Should science replace religion? The answer is no. Is religion superior to science in the scheme of things? The answer is no. Both serve different purposes. Yet both share something in common. They are both meant for humans and not humans for either. They are both human inventions for human consumption. While one is emotional with unverifiable claims and most times irrational, the other is based on rational and logic. While one deals with esoteric claims the other one is scientific and practical. While one dwells on rhetoric, the other demand verifiable result. For those of us who do not understand how science work, some of its achievements can be likened to the claimed achievements of the religious gods.
How many times have you heard folks in the village say that the white man is God when they are confounded by science? Does that mean the white man is God? Those of us who are lucky to have gone beyond the borders of our villages know better.
Given the option to choose between both, I have this feeling that the world will be a better place without religion and the fear it spreads. It is just a feeling. Religion without doubt has its place in the human scheme of things. It is argued by some that without religion to govern the human race; science will not find a conducive environment to operate. The foregoing may not be entirely true because humans are governed by law, both manmade and natural laws. Religion served its purpose in the stone age and should be confined to stone age. Our intellects continue to develop and as rational animals, we must continue to rationalise and re-evaluate everything including religion. The principal difference between man and animal is our ability to rationalise issues but as am sure you are aware, religion does not tolerate rationalisation. It claims monopoly of knowledge and ideas because it speaks for the Omni potent and Omniscience.
Does this mean that I worship science? The answer is no. Do I have a religion, the answer again is no. What religion will find out sooner than latter is that science will soon manufacture human beings without copulation. It will shatter a lot of religious fixes! The human race would sooner than later get to a stage where we will determine who lives and who dies without compunction. Time is coming when people will live for a thousand years and still look 18! One does not need a soothsayer to foretell of a time when we will produce super humans.
While I am not advocating for science to replace religion, I certainly believe that science have served humanity as good as religion in many ways if not in every way. Both should learn to live together rather than religion arrogating to itself the higher moral ground. As much evil as we found in science exist in every religion. The arguments you advanced against science are clearly, seriously and perennially promoted in the bible’
The evil men do are not limited to science, it pervades all human endeavour and religion is no exception. It is not religion or science that commits these evils but its human faithful.
The subjugation (enslavement) of the black man found its root in religion. The white man seeing the black man as inferior is not his fault; the black man is the worst enemy of the black man, living in Minnesota in America ‘am sure you can appreciate this.
Religion and the bible as a matter of fact promote the vilest form of human inhumanity to human. Neither the old nor the much touted new testament promoted or have any serious rule to help man live like civilized people instead the laws arrogated to man have strived and continue to strive to create a civilize society.
Hear what Leviticus and Exodus have to say on the matter of slavery:
Leviticus25:44-46
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession for ever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.
Exodus21:2,4
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh he shall go free for nothing ... If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone.
In the New Testament, while mark, Luke and Mathew and John are completely silent on this most bestial form of man inhumanity to man, the apostle Paul explicitly sanctioned it in his epistles to the Colossians, Paul you would agree more or less laid the foundation for Christianity: he said in the book of Colossians
Colossians3:22
Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord.
In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul gave us his religious justification for maintaining the status quo:
ICorinthians7:21-22
Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.
Paul’s teachings on the all important concept of freedom before God makes it unnecessary for us to seek freedom from any form of slavery, it makes any challenge to such unthinkable disparagement of the human species almost a sin, a situation that would make it difficult for anyone who call themselves Christian to challenge slavery. The Christian teaching of a life hereafter must surely had contributed to the lack of social action on the part of Christians against the institution and must have informed the support the slave masters enjoyed in western Europe, the seat of Christianity!
Paul's epistle to Philemon is actually a letter that accompanies Philemon's runaway slave, Onesimus, whom Paul was sending back to his master. Although he urged Philemon to be kind to Onesimus, the tone of his letter is obviously one that accepts slavery as a valid social institution.
Science does not claim to have all the answers like religion and therein lies the fundamental difference. Science admits its fallibility and it’s forever looking for better ways to correct itself but religion justices its fallibility with more fallible.
I accept your argument that science has been used to justify what I call the ignorance of the human race but one can see this for what it is; human error. Religion is supposed to speak with the voice of God! It is not suppose to be wrong or even have room for mistakes because the god of Christians is not man that it should lie or make mistake so whatever we read in the bible is an absolute truth. We must obey it without question and that include the quotations above.
