[deiscovery.com (OP)]

It is our belief that the discipline of science has been hijacked by atheists and used to support atheistic beliefs.

It is our belief based on scientific method and empirical evidence; atheism cannot state that there is no God. It can only state "At this present time in human history we cannot prove with existing instruments of measurement and detection that there is or is not a God or a spiritual realm where he is suppose to exist.”

more at deiscovery.com

[Soul Surfer]

I do not agree with your suggestions many well known scientists have quite strong religious faith.

Your second expression is unnecessary.

I also suggest you must also accept that atheists are not excluded from religion because they are totally different things.

[Bored chemist]

The discipline of science is robust enough that you can't hijack it to do anything. The idea that any hypothesis must be falsifiable is (thanks to Popper IIRC) included in most ideas of the scientific method. This excludes religion which, in general, is not falsifiable.
Of course, science can be used to show that some ideas which religion holds true are inconsistent with the universe as we know it.

[deiscovery.com (OP)]

My comments are based on the common idea that "To prove that God does not exist we will turn to science ..." 
I think this is unfair to science.

[another_someone]

In the first instance, from a historic perspective, you cannot simply blame science for the conflict between science and religion - religious leaders did quite a bit to reject science and scientists.

I think from a purely philosophical perspective, one can reasonably argue that God cannot exist within the scientific model of the universe.  As Bored Chemist has said, the notion of God is not falsifiable, and so is not consistent with scientific doctrine.

The question that arises is whether one considers that the scientific description of the universe is an inherently incomplete description (not merely currently incomplete, but of necessity, inherently incomplete), and so leaving room for other philosophical doctrines (whether or not they include the notion of God) outside of science.

[GBSB]

Atheistic belief and non–atheistic belief is just belief.  The belief can’t be science because it isn’t fact but belief.

For atheistic and non-atheistic believer the only purpose of science is to strength their pre-existing belief.

On the other side many people are not religious but trying to believe without forcing another people to adopt their belief.

I think that belief is good thing if it is taken in moderation.


“I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.”   ( George Bernard Shaw )

[DoctorBeaver]

We must, though, bear in mind that there are certain areas where science takes on a psuedo-religious aspect. For instance, we will never be able to prove exactly what happened at the moment of the Big Bang, nor if anything existed prior to that moment. We can theorise, but those theories can only ever be a matter of faith. Yet faith should be reserved for religion and have no place in science. It is an unresolvable dichotomy.

[JimBob]

Is the fact that science has also been unfairly hijacked by religious zelots to prove their own ideas is acceptable? the idea that the earth has only existed since October 23, 4004 BC. and that the accounts - differencing in the details - in Genesis, are the ONLY interpretation of the way life was created is blatant nonsense. What is time to God? What is a day in His measure? Billions of years? Or an hour?

The pseudoscience of creationism that is being insisted on being taught along side traditional science is as much voodoo to me as science is to you. And I was raised hardshell Southern Baptist and believe in a Benevolent Creator.

As has been stated - belief is belief and science is science. They should not be mixed.

[?UNTURNED_STONE?]

I myself being an atheist, do not link atheism with science i dont hink that science needs to be linked to God as science doesnt need to prove that god isnt there its a well known fact that there is no gigantic man in the sky!

[angst]

Is the fact that science has also been unfairly hijacked by religious zelots to prove their own ideas is acceptable? the idea that the earth has only existed since October 23, 4004 BC. and that the accounts - differencing in the details - in Genesis, are the ONLY interpretation of the way life was created is blatant nonsense. What is time to God? What is a day in His measure? Billions of years? Or an hour?

The pseudoscience of creationism that is being insisted on being taught along side traditional science is as much voodoo to me as science is to you. And I was raised hardshell Southern Baptist and believe in a Benevolent Creator.

As has been stated - belief is belief and science is science. They should not be mixed.

This, really, is the crux of it. The only real religious argument against science is that of the fundamental literalist. I don't think science is fundamentally anti-religious. As has been said belief is belief, science is science - they are seperate entities, neither one really impacting upon the other (except where literalist dogma prevails...)

[JimBob]

Yes, one of the fathers of the Western Church, " namely Augustine of Hippo, ... explicitly denie(d) any literal interpretation of the bible whenever it conflicted with science. Literal interpretation has at times even been considered heresy. Augustin: The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]."

Wikipedia quoted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptural_literalism

Findings of a poll conducted by the Southern Baptist Baylor Institute: 47.8% of evangelical Protestants, and 11% of Catholics and mainline Protestants answered that the Bible is literally true, and 9% of Jews answered the Torah is literally true. 6.5% of evangelical protestants and 20% of Catholics and Protestants responded that the Bible is a book of history and legends, and 52.6% of Jewish respondents responded that the same about the Torah.

ALSO:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy)

There are over 5,600 Greek manuscripts containing all or part of the New Testament. Most of these manuscripts date to the Middle Ages. The oldest complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus, dates to the 4th century. The earliest fragment of a New Testament book is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 which dates to the mid 2nd century and is the size of a business card. Very early manuscripts are rare.

