I’ve met scientists who say God exists and the universe is billions of years old. Their perspective is definitely a bit different. They see themselves as discoverers of God’s work but their academic work was just as valid as their atheist colleagues. Most often they were the first to criticize their church and continued to believe. Blew my mind.
We pretty confident in the age of the Earth and have been pretty confident in its age for quite some time if you asked 20 scientists they will all give you pretty much the same answer. I don’t know where you’re getting this belief that the age of the Earth is in debate.
I cannot speak to the quality of the documentaries you’re watching since you don’t actually list them.
But I can assure you we are extremely confident we know the age of the Earth. In fact we have known the age of the Earth with high confidence longer than we’ve known age of the universe that contains it.
The ages of various life forms on the earth are much more nebulous but the age of the actual rock that makes the planet up, is known.
then aren’t you admitting that so far you haven’t known the answer?
That’s the point of science. Humility and requestioning yourself everytime someone gives new input, instead of sticking to some old text that some human wrote and multiple other humans over a long period of time, translated; all using lossy translation techniques.
This mentality is similar to what you will see from many people in places of power (no matter how small), trying to evade criticism using the same social power that they need to be responsible about. Just that in case of religion, one has found a scapegoat, so unassailable that it can be reused indefinitely.
You can see, which approach is more desirable by simply considering the following facet of the result that we have when we have a science majority vs a religion majority…
In times when religious organisations were in power, those who criticised them were killed and their works destroyed to as much of an extent as possible
In times when scientific thought was prevalent (scientific organisations don’t get social power owing to their lack of charisma, which stems from the very basic attribute of the modern philosophy of science - that one can be wrong) the religious organisations criticising science are not destroyed until almost extinction, but are allowed to question all results and have the opportunity to aggregate their views.
You will always see some kind of religion vs another
You might see “science-ism” vs some other religion
You will see political orgs (which represent one of the peaks of social power in the current age) vs some politico-religional orgs trying to destroy and silence the other
You will not see science trying to silence a religion
You will see businessmen trying to use scientific results as a stepladder to social power. You will also see them fail in the long term, simply due to the nature of science.
I think modern science has disregarded the scientific method as not required anymore to make claims about what we “know”.
Yeah, that’s one of the pretty big problems I see happening in the current scenario.
People becoming way more hand-wavy about having been proven wrong, which sometimes seems (we can’t know whether it actually is) outright disingenuous.
The religion related scenario I painted was probably possible due to how long it lasted. Maybe we will have to wait for this one to last long enough to know whether what it yields is as undesirable or more.
For now, at least I don’t see it going in the same direction as the religion power, simply because it’s not the science people that are holding power, but other politics oriented ones. So if it were to go in an undesirable direction in the far future, it would have to be in some other direction.
The science guys will always do science.
Even if the patronages stop.
Even if other’s start killing them for it.
Even if the whole society calls them a heretic.
The quest for truth defines them.
I’ve seen a lot of conservative (the American Republican model) Christians but I have also seen what I consider to be “true” Christians, with a strong faith and love for everyone, and part of that faith often involves confronting reality, thinking about solutions to problems, helping the poor and weak. I agree with you that it’s not all black and white. A lot of Christians don’t believe in the literal text of the Bible for its supernatural claims, but instead they read it (and other religious texts, there are a lot of religious people who do some multi-track drifting) for its morals and guiding principles, which can all be interpreted in different ways, and there is a lot of discourse in religious circles about the meaning and morals of texts, about finding ancient wisdom or reinterpreting old texts to better suit modern standards. It can be a very research intensive way of life to be religious and have faith. I’d argue that if you have any principles at all that you stick to, that counts as faith.
I don’t think you need to be so black and white. you can pick and choose what goes into your faith, and still remain 95% christian. I guess to me the label just doesn’t matter very much. also if the Pope claims that to accept all faith is christian, then that is very much what Catholic Christianity is. the Pope also plays a guiding and interpreting role, and you can choose to go with his interpretation or not.
I agree. Western Christianity is a perversion of the religion imo. To be fair a large part of biblical text has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and that confuses a lot of people. A lot of them seem to be quite contradictory to what he was saying.
If anyone is into reading interesting books these helped to clarify Christianity for me. I do not consider myself a Christian ( maybe in my next life) but Jesus was a radical cat and what he did at that point in history was revolutionary .