Slaver Slavery as a way of life was so engraved in the social psyche of the era of nascent Christianity that very few voices of protest, if any, were raised against it. Even the few voices that rose against slavery were the voices of what Christianity called PEGAN! In slavery we found a confluence between Paganism and Christianity
‘Christian apologists to show that Christians were opposed to slavery: William Wilberforce (1759-1833). Wilberforce was a Christian and the universal claim is that his Christian conscience showed him the evils of slavery. But this claim is easily shown to be false. As a child, Wilberforce never had any affinity for the religion. For a long time he avoided taking a degree at Cambridge University because he could not sign the 39 Articles of the Church of England. It was in this skeptical mould that Wilberforce remained for the first thirty years of his life. Yet it was during these agnostic times that he developed his sense of abhorrence towards slavery. (For, as a boy of fourteen, he had written to a newspaper attacking slavery.) He was, at that time a Deist, as were his closest associates. Furthermore, his chief allies in his battle for abolitionism were Quakers, dissenters and free-thinkers, not the mainstream Christians. The support from the established churches for his actions was described by Wilberforce himself as "disgracefully lukewarm." In fact, many conservative members of the clergy actively tried to suppress and obstruct his anti-slavery cause.
The record is worse for the churches in America. The Christians there did not stop to think whether the institution of slavery is, in itself immoral. Their chief concern was whether the Bible condoned or condemned it. The answer, as we have seen, was obvious. Thus the Christians in the U.S. supported slavery.’
Until religion shed the toga of esoteric absolutism and give room for discussion on its core values like life after death, hell fire and damnation and Armageddon. Until religion come full circle to accept the fact that Devil is an imaginary contortions by self seeking leaders or some kind of euphemism in certain culture. And until religious adherents leave the devil alone and take responsibilities for their actions, we will continue to see staccato dissent in the religious world in support of science as seen in this Vatican declaration.
Inaju
Showing posts with label Cynics Point Of View (CPOV). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cynics Point Of View (CPOV). Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
VATICAN ON DARWIN
BY SAMUEL
Not surprising at all. If I am alive to live up to 65, this world will be a significantly different place. As the scope of scientific explanation expands, the domain of purely religious explanation shrinks or at least accommodates. Galileo was treated very badly by the church. But the church later apologized. Recently, Bob Jones University apologized for treating Black students differently on grounds of its biblical theology. They now realized that they got the theology wrong. Organized religion has a track record of getting things wrong too. The world is changing and the most serious challenge for religion is its desire to come up with fixed absolute answers. Religion will continue to play a fundamental role in human societies, but the nature of religion will be changing.
I am not too impressed that simply because the church can link the idea of evolution to St. Augustine or St. Aquinas that makes the case acceptable. After all, both Aquinas and Augustine were profoundly influenced by pagan philosophers i.e., Plato for Augustine and Aristotle for Aquinas. Thus while that may close one front of the discussion it opens another wide flank that might even make the church more distressed. If pagan ideas from ancient Greece have been integrated to Christian worldview by the Church fathers, what is wrong with other worldviews that are pagan in Africa or other parts of the world that have something to meaningful contribute to life. Is it just ancient Greek paganism that is of value to humanity? Unfortunately most African universities do not even care about the deeper implications of this kind of discussion for what it means for Africa to take her rightful place in the world.
Yes, we do not seem to seriously consider these kinds of debates in Nigerian universities. That is one of the things I regret so much about Nigerian and African education. Moreover, the issue with Darwin is not just his ideas but the logic of reasoning that informed his work. The methodology has some implications that are not consistent with religious ethics except of course in situations where religion has compromised its ethics. Global market or economic fundamentalism, the terrible idea of "survival of the fittest" or "Social Darwinism" might not be attributed to Darwin proper but the logic of his reasoning. To draw conclusions based on empirical observations is a challenged to conservatively religious society like Nigeria where people ascribed everything to predestination. The idea of predestination is a central obstacle to the development of science in Africa. Even educated people in Africa find it difficult to meaningfully resolve the tension between rational and logical explanation and a mystical mode of explanation based on religion. Unfortunately religion in most African universities (not all) is taught more as apologetics so it is difficult for any divinity schools to embark on a serious project of developing a worldview that systematically tries to integrate religion and modernity, if at all this is possible. We have a long way to go.
