arguments on both sides of the debate which can be viewed below.Source:
https://www.nap.edu/read/6024/chapter/3
Science & Religion In Different Areas Of Knowledge
Brian Greene, a world-renowned physicist and author of The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality has written:
"There's no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator."
Greene maintains science and religion can operate in different realms.
(Compare this with Roy Bhaskar's Stratified Reality.)
"Science is very good at answering the 'how' questions. How did the universe evolve to the form that we see? But it is woefully inadequate in addressing the 'why' questions. Why is there a universe at all? These are the meaning questions, which many people think religion is particularly good at dealing with."
The Real Conflict: Not Science vs Religious Belief, But Naturalism vs Supernaturalism
Read John Lennox CAN SCIENCE EXPLAIN EVERYTHING?
Video of Oxford Debate between John Lennox & Richard Dawkins
Watch the video of the Oxford University debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox on HAS SCIENCE BURIED GOD?
Video of Francis Collins on Science & Faith
To watch Frances Colllins, former Director of The Human genome Project, talking about Science & Faith, go to SCIENCE & FAITH.
Video of Can Science Explain Everything?
Watch Andy Bannister of SOLAS answering the question: Has Science Explained Everything?
