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Can science and religion be reconciled?

I would like to propose a three-pronged approach:

(A-) From the historical point of view, the answer is Yes.
Thomas Dixon, in his very good and concise introduction "Science and Religion", writes: "Although the idea of warfare between science and religion remains widespread and popular, recent academic writing on the subject has been devoted primarily to undermining the notion of inevitable conflict. [...] there are good historical reasons for rejecting simple conflict stories." - - -
The same conclusion can be found in Peter Harrison's detailed historical analysis "The territories of Science and Religion" : "...the idea of a perennial conflict between science and religion must be false (...)".- - - -
And John Hedley Brooke in "Science and Religion" :
"The popular antithesis between science, conceived as a body of unassailable facts, and religion, conceived as a set of unverifiable beliefs, is assuredly simplistic." - - - "... an image of perennial conflict between science and religion is inappropriate as a guiding principle.".

(B. The personal point of view. - Again the answer is Yes.
There are real scientists who believe in a personal triune God, and in Jesus as their savior, and in the Bible as the word of god... and all the rest of Christian creed and dogma. These scientists assure us that they do not have 'split personalities' and I have no reason to doubt their testimony. They believe that God created the universe and life, and they see it as their job to analyse and describe and understand His creation. How they manage to do this without mentioning the Holy Spirit or the Divine Logos in their papers is up to them. Obviously they are able do this and they are respected by their peers.

(C.) The methodological point of view. - Here the answer is No!
Christian scientists may not have 'split personalities', but they have to practice what I would call a methodological atheism at work. As they enter the lab, they have to keep God out of their mind, or to encapsulate their belief. There is simply no possibility whatsoever to mix their work and their faith. Science as a method and religion as a faith can never form an alloy. Christian scientists may be motivated by their faith to work as scientists, to better understand His creation, but this motivation is confined to the personal level (B.)
The contents of their faith must never contaminate the method they have to apply so that the results of their work count as "science". The career of an evolutionary biologist would be over the very moment s/he opines publicly something like "The known mechanisms of evolution can only account for micro-evolution, but in order to explain macro-evolution we need a transcendent and divine force."

Matias 8 Sep 8
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9

There is nothing to reconcile. Science and religion are in different categories. It’s like asking if art can be reconciled with mathematics.

Science deals in objective reality. It makes observations of nature and discovers mathematical equations that model those observations. Science is good at describing what is, but does not deal in the WHY. It would be futile to ask a physicist why space is granular, why time does not exist, or why matter pops in and out of existence. It just does.

Religion, metaphysics and philosophy are free to deal in the subjective reality. Religion in no way presents a credible body of logical, testable assertions. That’s not what it’s about. Religion is about awe, enlightenment, self-realization, awareness, appreciation and gratitude. It is true that some religious organizations promote a God concept, but that concept merely represents a metaphorical symbol for the overwhelming reality beyond the space/time/matter model of our senses.

It does not surprise me at all that half of all US scientists today say they believe in God, and I am not surprised that nearly all the founders of modern physics expressed deep religious sentiments.

Here’s Niels Bohr:

  • I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

Edwin Schrodinger:

Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

Yes!

This book is an interesting read. You seem to grasp larger concepts. I'd be interested in your opinion.

@Fibonacci1618 Thanks, I’ll check it out.

@Matias Good point. If we seem science and religion as contradicting each other, we can reconcile them in our minds through analysis.

@TheMiddleWay Thanks, I’ll check into that.

@Fibonacci1618 I’ve briefly looked at the book, and I’m sort of floored. I’m not a psychic kind of person—not at this time. I am open to psychic ideas from a philosophical perspective. Maybe our entire conscious experience is one big psychic phenomenon.

I’ll keep the book on my iPhone and try to work my way through it—try to understand and relate. Do you have some of those psychic experiences yourself?

@WilliamFleming whether it's called psychic or simulation theory it's still an interesting phenomenon. To asnwer your question, yes. Whether you call it déjà vu or something more elaborate is argumentively semantical variations I think. But the scientific theories and associations in the book are quite interesting. The fusing of frequencies and wave theory especially. Thanks for the update on the reference.

@Fibonacci1618 I just read about simulation theory on Wikipedia. It reminds me of Donald Hoffman and his theory of Conscious Realism. That is something that seems to resonate.

@WilliamFleming we use symbolism to communicate. Whether it's English or French Numbers or words, it's our ability to translate it into knowledge that counts. Hence my interest in all avenues of it. Glad to know that you learned something new about simulation theory sir.

