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Originally Posted by arthra
I see religion and science reconciling and being more supportive of each other.
- Art
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I have a great deal of difficulty seeing that, Art. In spite of Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" (NOMA), it seems pretty clear to me that science seeks information on a continual basis in order to discover truth, while religion tends to ignore information incompatible with the "truth" it already has.
Many people think that the atrocious religious behaviours are in the distant past, but not so. There was a Spanish educator named Francisco Ferrer (1859-1909) who opened Spain's first modern school in Barcelona in 1902. It was secular, coeducational and open to both rich and poor. And it was fiercely opposed by the Catholic Church, which didn't stop Ferrer, who was soon operating 40 such schools.
Ferrer was accused of fomenting anticonscription and antireligious riots and strikes in 1909. He was tried by a military tribunal which excluded all defence witnesses and executed.
Pope Pius X (r. 1903-1914) sent the prosecutor a gold-handled sword engraved with his congratulations!
Ferrer, on the other hand, wrote in will (written on his cell wall on the eve of his execution): "Let no more gods or exploiters be served. Let us learn rather to love one another." I'll let you be the judge of which was the more loving soul.
Or, see what Carl Sagan had to say:
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In 1993, the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring that the world is flat. [In 1966 the same sage wrote, 'The Holy Koran, the Prophet's teachings, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual facts all prove that the sun is running in its orbit...and that the earth is fixed and stable.'] Anyone of the round persuasion does not believe in God and should be punished. When the movie Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodix rabbis because it taught that dinosaurs lived a hundred million years ago...The clearest evidence of our evolution can be foun in our genes, but evoltuion is stil being fought, ironically by those whose own DNA proclaims it."
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And finally, one more Saganism:
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The sacred truth of science is that there are no sacred truths
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Yet, religion holds dearly to the one thing that science says cannot be: sacred truth.
How do you see these ever getting closer together?