[Disciple]

In the old times, science is a work done only my monks who believed in God. However, most scientists today don't believe the existence of a supernatural being. What is the reason why science and God have been separated today?

[freeman]

I think many people think that if science needs to physically prove and explain everything. Though not everything can be explained from a petri dish or even meticulous experiments or discoveries. The more we learn and figure out, the more we realize that we have no idea how this world works. That is why science to me points to God, in my mind there is no way this world could have been an accident.

[JohnQ]

Hasn't the exsistence of God been proven many times before by science too though? I absolutely believe in God and that he gives us brains to help us figure this stuff out to show his awesome power.

[Tensolator]

That is an interesting question, and scientists who do professs Faith are run out of academia in North America. (See No Intelligence Allowed by Ben Stein)

[Rick]

That makes sense. Scientists are some of the most intelligent people in the world but they have no common sense. Leave me out on a tropical island with a scientist and a native and I'd pal up with the native every time. The scientist would starve too death before he analyzed what was in the coconuts we had to eat.

[Georgetown]

Well Disciple, my theory is de-evolution. The more we get away from nature, the more we get away from ourselves. The more we get away from ourselves, the less sense we make to ourselves and the world around us.Thus, we are devolving, not evolving.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Tensolator

That is an interesting question, and scientists who do professs Faith are run out of academia in North America. (See No Intelligence Allowed by Ben Stein)

Einstein, while not professing any certain religion did believe in a Supreme Being. After reading The Lost Symbol, I have looked into Noetics. While not exactly like the book, I think it comes the closest to combining science and religion.

Originally Posted by JohnQ

Hasn't the exsistence of God been proven many times before by science too though? I absolutely believe in God and that he gives us brains to help us figure this stuff out to show his awesome power.

I could never figure out why some people laugh when you say you believe in a higher power, but yet they can believe that all matter, energy and everything else around us was small enough to be the size of less then an atom before the big bang.

The Lost Symbol was a great book....

I always get into the science vs. religion conversation somehow. I respond to the argument with astronomy. The big bang seems to always be the best analogy.


Parallel universes exist. Black holes are proof of that. Matter gets sucked in and explodes out the the other end... (big bang)....

If the big bang created the universe (not god or a supreme being), Then WHAT pray tell created the matter that was compressed to the size of a pin head and exploded in the first place? What created the void(s) we call universe?

Something greater than ourselves.... The architect of the universe... Even the vatican has an observatory, and has declared that astronomy is no longer heresy.... There must be something to that...

[emarsh]

"If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview."

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

[JakeNiehaus]

I'm a student of philosophy studying at a small school here in Indiana. This same question appears numerous times throughout the semester and here is my thought on it.

Before there was biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics, there was philosophy. That's not to say that these weren't areas of interest to the inteligencia of the time, but it was all considered to be under the umbrella of philosophy. Through it's logical reasonings and systems of questioning/doubting, the thinkers of the time were able to use what I'll call 'philosophical inquiry' to come to conclusions in these various fields of study.

Then, there was a split between science and philosophy. I'm purposely being obscure about the time frames right now as I'm not 100% confident as to their exactness. Anyway, that split left two major branches of study: philosophy and natural science. My thought on this is that while philosophy had heretofore dealt with these matters adequately, people started to want more concrete answers to the undertakings of nature, biological process and the like. I think they felt that if they distanced the realm of the "physical" (namely, that study which lends itself to explain the physical phenonema they were questioning) from the realm of the "metaphysical" (which dealt with issues of the soul, ethics, virtues etc...) they would be better off. Which, it makes sense when viewed in the proper light that the issue of whether or not a soul exists is different than explaining why everything falls towards the center of the earth.

Then, numbers were taken out of the realm of the Aristotelian forms and brought into the realm of logical utilities. Now, we have three branches of study: philosophy, natural science and mathematics. All of which began under the umbrella of philosophy.

Fast forward a few years to the enlightenment, or the time of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Hume, Berkeley and Kant. Most of these men were very religious but became deeply disconcerted about making God responsible for everything. While not taking God completely out of the picture, they, more or less, tried to take a load off his shoulders and give explanations to such things as Causation in a more secular voice. Take Descartes for example.

Descartes was educated at the Sorbonne, one of the finest schools of the time and, coincidentally, one of the most strict Theological schools as well. After his education was complete, Descartes began his 'project of doubt.' He was concerned with what we could know that was strongly doubt resistant or completely indubitable. Among his three major things that could not be doubted was the existence of A God. He never specifies that it's a Christian God. Some people who are unable to read his works (namely, The Meditations) without taking their biased blindfolds off simply take this fact for granted. Descartes God is neither New Testament nor Old. He/She is not from the Koran or the Dhammapada, it is simply a beneficent, omniscient and omnipotent BEING who contains infinitely everything we contain finitely. Descartes also relies on God to be the gaurantor of the external world. Since he is a BOO (beneficent, omniscient, omnipotent) God, he would not fool us, according to Descartes, and make us believe there was a world external to us. This is a testament that at the advent of modern science, God still played an important part in explaining the world. While he may not be the reason everything gravitates to the center of the earth, he is the cause of everything that does so.

The point I'm trying to get at with my discussion of Descartes is that when science and religion really began to branch off from each other, it was more of a separation of one thing into two. Just as natural science and mathematics stemmed from philosophy, science and religion branched off for much the same reasons. They were two independent fields of study/inquiry and it was during the Enlightenment period that this point was really driven home.

I don't completely agree with the strict secularization of the sciences that we are presented with today. However, I do feel there needs to be a dividing line between the two. There are countless innovations and technologies that would have never been discovered if science was contained strictly in the theological realm.