Descripción de la tarea
You are into science and religion stuff and although you support your own views on the matter, you ocassionally browse the net in search of different opinions and the current state of the issue. You have just come accross a blog that you consider worth participating.
Since the re-emergence of science in Europe in the High Middle Ages down to the present the relationship between science and religion has been a very complex and multifaceted one that cannot be reduced to a simple formula or a handful of clichés. Many of the practitioners, who produced that science, were themselves active servants of their respective churches and many of their colleagues, whilst not clerics, were devoted believers and deeply religious. On the other hand there were those within the various church communities, who were deeply suspicious of or even openly hostile to the newly won scientific knowledge that they saw as a threat to their beliefs. Over the centuries positions changed constantly and oft radically and any historian, who wishes to investigate and understand that relationship at any particular time or in any given period needs to tread very carefully and above all not to approach their research with any preconceived conclusions or laden down with personal prejudices in one direction or another. Some scientists assert that valid knowledge can only come from science. They hold that religious beliefs are the remains of pre-scientific explanations of the world and amount to nothing more than superstition. On the other side, some people of faith believe that science conveys a materialistic view of the world that denies the existence of any reality outside the material world. Science, they think, is incompatible with their religious faith. I contend that both – scientists denying religion and believers rejecting science – are wrong. Science and religious beliefs need not be in contradiction. If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters. The scope of science is the world of nature: the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations about the natural world, explanations that are accepted or rejected by observation and experiment. Outside the world of nature, however, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another. Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic or moral; nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose. Science has nothing to say, either, about religious beliefs, except when these beliefs transcend the proper scope of religion and make assertions about the natural world that contradict scientific knowledge. Such statements cannot be true. People of faith need not be troubled that science is materialistic. The materialism of science asserts its limits, not its universality. The methods and scope of science remain within the world of matter. It cannot make assertions beyond that world. Science transcends cultural, political and religious beliefs because it has nothing to say about these subjects. That science is not constrained by cultural or religious differences is one of its great virtues. It does not transcend these differences by denying them or taking one position rather than another. It transcends cultural, political and religious convictions because these matters are none of its business. Some scientists deny that there can be valid knowledge about values or about the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life. The biologist Richard Dawkins explicitly denies design, purpose and values. "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." William Provine, a historian of science, asserts that there are no absolute principles of any sort. He believes modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society. Religion for most people is anything BUT the stupid thing Dawkins thinks of and this is something you must point out from the start! Religion is about rules of being good, is about love, it is about faith in other humans et cetera. It is certainly NOT about replacing exact sciences! On the other hand Science is for formulating models for predicting the behavior of physical systems. Not for finding out WHY we exist in the cosmos. When we talk about science we typically talk about “exact sciences”, e.g. physics, chemistry et cetera. Not all sciences can be used in favor of atheism. Science is the “systematic analysis of a sector” and not just measuring in a lab! There are many humanities sciences which recognize things that scientism-lovers would hate to see under the label “science”. For example Young’s theories about the collective subconscious are a nice example of someone who is a scientist but does not believe that we are just lifeless set of atoms. Atheists will try to convince others that Young is not a scientist and that is when you have to remember that science is not only about exact sciences! Sources:https://sciencereligionspectrum.org/blog-posts/perpetuating-the-myths/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/may/28/religion-science-richard-dawkins https://harmoniaphilosophica.com/2012/01/14/how-to-win-a-religion-vs-science-debate-for-both/ |
Write a post where you set forth your opinion by giving convincing arguments to support it and refute some of the thoughts exposed in the blog. You can use adequate and suitable exemples to illustrate your point of view.
Write between 150 and 200 words.
- Indicación de la forma de nombrar el archivo y la tarea: Apellido1_Apellido2_Nombre_EOI_IN7_U1_CTE.doc
- Utiliza esta plantilla para realizar la tarea.