Reconciling science and religion

[Itoero]

7 minutes ago, Area54 said:

As I have previously noted, many scientists have had no problem reconciling science and religion, and many church people have had no problem either. That's a demonstrable fact. Therefore, your insistence that the two cannot be reconciled is disproven. I have no issue with you making a personal choice not to reconcile your views of the two, just don't demand your narrow view be applied universally

I said  you can't willfully reconcile science and religion...you can't force people to accept other worldviews. Due to our modern society, reconciling of science and religion is not necessary. The way Georges Lemaitre was treated would not happen if he made  scientific discoveries in this 'modern time'.

[Strange]

57 minutes ago, Itoero said:

True but it doesn't really matter what seems obvious to you or what theologians think...it does not change the amount of people that take the OT literal.

Shrug. Is that relevant?

[Itoero]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

Shrug. Is that relevant?

Yes. you said: "It is pretty obvious that much of it is not intended literally. Even if, say, the creation story was believed to be realistic initially(*) anyone know (and for the last few hundred years, if not longer) knows that it is not literally true.  "  "Of course I have. And nearly all theologians (the relevant subject matter experts) would say they are misguided. "

my answer: "True but it doesn't really matter what seems obvious to you or what theologians think...it does not change the amount of people that take the OT literal. "

Is that not a relevant answer to what you said?

[Strange]

7 minutes ago, Itoero said:

I said  you can't willfully reconcile science and religion...you can't force people to accept other worldviews.

I'm not sure that is relevant. There will always be people who reject science (whether for religious reasons or not). You can't force them to change their minds. Some of them might change their views after discussion/education but some won't.

That doesn't seem to be the point of the thread (to me). There will always be be people for whom reconciling religion and science is not a problem. It isn't a problem for me. So, the two can be reconciled.

4 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Is that not a relevant answer to what you said?

Maybe. But (as I was continuing in another reply) it doesn't seem relevant to the topic.

[Itoero]

12 minutes ago, Strange said:

I'm not sure that is relevant. There will always be people who reject science (whether for religious reasons or not). You can't force them to change their minds. Some of them might change their views after discussion/education but some won't.

That doesn't seem to be the point of the thread (to me). There will always be be people for whom reconciling religion and science is not a problem. It isn't a problem for me. So, the two can be reconciled.

One of my best friends originated from Mexico and is making a thesis in Leuven (Belgium) about how info can be sent faster via satellites. When he types a paper then it's posted on websites which cause his work to be tested by many people , regardless of his scientific or religious  background.  Because of our modern society I don't think their will be any improvements if they are reconciled.

[Strange]

1 minute ago, Itoero said:

Because of our modern society I don't think their will be any improvements if they are reconciled.

Also not relevant. The question was not "what benefits will accrue from reconciling science and religion"

[Area54]

16 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Because of our modern society I don't think their will be any improvements if they are reconciled.

It would eliminate the need for tiresome discussions such as this one. /humour

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, Itoero said:

Many Christians and Moslims seriously dislike homosexuals/atheists/apostates..

2

And many more are happy to tolerate them and all the other victims of hate...

18 hours ago, Itoero said:

so you acknowledge Islam and Christianity can mess up your moral compass which inhibits a normal moral evolution. A real Christian or Moslim can't just take the good verses literal and ignore the bad stuff.

Stop straw-manning, I said without a political agenda; so I only acknowledge that politics can mess up your moral compass and that's true for the religious and the secular, or any other 'ism you care to mention. 

BTW your continued demonstrations against religion is exactly what I'm talking about, thanks for the example.

[Strange]

18 hours ago, Itoero said:

The way Georges Lemaitre was treated would not happen if he made  scientific discoveries in this 'modern time'.

Why not? His work was pretty "modern".

18 hours ago, Itoero said:

A real Christian or Moslim can't just take the good verses literal and ignore the bad stuff.

You had better tell that to all the Christian and Moslems who do exactly that. I'm sure they will be thrilled to know they are not "real".

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

And many more are happy to tolerate them and all the other victims of hate...