No two manuscripts are identical, except in the smallest fragments and the many manuscripts which preserve New Testament texts differ among themselves in many respects, with some estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 differences among the various manuscripts.[4] According to Ehrman,[5]
   "Most changes are careless errors that are easily recognized and corrected. Christian scribes often made mistakes simply because they were tired or inattentive or, sometimes, inept. Indeed, the single most common mistake in our manuscripts involves "orthography", significant for little more than showing that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most of us can today. In addition, we have numerous manuscripts in which scribes have left out entire words, verses, or even pages of a book, presumably by accident. Sometimes scribes rearranged the words on the page, for example, by leaving out a word and then reinserting it later in the sentence."

[deiscovery.com (OP)]

I think the knee jerk reaction is to come back at religion.  I am trying not to include religion (Christian) in the statement.  My belief is that Atheism claims scientific arguments or the lack of them for there stance that there is no God.

I think they should leave science out of their arguments.  We do not have any evidence, measurement or detection of "spiritual" entities or claimed places (angels, Holy Spirit, the anointing, heaven, hell) at this current time in history to prove or disprove God.  Atheism should just state that and leave science out of it's arguments.

I would like to stay on topic if possible...

[JimBob]

Atheism is as much a faith as Christianity is a faith and therefor should be included with Christianity in this discussion.

THUS - Science should remain neutral in any discussion of faith.



By the way, I used to live in Brockton when a child. 9 Hazel Street. An empty lot separated my dad's house from Rocky Marchegiano's. I played with his children. My dad was born there as were my sister and brother. I was given my first Bible on my fifth birthday at Warren Avenue Baptist Church. I still have it. It was a nice neighborhood then - late 40's.

[DoctorBeaver]

An empty lot separated my dad's house from Rocky Marchegiano's. I played with his children.

 [:0]

[Bored chemist]

"Atheism is as much a faith as Christianity "
In the same sense that bald is a hair colour.

Strictly speaking, since I can't prove that there is no God, I ought to be described as agnostic on this matter.
Oddly, nobody describes me as agnostic when I say I don't believe in the tooth fairy, but my reasons for disbelief are pretty much the same. Equally, I don't know of anyone who describes a child's fear of the "monsters under the bed" as being a matter of religious faith.

Atheism is generally taken not just to mean the belief that there is no God, but a more general feeling that one only believes in things for which there is positive evidence.
As it happens, science generally does the same thing.

[angst]

"Atheism is as much a faith as Christianity "
In the same sense that bald is a hair colour.

Strictly speaking, since I can't prove that there is no God, I ought to be described as agnostic on this matter.
Oddly, nobody describes me as agnostic when I say I don't believe in the tooth fairy, but my reasons for disbelief are pretty much the same. Equally, I don't know of anyone who describes a child's fear of the "monsters under the bed" as being a matter of religious faith.

Atheism is generally taken not just to mean the belief that there is no God, but a more general feeling that one only believes in things for which there is positive evidence.
As it happens, science generally does the same thing.

Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines atheism as; belief that no god exists. It is a belief - in as much as , it is a definite article of understanding held without qualitative evidence. The concepts of the tooth fairy and god operate on entirely different levels. There is a universe in which we live, and we ask questions as to the nature of our existence. One level. We take our children's teeth from under their pillows and replace them with money. Another level. If you had no reason or explanation as to how that money replaced the tooth, then you would have no real argument against the tooth fairy. It would, of course, be your right to not believe, but unless you could explain it by other means then it is only a belief in it's non-existence.

Agnosticism is the questioning of any such belief at the lack of evidence.

So, to the original poster, if you are upset with atheists 'hijacking' the scientific argument for their own purpose, then you have the argument against them. Science, in short, cannot be hijacked by atheists as it cannot definitively evidence the lack of god, anymore than it can definitively evidence the existence of such.

[Soul Surfer]

All these arguments seem to loose the real point of a religion. As I see it the important thing about a religion is to help to decide how one should interact here and now on the earth with other people and the environment within which we live. It has very little to do with explaining how the universe originated and works which is best left to science.

I am an atheist in the sense that I do not believe that there is a force that is actually observing us and interacting to organise how things work and offering those who are good some sort of eternal life  (usually called a God).
However I do believe that the concept that there might exist a compassionate but stern person who oversees everything that I do and could sometime call me to account for my actions gives rise to a good model of how we should live with each other and the environment.  I am therefore a regular practicing Church of England Christian because that is the standard religion in the area within which I live.

[Cooliorob]

Religion and science have clashed throughout history, but why do we need to continue arguing about it? Science is science, religion is religion, and that's that. It's not a contradiction between the big bang and creationism, merely a different interpretation. As JimBob said, "What is time to God?" It seems like days and years is a human invention and maybe just a device used by God to dumb it down so we could understand.

[angst]

Religion and science have clashed throughout history, but why do we need to continue arguing about it? Science is science, religion is religion, and that's that. It's not a contradiction between the big bang and creationism, merely a different interpretation. As JimBob said, "What is time to God?" It seems like days and years is a human invention and maybe just a device used by God to dumb it down so we could understand.

Love the last sentence especially. All of our perceptions of the world might be viewed as a 'dumbing down' so we could understand....

[Soul Surfer]

Where do I fit into this?  I am a scientist and an atheist in that I do not believe in a god that organises the universe and offers you pie in the sky when you die. However I do believe in religion as a way of helping to decide how we interact with each other and the rest of the universe.  ie behave as if there was a loving and caring god who knows all your thoughts and actions and may call you to account for them.   I therefore regularly attend and support my local Church of England church.