further thoughts on week 3 material

On the topic of the History of the relationship between Science and Religion

The material on the Greeks' teleological tendencies was quite interesting! How they believed that "all matter was composed of four elements... fire, air, water, earth", and how they would explain worldly elements using reason rather than logic,

e.g. "Why does the acorn grow? Answer: To become an oak tree."

Although I suppose it could be said that their reasoning was their logic. I was also amused by the idea that

"[In terms of how an arrow flew through the air,] They believed that somehow the air got around to the back of the arrow and pushed it along."

And I find this comment fascinating:

"All the Universe beyond the orbit of the Moon belonged to the heavenly realm
and consisted of incorruptible bodies. Logically such bodies could only move in
the perfect form, a circle."

Because that's a fairly accruate description of the planets, isn't it? I'm not sure about the incorruptible part, but they basically orbit in circles (if not, ellipses at the very least), right? How did these people come up with such ideas? It's not as though they had the Hubble telescope either! Amazing.

And although the excerpt from Russell's "Cross-currents" mentions that modern science eventuated after the Scientific Revolution, the "Scholastic thought based on reason (Greek philosophy)", which was one of "two main sources of authority" (the other being "Revelation from God as described in the Bible"), sounds much like the basis of science, in that science also forms ideas based on reason, the main difference being that science then performs experiments to test out these theories, whereas the Greeks took the theories at face value at that time, i.e. pre-Revolution.

And reflecting on part of the excerpt from Schaeffer:
"...an increasing distortion of the teaching of the Bible and the early church. Humanist elements had entered. For example the authority of the church took precedence over the teaching of the Bible..."

I can understand how religion has been tainted by humanist elements - but perhaps this is an inevitable occurrence, considering we are, after all, humans? In which case, doesn't that leave religion as a helpless being, to be tainted by the imperfection of humans.. and so the true word of God may remain forever hidden amongst the corruption..? That's probably a bit too dramatic, but I guess what I'm trying to say, is that there will always be a problem with religion in one way or another. Too many different perspectives on the same belief, too many people wanting exploit those who truly believe.

And towards the end of the lecture:
"Samuel Wilberforce was the Bishop of Oxford (commonly known as “Soapy Sam”). His father was William Wilberforce, famous for initiating the abolition of slavery. Soapy Sam declared that "the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God". At the same time the American church was saying, "If this hypothesis (evolution) be true, then is the Bible an unbearable
fiction"."

Now that's an interesting comment. Because Darwin's work has shown us that evolution does occur, particularly on islands that have little or no interaction with the world beyond their immediate shores. And yet, if you assume that God has created everything we know in this universe.. doesn't that mean he created in animals, the ability to adapt to their surrounding environment? And therefore the ability to evolve, to compete in the survival of the fittest? So there's no need to stick to one extreme or the other. It's quite possible that God created the need for natural selection, so that the world could develop into a world of its own design, if that makes sense.

The lecture continues on to say:
"The Biblical verse quoted was 1 Corinthians 15:39 "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish". Of course this is not a Biblical refutation of the theory of evolution. It is rather part of an argument concerning the nature of the resurrection."

A prime example of the way in which people take quotes and use them out of their original context, to suit their own needs. The media does it too, and from this you can create your own version of a story and improve your side of the argument. I don't like the way people twist your words and implicate a different message to your original statement.

The final statement that caught my eye was:
"Yet many scientists of the day were devout churchmen – people like Stokes, Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Maxwell."

After the argument that I posed above, where I said that it's possible for God to have created the world as well as the concept of natural selection, I guess its not so incredible that scientists were also devout churchmen. Having also read the "Cross-currents" excerpt, I guess it makes more sense now, because Russell mentions that the Bible invites us to "contemplate the data of [our] history".