Will Science and Religion ever be Reconciled?

Discussion in 'Philosophy and Religion' started by Indy Hippy, Oct 25, 2013.

  1. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    So you're ascribing to the idea that "we" or "God(s)" existed prior to the advent of the universe, and that by intention "we" or "God(s)" brought forth the inception of the universe, gravity being a part of that universe.

    In essence to name a thing is to bring it into existence?
    That is an age old concept, Hell, it's the first passage in the Bible;
    Genesis 1:1-3


    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.


    John 1


    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    2 The same was in the beginning with God.
    3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
    4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
    5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
    6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
    7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
    8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
    9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
    10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
    11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
    12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
    13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
    14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.



    Now in the above, in my comprehension of the passages and comprehension/experience of what could best be described as Christian mysticism the breakdown is as follows;

    God is/represents raw creative force or power. The "juice" behind it all and the ultimate source.

    The Spirit is that creative force or power's "potential for action or creation"

    The Word is intention or "will". The Word embodies directed purpose, Such as "let there be light".

    In this context, "the Word was made flesh" referring to Jesus takes on a slightly different hue in the sense that he was the physical manifestation of God's intent or will, "if you have seen me, you have seen the Father".
    I hope you can see the subtle difference from the popular traditional portrayal.

    Now in my mind, as scientific knowledge increases, concepts such as "let there be light, and there was light" will no longer be limited to the realms of sci-fi and mythology, but just part of our normal reality. (which it is already, though we often don't acknowledge it :p)
     
  2. WOLF ANGEL

    WOLF ANGEL Senior Member - A Fool on the Hill Lifetime Supporter

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    "Will Science and Religion ever be Reconciled?"

    Two different ideologies with a common but radically opposite belief in their Right.
    The Short Answer may be "NO"
    The Longer viewpoint being "YES"= Agreement to differ
    methinks :)
     
  3. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    No I'm not, that is just a fault of your biased perception.

    Well I experienced the first of 3 episodes in my life of spontaneous "Cosmic Consciousness" (look it up) at about age 6, have read and studied various religions, occult, mythology, you name it, practiced very deep meditative practices, had more than a few "twilight zone" episodes, experienced being "filled with Holy Spirit" at age 18 with all accompanying signs and wonders mentioned in the New Testament, have had numerous experiences with psychedelic substances with the sole intent of delving deeper into myself and my spirituality, and other related crap.

    I just turned 52, so you don't think 46 years of "considering the deeper thoughts" isn't enough?
    Well then you have quite a ways to go my friend. :sultan:
     
  4. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    MVW, I am going to use this to illustrate something, don't take it as personal attack please.

    Yes, you have mentioned it before and I find it interesting and illuminating.....
    but you often will also make a remark about your not being "religious" but rather spiritual, then go on to share with us all the ritualistic trappings and dogma associated with the RELIGION you have chosen to follow, but will also criticize and condemn Christianity for the same thing.
    I hope you see that your respected friend creating an alter is nothing more than tradition, dogma and religious trappings?

    What I am illustrating is the underlying stench of anti-Christianity that pervades these types of discussion.
    The OP asks if RELIGION and science will ever be reconciled and then proceeds to present arguments that are so rooted in a media generated, pop-culture portrayal of Christianity as to render the argument silly IMHO.

    Same with you MVW, you have adopted, consciously or not, an anti-Christian stance in this topic all the while failing to see the same deficits in the religion you follow.

    If the topical question is "Will religion and science ever be reconciled" then in order to access the situation one needs to consider ALL religions to be of the same ilk and on the same equal footing.
    That is the approach I adopted, but it was met with the reaction it was because of the ingrained bias towards Christianity that the current popular culture has engendered.

    I guess I adopt the stance I do because I stopped categorizing religions and shit the "common" way ages ago and now I dig well beyond the surface and always assume that whatever is the popular perspective is most likely completely wrong.
     