9

No need! Science is hogwash and the bible is all the truth we need! Oh and the earth is a few hundred years old, flat and the center of the universe, and i didn't read everything you wrote because i have the bible to back me up 😀. Muahahaha!!!

6
6

that which does not exist cannot be reconciled with science.

@TheMiddleWay Even if God exists, it must be a very disgusting, deplorable being! Fuck God!

6

I'm going to go with NO.

Science admits when it's wrong about something, and offers new evidence to
prove or disprove any scientific assertion. It is constantly questioning, researching, experimenting, and working toward answers.

Religion asserts that gods exist, and insists on it's adherents to have "faith", and
not to question it's teachings, or it's hierarchy. It's gods are infallible and unknowable.

It's "holy" books are complete fiction, and have cannibalized and plagiarized every ancient text that came before them.

It consistently fails to produce one scintilla of credible, verifiable evidence to prove it's assertion ANY gods have ever existed, at any time, anywhere.

I'm going to go with a big agree on your NO.

@TheMiddleWay Face it, no one believes anything the catholics have to say about anything anymore. Any time they may have admitted to not having gotten it right, means nothing now compared to the level of corruption and cover-up surrounding all their pedophile priests.

5

Oh horsefeathers!
Religion....a magical construct to explain unknown phenomena, and comfort the fearful.
Science. theories proved by observation, measurable results, replication, and Peer review, with applications in the real world.
You may Wish they could be reconciled...........

5

I've said it before, and I will say it again (and someone said it before me)

If civilisation ended tomorrow, and we had to start over, eventually, all of our scientific knowledge would be re-created, and would be exactly the same as it is today (well, the stuff we have right)

Religion would never be re-created exactly the same.

Ozman Level 7 Sep 9, 2018

@Matias but would the religions evolve (yep, used that word on purpose 😉 ) the exact same way? There's no doubt there would be religions, but the odds of them being the same are (again, wait for it) astronomical. Yet, E=MC^2 will always be E=MC^2

@TheMiddleWay Really, you live in a country that still clings to feet and pounds and degrees Fahrenheit and you're suggesting that we might have different units of measure, and not having ms^2 is going to invalidate all scientific theory? The thing is, the law is the law, and nothing will change that. Not order of discover, not order of operations, not standards of measurements. C is C, no matter what,

But there is no discernible difference between pounds and kg (well, absent one being a measure of weight, the other being a measure of mass, so on earth's surface), just the numbers are different. And despite the efforts of religion and the anti-science administration, 2+2 STILL =4

5

I think the question is less "can they be reconciled" and more "SHOULD they be reconciled?" Is there really any benefit to giving religion the appearance of legitimacy by trying to reconcile it with actual science?

5

I go one step further.. I believe that anyone professing a believe in the supernatural, , can never reconcile with science.. So (call me narrow minded if you must) but all religious people are either, ignorant fools, or the worst kind of deceivers and liers controlling an agenda for their own benefits.

As AronRa put it, there are two types of religious people: the deceivers and the deceived.

5

I am a (retired) scientist, and I have known a number of good scientists who were religious. But I have never understood how this can be.

It used to baffle me too, but with research and reflection I have come to recognise that highly intelligent people including scientists are using the emotional part of their brain, putting it simplistically, to believe in religion. If you push them I swear you can actually see cognitive dissonance on their faces. Studies in neuroscience deal with this too, though I'm not an authority, just general reading. I think I get what is going on about this these days more than I used to.

Perhaps they are agnostic in their minds

@Matias Thank you for the link. Actually, now that I'm not a working scientist myself, I guess I'm less puzzled by the phenomenon, since I don't encounter it daily. But I might take a look anyway.

@TheMiddleWay Clearly, you are correct. I just don't see how they do it.

5

My first thought is why would you want to?

@Matias You asked a question. I was merely answering it.

My father was a Chemist and a Catholic. He integrated religion into science just fine.

