That’s the new atheist philosophy, and that’s the crux of the issue. It used to be that those in the scientific community recognized science for what it was, only a part, often a small part, of a complete understanding of the world in which we live. It used to know its limits — it used to know that science had nothing to say about the never ending questions of life, death, love, and meaning. The scientific community used to know that religious traditions of mankind have significant things to say about things that science does not. That was a time when there was no real conflict between religion and science.
Now the scientific community is advanced enough to think that anything other than naturalistic science is nothing but superstition. Other significant things now mean nothing — they must be removed. Now science is in conflict with religion. And it’s religion’s fault, for not bending and shaping itself enough to conform to the latest atheistic proclamations about all of reality.
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What bothers me is that it’s no longer controlled by people who know what its limits should be. It used to be that scientists were reluctant to give offence to religion. Why make trouble, why offend people who largely make the scientists livelihood possible? Today, they’re offended by those very people, the ones who get in their way concerning new abortion techniques, cloning, or many big government mandates that give science more and more political power and money.
I think the real problem is that religion used to control science in the western world, and that control is increasingly slipping away.
The fundamentalism we are seeing this past century seems to have developed as a result of this loss of control.
But the Enlightenment and other events occurred, and there is no going back to rule by religion in the western world (although some might think otherwise).
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.