Einstein’s God: Can We Reconcile Science and Religion?

The difference is that religion gives us belief, and science gives us knowledge. No religious text has ever triggered the discovery of an important biological, geological, medical, electronic, agricultural, astronomical, or technological advancement. In fact, what religion has historically inspired is the violent opposition to such advancements as being “against the will of God”. Whenever someone comes out with some bent-over-backwards interpretation of religion seems to predict scientific findings, notice that it only arises after the science is done.

“Oh, the ancient Hindus had a belief that life is far older than most religions say! And now we know the universe is billions of years old!” Please. If the Bible had instructions for cultivating pencillin or the Koran had blueprints for the internal combustion engine, then maybe I’d consider the idea that science and religion are equally valid and unopposed to one another.

She calls them [science & religion] both “pursuits of cohesive knowledge and underlying truths”

I actually don’t mind this kind of characterization very much. I have no problem accepting it as technically accurate. However, it’s slightly underhanded, since it neglects the fact that only one of these pursuits actually works at building cohesive knowledge and uncovering truth.

Similarly,

“scientists and theologians are asking the same questions of and feeling the same wonder at the world they inhabit, without conflict, and with great humility and respect for the truth.”

Again, technically true. I have no quarrel here (ok, except maybe the “great humility” and “respect for the truth”). Both groups ask questions, and only one group bothers to get answers.

Science and religion are perfectly compatible as long as believers realize that the “truths” of their religion have no capacity to invalidate the facts revealed through science.

This viewpoint is actually one that several religions have, contrary to popular belief. Roman Catholicism and Baha’i come to mind. Yes, I know a lot about all the issues that the Catholic church has had, and still has, with science – I have a second row view of it (both my parents are practicing Catholics). However, the Catholic church does integrate science into SOME of its beliefs – for instance, it states that evolution is God’s way of creating the universe. It takes a VERY long time for the Catholic church to do this, but it does do it eventually.

The Baha’i faith states specifically that “If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science, they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition.”

The problem, in my view, is not IF science and god can be reconciled, but SHOWING that they can be, to those that will always refuse to believe it.

I just won a copy of this book…I plan on going through it and annotating every little piece of intellectual tomfoolery and BS I come across, then gifting the book to someone who needs a good dose of reality.

It sounds like a puff-piece.

Religion for the masses,
reason for th’ elite.
I don’t see any reason
the twain should ever meet.

Advocates of religion and science both want to know the truth. The difference is in the methodologies.

Religion recognizes revelation (God telling people things) as a sufficient methodology in itself. Science remains silent on the inspiration of ideas themselves. Science comes into play with the testing of ideas usually through physical experiment. The best religion can do is to see if new revelations are consistent with previously accepted revelations.

Problems can develop when one tries to reconcile a body of untested but otherwise internally consistent ideas with a body of tested and internally consistent ideas. Religion vs. Science.

Interestingly, problems can also develop when one tries to reconcile one body of untested and internally consistent ideas with another body of untested and internally consistent ideas. ReligionA vs ReligionB.

I don’t think it even makes sense to compare science and religion.
Religions are a set of conclusions, assumed to be correct. Any new information showing those conclusions to be incorrect is rejected, sometimes violently.
Science assumes nothing. Science is a method. We can’t even prove it’s the best method. It’s simply the only method with a genuinely good track record.
Any knowledge gained through the scientific method is tentative. If new information contradicts what most scientists believe, then the scientists absolutely must change what they believe to be true. There are no eternal truths in science.
Religious people don’t understand the distinction, often pointing out that a mistake by a scientists disproves science. No it doesn’t. It’s another scientist who discovers the mistake, not a priest. They’ll never get it.

While we’re at it lets also reconcile known historical facts with mythology. Sure proven historical facts say the vikings where just mundane pillagers, but if these people can reconcile ancient middle eastern legends with modern scientific facts I see no reason we can’t reconcile the tales of Thor fighting giant serpents with the historical facts of vikings existing.

