Article: Religion and Science

Long time lurker itching to join in but never saw a gap in the discussion.Having read through these posts and seen the battering that Brian received from many posters re his position on faith-based education I saw that gap.The first point I would like to make is one of culture. Brian and me are British and do not seem to have this inbuilt distrust of Government and it's role in the lives of the people. To many Americans the very thought of a Government micro-managing their affairs is an affront to their freedom. Whereas in the UK there is public uproar if the individual is let down by the Govt. Be it transport, health, education, water, communication, pensions, trade, farming, industry, whatever (I could go on). The Govt. has established independent watchdogs for (nearly) all these and even renationalised (to a point) the railway infrastructure when the free market approach was failing it. So my point is that to Brian the curriculum and the way it is taught is very much down to Goverment provenance. I would say that the gap between our approaches (US and British) and attitudes pretty much rules out any agreement on that one.Another point is aimed at Faith. "Utopian micro-management" was a phrase in one of the posts. Used as a term of derision. Well the phrase itself makes little sense as Utopia by definition would not require micro-management. But mainly due to the origins of Utopia. It was thought up by Thomas More, a chap who considered a religious calling in his early years and used his book to describe a perfect republic, requiring few laws and no lawyers (a cause we all surely must approve of). There may be a few qualms when considering the possible influence the book had on Karl Marx but I have read here and there from more than a few Christians that Jesus was the first communist (note small 'c').As to the topic at hand (at last!) conflict between Religion and Science will always occur and education (especially below University age) will be one of the battlegrounds. No matter how it is dressed up faith based learning should not be the order of the day. As well as being a contradiction in terms (faith - learning !), it obstructs the real value of education. The valuable exchange of ideas to describe, explain and model the world we live in. Unfortunately exchange of ideas is not part of religion. Religion is prescriptive, hence the theological game of apologetics. Science on the other hand is adaptive hence peer-reviewed journals, double-blind testing and the scientific method.Sorry for the long first post but I had a lot building up in there.

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Apophenia:seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
Pareidolia:vague or random stimulus being perceived (mistakenly) as recognisable.Ramsey Theoryatterns may exist.Whoops!