Stop straw-manning, I said without a political agenda; so I only acknowledge that politics can mess up your moral compass and that's true for the religious and the secular, or any other 'ism you care to mention. 

BTW your continued demonstrations against religion is exactly what I'm talking about, thanks for the example.

Would the neg repper care to explain where I'm wrong?

Don't get me wrong, I don't really care about the -1, but if I'm wrong I'd like to know why. 

[Strange]

Interesting. It looks like the new forum software tracks +s and -s separately rather than just the balance. And adds a (redundant?) "like" option.

[Itoero]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Why not? His work was pretty "modern".

George was a catholic priest. They believe in unproven things and it was obviously an important part of his life. I suppose they distrusted him:" someone that believes in unproven things can't be a good scientist". When his validity was proven I can imagine many people preferred a non religious posterboy.

Now via the World Wide Web scientific 'discoveries' are spread trough the world of science. Many people still distrust religious scientist but many people don't and I don't think that matters when you read a paper via a websites. Hugh Ross for example is a Canadian astrophysicist and Christian apologist. In the time of Georges Lemaittre someone that studies both fields would not be taken seriously. The world wide web and other communicationmethods reduce the strength of the boundary between science and religion. I don't think the reconciling of science and religion is necessary.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

You had better tell that to all the Christian and Moslems who do exactly that. I'm sure they will be thrilled to know they are not "real".

And what about all the Christians and Moslims that don't do that?

[Strange]

23 minutes ago, Itoero said:

George was a catholic priest. They believe in unproven things and it was obviously an important part of his life. I suppose they distrusted him:" someone that believes in unproven things can't be a good scientist". When his validity was proven I can imagine many people preferred a non religious posterboy.

Where did you get this fairy tale from? 

Lemaitre was a professor and a professional astronomer and physicist. Who didn't trust hem? Who preferred a "non religious posterboy"?

Quote

Many people still distrust religious scientist but many people don't and I don't think that matters when you read a paper via a websites. 

I don't think it matters much whatever medium the paper is published in. As long as it is a good quality paper backed up by evidence. 

26 minutes ago, Itoero said:

In the time of Georges Lemaittre someone that studies both fields would not be taken seriously.

And of course, you have evidence of that? Or is it something unproven that you believe? 

Lemaitre's work was published so he seems to have been taken pretty seriously.

28 minutes ago, Itoero said:

I don't think the reconciling of science and religion is necessary.

Well, I don't think there is anything to reconcile, either. (As examples like Lemaitre, Paul Davies and many others show.) So maybe we can agree on that.

[Area54]

3 hours ago, Itoero said:

George was a catholic priest. They believe in unproven things and it was obviously an important part of his life. I suppose they distrusted him:" someone that believes in unproven things can't be a good scientist". When his validity was proven I can imagine many people preferred a non religious posterboy.

If you paid for your lessons on the History of Science, demand a refund. I'll support you all the way.

[Itoero]

19 hours ago, Area54 said:

If you paid for your lessons on the History of Science, demand a refund. I'll support you all the way.

I read about Georges Lemaitre on Wikipedia...I just gave my explanation. How do you explain it?

 

22 hours ago, Strange said:

Where did you get this fairy tale from? 

Lemaitre was a professor and a professional astronomer and physicist. Who didn't trust hem? Who preferred a "non religious posterboy"?

It's just my explanation. How do you explain what happened?

 

22 hours ago, Strange said:

And of course, you have evidence of that? Or is it something unproven that you believe? 

Lemaitre's work was published so he seems to have been taken pretty seriously.

I mean someone like Hugh Ross. Have you looked into Lemaittre's biography?

On ‎8‎-‎9‎-‎2017 at 3:13 PM, dimreepr said:

And many more are happy to tolerate them and all the other victims of hate...

Stop straw-manning, I said without a political agenda; so I only acknowledge that politics can mess up your moral compass and that's true for the religious and the secular, or any other 'ism you care to mention. 

BTW your continued demonstrations against religion is exactly what I'm talking about, thanks for the example.

Stop making this silly assumptions on  what I think about religion.

[Area54]

I have read the wikipedia article and it broadly coincides with my understanding of Lemaitre's history. Here are some of the assertions you made and how wikipedia dealt with them.