Sure one is a proven fact backed up by countless scientific studies and tests while the other is primitive superstition that has never provided one shred of evidence except for a handful of believers citing each other, but if the accomodationists can reconcile science and religion I see no reason we can’t reconcile history and mythology.

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. We’ve come to imagine him as a godless naturalist and to see the publication of his book as a dramatic moment in history, one that has created an instantaneous rift between science and religion.

Really? Who actually thinks of Darwin this way? Not supporters of evolution, that’s for sure. This is not a good start and doesn’t really make me want to read more.

It doesn’t offend me that people put religion and science at the same “level”, it disappoints me. Sure science and religion are all trying to find the answers. But science works and religion doesn’t.

The problem is that science and religion do not, or at least should not, answer the same questions. If they go after the same questions (necessarily in the area of objective reality since that’s all that science addresses), science wins hands down since it has better tools for examining reality. If religion wants to have a place, it should concede that it has nothing to tell us about reality and stick to nonobjective issues. (This is not to insult religion; there are many nonobjective questions worth answering and doing so from within a religious framework is probably just as good as from any other framework.)

Jeff P: Religion recognizes revelation (God telling people things) as a sufficient methodology in itself.

Not necessarily. Considering all of the interpretations that people do of the Bible, it seems that some principle of inference, probably modus ponens, is also used. Also, since different people read the same text and reach different conclusions, we have to conclude that either 1) the system is not internally consistent, 2) the system has multiple consistent models, or 3) the people are illogical. (I favor a combination of 1 and 3.)

I think that this is a clash between two types of human nervous systems. There are people who favor their ears as the main way they learn about the world, and there are people who favor their eyes.

The auditory people sit in rooms listening to someone tell them about the world outside. That person learned what he’s saying by sitting in a similar room, listening to a similar person, and on, back into the past, and none of them ever went outside. Indeed, going outside is frowned upon, and staying inside to listen is considered a virtue.

The visual people get bored sitting there and wander outside, actually looking at the world around them, and they immediately notice that what they see doesn’t match what they have heard.

Some of them get uncomfortable and run back inside, trying to forget what they saw. Many of those will be in a crisis for a long time. So they read books about how what they have seen and what they were told are somehow not in conflict. That reconciliation only works as long as they neither listen too closely nor look too closely.

The rest of the lookers accept that their own eyes are more reliable than the stories told by those who never looked, and they look closer and closer. They become fascinated and invigorated by their accelerating discoveries, completely losing interest in the tales told them in their childhood.

Books like this are for wooly thinkers who don’t want to listen or look very carefully.

Science may be compatible with religion (as a concept), but that doesn’t mean it’s compatible with any and all religions. The scientific method is severely opposed to rigorous, unalterable dogma, and any religion that relies heavily on this is will inevitably find itself in conflict.

Fundamentalist or dogmatic religionists will continually find conflict with science because both fields make conflicting claims about the nature of the world. On the other hand, many types of liberal or casual religionists are often perfectly compatible with science because much of their interpretation of holy text is of metaphors instead of literal, unalterable truth.

I find this type of argument rather disingenuous. It’s a literal refutation of a oversimplification. No one doubts that there are those who are religious and scientific at the same time. Likewise, there are plenty of religious beliefs that have little or no impact on the furthering of scientific knowledge. However, there are huge conflicts with being a young earth creationist and practising the science of biology, anthropology, or geology, just to name a few.

God as a metaphor for the universe or existence is nebulous enough that it can be compatible with nearly anything. God as a grumpy bearded old man, sitting on a cloud, deeply concerned with how you utilize your sex organs, who will punish you severely for not following his often arbitrary rules, is fundamentally incompatible with a large number of things. Unfortunately, popular forms of religion tends to have less in common with the former, and more in common with the latter, which inevitably leads to people saying that religion and science are incompatible.

It seems that the religious people want to make Darwin the leader of what they see as the “atheist religion.” Making him look like he was religious would presumably discredit us… Clearly, they don’t get it.

