Faith in Religion

[lemit]

What happened to faith-based religion?

 

If you have faith, why do you nead Creation Science? Aren't faith and its informing beliefs much better than a human-designed system based on scientific observation?

 

When I was 12 and trying to decide if I was going to be a minister, I started reading books on religion. They led me to books on philosophy, which led to sociology, psychology, and political science as ways of getting things done in the world. Of course, in the meantime, I had discovered I could write, so I started creating things other people would have to read.

 

I noticed something in my reading, something I hadn't found the words for it until now, that science was not included in the study of theology, any more than theology was included in the study of science.

 

Faith is the basis of Western religion. Has that religion lost its faith? Or is it now placing its faith in a substitute for science--attempting to replace a discipline so different as to pose no threat to faith in God?

 

--lemit

[Buffy]

What happened to faith-based religion?

 

If you have faith, why do you nead Creation Science?

Oh it depends on whether you're talking about "religion the belief system" or "religion the institution."

 

Unfortunately while the former can be found if you spend enough time on a street corner interviewing people, the latter is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

 

With institutions, power has become more important than doing good works, proselytizing, and supporting the community.

 

Those obsessed with power are--almost by definition--paranoid and see enemies everywhere. Because they see inconsistency between science and their increasingly absolutist dogma--absolutist because it is necessary to build walls around the belief system against outsiders--must be fought against irrespective of logic or even long-term credibility.

 

Sad really. Especially for those followers who in their genuine faith end up following power-hungry people who care about nothing except the number of their flock and their visibility in the media and their power over political structures.

 

Woe to those who can't see the power of irrational logic, :wub:

Buffy

[lemit]

Oh it depends on whether you're talking about "religion the belief system" or "religion the institution."

 

Unfortunately while the former can be found if you spend enough time on a street corner interviewing people, the latter is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

 

With institutions, power has become more important than doing good works, proselytizing, and supporting the community.

 

Those obsessed with power are--almost by definition--paranoid and see enemies everywhere. Because they see inconsistency between science and their increasingly absolutist dogma--absolutist because it is necessary to build walls around the belief system against outsiders--must be fought against irrespective of logic or even long-term credibility.

 

Sad really. Especially for those followers who in their genuine faith end up following power-hungry people who care about nothing except the number of their flock and their visibility in the media and their power over political structures.

 

Woe to those who can't see the power of irrational logic, :wub:

Buffy

 

The institution.

 

The institution is what forces itself into a confrontation with science or anything that threatens its survival. The belief system gets lost somewhere. It was partly that gap between the belief and the institution that led me away from religion.

 

I used to describe the religious experience as something so personal that it is almost akin to an embarrassing bodily function. The idea of creating a whole institution based on a historical figure's bodily function is ludicrous. But that essentially is what organized religion is: second-hand accounts of a set of embarrassingly personal experiences.

 

But maybe that's where faith should come in. Not in the past experience, as Emerson pointed out in "On Nature," but in our own ability to form something out of our own experience that is our own individual credo, our own reason to be on earth. That is the kind of faith I wonder about--faith in ourselves and in that something outside ourselves that is also inside ourselves.

 

Oh, crap. I'm trying to describe the religious experience, which can't be done, no matter how many books have been written trying to do just that. Now, can anybody tell me what that deeply personal experience--which I can't really describe but which informs faith--has to do with scientific method?

 

Thanks.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. To be fair, the Methodist Church I grew up in didn't have any problems with science. I don't know about now. I oscillated between thinking myself unworthy of the Church and thinking the Church unworthy of me so many times that I finally became dizzy and decided to turn elsewhere.

[Qfwfq]

Now, can anybody tell me what that deeply personal experience--which I can't really describe but which informs faith--has to do with scientific method?

Absolutely nothing. The SM simply doesn't apply to it

 

To be fair, the Methodist Church I grew up in didn't have any problems with science. I don't know about now.

I'm glad to hear that. :P Neither does the Catholic Church.

 

One of my old physics friends did her Ph. D. at the SMU in Texas, she was there till fairly recently. I can assure you it was hard core theoretical physics. She is also quite convniced that Earth orbits the sun and these move around too; she even believes in Darwinism, the naughty little girl. She is also one of the hardest atheists I know, but I guess the SMU patrons only have an issue with course topics and the content of research, not with the personal religious views of staff.

[mhatch]

What does faith have to do with the scientific method?

