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LINK I am an astrophysicist. I am also a Christian. - Big Think

An impressive feat of tip toeing through the logical tulips to justify 'faith' -- AKA mysticism, supernaturalism and magic -- but I really wanted to ask if this faith includes belief in cosmic insemination, miracles, and returning from a dead state in a couple of days. The writer grieves that faith and science can't be buddies. I rejoice that the former is steadily being left behind by the latter. As I read this, I was reminded of something that Richard ( 'militant atheist' ) Dawkins once said about how religion gets away with appaling acts hiding behind the justification of 'moderate' religious people who ostensibly criticise the practice of a lot of religion while still claiming its all really good and true at heart. No, it isn't. No, its not compatible with science, unless you're capable of handling massive cognitive dissonance, like this writer.

David1955 8 July 11
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13 comments

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1

You are either one or the other. Science and religion do not mix. If you are Christian then you are not a scientist.

0

It either took 13,500,000,000 years to create the universe, or 6 days. You can't have it both ways.

[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Gen.2
[1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
[2] And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

BD66 Level 8 July 13, 2022
1

You can't be both, one denies the other, and only one has evidence, Christianson as well as all religions, lack evidence and are full of shit.

0

Oh hell, I’m about to do it again.

Big bang astrophysics, aka gravity-plus-electromagnetism astrophysics, has no evidence; it requires faith.

To see some short videos on the subject, visit [aureon.ca]

As always you continue to post bullshit.

@Mofo1953 And, as always you don’t know shit when you’ve swallowed it.

@yvilletom the only imbecile here eating shit and regurgitating it is you.

@Mofo1953 Words are cheap. It’s you who swallowed the shit that Georges LeMaitre, a Catholic priest, dropped. You can visit [aureon.ca] and learn, but you won’t. You like shit.

@yvilletom you said it, words are cheap, and there aren't cheaper words than your bullshit about other imbeciles who quote priests that nobody knows, go suck a dick you baboon.

@Mofo1953 Bye for 30 days.

4

I have no time for anybody who refuses to properly examine his own assumptions.

I agree. 🙂

4

Extreme compartmentalization. Logic and facts on one side, tradition and no need for rationality on the other. One can try to mix the two together, but compromises which inevitably deminish both must be made, or never the two shall be mixed. Real science cannot be conducted when religious dogma plays a significant role. With real science, all possibilities that fit the facts are on the table, but with religion, certain possibilities regardless of the facts are completely off limits - like anything that challenges or disproves religious tenets and basic beliefs.

Yes, mental compartmentalisation is exactly what it is. What I find with people like this in discussion is if I press them hard on miracles and all the supernatural claims and whether they really believe this nonsense, then awkward looks appear on the face and I see cognitive dissonance all over them. Pressing the rational mind to justify what the child-like emotional part of the brain wants to believe causes this to happen because it can't, and breakdown in compartmentalisation results. Few people do this to religious people, save for a few atheists.

I find Deborah Haarsma to be as mentally deficient as Francis S. Collins.

@anglophone Haarsma is cooperating with the John Templeton Foundation; she has an agenda.

3

In my honest opinion, he is someone who has his head inserted firmly up his own anus.

5

This demonstrates the power of religious brainwashing that some of the the most intelligent individuals are unable to overcome possibly due to some predisposed brain characteristics.

0

There is really nothing special about being both a Christian and a scientist. As the author points out, Galileo was both. And so is Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown University. Doctor Miller is both a mainline, mass-attending Catholic, and an evolutionary biologist. He testified as an expert witness (for the plaintiffs) in the Dover, Pennsylvania trial where parents of high school students sued the school board for trying to insert Intelligent Design (Christian dogma masquerading as science) into the biology curriculum.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that a sign of a first-rate mind is the ability to simultaneously hold two opposing views.

From the outside, such mental gymnastics may seem extraordinary. The outsider may only see the stark dichotomy, not the fine-grained details. But the holder of opposing views is intimately familiar with all of the subtle nuances that make the balancing act possible. For him/her, it is second nature.

6

I think we all live with a little hypocrisy/contradiction, that's normal to me.

However, the contortions some people will twist themselves into, just to justify what they believe, can be mind-boggling.

6

An astrophysicist who is also a Christian is also a liar. These positions are not compatible with each other. Sorry.

Well maybe if he lives the good values in the religion and doesn't buy the mythological stories ?

1

I'm not a literalist, as this writer apparently is, but I appreciate his choice of focusing on commonality instead of conflict. There is, after all, only one reality. It is those who insist that humans must remain at war who are living with the most dissonance - regardless of which "side" they inhabit.

skado Level 9 July 11, 2022
8

Four common values? They are "human" values. Neither science nor christianity can claim ownership/authorship.

Betty Level 8 July 11, 2022
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