I just finished reading The Greatest Show on Earth, and Dawkins addresses that same quote from on The Origin of species, but mentions that “by the creator” was not in the first edition. It was added later to appease religious leaders.

I like Richard’s analogy. Very apt.

It’s two entirely different ways of looking at life. Realistically or through — well, I was going to say rose-colored glasses but considering any religion’s precepts of what happens if you fall short in proper obedience and discipline maybe shit-colored glasses is more apt.

And Richard put it well. One gets too curious about the world and examines it, looks at what they can find in it. Others are too afraid to do this.

This may explain why I spent my whole childhood with my mother screeching in alarm, “Curiosity killed the cat!” Big mistake. All it did was give my cat-loving ass nightmares — and make me want to poke around in the world all the more to protect our kitties from any possible danger.

And, yet, science goes way over my head. Go figure.

Oh, and no, I don’t think they can co-exist, in the end. The more science progresses; the more religion dies. I think it dies a little bit with each new scientific discovery.

I find something completely disingenuous about this whole debate over whether science and religion are compatible or incompatible, and that is due to the fact that while it has been clearly established for several hundred years; since the Scientific Revolution, what science is, the same can’t be said for religion.

We know that science is essentially the practice of making observations and performing experiments all with the intention of acquiring knowledge and understanding of how the natural world works, but we don’t know what religion is. No one has managed to provide a working definition that can adequately account for what we regard as religion, and which has been agreed upon as providing a robust explanation. To use scientific vernacular, there is no agreed upon and established theory of religion.

You can not determine whether science and religion are in conflict or not until you have formally identified what each of them is. But if you rely on this notion that religion is belief or dogma, you are in fact falling under the influence of a perspective that was not shaped by evidence but rather by the Protestant Reformation. And that definition can be accounted for by the efforts of people like Martin Luther who argued in favour of shifting Christianity more towards scripture and away from the Church of Rome.

This is where science has an advantage, academically at least. We know what science is, but we don’t know what religion is.

Putting aside that issue, there is no evidence of a conflict between science and religion. For example, you can’t interpret what happened to Galileo as being related to what is going on with evolution; one is an example of the Church’s authority being challenged, while the other was a shakeup of scriptural interpretation. There is nothing to indicate that they are related in any way.

I’m surprised you didn’t point out that the basic premise of the book is utterly false, Einstein was not a deist.

Science and religion are epistemologically incompatible. As others have said in different words, they approach knowledge in different (and incompatible) ways.

They are not a priori ontologically incompatible. Science could have found evidence for a god. But it didn’t, and therefore they are a posteriori ontologically incompatible.

The whole reason for the conflict though is (and I believe PZ Myers pointed this out on his blog some time ago) that religion is intruding on science by attempting to directly compete with it on scientific territory. Creationism is an attempt to recast Genesis as a science journal rather than merely a creation myth of bronze age tribes because religious leaders need to pretend that religion has as much authority as science. This is an act of desperation that reveals just how little power religion has in the modern world. If religion were truly relevant, these leaders would be happy playing the role of moral and spiritual guide and would leave measurable reality to the people who do it best, the scientists.

There exists no greater method of understanding the universe than science and no greater accumulated knowledge (revised frequently as evidence is uncovered) than that provided by scientists seeking to uncover the truth of the universe’s mysteries. Scientists are experts in their field and many are humble about their knowledge and wary of speaking out on areas that do not concern their field of expertise unless something is preventing them from working. They are respected as experts only so long as they produce up to date research and improve our body of understanding. Nothing is assumed or granted by default.

Religion does nothing to further our understanding of the universe, has no store of knowledge, no method of revision in the face of new or contradictory evidence and, in fact, has actively worked to limit understanding and knowledge for thousands of years. There is no greater limiter of understanding than that offered by blind faith and the assumption of foreknowledge. Religious leaders are authorities who seek to impose their view on all people from all walks of life without regard for their own abilities or expertise. They assume authority and demand respect without earning it.

The two are as compatible only insofar as religion is allowed by adherents to conform to science.

Let’s say Darwin repented from his theory and became a born-again christian, young-earth creationist and all that creepy stuff you have over there in America.

