science and religion (dont worry this isnt evangelizing)

behemoth79

Active member
I was reading Angels and Deamons by Dan Brown and came across a very interesting page or two. lemme know what you all think.

Yes i know... its long.


The ancient war between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens the door for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out of body experiences, mind quests – all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intentions. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species… moving down a path of destruction.
Who is the God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but doesn’t warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will leap past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the normal implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.
And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who can’t define lightning, or the man who doesn’t respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God! You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather live in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we can’t understand, something to which we are accountable… With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see the church as I do… they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Are we obsolete? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way? Tonight we are perched on a precipice. None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality… the dark force is alive and growing everyday. Don’t ignore it. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.
 
Yes I have read this book and to be perfectly honest I thought it was a dodgy premise at best, it is trying to push the theory the science and religion are two competing entities when in reality they are not. There is no real dividing line that says you can believe in science or god but not both or neither.

To me the greatest threat to mankind is not science or religion but mans individual interpretation of both in unequal terms as that leads to extremism.
 
Well the law of averages I guess made it bound to happen, but I completely agree with MontyB on this one.
(Don't have a stroke, Kiwi ;) )
 
behemoth79 said:
Charge 7 said:
behemoth79 said:
Charge 7 said:
(Don't have a stroke, Kiwi ;) )

Am i missing something here?

MontyB and I have often clashed on these forums. If you can get the two of us to agree on anything, it is most likely the truth.

ya but what does kiwi have to do with anything?

The Kiwi is New Zealands national bird (I am not sure why though as it is the most unispiring bird to ever evolve) and next to the silver fern is probably the most identifiable logo of New Zealanders world wide.

It was however a constant source of amusment to the wife, when we first met as she equated the term "kiwi" to a fruit and thats not something New Zealanders appreciate.
:)

Anyhow I am off for further stroke rehabilitation.
8)
 
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