-
Question: what do you believe in more science or Christianity
- Keywords:
-
anon answered on 13 Mar 2015:
Imagine that you go into your kitchen at home and the kettle is boiling. You ask ‘Why is the kettle boiling?’ and your dad says ‘Ah it’s because the kettle is turned on, which allows an electric current to flow into the kettle, which heats up a special part of the kettle, which in turns is heating up the water, and when the water gets really hot it starts to boil.’
But your mum says ‘Don’t be silly, it’s boiling because I want a cup of tea!’
Who is right? Who do you believe more? Your mum or your dad? Both the answers are true, they both answer the question and with both the answers you understand more than you would have done if you only asked one of your parents.
In the same way, science and Christianity are two different ways to learn about the world around us, neither is more true or more right than the other. To get a complete understanding about the world, we need to collect as much evidence as possible. By taking what we know from both these things we can learn a lot more than we would by only listening to one of them!
Comments
Thomas commented on :
I like that Adam and Steph are happy to couple religion with science, it’s a view not shared by all religious people and equally by many atheists. I would like to point out that in no way am I an atheist nor do I have issues with Christianity, but I would like to just say a few quick things to counter some of Adams claims :
1. Adam is right and science can’t answer everything……..yet. We don’t know all the answers and that is why science is so important. An example is lightning. In ancient times people didn’t understand how lightning works so they believed it was a god who was angry and throwing bolts of lightning from the heavens. As science progressed and we found we could understand how lightning forms and even predict it, many religious people changed their arguments to the stance that God created the whole Earth, so therefore he must of planned how lightening works. This is known as a circular argument, because using the scientific approach you cannot ignore observations that either don’t fit the model or that you don’t like. The model/idea would only be considered as correct if it explains all of the observations that it needs to explain.
2. Being smart and a scientist does not equal being a Christian. Many famous scientist have been from a variety of faiths, Arabic Muslims invented much of mathematics and medicine. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in lots of gods and they have had a profound on science.
3. My parachute example is a metaphor, but I can give a better example of where people choose between science and faith – there are many recorded examples of sick people not listening to the advice of doctors and scientists who have direct evidence that their medicines work because they believe god will save them. Whilst a very small number may get better (a miracle!) the vast majority do not. This can be seen in a recent case study where terrible diseases such as polio in western Africa were nearly wiped out, but Christian leaders told many people who believe very wholeheartedly in God, that injections were evil and created by the devil. This has caused massive outbreaks of polio and killed thousands of people.
4. Lastly, the claim that early philosophers and scientists such as Aristotle, Plato and Pliny are only known from some sources is very true. This in some ways doesn’t matter because they made observations about their natural world and had ideas that could be tested – for example Pliny believed to cure a sore throat you should wear a fox’s liver for a few weeks on your head! These have been tested and many have been shown to be crazy, but unfortunately no one can test whether Jesus could turn water into wine – they are all second hand accounts. Stories of stories even. This means that we should be wary of using the bible as a primary source of information, especially as it has been edited by people (like King James I) several times over the past 2000 years. Lastly, unlike Jesus, Aristotle, Plato and Pliny never claimed to be supernatural which makes them a very unfair comparison to the potential son of god.
Thad commented on :
One thing to think about is that the two biggest churches in the world (The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England) both believe in the Big Bang and Evolution. They know that the authors of the Bible didn’t have the knowledge of the universe that we have now. So in the eyes of these two churches there is no conflict between Christianity and Science.
Adam commented on :
Thad has given a great answer and I also agree with the points made by Thomas.
One of the things I hope to do is to encourage Christians and others to put their faith in science and to have no fear for what science can show us now or will in the future. New things will be discovered and I’m excited, not scared, as they will hopefully teach us more and more about the world around us!
As Thomas has said, there are people who believe that medicine shouldn’t be trusted, which is really sad, and this is due to poor education. In fact, you don’t even have to go to Africa as there are more and more people in the UK and the USA who are religious and non-religious but all think that their children shouldn’t get injections! So, as scientists, we need to do more to teach people that science is trying to help us!
To give a slightly funnier example:
A man was sailing when a big storm sank his boat and washed him into the sea. The man prayed and asked God to be saved from drowning.
Shortly after a fishing boat passed by and asked if the man would like help.
“No! I am waiting for God to save me!”
So the fishing boat went away.
Then a yacht appeared and sailed towards him, offering help.
“No! My God will save me!”
So the yacht went away.
Then a helicopter arrived above him and dropped down a ladder.
“No! I know God shall save me!”
So the helicopter went away.
The man drowned and went to Heaven and when he arrived at the Pearly Gates the man asked God why he hadn’t saved him, to which God replied: “I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?!”
This is a little silly but it shows that God acts through many things, such as rescues, medicines and parachutes, and we should not demand him to personally get involved! Remember, the last time he did that (as Jesus) we crucified him!
I also want to stress that I don’t think only Christians are responsible for great things in science but I do want to show how Christians can be really amazing scientists and not have to change their beliefs.