Let’s say he wrote another book after the Origin, saying -in summary- “I’ve seen the Light, everything in the Origin is Satan’s work.”

So?

We don’t use darwinian evolution because we like Darwin or because he told us so. We use it because it works. Darwin gave plenty of evidence supporting natural selection (everything in his books is like one idea followed by a hundred examples supporting it) and we make experiments that supports it as well.

Now, where is the evidence and the experiments for goddidit. Please tell me. At this point, all they have to offer is old, tired, perfectly- explainable-by-evolution fine-tuning.

Newton actually wrote some wacky stuff about prophecies and alchemy. That didn’t quite work out so we only know about it for historical reasons, but we don’t use those ideas in science because they just don’t work- even when they’ve been written by Newton.

In short: we do what works. Now show me how goddidit works.

Science can be viewed as a methodology to settle differences of opinion verifiable by a third party where the natural world provides the judgment. You can design an experiment that can be duplicated by others where nature itself runs its course in the experiment and provides results for all parties to see. Everybody sees the experiment from the third party perspective.

Religion is all first person. First person “subjective” experience can only be communicated to others as narratives. The narratives cannot be experienced or verified by other people. One must simply accept or believe the narrative based on the authority of the person who experienced it. This is what religious people do with the bible. They simply accept and believe the written narratives of people from long ago.

Religion has been very guilty throughout human history of making stuff up. Either all religions are made up or all religions but one are made up. It is certain, though, that at least all religions but one are made up. It is also hard to find agreement even within a single religion. One could say that at least all interpretations but one are wrong even in a single religion.

Science is an effort by mankind to provide a means of enquiry that tries to eliminate all the negatives associated with the first person narrative.

It’s hard to communicate b/c of the limitations of language and assumptions and comment length, but I belive that religions point to certain spiritual and moral “truths” that can be observed and tested.

I think it’s sad when a person has to put the word truths in scare quotes. It means they’re not really talking about truth any more. Perhaps you should expand your vocabulary a bit. Maybe you could talk about moral values rather than moral truths. And instead of spiritual, which is ambiguous, you could try using the word emotional.

That speaking of faith thing really annoys me. I think it’s the wooly-headed faux-thoughtful tone of voice from Tippett.

Her whole approach seems to be that there’s no idea, no thought, no point of view within religion that could be wrong or mistaken or unmeaningful. Except the contrary view, that religion is frequently if not mostly wrong, or often harmful, very likely mistaken and in my view actually actively impeding the search for meaning. I don’t think THAT point of view *would* be welcome on her show.

For an example of the wooly-headedness, look at this quote from her book:

He used the biblically evocative analogy of a “tree of life” to illustrate his theory of species sprouting as branches from the same trunk, some flourishing and others withering and falling to nourish the ground in which the whole is sustained.

The fact that Darwin illustrated a “tree of life” is somehow an argument for the role of religion in guiding his science because… wait for it… there was a famous tree in the Bible??!

But life makes trees. Evolution makes trees. Trees were around for millions of years before the Bible.

The analogy of all of life being like a tree isn’t so much an analogy as a resemblance. There’s a reason why a tree with a branching structure is like life with a branching structure, or like a river with a branching structure, or like our circulatory system with a branching structure: It is a fundamental shape of self-propagating systems.

Darwin used the “tree of life” not because of a biblical reference, but because when you draw a family tree, it’s *just that shape*.

You might as well make the case that “Darwin wrote his book on paper, and the BIBLE is a book written on paper! He must have been inspired while reading his Bible to do all his famous science and write it on paper!”

The wooly-headedness is nothing but religion’s familiar desire to look upon the good discoveries, inventions and insights of others and claim them all as their own.

I’ll hasten to add… the lack of evidence, foggy evidence and fuzzy connection of this example is exemplar of the usual religious apologist’s disdain for rigorous arguments.

But that’s what you get when your whole schtick is “there’s no idea in religion that’s completely wrong.” If you want to believe it, and it makes you feel warm inside, then there’s probably a really really deep truth in there that’s just impossible to articulate distinctly. Let’s meditate on that, shall we?

