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| Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:08am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Bracing for the Collision of Religion and Science The long collision of religion and science that started in the 15th century picked up speed in the 19th century. No other century in human history contained quite so enormous a change in the way humans saw themselves. When the century opened its doors in 1801, there wasn’t much reason for anyone to doubt Archbishop James Ussher, who 200 years earlier had used the Bible’s chronology to put the creation of the world in mid-autumn of 4004 BCE. Certainly no theory in 1801 competed with the Genesis account of the special and separate creation of humankind. How much older and wiser the world was less than a century later after a couple of new scientific discoveries humbled humanity and shook up humanity’s assumptions about God. 3 Likes 2 Shares |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:09am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Aging the Earth: The second humbling [b] Copernicus first pulled the rug out from under the ego of humanity in the 15th century by yanking the Earth out of the center of the universe. So the Earth wasn’t at the universal belly button, but at least humanity still straddled the full span of time, right? Humanity was there at the beginning (okay, day six) and humanity is still here 6,000 years later, counting down to the Rapture. But a second humbling was soon to come as the age of the Earth multiplied nearly a thousand times over. No sooner had the century begun than the birthday of the Earth started sliding backward in time, pushed by the new sciences of geology and paleontology.In the 1830s, the work of geologist Charles Lyell called Noah’s flood into question. The evidence after opening the Earth’s crust pointed to gradual change over vast amounts of time not a sudden flood. As the window of history expanded from 6,000 years to 96 million and beyond, new questions emerged about the age of humankind. Have humans been here all these millions of years or is humanity’s birthday somewhere along the way? Doing away with Noah’s flood wasn’t fatal to religious belief, of course. It was just one story among many,after all. A metaphor, one might say.Believers who accepted the new data maintained that God’s stage had simply expanded, making the story of creation all the grander for it. As the 20th century began, that stage grew to an estimated two billion years well on the way to the current estimate of 4.54 billion. By itself, the work of Lyell and other geologists of the 19th century didn’t directly challenge the importance of humans in the scheme of things. It did, however, provide a crucial ingredient a vast landscape of time for the next and biggest humbling. [/b] 4 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:13am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Dethroning the human species: [b] The third humbling In the painful process of humbling humanity’s self-image, no shock was more jarring than the one Charles Darwin administered in 1859 by saying that all life on Earth is related by descent, including humans. The idea itself wasn’t new with Darwin. As far back as the pre-Socratics in ancient Greece, people considered the possibility that all living things were related not to mention anyone who ever looked a baboon in the face. Charles’s own grandfather Erasmus Darwin suggested that all warm-blooded animals may have descended from a single ancient organism. And 15 years before Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published, an anonymous book titled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation appeared making the very same case not thoroughly or well, but still the same basic claim. So although evolution wasn’t a new concept in 1859, Darwin’s explanation of natural selection the way evolution works was new. The convincing and meticulous details in the Origin moved evolution from interesting notion to compelling scientific theory at which point humanity’s self-image was in for a bruising. The idea that you and I were specially created in the image of the Creator of the Universe and given dominion over the world and all that’s in it that idea was now gone. After Darwin, you and I are trousered apes. Pretty impressive ones, but still, it’s a serious pay cut. Some people greeted the news by trying to stretch traditional religion to accommodate the theory, saying God started things going, then used evolution to create the diversity of life. It’s a nice effort, but one that requires a major misunderstanding of natural selection. Other people took the simplest route, declaring evolution to be untrue because it contradicted Scripture. Done and done. Even the scientific community didn’t instantly embrace the idea by any means. Like all good theories, evolution withstood a withering crossfire of challenge in the following generations. For a while, it actually looked like the theory would fade away, partially or entirely. Not until the 1930s did advances in genetics boost evolution over the bar, solving the remaining problems and securing the solid consensus of biologists. Evolution had become a scientific fact as well established as the Earth’s orbit of the Sun another one that was hard to believe at first, but is nonetheless true. Nowhere did the crisis of faith play out more dramatically in