week 3 discussion post #1

On the topic of the History of the relationship between Science and Religion
Discussion post below altered slightly for the purposes of this blog

I'm with Stuart when he says that this is a tough topic to grasp.

To expand on his thoughts about the concept of religion being the 'science' of the day during the time of pre-Reformation, and how people began to question their beliefs and perceptions, I was surprised to note that "The biblical text consistently exhorts man to do just that [i.e. question everything].. The Israelites are invited to contemplate the data of their history, as indeed is the Christian church..." (quoted from the "Cross-currents" excerpt).

It almost seems a little ironic, for God to be asking His subjects to question everything around them, because by doing so, it seems that He is asking them to contemplate whether God himself exists. And on the continued assumption that God exists, then it is because of Him that humans have this insatiably inquisitive nature. Hmm.. this is some kind of paradox/Catch 22, isn't it..?

And on the topic of more contemporary areas of science, such as stem-cell research and cloning, a further argument could be, "Why did God allow us/our brains to develop in such a way that we would reach this level of scientific curiosity/capability, if we weren't allowed to do so?" It seems that the Church calls out against humans attempting to perform such "acts of God", but if we really are His creation and He didn't want us to imitate Him (although there is the saying that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery").. well, why give us the ability to do so? I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's either no God, or the Church is wrongly against the development of science. Perhaps the concept of ethics in this situation also boils down to a person's religious beliefs? ..Just throwing some ideas around :)

I'm not sure whether the refinement and development of science has helped the Church, as Stuart suggests; but that's not to say that I don't science has stifled religion. (I'm not really sure about this week's topic at all, to be honest!)

I also agree with Genevieve's comment that "people will often construe situations/information in order to fit with their ideas/beliefs or to protect them". In many an argument, whether its religious, political, relationship-related etc, people have this great habit of pulling quotes from random sources - i.e. there is this constant misappropriation, interpreting statements out of their original context, when somebody really wants to prove their point and win an argument (in a not-so-fair way).

With Nerissa's question on "What is it that is causing so many people to turn once again to these kinds of belief systems?", I think that the advent of a church such as Hillsong has made religion a part of pop culture in a sense. Hillsong makes it 'cool' to be a Christian; they sing and dance along to songs praising the Lord's name, not in a Gospel or choral style, but with songs that sound very similar to today's pop-rock/alternative bands. And if your friends join, therems no reason for you to miss out on the fun either.

But that's not to say that everybody our age decides to adhere to a religious belief for the cool factor. I have numerous friends my age, or a few years younger, who have a great faith in their God - I respect that. And who knows, maybe the Hillsong-ers are just showing their deep faith in a different way to what I'm used to, in which case I'd be apologising for writing them off as 'fashionable' believers.

I like Tristan's opinion on the incident of Draper & White's books causing damage to the Church's reputation, and how "one error can very easily be replaced with another error". It's so true. We as humans can be pretty arrogant (and stubborn), and have a firm belief in an idea, thinking that its right answer, and then somebody else will come along with their correct answer and dispute the former, and so on and so forth.

As for my personal on the questions for the week, well..
Nobody around me really talks about Galileo a great deal - I recall hearing about it during school sometime, but I don't remember when. I'm not sure whether the conflict between science and religion is as great as it was hundreds of years ago - nowadays, science and religion are percieved as two entirely different areas of study, I don't think people go out of their way to compare and contrast the two (unless they're involved in the study of the conflict/comparison like we are :) )
Again, I'm not sure on non-churchgoers' opinions on the Church's present-day attitude to science. I don't think I've really thought about this a great deal myself.. as I mentioned above, I get the feeling that people don't really compare the two, and if they do its usually due to some controversial media article cropping up on the news..

Just reading Michelle's post, she's got a good point there, about how the Church doesn't really play a big role in Australian society. I think that's an inevitable consequence of our multiculturalist country, there's so many different beliefs, the diversity is great. That's not to say that a country such as Italy or Spain is boring because they have a single predominant religion - that's great too. But what Michelle has said has made me realise that very difference - the lack of influence of the Church in our local society. Can't imagine what it would be like, living in a religiously-focused community.. though suppose I wouldn't be living in one if I was non-religious, haha!

And as for the confusing final question..
On the assumption that God created the universe and created Nature along with it, and therefore has the ability to press as many buttons as he wants in the head office at Nature HQ.. well if humans want to establish that certain aspects of Nature follow some kind of (perhaps mathematical) routine, they can't help but rely on experiments and repetition of tests, to try and make a fact out of a hypothesis. Although it could also be said that because God is holding the reins, if He chooses to make Nature ridiculously unpredictable (..global warming at its unfortunate best?), no amount of experimenting could definitely prove anything, really..