Featured on this site are responses from 14 extraordinary individuals from a variety of backgrounds. They are professors, archbishops, Nobel laureates, physicists, and much more. To try to tackle such a question in an apparently limited format (most arguments have been in the 750 word range) is quite a daunting task. But most of the responders have been remarkably thoughtful and thorough given the format. And of course there are a wide range of responses that do not necessarily adhere to the stereotypical chasm normally depicted between science and religion.
If you only want to read a few, I would strongly recommend the essay by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn. I think it is a very intellectually honest response to what could be interpreted as a question attacking his very firmly held beliefs. However, I disagree with his essay's final sentence when he says,
"Consideration of the order and beauty in nature can lead us to a Something, the "god of the philosophers," but consideration of our incompleteness leads us beyond, in search of a Someone who is the Good of us all. Science will never make that quest obsolete."
Instead, I might say, "Consideration of the order and beauty in nature can lead us to a Something, the 'god of the philosophers,' but consideration of our incompleteness leads us beyond, in search of something that is the Good of us all. Science will never make that quest obsolete."
Perhaps God is a someone, but to be intellectually honest one must allow that it is possible that God also may not be a someone.
Overall... thought provoking, smart, and well worth the read.
1 comment:
Some quotes relating to science and religion fed to me by the great Vladi Chaloupka:
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"?
A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot
… as far as I can tell from my own observations, most physicists today are not sufficiently interested in religion even to qualify as practicing atheists.
Weinberg
VC: And I would add: most Christians in America to day are not sufficiently interested in religion to qualify as practicing Christians.
In our last lecture Vladi argued for the adoptation of a science inspired spirituality, and he claims that the problem with traditional religions is not that they are too spiritual, but rather that they are not spiritual enough.
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