the wake of Darwin’s theory than in his own time and place England of the late 19th century Victorian era. [/b] 4 Likes 3 Shares |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:22am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Killing God: Atheist Philosophers Do the Crime, a Pantheist Writes the Eulogy [b] Religion and science, which had a testy enough relationship going into the Victorian era, mostly owned up to irreconcilable differences by the end and parted ways. And for all the screaming and thrown dishes, religion and science both walked into the 20th century without a noticeable limp. That’s not to say they weren’t changed science had a new vision and an enormous new set of questions, whereas Christianity (in Europe at least) was less about making claims based on a literal reading of its ancient books and more about using religious stories to motivate social justice and the alleviation of suffering in this world. Britain ended up with a generally wiser, less literal, more positive form of Christian belief than some other countries I could name. No greater testimony to the civilized outcome of a tumultuous period existed than the burial of Charles Darwin, the man who midwifed so much of the controversy,in Westminster Abbey in 1882. Of course, the Reverend Frederick Farrar, Canon of Westminster, assured the mourners that Darwin’s theory was entirely compatible with belief in God. [/b] 2 Likes 2 Shares |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:35am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Debating Darwin’s theory: Huxley-Wilberforce [b] Most people familiar with the current cultural debate over evolution may think Darwin would relish raising a hackle or three. But they don’t know Darwin. The man whose theory overturned the most cherished assumptions of the human race was actually a conflict-avoider of the first rank. He was painfully shy,for one thing, and conflict irritated the chronic health problems that plagued him all his life. He was especially disinterested in religious arguments. He had been there and done that as a youth, and he just didn’t feel that they shed much light on the scientific questions that really interested him. He also had to consider his wife Emma’s Christian faith. The implications of her husband’s work pained her at times, and he in turn was pained by her pain. It was all just too much. So after publishing On the Origin of Species, Charles retreated to his home to study orchids. The pitched debate was left to friends, such as biologist Thomas Henry Huxley,who loved a good rumble as much as Darwin hated it. Huxley eventually came to be called “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his steadfast defense of the theory (and for his jowly face, I think, which you may now search for online). Though Huxley spent the rest of his career promoting and explaining evolution, one event captured the whole fracas better than any other. Just seven months had passed since On the Origin of Species turned the world inside out. Scientists and philosophers from across Britain had gathered at Oxford University to hear how the theory was setting Europe ablaze with debate and controversy.Both supporters and opponents of the theory of evolution were present, including Thomas Henry Huxley: He had been publishing articles and giving lectures in support of evolution steadily since the book was published the previous year. Bishop Samuel “Soapy Sam” Wilberforce: He was so nicknamed for the slippery evasiveness of his arguments and had recently published a 17,000-word review against Darwin’s theory. Richard Owen: A scientist variously described as “distinguished,” “odious,” “brilliant,” “hateful,” and “sadistic,” Owen published anonymous attacks on Darwin and coached Wilberforce before the event. (Search online for Owen’s face, and prepare for nightmares.) Joseph Dalton Hooker: Hooker was a botanist, supporter, and close friend of Darwin. RobertFitzRoy: He was a highly religious captain of the five-year voyage of the HMS Beagle on which Darwin first began to formulate his theory.He was present by accident, scheduled to present a paper on weather forecasting that (thanks to the chaos described shortly) was never given. Darwin himself wasn’t present, of course. Orchids. No one knows exactly what was said in the meeting, but by most accounts it was a terrific show. The discussion was civil enough with several good points made all around. Opponents of the theory voiced concerns about what would later be called social Darwinism, the misapplication of Darwin’s theory to justify brutality and cruelty in human society. At some point, though, the discussion escalated, as these things tend to do. Bishop Wilberforce rose and asked Huxley whether it was on his grandmother’s side or his grandfather’s side that he claimed descent from an ape. Huxley said that given a choice between a miserable ape for an ancestor or a man who used his great gifts to introduce ridicule into an important scientific discussion and to obscure the truth, “I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape!” Oh, that did it. Arguments broke out around the room. One account had Captain FitzRoy suddenly thrusting a Bible aloft over the din, telling those assembled, “Here is the truth! Believe God rather than man!” The crowd shouted at him, and he was abruptly escorted from the building. The room erupted into a frenzy of shouts and scooting chairs as all hell broke loose. Of course another account said there was no shouting, that it ended very jovially,and that they all went to dinner together. But where’s the fun in that? [/b] 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:52am On Aug 06, 2016 |