On 07/09/2017 at 8:14 PM, Itoero said:

The way Georges Lemaitre was treated would not happen if he made  scientific discoveries in this 'modern time'.

 

23 hours ago, Itoero said:

I suppose they distrusted him:" someone that believes in unproven things can't be a good scientist".

 

23 hours ago, Itoero said:

In the time of Georges Lemaittre someone that studies both fields would not be taken seriously. T

From the wikipedia article: " In 1923, he became a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Cambridge, spending a year at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, Cambridge). He worked with Arthur Eddington, who introduced him to modern cosmology, stellar astronomy, and numerical analysis. He spent the next year at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Harlow Shapley, "

If you are unaware of who Eddington and Shapley were check them out. Regardless, here are two prominent astronomers at prestigious institutions who trusted him sufficiently to allow him to work with them. Are you suggesting they were unaware he was a Roman Catholic priest. In short, your assertion that no one studying both fields would be taken seriously is wholly contradicted by the wikipedia article you claim for the source of your knowledge.

His proposal, of an expanding universe, was radical. Recall that it was made in the same decade we had just discovered that there were galaxies other than our own. Astronomers were still getting there heads around this idea of "island universes".

The delay in recognition was extended because "The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside Belgium". There is a neat parallel with another priest who produced a radical paper that was published in an obscure journal and, in his case, ignored for almost half a century. Do you wish to claim that scientists in Gregor Mendel's time also distrusted priests dabbling in science?

At any rate " In 1930, Eddington published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a long commentary on Lemaître's 1927 article, in which he described the latter as a "brilliant solution" to the outstanding problems of cosmology.^[15] The original paper was published in an abbreviated English translation in 1931, along with a sequel by Lemaître responding to Eddington's comments."

I am at a loss, therefore to see, how you can take from the wikipedia article the ideas of yours I have quoted above. Certainly there were objections and alternative theories - this was a new and challenging field, with limited data on which to test hypotheses. But there is no hint, anywhere in that article, that acceptance was delayed because the source was a priest.

Again, note another radical idea, this time from geology, that took a couple of decades longer to be accepted. Plate tectonics. Wegener was not a priest.  It is not true that a new theory needs to wait till the death of its opponents to be accepted, but it can sometimes look that way. However, it has nothing to do with the religious affiliation of the researcher.

 

Edited September 9, 2017 by Area54

[Itoero]

31 minutes ago, Area54 said:

I have read the wikipedia article and it broadly coincides with my understanding of Lemaitre's history. Here are some of the assertions you made and how wikipedia dealt with them.

From the wikipedia article: " In 1923, he became a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Cambridge, spending a year at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, Cambridge). He worked with Arthur Eddington, who introduced him to modern cosmology, stellar astronomy, and numerical analysis. He spent the next year at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Harlow Shapley, "

If you are unaware of who Eddington and Shapley were check them out. Regardless, here are two prominent astronomers at prestigious institutions who trusted him sufficiently to allow him to work with them. Are you suggesting they were unaware he was a Roman Catholic priest. In short, your assertion that no one studying both fields would be taken seriously is wholly contradicted by the wikipedia article you claim for the source of your knowledge.

His proposal, of an expanding universe, was radical. Recall that it was made in the same decade we had just discovered that there were galaxies other than our own. Astronomers were still getting there heads around this idea of "island universes".

The delay in recognition was extended because "The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside Belgium". There is a neat parallel with another priest who produced a radical paper that was published in an obscure journal and, in his case, ignored for almost half a century. Do you wish to claim that scientists in Gregor Mendel's time also distrusted priests dabbling in science?

At any rate " In 1930, Eddington published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a long commentary on Lemaître's 1927 article, in which he described the latter as a "brilliant solution" to the outstanding problems of cosmology.^[15] The original paper was published in an abbreviated English translation in 1931, along with a sequel by Lemaître responding to Eddington's comments."

I am at a loss, therefore to see, how you can take from the wikipedia article the ideas of yours I have quoted above. Certainly there were objections and alternative theories - this was a new and challenging field, with limited data on which to test hypotheses. But there is no hint, anywhere in that article, that acceptance was delayed because the source was a priest.

