Religious Scientists

So I'm attending college in the Bible belt, and though the school has no religious affiliations it has a "religious tradition", and this is reflected by such things as Religion 101 being a requirement for graduation, and a fairly active Christian community on campus. Okay, I say to myself, this is fine so long as you stay in your own spiritual world and don't butt into my rational one. So far, I've had no issues, but a recent incident kind of surprised me.

Most of the biology and physics students are either syncretists (God created the universe, but evolution was his tool), or, like me, denialists (there is no God and the universe just Is without a Creator). I can tolerate syncretists, and I can tolerate people who deny science, because frankly both arguments make some kind of sense*. But what I do not understand are those who try to be both religious and scientists at once, with no compromise like the syncretists do. Which brings me to the incident.

The other day in astronomy we had a discussion about how the Moon was formed. I argued for the impact theory, which states that the Moon formed from the debris of an enormous impact between Earth and a Mars-sized planet. One girl simply said she didn't like that theory. When I pressed her on it, asking if she instead felt that the accretion disk theory was the correct one, her answer was no - because she knows that God created the Moon.

I was taken aback! Here was a bright student who was willing to ignore science when it disagreed with her faith. I just don't get it - how can you only accept part of the science, and not go all in? Can anyone explain why this person's head doesn't explode from the paradoxes it must deal with on a daily basis?

I guess I just do not understand how someone can dedicate their life to science, and not come out of the experienced changed. Like I said, I get syncretists, because they are trying to come up with a compromise between the two sides, but to try and say that both sides are both completely true at the same time just seems insane.

Well, that's just how I feel about it, maybe someone else can make some sense out of the apparent oxymoron for me?

• At least, to the person making the argument. I'm convinced that the denialists are cutting themselves off from the true beauty of the universe, but hey, from their point of view I'm doing the same thing.

edited 14th Oct '11 11:46:01 AM by MyGodItsFullofStars

I need more information about the girl. What makes you think she has dedicated her life to science? Otherwise, she's just a normal human being- it's not that she holds equally strong opinions about science and religion that contradict each other, it's that she has strong opinions that are based on her religious beliefs, and doesn't care what science says about it. In other words, scientific arguments carry so little weight to her that she doesn't regard it as worth her effort to address them.

edited 14th Oct '11 11:50:45 AM by DeMarquis

There's a slippery slope for religious people when they notice the contradictions between what they consider true. To acknowledge that the genesis account for the moon is wrong means that the bible is not a perfect document. And that leads into the question of why trust it at all, and if you don't trust the bible why God, and yadda yadda yadda. It's easier to just declare science, and art by flawed humans, to be wrong on this particular facet of info. Repeat for any other inconsistencies.

At least that's how it was in my experience when I was religious. It was never verbalized in those words, but cognitive dissonance is painful.

I find that quite a lot. There's plenty of people I know trying to go for the medical field, are extremely bright, know biology stuff in and out and then when you press them on evolution they say they don't believe in it. But they can answer every single question on it correctly, point out all the evidence and such and just totally disregard it out of cultural reasons. Then again, it's not like they ever not use the science they were taught to make their scientific decisions, so it really makes no sense to me.

Anyone willing to take the time to plug their way through what I like to call the Big 3 (modern physics, electromagnetism, and statics) has already invested a huge amount of their being into the sciences. Most of the pretenders are out by the time they hit polar coordinates in calculus, so I know full well that she is serious about a career in physics based on the fact that she hasn't bowed out at this point. Not to mention she's already got a graduate school lined up after graduation, and has been asked to give presentations at conferences. So she is smart, and she is dedicated, but she is also willing to ignore everything science tells us about the creation of the planets because it does not sync up with her faith. I mean, her specialty is even astronomy! Isn't refusing to acknowledge that the Moon might have formed through a physical instead of a supernatural process not unlike saying that the Catholic Church was right about persecuting Galileo, the father of the very science she is going into?