  5. OddApple

    OddApple Member

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    Sorry it took so long - I really have poor net out here:
    To get back to some effort to define the "Religion of the Doctors" it is the harmonization of scientific knowledge with life, from the perspective of us in our condition and reflected through the individual - the basics and dynamics may be the same for most but each creation has a perception, ability and "double benefit" which is only impeded by our limitations or perhaps, the limitations we retain because after all, we're still only human.
    That's why there will never be an acceptable answer for the "whole" or the "mob" because just like bible says, it is in each living thing and "it" remains superior to all other things. Flexible too and seemingly, with a mind of it's own.
     
  6. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    No NoxiousGas, I don't take that as a personal attack. I don't always define what I mean---I try to, but I often forget to, or I assume that people have read previous posts.

    First of all let me say that I am not attacking Christians (though I will admit that I have left some angry comments towards one 20-year old Christian youth counselor that is currently making life hell for my wife and I---but I am trying not to blame him), but Christianity. In fact it is not just Christianity, but all religions. I am attacking the institution.

    So why does it seem like I knock Christianity and then talk highly of another religion? To understand that you have to know how I define religion (which is what I have explained before, but apparently I need to define this more often than I do): religion, for me, is a man-made institution. It is grounded in a post-planter-culture group ethic, always has a defined structure, usually has a written code and structures, and has all the other trappings of the institution. Because it is an institution, it has to be sustained, and this implies growth---it has to grow. Because of this it must manage, manipulate, and inevitably control. The institution naturally heavily embraces the group ethic, an in-group which also implies a negative out-group, but even more significant is the fact that it is grounded in objectivism, and thereby downplays subjectivism. This objectivism defines religion so deeply that it is actually part of the process of the evolution of a spirituality into a religion (for example, if you look at the pseudo-religions of the SouthWestern US (the belief systems in the Pueblos and of the Hopis and other South Western planter tribes for example) you clearly see a pattern that goes from a more individualistic (subjective) connection to spirit to a group ethic----an example would be from a vision quest--which is based on the individual to kiva ceremonies which is group based). The institution is by nature more dogmatic, rule based, and can lose the deep spiritual experience (which in turn, as Carl Jung said, leave it as nothing more than a creed).

    The belief system of Kari Black Elk, and many indigenous people around the world, are not religious based on this definition. They are spiritualities. The Lakota traditions, for example, are heavily individualistic, and lack hardly any structure or hierarchy. There is no written code, there are no rules (though there is an adherence to how spirit taught them to do ritual), there is no membership, nor any proselytizing nor attempt to gain members. There is much less dogma, participation is based entirely on spiritual experience. For example you don't just go to a medicine man and say, 'I think what you guys do is great, and I want to pray like you do, I want to carry a pipe and help people.' That just doesn't happen. Carrying a pipe is a responsibility and before anyone thinks of doing such a thing, they receive a vision of it, and others may receive a vision of that person doing that too. And the pipe has to choose you. No one just goes to a Sun Dance and says I want to do this, or even, I really need help for some things, I want to Sun Dance----no, they do not take up that very difficult sacrifice unless spirit asks them to, through visions or whatever. And that is a very hard sacrifice---dancing 4 days without food or water in the hot sun, pierced with pegs that are tied to the tree, which at some point you run away from and break free. And you don't do this for yourself, you do this for all of creation (so that the people may live, but all of creation is people---two legged people (humans) 4-legged people, flying people, standing people (trees, bushes) swimming people, stone people, etc, etc.

    You might think that a medicine man is a hierarchical entity. But he is not---he does not seek power, he does not lay claim to anything he does, and if you ask a medicine man what or who he is, he will deny that he is a medicine man or anyone significant---he is only a common man. He does not choose followers, people come to him. If he allows his ego to play into that, he runs into problems. And even as people come to him---the real experience is still largely on the individual seeking help. There is no leader, nor head, nor main person of any kind in the native belief systems.

    Religion, by my definition, did not exist until around the dawn of civilization as institutions came to be. I believe that there was a primal spirituality (and I am writing a book on this very subject, which uses language and myth and various motifs to show how we all evolved from a common language and a common primal spirituality. This book also shows how each religion evolved from this primal spirituality. I hope that it shows people that we are all really not that different. That we are all---as the Lakota say, relatives.

