Jim, I don't think either science or religion is intrinsically harmful or
in conflict with the other, or is exclusive of the other. It is the
extent to which people use, misuse, abuse one or the other--or both--or
focus on one to the exclusion of the other.
For example, if someone wants to say that a divine power created the
universe and science describes the structure and operation of that
universe, where's the conflict or the harm? In fact, both science and
religion rest on faith: faith in the existence of a divine creative power
however named or pictured or whatever; faith that everything is
intelligible and is governed by universal laws. The great men of science
such as Pico de Mirandola, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Braehe, Bacon,
Decartes, Newton saw no conflict between science and religion. The
conflicts that arose in the 16th century was not between science and
religion. It was between the conflicting views of the emerging belief in
man's capacity to discover and know "truth" directly on one hand and an
established, self-proclaimed infallible church's view that, given the
blinding and deafening impact of original sin, absolute truth could only
be obtained by divine revelation as handed down--professed (hence,
professors)--through the clergy. That is why Pope triumphantly
proclaimed, "Nature and Nature's law lay hid at night. God said, 'Let
Newton be!' And all was light." Newton's three laws, all of which had the
quality of divine truth discovered without having to go through the
church, seems to prove the new assertion of man's noble capacity at the
expense of the old belief in man's perverted limitations. It also led
to the belief, as evidenced by the Deists, that the Creator had
"written" an infallible, and intelligible manuscript. No, it was no
longer the Bible whose infallibility was central to the religious
crises called the Reformation that allowed for the appearance and
survival of what is called the Age of Science and Age of Reason. The
Creator's manuscript was Nature, and that manuscript was written in
the language of mathematics. Our Declaration of Independence is a
synoptic statement of the Deist that combines science and religion in a
magnificant social statement.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of History http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
912-333-5947 /^\ / \ / /~\ \ /~\__/\
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