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, but many people seem to be bad at internalizing and rationalizing the compromises necessary to look at religious documents, Christian or otherwise, with a scientific mind.

So they simply withdraw and ignore, instead. Classic psychological response.

~shrug~

Nothing to be done about it, really.

"Nobody is as blind as he who will not see."

It's frightening to think about though.

edited 14th Oct '11 1:39:01 PM by mailedbypostman

http://lesswrong.com/lw/gv/outside_the_laboratory/

@OP: The same way people ignore certain aspects of religion that they don't agree with.

Here's an idea: Instead of asking a bunch of strangers on the internet who don't know her at all to guess how this girl thinks and why she believes what she does, why don't you ask her?

Note: Only do this if you are willing to both listen and think about what she says in response. Otherwise it will be a waste of both your times.

Then one can only presume that she is outwardly conforming to something she believes to be a lie, in order to get the degree and qualfy for the career she wants

But... but...

That would make far too much sense! How could we consider such an outlandish idea?!

Talking with people moved by faith is pointless.

^ I'm sure it is, if that's your attitude when talking to them.

That become my attitude after talking with them.

I'm sorry to hear you've had such unfortunate experiences.

Or maybe it's not wrong, it's poetic.

When unbelievers talk like this, it makes them sound very Protestant. St. Augustine didn't need The Bible to be true to believe in God, and when he did accept it as Divine truth he didn't need Genesis to be an astronomy text.

You know, wifes that are beaten by their husbands often made up excuses for them.

Well purple monkey dishwasher to you too. Or do you want to unpack your thought process behind that so it's not a non sequitor?

... could be extending the metaphor of the Church as the bride of God?

Maybe they believe in God because God exists. Ever think of that? /troll

Seriously, science doesn't work well with fundamentalism, but it can easily coexist with deism. From there, it's not too much of a jump to believe that something's manipulating the world, even if it's not necessarily omnipotent.

@ Rottweiler: No, green monkey dishwasher, dammit!

Stop the Monkey Dishwater racism!

I would dispute the use of the term "syncretists" for people who are Christians, but who do not think that the theory of Evolution is incompatible with the account of Genesis.

The idea that the Bible is literally inerrant is relatively recent, and, at least in my opinion, really quite untenable: as Rottweiler said, St. Augustine rejected it explicitly, and so did most of the tradition of the Church.

Nowadays, most Christians denominations have no problem whatsoever with the theory of evolution: the Catholic Church is of course perfectly fine with it, but so is the Anglican Church, the United Methodist Church, the Orthodox Church (I think, although I heard that there is some debate) and many others.

Really, the idea that the account of Genesis is factually correct strikes me as extremely quaint. I wonder why some American denominations seem to be so fixated on it.

On a different note, since the topic is about religious scientists I really have to mention Albertus Magnus — the patron saint of scientists, as well as an all-around logician/theologian/geographer/mineralogist/botanist/astronomer/astrologer/chemist/zoologist/physician/alchemist/magician/I probably forgot something.

The dude makes Leonardo da Vinci look like a preschooler, and the fact that he was the main teacher of Thomas Aquinas speaks for itself (as does the fact that he was referenced in Discworld, as the founder of the Unseen Academy).

edited 15th Oct '11 8:22:18 AM by Carciofus

First of all, you should be careful when you say "religious scientists", because the term has been seized by something totally different from what you would expect.

Religious Science

It is pretty impossible to look at the Bible entirely literally due to the existence of parables, symbols and metaphors. But it's a slippery slope to say that we should give up on literal interpretations altogether. It's also important to recognize that the biblical account is meant to be understandable by humans, because it was written to be useful to people. Therefore, while it's permissible that what's written in the Bible can paint a picture, it can't be an irrelevant picture that is totally out of place with the actuality. Scientists who believe in God state that scientific discoveries are therefore human discoveries of God's work in explicit details - a confirmation process. It's only logical once you believe in God that what you find matches God's account.

edited 15th Oct '11 8:39:01 AM by abstractematics