    I know that I often write in an anti-Christian manner. (In fact this is a struggle for me, because I want my second book (which deals with the very question of this thread and presents a rational model of the universe that incorporates mind/spirit/god/consciousness whatever you want to call it) to be for all people, including Christians. In fact I want all three books to be for all people---to show that we are all one people dealing with the same God.

    I actually agree with you on all religions----I spent all my youth searching for spiritual meaning, and studied and participated in many religions and religious traditions. I found all of them to be filled with truth, and that they were all dealing with the sames problems and seeking the sames answers and----God. The difference between each one was cultural. But somehow I did not fit in anywhere, and even as early as 17, I recognized that it was the institution I had trouble with. I even reached the point of becoming atheist--but it just didn't sit right with me either.

    While I attack Christianity, I also see the good in it. I find two versions of Jesus in the Bible---the dualistic Jesus I have a lot of trouble with. The loving shaman-like Jesus---I believe actually existed. But I don't knock anyone for how they believe in Jesus. We all have our own trip on this planet, and we all have a purpose---and that carries us each on our own spiritual path.

    The one Christian I respect the most, and agree with on many levels (not all) is Soren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism. He really stressed the subjective---and he said that people are afraid of their own freedom and therefore turn to dogmatic groups where they can turn control of their life over to others. He also emphasized the subjective stated that, "Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal."

    My advice to Christians, if they want to hear from me, is to dig deep---below the institution---to that same spirituality that underlies all religion. If you do not face the serious and deep questions---just blankly mold into the crowd, not questioning anything---then Kierkegaard would say that you are not being authentic---you are not being a true human being.

    If you are not finding your answers than I would say it is time to find out what you truly believe----as I posted in a previous post on this thread.
     
  7. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    Also NoxiousGas, it sounds to me like you may very well be that type of Christian that has delved below the institution to the spiritual core----and that I think is great! And you are one of the ones I would say MORE POWER TO YOU!!!

    Sometimes I guess my comments can get a little acidic too----especially if I am having Christianity thrown in my face, or when people accuse me of falling into the ways of the devil, or that evil spirits have taken over my life. This kind of thing actually gets destructive and so I may take it out in my writing sometimes. But I do try hard to be objectivistic in my criticism of Christianity and religion----and I also try to be constructive because I know that the churches are dealing in their own ways with the Post-Modern crisis and what it means to them. I have even been invited to and participated in discussions at my mom and dad's church (which is fairly liberal) on the subject of how they fit in this changing and diverse new world.


    I don't know if Indy Hippy was like me----but I interpreted your initial comments as taking a materialist argument---that only the physical universe existed and therefore there was no reason for religion to be reconciled with science because gravity and other such principals of the universe existed without the need for a creator. Maybe I didn't read close enough... (You can imagine my confusion when you then started quoting Bible passages...)
     
  8. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    In the post before last I said this:

    It wasn't in this thread I posted that---so here is what I said in another thread (P.S. I didn't mean this directed at you NoxiousGas, but at people in general):

     
  9. bird_migration

    bird_migration ~

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    No.
     
  10. Indy Hippy

    Indy Hippy Zen & Bearded

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    No one is trying to beat on Christianity here Noxious Gas. The original post was simply meant to give people a chance to expand their thinking and perhaps cut new or at least deeper channels of thought. While I am certainly not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination, I do see many of the valuable points contained within it's teachings. Each of your prior points seem to me too almost exclusivly address the more physical aspects of our world. There is nothing wrong with this method. In fact it is because of this method that we as a species have progressed beyond our primitive ways and into this age. I also did not mean to say that you as a person are spiritually inferior or whatever. I was simply addressing the posts above and saying that you seem to be mostly sticking to the right side of the road (per se). I would even go so far as to say that our debate (as it seems to have become) is a prime example of the differences in religion and science. You hold to your views quite well and when I try to expand outside the box of those views you try to hold it all inside.