Again, note another radical idea, this time from geology, that took a couple of decades longer to be accepted. Plate tectonics. Wegener was not a priest.  It is not true that a new theory needs to wait till the death of its opponents to be accepted, but it can sometimes look that way. However, it has nothing to do with the religious affiliation of the researcher.

 

Thanks for that reply. It's just my opinion but someone like Hugh Ross, that studies both fields intensively, would not be taken seriously at the time of Georges Lemaittre. I don't think Georges studied science from a religious background like Hugh Ross.

"The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside Belgium"   Something like this would not happen in this modern time. Papers are posted online. When you have a scientific discovery then it's spread trough the world of science. Your idea's are not stuck within certain scientific communities.

From the Wikipedia: "He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, " Why is that?

 

[Area54]

9 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Thanks for that reply. It's just my opinion but someone like Hugh Ross, that studies both fields intensively, would not be taken seriously at the time of Georges Lemaittre. I don't think Georges studied science from a religious background like Hugh Ross.

"The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside Belgium"   Something like this would not happen in this modern time. Papers are posted online. When you have a scientific discovery then it's spread trough the world of science. Your idea's are not stuck within certain scientific communities.

From the Wikipedia: "He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, " Why is that?

 

I shall take each paragraph in turn.

Paragraph 1: I don't know who Hugh Ross is. I'm not especially interested in opinions when discussing science. I prefer facts. I apologise if that comes across as curt. I merely wish to signal this particular topic is not one I am interested in pursuing.

Paragraph 2: Papers are published online. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. And the ones published in the low tier, obscure journals still get ignored.

I said I didn't like opinions, but here is an understanding I have, that I can't demonstrate and therefore it has the same status as an opinion. Exchanges between individuals in a specific field occur in parallel with, but often ahead of journal publication. In Lemaitre's time it was by letter. Later by fax. Then email. Then skype. Who know what tomorrow brings.

And note further, that the delay was minor. (And it was only my opinion that the delay was extended by the obscurity of the journal).

Paragraph 3: It is not uncommon for such to occur. It certainly had nothing to do with Lematire being a priest. You have probably heard of Bode's Law, but are you aware it should be called Titius-Bode's Law. Or take the Kuiper belt. It really ought to be the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Come to think of it, this practice of ignoring the first  "discoverer" seems rampant in astronomy.

[Strange]

6 hours ago, Itoero said:

It's just my explanation. How do you explain what happened?

What happened? Apart from him being recognised as one of the most important physicists of the 20th century and being the L in FLRW?

5 hours ago, Itoero said:

Thanks for that reply. It's just my opinion but someone like Hugh Ross, that studies both fields intensively, would not be taken seriously at the time of Georges Lemaittre.

There doesn't seem to be much similarity between the two. (I also was not familiar with Hugh Ross.)

Lemaitre studied GR and the evidence and came up with a novel theory. (He may have been quietly pleased that it described a "creation" event, but as far as I know he never said anything much about that.)

Hugh Ross (as far as I can tell) has done nothing so groundbreaking but tries to find ways to make creationism and a semi-literal interpretation of the bible fit with the evidence. He is, at least, scientific in his approach unlike Young Earth Cretinsationists.

5 hours ago, Itoero said:

From the Wikipedia: "He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, " Why is that?

Two reasons: the paper was not widely read outside of Belgium and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy

BTW, I find your references to "Georges" a little demeaning. Rather like anti-relativists will talk about "Albert" (or "Uncle Al") or some people will talk about Trump vs Hilary.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Strange

[Itoero]

On ‎9‎-‎9‎-‎2017 at 10:16 PM, Strange said:

BTW, I find your references to "Georges" a little demeaning. Rather like anti-relativists will talk about "Albert" (or "Uncle Al") or some people will talk about Trump vs Hilary.

I'm sorry, I just like the name 'Georges' ever since the name was mentioned in a comedy show.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

A hijack about how science is just religion, etc. etc. has been split off to the trash.

Further such posts will be removed.

 

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

I wasn't kidding.