Krauthammer: Science, religion are not enemies

[billr]

Great one, even if you seldom agree with Krauthammer....


By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous - that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, were both religious.
Newton's religiosity was traditional. He was a firm believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," wrote James Gleick in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation - understanding the workings of the universe - as an attempt to understand the mind of God.


http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051118/1024724.asp

[occuserpens]

1. This is only small part of the story

Check complete analysis at http://tinyurl.com/c5wau

[Sandpiper]

2. Einstein was not religious in any conventional sense

And certainly not in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word.


Einstein did not believe in a personal God or in the existence of an immortal soul in human beings.

[occuserpens]

3. Sure

Krauthammer would not be Ktauthammer without lying on something

[shrike]

10. That's true

There's some conflicting information out there about Einstein -- one biographer even described him with a pantheistic belief, that God expresses Itself in creation, not in the lives of human beings. But no, Einstein was not religious in the conventional sense. And I don't even know if he would have described himself as a theist.

[salin]

4. What's a matter Charles? The flat-earther's among your readers

making you a little nervous?

[sarcasmo]

6. flat-earthers, that's a great one. I prefer Christian Taliban but if I may

I would like to throw that one in my arguments against the Taliban here in Western Michigan.

[salin]

9. throw it at the talibornagain - where ever you see them

and I picked up "taliboragain" here at du - use either liberally...

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Of course they're enemies

In the days when religion's power and rule were absolute, the Church recognized the danger of its new, rising enemy and tried to crush it. Having failed in that, religion is trying to make friends outwardly and undermine science more deviously.

Of course rationalism and superstition are enemies.

[enki23]

7. bullshit. of course they are. even if they war in a single mind

like, for instance, newton's.

and for the record, einstein, as an avowed non-theist, didn't believe anything like krauthammer says he did.

[Alonzo Fyfe]

8. That Depends

Whether science and religion are at odds depends on your religion.

If your religion says that the Earth sits on the back of elephants riding on a turtle, and earthquakes are caused when the turtle moves, then science says that your religion is wrong.

If your religion says that lighting is the result of Thor or Zeus getting angry and tossing lightning bolts and making thunderous noise, science is going to tell you that your religion has problems.

If your religion says that the volcano will not harm the village if you would only sacrifice a virgin to it, science is going to tell you that this is not going to help.

If your religion says that diseases are caused by the abandonment of God, and that you can cure disease by prayer rather than anti-biotics, science is going to prove that there are some holes in your theory.

If your religion tells you that the earth is the center of the solar system and that all things revolve around it, science is going to tell you that this is mistaken -- and burning the scientists that say this (or threatening to, as they are held under house arrest) will not change the facts.

If your religion says that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that, at the start of the earth, God created Adam and Eve and gave them life, science is going to contradict this.

There are some religions that do not compete with science. These are religions that state that God made this wonderful universe and we discover God's truth in test tubes and and particle colliders, not in bibles.

Science does give us reason to prefer some religions over others.

Some scientists want to say otherwise in the hopes of getting religion off of their back. But this only proves that even some scientists can disregard observation and fact in favor of a little wishful thinking.


Alonzo Fyfe
Atheist Ethicist Blog