It would be very relevant to organize a conference on the implications of Darwin for Africa. We have too long ignored the implications of ideas for life. Africa needs to catch up. We need to deeply self-examine the nature of our institutions and ask whether they can take us anywhere given the way they function. There is no scientific evidence to support any group of people are inherently inferior. So this issue is not about some kind of inherent inferiority, it is about organization.
Samuel
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112. (651-638-6023)
Not surprising at all. If I am alive to live up to 65, this world will be a significantly different place. As the scope of scientific explanation expands, the domain of purely religious explanation shrinks or at least accommodates. Galileo was treated very badly by the church. But the church later apologized. Recently, Bob Jones University apologized for treating Black students differently on grounds of its biblical theology. They now realized that they got the theology wrong. Organized religion has a track record of getting things wrong too. The world is changing and the most serious challenge for religion is its desire to come up with fixed absolute answers. Religion will continue to play a fundamental role in human societies, but the nature of religion will be changing.
I am not too impressed that simply because the church can link the idea of evolution to St. Augustine or St. Aquinas that makes the case acceptable. After all, both Aquinas and Augustine were profoundly influenced by pagan philosophers i.e., Plato for Augustine and Aristotle for Aquinas. Thus while that may close one front of the discussion it opens another wide flank that might even make the church more distressed. If pagan ideas from ancient Greece have been integrated to Christian worldview by the Church fathers, what is wrong with other worldviews that are pagan in Africa or other parts of the world that have something to meaningful contribute to life. Is it just ancient Greek paganism that is of value to humanity? Unfortunately most African universities do not even care about the deeper implications of this kind of discussion for what it means for Africa to take her rightful place in the world.
Yes, we do not seem to seriously consider these kinds of debates in Nigerian universities. That is one of the things I regret so much about Nigerian and African education. Moreover, the issue with Darwin is not just his ideas but the logic of reasoning that informed his work. The methodology has some implications that are not consistent with religious ethics except of course in situations where religion has compromised its ethics. Global market or economic fundamentalism, the terrible idea of "survival of the fittest" or "Social Darwinism" might not be attributed to Darwin proper but the logic of his reasoning. To draw conclusions based on empirical observations is a challenged to conservatively religious society like Nigeria where people ascribed everything to predestination. The idea of predestination is a central obstacle to the development of science in Africa. Even educated people in Africa find it difficult to meaningfully resolve the tension between rational and logical explanation and a mystical mode of explanation based on religion. Unfortunately religion in most African universities (not all) is taught more as apologetics so it is difficult for any divinity schools to embark on a serious project of developing a worldview that systematically tries to integrate religion and modernity, if at all this is possible. We have a long way to go.
It would be very relevant to organize a conference on the implications of Darwin for Africa. We have too long ignored the implications of ideas for life. Africa needs to catch up. We need to deeply self-examine the nature of our institutions and ask whether they can take us anywhere given the way they function. There is no scientific evidence to support any group of people are inherently inferior. So this issue is not about some kind of inherent inferiority, it is about organization.
Samuel
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112. (651-638-6023)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin
The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes. A leading official declared yesterday that Darwin's theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith, and could even be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God, said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Vatican also dealt the final blow to speculation that Pope Benedict XVI might be prepared to endorse the theory of Intelligent Design, whose advocates credit a higher power
for the complexities of life.
Organisers of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species said that at first it had even been proposed to ban Intelligent Design from the event, as poor theology and poor science.
Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a cultural phenomenon, rather than a scientific or theological issue, organisers said.
The conference is seen as a landmark in relations between faith and science. Three years ago advocates of Intelligent Design seized on the Pope's reference to an intelligent project as proof that he favoured their views.
Conceding that the Church had been hostile to Darwin because his theory appeared to conflict with the account of creation in Genesis, Archbishop Ravasi argued yesterday that biological evolution and the Christian view of Creation were complementary.
Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said that no scholar could remain indifferent to the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth tomorrow. There was, however, question of celebrating it.
The Vatican would take the measure of an event, which has left its mark for ever on the history of science and has influenced the way we understand our humanity. The time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation of Darwin by the Church, he said.
Professor Leclerc said that too many opponents of Darwin above all Creationists had mistakenly claimed that his theories were totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality, as did proponents of Intelligent Design.
Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, Monsignor Ravasi insisted. His rehabilitation had begun as long ago as 1950, when Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans. In 1996 John Paul II said that it was more than a hypothesis.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, said that Darwin had been anticipated by St Augustine of Hippo. The 4th-century theologian had never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish and that forms of life had been transformed slowly over time. Aquinas had made similar observations in the Middle Ages, he added.