    I would not be surprised that you are a religious person. I'm also not surprised that you claim Christianity. Perhaps instead of us constantly going back and forth we could proceed with trying to reconcile that which needs to be and in the end if we both share our views we may find we have more in common than not.
    Peace n' love
    Indy Hippy
     
  11. Anaximenes

    Anaximenes Senior Member

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    No, science and religion will never be reconciled. Only politics will be reconciled with religion. That way Science will allow the artist free breathing space from the Arts, or the particular art.
     
  12. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    I like smores!

    We are a dreamer dreaming a dream conceiving ourselves figures in the dream, forgetting all the while that we are the dreamer. We are the measure of all things or all things are self referential. Intent is the human psyches analogue for gravity. Around our intent coalesces the matter of our lives but the weight of things does not matter. Measurement creates corridors of refraction, light show. If the eye be sound, luminosity and vibration congruent, then the whole body will be full of light.

    If you dig my funky vibes!
     
  13. Anaximenes

    Anaximenes Senior Member

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    You gave me a break, didn't you? Thus you think my alternative conssciounable topic is worth an idea of more than mere national secular concerns.
     
  14. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Mountain Valley Wolf,

    Tradition and institution are one in the same, both serving as substitute teachers handed down from parent to parent but there is another teacher in the world and that one is not a-parent.

    No one makes anyone's life hell. Our lives are opportunities to create temporary conditions for ourselves to the extent that anyone is able within allotted time and circumstance of birth. That is a fish lays a thousand eggs but only a few survive to bear fruit. Human beings stand no better chance. No prison or fortress, no palace in the sky or fractured proton has ever kept us safe!
     
  15. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Pollution is the fear of lack. Yeah more than equal to national secular concerns.
     
  16. Anaximenes

    Anaximenes Senior Member

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    The symbol of the Fish... my sister's renounciated life these days. But that is because of the medical condition of her boy friend she must attend to. And she does want me to show. I'll guess i'll wait for the funeral. I say that being full of christian living desires.
     
  17. Anaximenes

    Anaximenes Senior Member

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    Faster typing... proves your full of life? Come on.
     
  18. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    While I'm sure you meant it as a compliment, that is actually a rather condescending and prejudiced remark.
    Once again illustrating that the anti-Christian mentality permeates so deeply that many don't recognize it when they exhibit it.
     
  19. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    Do you not remember my thoughts in the thread "Consciousness, Emergent Property or A' Priori condition" or something like that. That was pretty clear that I'm very well aware of the ideas and concepts put forth by the OP and am definitely not only considering things solely from a materialistic perspective.

    As I pointed out his initial premise is flawed and at it's root biased against a tranditionl Judeao-Christian world view, but the OP lacks the rwquesite knowledge of both religions and science as evidenced in his posts to put forth the type of convincing argument he wishes.

    I'm sorry if I have been taught how to cut to the chase and discern a person's intent and associated abilities to carry forth that intention in a rather quick and succinct manner.
    It saves a lot of time and cuts through a lot of bullshit.
     
  20. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    You certainly have got me pegged wrong. LOL
    If you want to see a "religious" person relating their "religiosity" then just read MVW's posts, he is describing and exhibiting a LOT more "religious" thought and behaviors than I EVER do.
    LOL

    I view the reality as being that there are belief systems and then there are religions based on those belief systems.
    It is important to make the distinction if you ever hope to understand or reconcile the issue of "science vs religion".
    Ritual and tradition fulfill a place and purpose in solidifying the teachings/precepts of the belief system with the adherents of that system, in other words, "religion".

    That is how I view it, any form of ritual, dogmatic practices, special items or totems, idols, temples, etc., etc., etc., are ALL religious trappings and are prevalent in ALL religions.

    So my viewpoint that considers as worthless all manner of ritual, dogma, idols and special places is far less "religious" than many I see displayed among these forums.


    LOL...Noxious Gas...religious....LOL :smilielol5:
     

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