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Re: [Phys-l] Richard Dawkins Answers Reddit Questions



In a message dated 11/21/2010 7:45:38 AM Eastern Standard Time,
kst24@cam.ac.uk writes:

Everyone is of course entitled to their own views, but when you say:

At 05:16 -0500 21/11/10, Spinozalens@aol.com wrote:
Just about everything in the Bible and Koran are in total conflict
with everything science has learned about the Universe. To suggest
otherwise seems to me rather amazing.

I have to this is intended as rhetoric rather than a serious point.

I do not know enough about the Koran to comments, but I find a
statement such as

"Just about everything in the Bible [is] in total conflict with
everything science has learned about the Universe"

makes about as much sense as saying that just about all the lyrics of
Sgt. Pepper's are in total conflict with everything historians have
found out about the Roman empire. Some people choose to read science
or pseudo-science into the Bible. You are of course at liberty to do
that, Bob, just as much as the fundamentalists you criticise, but it
is not a book of science and most Christian scholars would argue that
it was clearly never intended to be. If you want to argue that the
Bible contradicts science you have to play the fundamentalist game
and choose to interpret the Bible that way.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

BZ


According the Bible the earth the Sun goes around the earth pi equals 3,
and the everything was created in six days is a rather perverse order. I
think these assertions are in some disagreement with modern science. I know of
course that liberal religionist skirt these issues with a very loose
reading of the Bible, but I don't think it's intellectually honest to do this. I
fail to see why they just can't admit these are bronze age myths. As for
moral teachings the Bible is a mixed bag. While there are some proscriptions
that any decent person cannot quarrel with, there are also appalling
things which reflect their origin, a primitive tribal culture. So using the
Bible as a source to ground our moral teachings let alone inform us about the
nature of reality seems problematic to me.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Without wishing to be provocative, as an outsider I don't understand
why fundamentalist Christian religion seems to be so influential in
US education, when so many other aspects of US public life are
clearly influenced very little by Christian values and principles.
I'm thinking, for example, of the high per capita prison population,
and the use of legal judicial killing in some states (but perhaps
those where the Christian religion is less influential?) - in the
21st Century! - the apparent keenness to take military action around
the world, the relatively limited provision of public health services
and social welfare compared with many European countries, etc. I'm
not looking to be critical (I'm not from a country that has a
tremendous history of good behaviour), but if Christianity is really
such an influence, it is either very selective in how it uses that
influence within the public sphere, or is a very distorted (inverted)
version of the teachings of Jesus Christ!

)))))))))))))

BZ

You're right. It is a wonder. But religion often serves to justify
injustice as part of god's plan and we see this in the fundamentalist churches in
the United States. The United States quite simply is a terrible country and
getting worst every day. In fairness the more liberal religionists are
fine people who work hard to make the world a better place but they are a very
small minority in American Churches.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))0



Perhaps what Bob finds so toxic is nothing to do with the tenets of
the religion, and a lot to do with the politics of institutionalised
organisations?

p.s. I would disagree with you about science and faith, but I see you
take an instrumentalist perspective on science, and i think there
you can be quite consistent in what you say. Positivist, realists
though (if they are still out there), I think do put in faith in
certain metaphysical commitments that themselves can not be
demonstrated within science.
))))))))))))))))))))))))

No, I stand by my assertions I see no connection between science and faith.
I think they are antithetical with other.

Bob Zannelli

))))))))))))))))))))))




Keith


--
Dr. Keith S. Taber

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Author: Progressing Science Education - Constructing the Scientific
Research Programme into the Contingent Nature of Learning Science
(Springer: 2009)

University Senior Lecturer in Science Education

Science Education Centre
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
184 Hills Road
Cambridge CB2 8PQ
United Kingdom

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