@Reginald Selkirk

I suppose that that is what I’m trying to do- expand my vocab, as well as the conversation.

The reason I used quotes around ‘truth’ is b/c I was trying to acknowledge that others may have a different word for or view of what I’m trying to describe.

I’m trying to describe something that is not a value.

The nonviolent peace movements, and individual efforts to love someone who is hurting you, work b/c they evoke something in the oppressor- a sense of shame, and at the same time, reach out to that oppressor in love. The ultimate goal is that both sides learn to see each other as equals, as people, not dehumanized Its.

I acknowlege that it does not work every single time, but the probability factor is high.

The transformation from oppressor/oppressed to friend through the method of loving the oppressor has worked time and again.

Do x, y, z and you will have predictable results.

I call that a truth b/c it is describing a replicable scenario.

Maybe that is not the right word. But it is a Something.

As I see it, its not a value (like, red is the best color and i value all things red… they are soo much better than blues) but a description of something that is there.

Thoughts?

“The transformation from oppressor/oppressed to friend through the method of loving the oppressor has worked time and again.”

No, it has succeeded in some rare instances. More often it has failed. Ask any battered wife.

I find it amusing in a real dark humor kind of way that you use Ghandi and King as examples of loving your enemy working. While both men did a great deal of good, hello, they were both assasinated. No, it didn’t work yet again.

adding to what @muggle has said…

Not only Gandhi and King, but Jesus himself was assasinated too.

I mean, according to the myth.

ckitching

I’m afraid, you’re wrong on this. Creationists don’t just object to biological evolution. They also object to geology (plate tectonics, and the origin of many geological features), archaeology (showing human origins in Africa), nuclear physics (radiometric dating), cosmology (showing our planet and solar system to be ancient and minor features of the universe), and even the absurd things like heliocentrism and Einstein’s relativity theories.

But it all comes back to human origins. Plate tectonics, radiometric dating, the Big Bang, these are all things that the creationist sees, due primarily to the time-spans they describe, as lending support to the theory of evolution. But they don’t object to the scientific disciplines that produced these theories, if they did then we would expect to hear them dismissing such things as nuclear power or earthquake standards for building codes just as much as they criticise radiometric dating and evolution. If there was no theory that attaches these non-biological theories to human origins you would hear very little from the creationists on them.

They may be chucking out what they believe is dirty bath water (evolution), but they’re not ditching the bathtub (the sciences).

@Muggle,

Yeah, when I read that, it is funny (dark, but funny).

And, on an individual basis, you’re right. Didn’t work out for them to live long and prosper. They got killed.

At the same time, huge societal changes came about because of those movements, which were spearheaded by G and MLK- via non-violent resistance/loving the enemy.
Yes people were killed & beaten, but change happened and a lot of oppressed people got their rights and regained their dignity, without a civil war.

So, overall, I think the numbers pan out. AND, b/c these mov’ts didn’t use violence to win their rights, the cycle of violence was greatly curtailed.

ckitching

I still believe you’re wrong about that.

The thing is though that most creationists, such as Ken Ham and even the Intelligent Design community, believe that science supports their position. They reject evolution as a failure of science and instead argue that their ideas have greater scientific legitimacy. And the people who do believe that make up the vast majority of creationists.

I’ve heard it said in certain creationist circles that the only thing scientists have ever given us was deadly new weapons (they were speaking of nuclear and biological weaponry, of course).

I’m sure as hell hoping that you are not taking that comment from Ben Stein when he said that “science leads to killing people”, as a statement of what creationists generally believe, because it would be a big disappointment if you are. Again, creationists do not object to science or the various disciplines, but rather to certain scientific theories. They have no problem in using geology to argue for Noah’s Flood or a young earth.

Unlike most everyone here, and even most intelligent design proponents, most do not make a connection between human technology and scientific research because the research almost never leads directly technological products. Many people fail to comprehend that advances in physics and chemistry fields lead to improved computer and medical technology.