Mixing signals: The Vatican warns against “the unrestrained freedom of thought” [b] The Catholic Church often came in for criticism regarding its attitude toward advances in science, and it was often deserved. But to give credit where it’s due, the Vatican was ahead of the curve in seeing the implications of human evolution for traditional belief in the 19th century. Allowing people to chase those implications wherever they led, however, was another matter. “All faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith,” said one pronouncement of the First Vatican Council, held ten years after On the Origin of Species was published. “Furthermore, they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.” The more something appeared to be true, the more strongly it must be rejected if it contradicts Church doctrine. So what was the official Catholic position on evolution? For more than a century,that wasn’t clear. In 1860, a council of German bishops said, “Our first parents were formed immediately by God . . . to assert that this human being . . . emerged finally from the spontaneous continuous change of imperfect nature to the more perfect, is clearly opposed to Sacred Scripture and to the Faith.” A prominent Jesuit newspaper that was considered a mouthpiece of Vaticanopinion took an aggressive anti-evolution position for decades. But it turned out that Catholic theologians were busy throughout this period engineering ways to make evolution and special creation work together, even explaining at what point in evolutionary history God might have inserted the soul. The Vatican Council said that “God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason.” And On the Origin of Species was never added to the Index of Forbidden Books. So . . . green light? The time was confusing for reasonable Catholics who were trying to figure out what to make of Darwin without getting on the wrong side of the Pope. Finally,in 1893, Pope Leo XIII made a statement that clarifies . . . well, he made a statement: 1. Scientific theory is unstable and ever-changing. 2.The Bible isn’t always to be taken literally. 3. Catholic scholars shouldn’t “depart from the literal and obvious sense” of the Bible, except “where reason or necessity requires.” 4. People must beware of “thirst for novelty and the unrestrained freedom of thought” running rampant in this age. 5. Theologians and scientists should stay out of each others’ areas of expertise (an idea echoed a century later by biologist Stephen Jay Gould) In 1950, Pope Pius XII opened the door a crack, saying evolution is “a legitimate matter of inquiry” on which “Catholics are free to form their own opinions.” But “they should do so cautiously,” he said, respecting “the Church’s right to define matters touching on Revelation.” They may not, however, consider the possibility that the soul itself evolved. Call that the restrained freedom of thought. Nearly half a century later, Pope John Paul II called evolution “more than a hypothesis,” saying that independent studies arriving at the same conclusion are “a significant argument in favor of the theory.” Once again, the Catholic Church reaffirmed that the soul can’t have evolved. On this the Pope and I agree. Let me take a moment to offer a salute. Though the process is slow, self-contradicting, convoluted, and unclear, the Catholic Church goes further than many religions and denominations in recognizing that evolution can’t simply be tossed out the window. If they could just avoid saying, “Think all you want, so long as you don’t end up with different conclusions,” I’d be really impressed.[/b] |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:58am On Aug 06, 2016 |
i dey read this epistle i no know when i finish my yam with egg .AmenRa1 U GO buy me another egg and yam o |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 9:59am On Aug 06, 2016 |
stephenmorris:  |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by felixomor: 10:05am On Aug 06, 2016 |
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| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 10:11am On Aug 06, 2016 |
felixomor:why must you always use memes not words the writer AmenRa1 or son of lucifer did not use memes but words and facts |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by felixomor: 10:18am On Aug 06, 2016 |
stephenmorris: Exactly, I am not son of lucifer. |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 10:30am On Aug 06, 2016 |
felixomor: 3 Likes 1 Share
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| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by orisa37: 11:42am On Aug 06, 2016 |
No. The centuries you referred to, were for humans wishful thinking. Religion is relationship with your Spirits and the Study of the Spirits is Pneumatology(Spiritology) which covers Arts, Sciences and Spirits study. There can be no collision in any of these studies. You just must know what you're doing or saying at any given . point. |
| Re: Collision Of Religion And Science by Nobody: 11:49am On Aug 06, 2016 |
orisa37:U read the holy Grail or something... do me a favour and observe the natural word around u |
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