I just want to state for the record that I find nothing more stupid....

[Liberal Veteran]

...sounding than when someone tries to say that people's acceptance of science is the equivalent of religious faith.

Even here there are some who seem to believe that religion and science are in constant competetion and that acceptance of one precludes the other.

The only time it does come into conflict is when there is empirical evidence that flies in the face of religious dogma, such as the notion that sun revolves around the earth. Then there are of course issues.

Science isn't really about faith. It's about facts, hypothesis, and testing theories through experimentation.

When I take an antibiotic to rid myself of a bacterial infection, it's not a matter of faith, it's a matter of science.

When I get in the car and turn on the ignition, it's not faith that causes me to expect the internal combustion engine to start. It's science.

When I type this message on the keyboard, it's not faith...it's an intimate knowledge of hardware, software, and networking that expects it to post on the board.

Conversely, when I close my eyes and pray to God that he watches over us in the next four years because if ever we needed it now is the time, that's FAITH. I have no evidence to support that it will go that way.

/rant off.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. What he said.

[qnr]

2. bravo! n/t

[Fenris]

3. Science and religion are seperate entities.

You can believe in God and believe in science. I don't, but I know people who do. Temporalism vs. spiritualism. I don't understand why people feel the need to mix these things.

[Neoma]

4. Science is Latin for knowledge

[Tom Kitten]

5. Bottom line...the two are entirely seperate...

God does not drive man to discover penicillin, it is a man who did so...

Going off topic on a tangent here, I believe man at his best has shown himself at times to be morally superior to the God that so many worship.

[NYC Liberal]

6. As usual, The Onion has it right:

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

[izzie]

7. Sounds about right to me but for the PC

That has to be faith.

[Robeson]

8. Right. Good Post.

[billyskank]

9. People who argue in the way you described

i.e.:

"Even here there are some who seem to believe that religion and science are in constant competetion and that acceptance of one precludes the other"

haven't registered the importance of the word "transcendent." You quite rightly point out that there are areas where science flatly contradicts religious belief, e.g. the world is flat. In those cases the religious belief is flat out wrong. But the really important questions are ones that science does not touch upon (e.g. "how can consciousness arise from an arrangement of inert matter?") are tackled by transcendent philosophies. They are called that because they transcend, not contradict, science.