My doubts about the intellectual foundations of atheism began to coalesce into a realization that atheism was actually a belief system, whereas I had assumed it to be a factual statement about reality. I also discovered that I knew far less about Christianity than I had assumed. As I began to read Christian books and listen to Christian friends explain what they actually believed, it gradually became clear to me that what I had rejected was merely a religious stereotype. I had some major rethinking to do. After checking out Christianity's credentials and discovering its immense spiritual vitality and intellectual potency, I came to faith in the God whom I had once regarded as little more than an obsolete curiosity. So in the end, I turned my back on one faith and embraced another. -- Alister McGrath
(Alister McGrath's essay "Challenges from Atheism" in Beyond Opinion: Living the Life We Defend. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publisher, 2007: 23)
Image via Wikipedia
5 comments:
Religion and Science are compatible regardless of what you might think.
Scientists of yore sought God.
They felt that by embracing Science that they could get closer.
Atheists bother me because they have Nothing.
The tribalism of organized religion bothers me, too.
So, I choose to be comfortable with that which I know, and comfortable with that which I don't.
I agree religion and science are compatible.
I like Dance's way of thinking. You can still be curious about the world but comfortable with not knowing.
(In other words you're not a fanatic).
It must be clearly noted that there is a vast difference between science and scientism. Scientism is an extremely rigid religion that allows only one god to exist. That god is the accumulated writings of assorted pseudo-intellectuals that infest(ed) our educational establishments all claiming causeless causation and something from nothing (materialism). It has the delusion that all things get better over time yet screams at any 'artificial' interference in said change. Despite its 'learned' leaders it is intellectually and factually dishonest and provides the intellectual satisfaction of chewing on sand. It simply denies the existence of that which it can not understand.
Science on the other hand which is the testing of all things both to see if they are true and how they work is encouraged in Christianity to the extent that we Christians are told to test to see if Christianity is true. Unlike the closed loop of scientism, Christianity actually steps outside of itself to prove its veracity.
Joe,
The next logical step in Strawman Argument is to invent a new word (Scientism) and spout off against that, while making it look like you are spouting off against the actual subject (Science). I’m not sure what you are caricaturing in your “Scientism”, but that doesn’t describe any kind of science I know. To start with: science doesn’t have an opinion about God(s).
Of course your feeble description of “science” actually sounds much more like engineering or applied science. But it was Einstein’s blackboard full of math that made GPS navigation possible. The division between “pseudo-intellectuals” and engineers is rather blurred.
I’m not going to touch on the irony of using the internet to spout off about the uselessness of science.
Post a Comment