He said it was time that theologians as well as scientists grappled with the mysteries of genetic codes and whether the diversification of life forms is the result of competition or cooperation between species. As for the origins of Man, although we shared 97 per cent of our genetic inheritance with apes, the remaining 3 per cent is what makes us unique, including religion.
I maintain that the idea of evolution has a place in Christian theology, Professor Tanzella-Nitti added.
Creationism remains powerful in the US, however, notably among Protestants, and its followers object to evolution being taught in state schools.
The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his forgotten work in his local parish, to illustrate how science and Church need not be at odds. Several pages celebrate Darwin's significant scientific progress to mark his bicentenary and also the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.
The Church wants to correct the impression that Darwin's relationship with Anglicanism was contentious. The Anglican Church as a whole did not condemn Darwin or his beliefs. It says that although he lost his faith, he did not become antiChurch or antireligious.
In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God, said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Vatican also dealt the final blow to speculation that Pope Benedict XVI might be prepared to endorse the theory of Intelligent Design, whose advocates credit a higher power
for the complexities of life.
Organisers of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species said that at first it had even been proposed to ban Intelligent Design from the event, as poor theology and poor science.
Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a cultural phenomenon, rather than a scientific or theological issue, organisers said.
The conference is seen as a landmark in relations between faith and science. Three years ago advocates of Intelligent Design seized on the Pope's reference to an intelligent project as proof that he favoured their views.
Conceding that the Church had been hostile to Darwin because his theory appeared to conflict with the account of creation in Genesis, Archbishop Ravasi argued yesterday that biological evolution and the Christian view of Creation were complementary.
Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said that no scholar could remain indifferent to the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth tomorrow. There was, however, question of celebrating it.
The Vatican would take the measure of an event, which has left its mark for ever on the history of science and has influenced the way we understand our humanity. The time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation of Darwin by the Church, he said.
Professor Leclerc said that too many opponents of Darwin above all Creationists had mistakenly claimed that his theories were totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality, as did proponents of Intelligent Design.
Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, Monsignor Ravasi insisted. His rehabilitation had begun as long ago as 1950, when Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans. In 1996 John Paul II said that it was more than a hypothesis.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, said that Darwin had been anticipated by St Augustine of Hippo. The 4th-century theologian had never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish and that forms of life had been transformed slowly over time. Aquinas had made similar observations in the Middle Ages, he added.
He said it was time that theologians as well as scientists grappled with the mysteries of genetic codes and whether the diversification of life forms is the result of competition or cooperation between species. As for the origins of Man, although we shared 97 per cent of our genetic inheritance with apes, the remaining 3 per cent is what makes us unique, including religion.
I maintain that the idea of evolution has a place in Christian theology, Professor Tanzella-Nitti added.
Creationism remains powerful in the US, however, notably among Protestants, and its followers object to evolution being taught in state schools.
The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his forgotten work in his local parish, to illustrate how science and Church need not be at odds. Several pages celebrate Darwin's significant scientific progress to mark his bicentenary and also the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.
The Church wants to correct the impression that Darwin's relationship with Anglicanism was contentious. The Anglican Church as a whole did not condemn Darwin or his beliefs. It says that although he lost his faith, he did not become antiChurch or antireligious.
Monday, October 27, 2008
John McCain Equivocates
John McCain, the GOP flag bearer in the 2008 presidential race in USA on climate change:
‘You've said that global warming would be one of three key issues for your presidency. Why do you think the issue is important?
McCain: It's like Tony Blair said: Suppose we're wrong, and there's no such thing as greenhouse-gas emissions, and we adopt green technologies. All we've done is give our kids a better planet. But suppose we're right, and do nothing? Then what kind of a legacy are we handing on to future generations of Americans? I think we ought to frame the debate that way’. Curl from. www.grist.org
Cynic: Someone should tell Blair and McCain that if we are wrong; we would have wasted precious time, money and energy that could be used to develop our educational system and help the less privileged and the developing world on a castle in the air. Our children would laugh at our stupidity.
(Cynics strongly hope we are wrong on climate change for the sake of our children).
And by the way the Americans seem to be depending too much on what the Brits say. It took Brown to figure out way to go on the financial crisis while Bush and his people were busy foot dragging on what to do. McCain is already looking up to the Brits for his environmental policy ideology, should he win the white house. Thank God he is going to lose!
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