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[Phys-L] Re: god friendly science



Marc Kossover told us a few things about the Jewish community school
where he teaches. I would like to tell you some similar things about
the Christian school where I teach, then try to draw some conclusions
and more questions from my experience.

Bluffton University was founded by the Mennonite Church and has
maintained strong church ties; however, the student body only runs 15%
to 20% Mennonite from year to year. Bluffton advertises it is a
Christian institution; however, the student body has a wide range of
church backgrounds. There are very few Muslims, Jews, Hindus and other
non-Christian world faiths, but there are atheists and a very wide range
of Christians. The Christian students run the gamut from
fundamentalists who believe the Bible is inerrant (and believe in 6-day
creation), to those who would embrace "intelligent design," to those who
would say God started the world with the big bang and laid out the
physical laws, then everything evolved from that point on its own. Some
Christians are not far from atheists. Some do not accept virgin birth
nor the resurrection, but they believe Jesus existed and demonstrated a
model of living that is worth following, therefore they call themselves
Christians.

Marc described the various religious persuasions at his institution as
"...they bicker like siblings," yet he claims little friction with
science. I would say that is a very accurate description of what
happens here. At my institution I do not see fundamentalist students
nor their families upset that our Science Department teaches evolution,
or that we teach science without bringing any religious issues into it.
Rather, they are continually at odds with our Religion Department.
Fundamentalist students do not register for Bible classes at a Christian
institution and expect to be told that the Bible is an historical story.
They do not expect to be taught scientific evolution by their Bible
professors who even go further to claim the Genesis version of creation
is just a story that was suitable at the time it was written. But, that
is indeed what they experience here... and they don't like it.

Thus, at my institution the fundamental Christians battle with the
Religion Department, and not the Science Department. The religion profs
are constantly challenged, but the science profs are rarely challenged.
The more conservative Mennonite churches that form our constituency
never attack our Science Department although many have frequently
attacked our Religion Department.

I think this is very interesting and might help our current discussion
about the difference between science and religion. Why do our
fundamentalist students, and their families, and their home churches
attack our religion profs, but not our science profs? Why do these
students sit in science class and accept what we teach, yet they rail
against what the religion profs teach?

Here are some possible answers. Reality might be a combination of
these, or something else I have not thought of.

(1) Students might have resigned themselves to the idea that religion
and science don't agree, science is wrong, so they "survive" science
classes by regurgitating what the scientists teach (without any serious
attempt to understand science) just to get the science requirement
behind them.

(2) Fundamentalist students are so busy attacking the Religion
Department they have no energy left to attack the Science Department.
They might even believe that once they get the Religion Department
"on-board" that the religion profs will be their allies in the
subsequent attack against the scientists.

(3) Students might be able to compartmentalize their lives so they can
be objective scientists part of the time, while at other times they can
turn that off and enter a faith-based compartment. No attempt is made
to operate in both modes at the same time. No attempt is made to seek
overlap between the compartments. Religion classes are in the
faith-based compartment, therefore when the religion profs get
intellectual, they are acting inappropriately. On the other hand, the
science compartment is supposed to be intellectual, so there is no
conflict.

I often feel that (3) is the best I can hope for. If students can
compartmentalize their faith-based lives and their evidence-based lives
they can understand science and function as scientists when appropriate,
and they can flip over to their faith-based lives when appropriate and
as needed.

I wonder if compartmentalization is ultimately the only hope. Unless
science develops methods to detect and characterize a spiritual reality,
is there any way to find overlap between the compartments? At present,
unless I intend to convince students to become atheists, it seems that
getting them to compartmentalize is the best way to allow religion to
exist alongside science.

Intelligent design and other attempts to make religion more "scientific"
just don't appear to have any merit because, at the root, religion is in
a different compartment from science, and compartmental overlap just
isn't there.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
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