Even among the public at large, a surprisingly high number of people simply do not associate the technology behind their new television screens or cell phones with physicists in white lab coats performing experiments in laboratories.

Do you really believe that? That a significant number of people do not recognise that science is behind pretty much all technological advancements? It is highly unlikely that many people believe that science played no part in the advancements of technology. Scientific knowledge has increased exponentially over the last several centuries, and at the same time technology has developed with ever increasing speed; it wouldn’t take someone with an education to realise that there is a connection between the two.

For example, I’ve seen many people who call themselves libertarians take the position that pure research is worthless, and shouldn’t be funded.

Actually, libertarians aren’t so much objecting to scientific research, they just don’t see anything worthwhile in scientific projects that do not produce results which can be put to practical use. Typically, this argument is applied to the astronomical sciences more than any other. Geology, biology, physics, and chemistry are all seen as having useful applications, whereas something like astronomy, which studies things distant from Earth, usually isn’t. Libertarian-minded people are fully aware of the connection between science and technology, they just don’t see the point in any research that does not or can not produce technology.

Yes, Tina, as I said, despite doing a lot of good, loving their enemy did not work. They wound up dead and they didn’t change their enemy. They changed society. Mostly by martyring themself. In my book, that’s not working. I do not see loving your enemy as a valid form of self-defense. It is, frankly, stupid. There are better ways to effect change. There are changes I would drastically like to see happen but I offering up my life for them.

Of course, I’m a Bitch. Yes, with a capital B. That’s Ms. Bitch to you. Turning the other cheek is for fools.

Gibbon, I’d question whether the positions you describe can be meaningfully described as being supportive of science. It’s true that in modern western society, science is so respectable, like mom and apple pie, that very few people are likely to publicly state that all science is hooey. (I can’t comment on what you’re likely to hear in Neon Genesis’ private creationist discussions.) And yes, creation “science” feels the need to dress itself up in the trappings of science. However, if someone claims to believe in science, but rejects huge fields of science every time they produce results they don’t believe in, only to replace it with sham pseudo-science, I’d say that they feel some social pressure to pay lip service to science – they don’t believe in it or understand it in any meaningful way.

Putting aside that issue, there is no evidence of a conflict between science and religion. For example, you can’t interpret what happened to Galileo as being related to what is going on with evolution; one is an example of the Church’s authority being challenged, while the other was a shakeup of scriptural interpretation. There is nothing to indicate that they are related in any way.

This seems like an untenably narrow view of “when things are related.” Yes, one involves the authority of the Catholic Church, and one involved the authority of the Bible, that hardly strikes me as such a huge difference as to make them completely unrelated. The common thread is that, throughout history, many people have thought that their religious beliefs made factual predictions about what the observable physical world was like. For those people, NOMA is not an accurate description of their religious beliefs – in those cases, science and religion can conflict. It’s only if a person’s religious beliefs make no testable predictions about the physical world – e.g. they believe that prayer has no observable physical effects external to the person praying – that NOMA is accurate.

Neon Genesis

I was raised as a creationist and I can tell you that the Christians at my parents’ church most certainly are anti-science. They believe that all scientists expect for the creationist scientists are apart of this global atheistic conspiracy to supress evidence of the existence of God and that the reason why the Large Hadron Collider keeps failing is because God is punishing the scientists for trying to contradict the Genesis creation account.

It doesn’t so much sound like these people are opposed to science it self, but rather to scientists and scientific theories, two things that I wouldn’t describe as equating to science. And again, it comes back to origins. One of the big issues the LHC is supposed to address is the Big Bang; figure that out and you’ve figured out the origins of the universe. That’s got to be a problem for the creationists, whose whole doctrine rests on the origins of everything.

The fact that they’ll accept science when it’s convenient for them does not prove creationists like science. It only proves they’re hypocrites.

All it proves is that they are opposed to certain scientific theories and the scientific community, but not the practice of science.

I can say that while they may recognize science is behind technology, I think most creationists take it for granted that science gave them their nice cars and fancy TVs and computers and don’t give science any proper credit for it.

