{"id":267,"date":"2009-12-08T14:03:36","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T21:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=267"},"modified":"2010-01-02T19:18:21","modified_gmt":"2010-01-03T02:18:21","slug":"can-you-be-both-a-scientist-and-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=267","title":{"rendered":"Can you be both a scientist and a Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Limits of Science. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>You can be a scientist and have religious beliefs, but you cannot be a real scientist \t\t\t\tin the deepest sense of the word, because they are such alien categories of knowledge,\u201d so says \t\t\t\tBritish chemist, Peter Atkins (New York Times<\/em>, 9\/27\/05).<\/p>\n

Atkins overreaches, even though it is strikingly true that most scientists are not religious. To \t\t\t\tbe precise, sixty percent of scientists generally are atheists or agnostics. Moreover, the more prominent \t\t\t\ta scientist is, the less likely he or she is to be religious. Of the elite that belong to the National \t\t\t\tAcademy of Sciences, ninety three percent are atheistic or agnostic. The least religious among NAS \t\t\t\tscientists are the biologists \u2013 only five percent of them believe in a God to whom one may pray.<\/p>\n

Atkins, however, overreaches when he says \u201ca scientist in the deepest sense\u201d cannot be \t\t\t\treligious because this assertion implies that science and religion, although \u201calien categories,\u201d \t\t\t\tnevertheless address the same questions. In fact, they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Science and religion deal with different questions. Science deals with the \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201chow\u201d of \t\t\t\tlife. Religion deals with \u201cwho\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d and \t\t\t\t\u201cmeaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Science has limits. Under the microscope meaning and morality disappear. A telescope cannot see \t\t\t\tthe \u201cwhy\u201d of life. When science attempts to answer questions about origins and evil, it \t\t\t\tbecomes a religion. Sin doesn\u2019t show up in a petri dish.<\/p>\n

Thus, for example, when your kids come home from school and report that they learned evolution \t\t\t\tproves that things developed by chance, their science teachers have overstepped their limits. Science, \t\t\t\tin this case, has become a religion \u2013 Dogmatic Darwinism.<\/p>\n

The Limits of Religion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The proper arena of religion includes questions of \u201cwho\u201d created \t\t\t\tlife and \t\t\t\t\u201cwhy,\u201d of the origin and end of life, of meaning and morality.<\/p>\n

Yet religion overreaches when it intrudes into the natural sciences. The church, unfortunately, \t\t\t\thas a bad record of saying \u201cNo\u201d \t\t\t\tto discoveries in science. For example, when Jenner discovered how to vaccinate for smallpox \t\t\t\tin 1798, both the Catholics and the Protestants denounced him: If God wanted you to have smallpox, \t\t\t\tdoctors should not interfere.<\/p>\n

Today some Christians want to use the Bible to answer questions about the \u201cwhat\u201d and \t\t\t\tthe \u201chow\u201d of how life has developed on planet Earth. But this attempt is a category mistake. \t\t\t\tIt yields either a God of the Gaps who is doomed to recede as scientific knowledge increases, or \t\t\t\tan Intelligent Designer who is a cold substitute for the true God of holiness and salvation.<\/p>\n

A God We Can Trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The message of the Bible is that God sent his Son to die on \t\t\t\tthe cross to save us from sin and death. Instead of getting caught in controversies about evolution, \t\t\t\tChristians are called to the battle of getting the Word out. This Word judges as inadequate all claims \t\t\t\t– scientific, political, and philosophical – to ultimate knowledge and wisdom. This Word frees men \t\t\t\tand women to investigate the “how” and the \t\t\t\t“what,” whatever that might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Limits of Science. \u201cYou can be a scientist and have religious beliefs, but you cannot be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word, because they are such alien categories of knowledge,\u201d so says British chemist, Peter Atkins (New York Times, 9\/27\/05). Atkins overreaches, even though it is strikingly true that most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-267","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267\/revisions\/270"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}