5

Good points all, but I think your concept of “Christian”, while probably fitting the majority, does not include possibly the “best” Christians, who by literalist standards are probably atheists. Famous, distinguished Christians like Bart Ehrman, Karen Armstrong, Chris Hedges, Elaine Pagels, etc. who most likely don’t believe in a literal sky daddy, but are passionate supporters of the metaphorical truths contained in those traditions.
All one has to do to dissolve 100% of the perceived conflict between science and religion is to come to understand that the ancient stories were allegories about human psychology, whether their writers could grasp that fact (they couldn’t) at the time or not.
The silliness of the science/religion “debate” is like vociferously declaring Picasso an incompetent because “women don’t really have both eyes on the same side of their face!”

skado Level 9 Sep 8, 2018
4

Sorry, but "B" of the 3 pronged approach (personal point of view) is invalid. If some scientists say they "believe" in the triune god, they are speaking of their RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. They are not speaking as scientists. Unless they (or anyone else) can inform me of a single speck of evidence of god (much less a triune god !!!!), then this "reconciliation" is only between 2 groups of people....religious people who also do scientific work....and religious people who do not. The actual field of science is not represented here.

Well-said!

@Matias I think our difference of opinion is largely semantics. I do not dispute your assertion that some scientists "believe"...and that some of them even take the bible seriously. In my response, I was referring to the heading of your post, in which you posed a question about science and religion. You may disagree, but I see the word science as referring to the disciplined procedures and rational thought that brings us to accepted "scientific knowledge". If you choose to include the personal musings of some people in the science community to be within the definition of science, I can not say that you are necessarily wrong. It just does not fit my own parameters of the word "science".

@Matias Just as 'nobody owns science' so too shoud be the mantra 'nobody owns religion.' After all, religion belongs to the people, not to any so-called authority or made-up deity! We determine our own religion, right? Religion is not set in concrete ... or is it?

Within most, if not all, organized faith communities, we can find outliers. Non-doctrinal, non-heirarchical, non-judgemental groups. And here we may even stumble upon the concept of 'universal priesthood' or the 'priesthood of all believers.' But these ideas are far from mainstream. Religion is slow to yield to any apparent progress. However, if religion is to have any long-term significance, it cannot be authoritative, punitive or unalterable. Religion with either evolve, or die.

4

The entire question is fallacious. '"The known mechanisms of evolution can only account for micro-evolution, but in order to explain macro-evolution we need a transcendent and divine force..."' This is ridiculous. In what sense does evolution on any level need to be "explained" by a divine force, unless one is assuming that evolution has an ultimate goal? Evolution explains itself. Natural selection over generations results in complex forms of life arising from simple forms of life. There's no need for a further explanation, unless one starts with the a priori assumption that human life was the goal to begin with. It wasn't. But for an accident of history, we could have been miniraptors debating why hairless mammals never got farther along.

@Matias It's not obvious, given the rest of your post. Furthermore, I doubt whether any evolutionary biologist would have such a thought to begin with.
The vast majority of scientists view "God", if they think of one at all, in the sense that Einstein did- the physical laws of the universe, the beauty of all things, the forces that act unseen on us all. Not a personal god, but the cosmos itself. There are very very few serious scientists (outside the "Intelligent Design" movement) who believe in a personal god in the sense of the Bible.

4

As long as religious people attack science to justify ridiculous, debunked claims made by their holy books, science and religion cannot be reconciled.

While their are religious people spouting absurdities like "evolution is just a theory," or "there is no evidence that the earth is more than 6000 years old," religion cannot be given a pass when their claims contradict facts.

JimG Level 8 Sep 8, 2018
4

No. Science relies on the scientific method: that truth requires demonstrable, repeatable results. Religion requires the suspension of the scientific method.

4

I'm sure if someone spent enough time you could construct a narrative to reconcile the two. But it would just be ridiculous fan fiction supporting an unenlightened viewpoint. Besides wasting time, why would you want to water down science with dogma?

4

“Science as a method and religion as a faith can never form an alloy.”

I would have to take issue with this. It depends on how you envision “religion” and “faith”. There is no universally accepted definition of these terms. To my thinking authentic faith is not about believing unsubstantiated notions about the material world, but rather about believing that enduring peace of mind can be had in a chaotic and contentious world. Religion at its core, I believe history will bear out, is the practice that brings us closer to this peace. No unscientific assumptions are required. In fact, I will argue, the closer to science you stick, the sooner you will get there. An alloy of science and religion is not only possible, but the optimum path to peace. Warring factions do not contribute to peace.

skado Level 9 Sep 8, 2018

Religion has been shown to result in a tribalistic approach to life. It even affects Christians who merely identify as Christian and doing my go to church:
[pewforum.org]

The data doesn’t really support that science and religion are the optimal way to peace if you agree that a tribalistic perspective is an obstacle to peace.
In fact I think the above study shows that non-religious people are the least tribalistic being both more open to immigrants and ironically more open to different religions.