So what? You expect them to bow down at the altar of science and give thanks and forgiveness to the gods of science for the bountiful technology that has been bestowed upon them? Ninety-nine percent of all people, creationist or not, take it for granted that scientific research has provided them with all their wonderful technology; they just don’t give it any thought. For the vast majority of people, there is little point in giving credit to scientific research for technology; I’d say that there is just as much reason to do that as there is to pray to god that he rain-out the cricket tomorrow.

Wow, just like creationists!

Hardly. Creationists are driven by their ideological commitment to oppose anything that they believe conflicts with their ideology. Libertarians are more pragmatic, they object to money being spent on projects which have no tangible pay-offs, such as SETI. What is the point of trying to discover if there is life on other planets when such knowledge could not be put to any use?

Autumnal Harvest

And yes, creation “science” feels the need to dress itself up in the trappings of science. However, if someone claims to believe in science, but rejects huge fields of science every time they produce results they don’t believe in, only to replace it with sham pseudo-science, I’d say that they feel some social pressure to pay lip service to science – they don’t believe in it or understand it in any meaningful way.

Again. They may reject certain scientific theories, but they don’t reject science. Why do I get this funny feeling that all your arguments rely on the fallacious notion that science is some sort of ideology, philosophy, or “world-view” (despite the absurdity of such a term), or that it offers one of them, despite the fact that it is nothing more than a practice? Experimentation and observation constitute the defining essence of science; I’d like to whatever objections creationists have made to those two basic principles.

This seems like an untenably narrow view of “when things are related.” Yes, one involves the authority of the Catholic Church, and one involved the authority of the Bible, that hardly strikes me as such a huge difference as to make them completely unrelated.

It is not an untenably narrow view, it is the fact. There is no evidence that connects the Galileo Affair to the evolution-creation debates. There is nothing about the Galileo Affair that is also present in the dispute over creationism.

When Martin Luther argued that the Church of Rome had no greater authority to interpret scripture than anyone else, he was basically saying that every person, laity or clergy, had the right to interpret the Bible for themselves; they didn’t need someone else to do it for them. But what the Catholic Church argued in the Council of Trent was that they alone had the authority to interpret the Bible. When Galileo presented his scientific theory, some 50 years after CoT, he also offered his own interpretation of the relevant scripture to make it consistent with his theory; he was interpreting the Bible despite that being heretical under the Church. Galileo was simply an innocent victim of the Reformation Wars, in other words he had really bad timing.

It is not the same with creationism. It isn’t over the authority of the Bible, as liberal Christians assign to it similar authority as well. It is about evolution conflicting with a specific interpretation. The creationists object to any idea or notion that contradicts their particular interpretation of the bible.

Again. The Galileo Affair was a dispute about Church authority, while creationism is about scriptural interpretation. There is no evidence to suggest that together they are part of something bigger, nor is there a common factor present in both of them. The only thing they could possibly have in common is the presence of scientists.

NOMA is not an accurate description of their religious beliefs – in those cases, science and religion can conflict. It’s only if a person’s religious beliefs make no testable predictions about the physical world – e.g. they believe that prayer has no observable physical effects external to the person praying – that NOMA is accurate.

NOMA is not accurate, because science and religion do overlap, just not in a way that most people realise. Religion is a social oriented practice, while science is a knowledge oriented practice; there is a bit of overlap but not of the sort that naturally puts them at odds with each other. For the most part they have coexisted for over a thousand years without any real trouble, so as to why anyone is trying to stir up trouble now is beyond me.

It doesn’t so much sound like these people are opposed to science it self, but rather to scientists and scientific theories,. . . they are opposed to certain scientific theories and the scientific community, but not the practice of science.

Gibbon, reading through your posts, I see that your repeatedly state what things aren’t constitute rejecting science. Can you clarify what it would take for you to see someone as rejecting science? Do they need to state that they reject all science, because the scientific method if always inhrently flawed? Or refuse to use technology produced by science?