Dear Gilberto,
I think another option (I'm not suggesting you only think there are two; in fact, I know you've already acknowledged there might be other stances or responses [when you said, "at least two..."]) would be that true science and true religion offer views of Reality from two different standpoints (I don't mean two different opinions, but rather as if two people were both observing the same phenomenona - even from the same vantage point - but are paying attention to two different aspects of that Reality). Religion is the part that's revealed by God to help us understand our true nature, our purpose in life, etc. Science is the part that we have discovered through our God-given gift of intellect. Science doesn't speak to purpose (or the why); science understands its limits, but individual scientists often don't (I heard that somewhere before, but can't, for the life of me, remember where). I think the opposite can also be said of religion. The Truth of religion resides in matters of the spirit. I think, sometimes, the spheres can overlap (where religion and science happen to confirm one another), but to me, that's not the important part that I need to be paying attention to. I need most the parts of religion that illuminate the parts of Reality that science cannot speak to, and the parts of science that illuminate the parts of Reality that Revelation does not speak to. It may sound like I think religion is somehow limited, but that would be the wrong way to label what I'm trying to say. The way I look at it, all of Reality, Truth, has been given to us by God; alone, we have science, which alone does not give us an sufficient picture of Reality; God gives us Revelation to put science in the right perspective. Again, the opposite is also true; religion (lower-cased religion) is not enough to grasp Reality (upper-cased Religion, to me, is the same as Reality, the Universe, God, etc. -- that kind of Religion suffices, but that Religion, or Reality, encompasses both science and religion [in other words, it is the proverbial Coin that we are always trying to look at from both sides]). It's okay to me when science and religion don't seem to be saying two different things; I don't think, "How do I reconcile them?" or "Which one is true?" I think, "What lessons about Reality are available to me from these sources?"
Read you later,
Ben
I think another option (I'm not suggesting you only think there are two; in fact, I know you've already acknowledged there might be other stances or responses [when you said, "at least two..."]) would be that true science and true religion offer views of Reality from two different standpoints (I don't mean two different opinions, but rather as if two people were both observing the same phenomenona - even from the same vantage point - but are paying attention to two different aspects of that Reality). Religion is the part that's revealed by God to help us understand our true nature, our purpose in life, etc. Science is the part that we have discovered through our God-given gift of intellect. Science doesn't speak to purpose (or the why); science understands its limits, but individual scientists often don't (I heard that somewhere before, but can't, for the life of me, remember where). I think the opposite can also be said of religion. The Truth of religion resides in matters of the spirit. I think, sometimes, the spheres can overlap (where religion and science happen to confirm one another), but to me, that's not the important part that I need to be paying attention to. I need most the parts of religion that illuminate the parts of Reality that science cannot speak to, and the parts of science that illuminate the parts of Reality that Revelation does not speak to. It may sound like I think religion is somehow limited, but that would be the wrong way to label what I'm trying to say. The way I look at it, all of Reality, Truth, has been given to us by God; alone, we have science, which alone does not give us an sufficient picture of Reality; God gives us Revelation to put science in the right perspective. Again, the opposite is also true; religion (lower-cased religion) is not enough to grasp Reality (upper-cased Religion, to me, is the same as Reality, the Universe, God, etc. -- that kind of Religion suffices, but that Religion, or Reality, encompasses both science and religion [in other words, it is the proverbial Coin that we are always trying to look at from both sides]). It's okay to me when science and religion don't seem to be saying two different things; I don't think, "How do I reconcile them?" or "Which one is true?" I think, "What lessons about Reality are available to me from these sources?"
Read you later,
Ben
I don't think that is necessarily the motivation. I feel like if
people strongly believe in a certain religious text and they are
confronted by the discoveries of modern science they will have at
least two different stances. On the one hand, they could try to
reconcile their text with modern science, and they might go further
and say the text anticipates modern science. (as in the example which
started this thread).
Another response would be to resist modern science and promote some
kind of alternative understanding of the world ( i.e. young earth
creation science, flat earth theory, whatever)
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