@Myah
I don't see where this particular collection of data even attempts to address causation. Looks to me like a pretty straightforward statement of correlation only. If there are other studies that claim to show causation I'd like to look at them. My guess is that it was the people's innate tribal instincts that attracted them to religious participation, not the other way around.

I hold the view that... the way the great majority of participants practice religion today is deeply obsolete, to the point of being largely counterproductive, but I see intellectual laziness and cultural drift as the main culprits, not anything necessarily inherent to the (already somewhat vague) concept we refer to as "religion". In my opinion the baby in that bathwater probably always has been, and most likely should continue to be, training in how to balance our higher values against our animal instincts. "Science" isn't in the business of conducting such training of the common citizenry, every week, in all local communities. "Religion" is.

What that suggests to me is that reform is what is called for, rather than abandonment, of religion. And what better reform could come to that institution than a heartfelt embrace of reason, the lack of which, after all, is what has precipitated the current exodus from the church.

I would argue that it is precisely our innate propensity for tribalism that is in need of weekly balancing by lessons on faith, hope, charity, love, forgiveness, and truth. Why wouldn't science inform those lessons better than superstition?

4

This is probably getting near some of the core of the issue, but I think that there is important nuance that needs to be added in each case—nuance which is critical in understanding this fuzzy area of potential conflict.

A. Historical

Read Richard Carrier's The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire. Early Christian values (and New Testament ones) do—on history—clash with proto-scientific ones. The value hierarchy is distinct in ways that caused Christians to leave aside operational science.

Personally, I don't think your C entirely stays separate from A. The Christian "method" of knowing by revelation and the scientific method of empiricism are directly at odds; take the story of Doubting Thomas for example or Colossians 2:8.

B. Personal

Going back to your second point, I do think that, given the Bible is a big book and Christianity is a widely varying belief system, plenty of people in their connection with science and religion probably don't find any conflict between them in their daily lives.

This, however, wasn't the case for me. I threw a science book away once because I was worried at the time that my mind and connection to God would be corrupted by intellectualism. I'm not kidding! And that was heavily motivated by other antagonistic sayings by Paul (in addition to the brain-washings of Young-earthers). (As crazy as this all sounds in retrospect!)

While my own Christian experiences are not necessarily common, I highly doubt that such anti-intellectualism (including with science) is very unusual, particularly given the prevalence of Creationism, Supernaturalism, and other kinds of simplistic magical thinking in the Christian movements.

C. Methodological

Playing Jesus's advocate 😉 for a second... There are some Christians who use stray Bible verses (out of context, of course) to support their personal applications of good empiricism, rational consideration, with a sense of open curiosity into their engagement with science. So here they do manage to synthesize a valid scientific process out of beliefs (they think are supported) in the Bible. In those instances, they would not really agree that calling it "methodological atheism" is valid. (This is one reason why the term is "methological naturalism" which is more appropriate in reference to the scientific process.)

Conclusion

So, I think you are correct in the essence of things in positing A. being yes, B. being yes, C. being no, yet I do think that all three are what I would call "soft" yeses/noes in the sense that they are only partly true/false with substantial situational counter-examples to them as a rule.

It is important to keep these nuances in mind and on the table, or else the simplistic A & B you put forward will rightly not connect as being correct with other ex-Christians, and your simplistic C will get your remarks similar reactions from some honest and intelligent Christians.

But, I will say, it is annoying to hear people talk as if it is absolute noes on all three accounts, when that just isn't the case, or (somehow!) absolute yeses.

@Matias Haha! Nobody has time to read such long ones, though. 😉

4

Absolutely. All it takes is education.

skado Level 9 Sep 8, 2018
4

No. To reconcile them is to deny truth. Compatibilism won't work. The conflicts are too frequent and severe.

3

As you know me fairly well by now, Matias, you can expect that I might disagree. On the whole, I consider religion and science to be at odds with one another, if for no other reason than the means by which each arrives at factual claims about the universe. The epistemology of religion is fatally flawed.

When considering a statement of fact made in the teachings, doctrines, revered books and dogmas of any religion, one simply needs to ask, does the statement or claim in any way impinge on science? I’m quite willing to consider a religion which is devoid of the following terms and, as such, doesn’t endorse or believe in them: sacred, worship, miracle, holy, pray, divine, faith, sanctify, sin, heaven, hell, prophecy, clergy, laity, deity, just to name a few. Find me a religion, Matias, that doesn’t have these negatives, and I might be interested. Until then, in the words of my avatar, ‘My own mind is my own church’ and ‘The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.’ In my religion of one, there is no need to reconcile with science!

