Science
Posts related to scientific discoveries and/or the debate versus science and religion
By: Stady Canton
I've read many an application of religious principles in the last few years, from the bizarre to the beautiful. (Ah, the joys of the bloggernacle!) The Baron wrote an excellent series on science & religion earlier this year, refuting the 'it can only be one or the other' fallacy. I hadn't realized just how deeply some people out there are firm in their position that anything that says the earth is more than 6500 years old is a ploy by Satan to steal our souls and destroy all faith in a Creator. Until a recent e-mail exchange, that is.
Now I believe.
By: The Baron
[Part 10 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9]
As a side note to the general science vs. religion discussion, let’s take another aspect of science and see how it could apply to some religious principles in general, and story in LDS history in particular.
Here’s a simple example to introduce some of the concepts of dimensional theory.
By: The Baron
[Part 9 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8]
In the previous section, we looked at how evolution may be reconcilable with creationism in general. Now let’s look at some specifics regarding the Biblical account of man’s creation: Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden.
By: The Baron
[Part 8 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7]
Before hitting ‘evolution’ proper, we should first define and discuss some additional terms that are relevant to the debate.
(1) “Creation”
What does it mean to be ‘created’, or for something to have a ‘creator’?
By: The Baron
[Part 7 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6]
When identifying the primary points of conflict between science and religion—the areas where most debates seem to start and stop—the top two are almost certainly: (1) evolution and (2) Noah’s flood.
Saving evolution for later, it is remarkable the amount of attention that Noah and his ark receive, only because of how insignificant that story really is from a religious perspective. (The story itself contains nothing directly or even indirectly related to what we would call ‘doctrines of salvation’—if it were removed from the Bible altogether, Christianity as a religion changes hardly a bit…)
By: The Baron
[Part 6 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]
Before we address some specific elements of the science vs religion debate, let’s first identify the idea of ‘reconciliation’.
“Reconciliation” happens when someone is faced with two ideas and/or bodies of data that seem to contradict, despite some amount of evidence that suggests both are true. When this happens, there are a number of possibilities:
By: The Baron
[Part 5 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]
Imagine a university with both math and literature classes. (Okay, maybe that's not that hard to 'imagine'…)
By: The Baron
[Part 4 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]
“Faith” is almost universally considered to be a religious term…and not without reason, as there are 368 sections of scripture throughout the LDS standard works that discuss it.
Often, to a person on the science side of the debate, “faith” is not only a religion term, but a derogatory term at that. “You (a religious believer) depend on ‘faith’“, you might hear, “while we (the science side) rely on fact”.
Is ‘fact’ really the opposite of ‘faith’? Would it surprise anyone to learn exactly how much science depends on those so-called religious pillars of ‘faith’ and ‘testimony’?
By: The Baron
[Part 3 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2]
One of the primary characteristics of working with incomplete ‘explanation-schema’ is that speculation becomes a fundamental part of the process. One takes what one knows, places it within the framework of existing theories, and then makes guesses as to what the rest of the picture might look like. They are usually educated guesses, of course--not random--but speculative guesses nonetheless.
By: The Baron
[Part 2 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective. Previous entries in the series: Part 1]
For the next step in analyzing the relationship between science and religion, let’s look at how the search for truth is accomplished in both. To do this, we need first to define a word that gets thrown around a lot in science vs. religion discussions: “Theory”
By: The Baron
[Part I in a series of articles exploring the ‘conflict’ between science and religion, particularly from a LDS perspective. I do not have a pure scientific background, so this series will not be a deep analysis of scientific evidence in regards to religious beliefs or doctrines—you might try LDS Science Review or Clark’s site for that—but rather an exploration of the concepts of science and religion and how to relate and reconcile them together from a more abstract, philosophical perspective.]
A key question in modern society is how to judge the relationship between science and religion. No one questions that they are different, but are they different in the sense that they fundamentally oppose and conflict with one another, like oil and water? Or perhaps complement each other instead, like peanut butter and chocolate?