 

The scientific method had it's origins in faith. Men of faith (Galileo, Kepler, Newton, others), were pursuing a greater understanding of this amazing universe - and a greater understanding of the God that made it. More deeply, wherever there is unknown, man is inclined to proclaim God is there. He therefore pursues the unknown, trying to understand it (and God) and comes to greater knowledge. He can no longer proclaim God as the explanation, but finds new unknowns to pursue more deeply. Christian faith has in it's roots the biblical passages that call to 'Test everything, hold on to the good' (1 Thess. 5:21). The repeated application of questions, research, hypothesis, testing, conclusions comes from this pursuit of knowing, from the pursuit of faith questions.

 

Sidebar: I think the dearth of students in the sciences today comes from the fact we have taken faith out of scientific pursuit. Belief and faith in (and pursuit of) the unknown is where the excitement comes from!

 

What do you think?

 

-Mike

[maikeru]

What does faith have to do with the scientific method?

 

The scientific method had it's origins in faith. Men of faith (Galileo, Kepler, Newton, others), were pursuing a greater understanding of this amazing universe - and a greater understanding of the God that made it. More deeply, wherever there is unknown, man is inclined to proclaim God is there. He therefore pursues the unknown, trying to understand it (and God) and comes to greater knowledge. He can no longer proclaim God as the explanation, but finds new unknowns to pursue more deeply. Christian faith has in it's roots the biblical passages that call to 'Test everything, hold on to the good' (1 Thess. 5:21). The repeated application of questions, research, hypothesis, testing, conclusions comes from this pursuit of knowing, from the pursuit of faith questions.

 

Sidebar: I think the dearth of students in the sciences today comes from the fact we have taken faith out of scientific pursuit. Belief and faith in (and pursuit of) the unknown is where the excitement comes from!

 

What do you think?

 

-Mike

 

The origins of the scientific method go back before "men of faith" and include the contributions of nonbelievers, pagans, and atheists, as one might call them. In short, many people of diverse backgrounds have contributed to it over the ages. Faith is not one of the attributes they had in common. Faith or lack of faith has little to do with it.

 

History of scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

:)

[HydrogenBond]

Faith is the belief in things not seen or proven. Before we run the scientific method, we need to have some faith in the possible result we hope to achieve, even before we can see it or prove it. One would not go into the task, with as much effort and enthusiasm, without the hope of achieving something. The scientific method may not always work out as we hope, but it may lead to faith in another possible conclusion, firing us up for another round of scientific method.

 

Those without faith are not the pioneers of thought, but the squatters of thought. They come in only after it can be seen or proven. They are not very comfortable exploring in the wilderness, since it might dirty their clean shoes. Not all faith works out as we hope, so it is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

 

If you have faith in God, which humans may never be able to objectively see or scientifically prove, it creates an extreme state of mind, where anything is possible, even with the least amount of visual evidence and proof. Many of the great thinkers of the past, were able to step outside their times, creating things from scratch, where there was previously nothing to see or prove. They had deep faith in something that didn't even exist, along with the hope it could be proven.

 

Without faith of some kind, one can only become a squatter of thought. If we have a little faith, one can leave the well trimmed backyard and explore the adjacent woods of thought. Faith does not always work out as we hope, so one has to be prepared to get a little dirty. But it all comes out in the wash. If you have a lot of faith, one can leave the adjacent woods and explore the wilderness, where squatter never dare go, until it is clean and developed. Squatter don't have a pair of faith hiking shoes and prefer to stay where the lawn is trim.

 

The atheist push to remove faith is a push to keep the mind penned in the backyard where the lawn is trimmed for the squatters. The more faith and hope one has this state of mind carries even into science. But we also need to test this faith and not be afraid to get dirty.

[mhatch]

The origins of the scientific method go back before "men of faith" and include the contributions of nonbelievers, pagans, and atheists, as one might call them. In short, many people of diverse backgrounds have contributed to it over the ages. Faith is not one of the attributes they had in common. Faith or lack of faith has little to do with it.

 

History of scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

:)

 

I certainly would not want to discount the contributions of great cultures and peoples such as the ancient Middle East (Mathematics) or Greeks (Philosophy), but the majority of the SM that is practiced in the western world descends from foundations laid by such as those previously mentioned (and who are referenced in the wiki article). For deeper discussion on this topic I reference:

 

Thomas F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965); Thomas F. Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology (Edinburgh, UK: Scottish Academic Press, 1985); Thomas F. Torrance, “Ultimate and Penultimate Beliefs in Science,” in Facts of Faith & Science, vol. 1, Historiography and Modes of Interaction, ed. Jitse M. van der Meer (New York: University Press of America, 1996), 151–176.