@Matias You arguments here seem to be supporting the idea that religion, like science, is worthy of consideration. , despite their opposing ways of finding truth. That could support a narrow meaning of reconciliation ( calling a truce ). But it does not begin to reconcile their differences. Also, I do not see where in pnfullifidian's above remarks he makes the assertion that you accuse him of in "Second mistake". The general fallacy you allude to is, however, a clean piece of logic. And it describes well why I am agnostic. Although the notion that the "unknown realities" would happen to align with the bible is the biggest stretch of all time.

@Matias Wow! Did I say all that? I’m looking at my remarks, and am unable to find all these points that you’re countering.

Please know that if religion—and in particular, the Abrahamic faiths—were more like the Eightfold Path than they were about the words I found objectionable, I might be persuaded of its utility. But ways of living or ritual by themselves don’t make a religion, unless you’re willing to include my rituals of drinking martinis on Friday evenings, hiking on Saturdays and mowing the lawn and watching football on Sundays as a 'way of life.' But that is not what we’re talking about, are we? The two (action and motivation) go hand in hand. As the Bible says:
“In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
James 2:17(NIV)

But then, the Bible also says:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)

Regarding my ‘second error,’ I didn't mean to imply that because science has little or nothing to say about a subject, it has ‘no meaning.’ Unicorns, Pokemon Go and the Marvel comics of Stan Lee have significant meaning to many people, topics on which science has little to say.

Finally, ‘transcendent dimensions’ sounds very much like something Deepak Chopra might say, or, as Michael Shermer calls it: "woo-woo."

@Matias "Science and its scope of explanation is limited..."

Agreed. Science is limited by our ability to collect, analyze, recognize and characterize data. That being admitted, the fact that there remains a vast number of 'unknown unknowns' (i.e., questions we've yet to even consider) should never be in dispute. However, the limitations to which you refer are not fixed, and as we gain knowledge regarding the universe and the phenomena by which we are surrounded, the realm of science (including our ability to reason on the relevant subjects) continues to expand.

@Jimmyboy Exactly! If I understand @Matias correctly, not only are there things we do not know, but there are things we cannot possibly know in our present evolutionary chimp-brained state. And this is assumed to be true, based on what information? Absent evidence for these unknowable unknowns that may never be known, to believe in such is like believing in a deity.

3

I don't think they are compatible in any traditional sense. No defined religion I'm aware of makes zero claims about the nature of reality, and as soon as we do make such a claim without supporting evidence we enter an anti-science mindset. This includes any argument from ignorance, e.g., Bill O'Reilly's assertion that "the tides come in, the tides go out — you can't explain that" (even though we can indeed explain tidal forces) or any claim that there's a supernatural explanation for the origin of the universe, for abiogenesis, for consciousness, etc. Just because we don't understand how something works doesn't justify invoking magic as the explanation. It's understandable why that's an attractive answer, even to some scientists, but it doesn't lend credence to the claim. If, as some have suggested, we consider religion to be nothing more than wonder and awe and an acknowledgement that there's more than we currently know or comprehend, I'm fine with that — though I don't really consider that to be religion, but at least it doesn't make appeals to metaphysics to explain what we don't yet understand. And that's not to say that the answers of which we're ignorant might not have a supernatural component, but only that there is no reason to accept that claim. Entertaining a hypothesis is one thing, but accepting its validity without supporting evidence is far different. So, yes, a heavily denuded concept of religion might be compatible with science, but if we're talking about traditional conceptualizations of religion then I don't see any way to reconcile it with science without significant cognitive dissonance (which we see all the time, so I'm not saying it doesn't happen but rather that it's not logically consistent).

3

Religion has historically been used to explain that which is unknowable. As scientific knowledge has increased, the religious justification was no longer a valid premise. In darker times, having a scientific theory or even a proof, placed the scientist in mortal danger for challenging the church’s authourity over knowledge. Science and religion can never be resolved in my opinion based solely upon historical records of which even the bible is party to.

3

I don't think they can. Religion keeps loosing footage over science because facts can be kept hidden only while the cloud prevails. The cloud keeps getting thiner out of hard work from the science side of the equation, not out of kindness and understanding from religion. At the end of times, science will be around and religion will be forgotten. That doesn't necessarily mean they will reconcile.

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