Leo Tolstoy , The Kingdom Of God Is Within You. This one may turn you into a Vegan Anarchist so watch out
Swami Sri Yukteswar, The Holy Science
Tao Te Ching , Lao Tzu …this one has nothing to do with Christianity but helped me understand what God ( the Supreme Being , God Head, Jah, Allah or whatever you want to call the source) was in simple terms. It’s a quick read
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I’ve met scientists who say God exists and the universe is billions of years old. Their perspective is definitely a bit different. They see themselves as discoverers of God’s work but their academic work was just as valid as their atheist colleagues. Most often they were the first to criticize their church and continued to believe. Blew my mind.
Their academic work is only valid if it doesn’t incorporate their religion. Because faith has no value in science.
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We pretty confident in the age of the Earth and have been pretty confident in its age for quite some time if you asked 20 scientists they will all give you pretty much the same answer. I don’t know where you’re getting this belief that the age of the Earth is in debate.
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I cannot speak to the quality of the documentaries you’re watching since you don’t actually list them.
But I can assure you we are extremely confident we know the age of the Earth. In fact we have known the age of the Earth with high confidence longer than we’ve known age of the universe that contains it.
The ages of various life forms on the earth are much more nebulous but the age of the actual rock that makes the planet up, is known.
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Go look it up. This is known stuff. It isn’t a guess it’s based on evidence.
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That’s the point of science. Humility and requestioning yourself everytime someone gives new input, instead of sticking to some old text that some human wrote and multiple other humans over a long period of time, translated; all using lossy translation techniques.
This mentality is similar to what you will see from many people in places of power (no matter how small), trying to evade criticism using the same social power that they need to be responsible about. Just that in case of religion, one has found a scapegoat, so unassailable that it can be reused indefinitely.
You can see, which approach is more desirable by simply considering the following facet of the result that we have when we have a science majority vs a religion majority…
deleted by creator
Yeah, that’s one of the pretty big problems I see happening in the current scenario.
People becoming way more hand-wavy about having been proven wrong, which sometimes seems (we can’t know whether it actually is) outright disingenuous.
The religion related scenario I painted was probably possible due to how long it lasted. Maybe we will have to wait for this one to last long enough to know whether what it yields is as undesirable or more.
For now, at least I don’t see it going in the same direction as the religion power, simply because it’s not the science people that are holding power, but other politics oriented ones. So if it were to go in an undesirable direction in the far future, it would have to be in some other direction.
deleted by creator
The science guys will always do science.
Even if the patronages stop.
Even if other’s start killing them for it.
Even if the whole society calls them a heretic.
The quest for truth defines them.
Just don’t mistake them for science bros
I’ve seen a lot of conservative (the American Republican model) Christians but I have also seen what I consider to be “true” Christians, with a strong faith and love for everyone, and part of that faith often involves confronting reality, thinking about solutions to problems, helping the poor and weak. I agree with you that it’s not all black and white. A lot of Christians don’t believe in the literal text of the Bible for its supernatural claims, but instead they read it (and other religious texts, there are a lot of religious people who do some multi-track drifting) for its morals and guiding principles, which can all be interpreted in different ways, and there is a lot of discourse in religious circles about the meaning and morals of texts, about finding ancient wisdom or reinterpreting old texts to better suit modern standards. It can be a very research intensive way of life to be religious and have faith. I’d argue that if you have any principles at all that you stick to, that counts as faith.
deleted by creator
I don’t think you need to be so black and white. you can pick and choose what goes into your faith, and still remain 95% christian. I guess to me the label just doesn’t matter very much. also if the Pope claims that to accept all faith is christian, then that is very much what Catholic Christianity is. the Pope also plays a guiding and interpreting role, and you can choose to go with his interpretation or not.
deleted by creator
I agree. Western Christianity is a perversion of the religion imo. To be fair a large part of biblical text has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and that confuses a lot of people. A lot of them seem to be quite contradictory to what he was saying.
If anyone is into reading interesting books these helped to clarify Christianity for me. I do not consider myself a Christian ( maybe in my next life) but Jesus was a radical cat and what he did at that point in history was revolutionary .
Leo Tolstoy , The Kingdom Of God Is Within You. This one may turn you into a Vegan Anarchist so watch out
Swami Sri Yukteswar, The Holy Science
Tao Te Ching , Lao Tzu …this one has nothing to do with Christianity but helped me understand what God ( the Supreme Being , God Head, Jah, Allah or whatever you want to call the source) was in simple terms. It’s a quick read
Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of A Yogi.