A Word from My Dad

I’m pretty sure he’d never have an almost-all-his blog entry here, but I wanted to highlight something he wrote in a comment on an earlier post:

Back to Rick’s initial post. This discussion is a good example of his point. Science and religion are two different ways of looking at the world and they too often try to influence each other.

Science cannot prove the Bible is false and Jesus was the Son of God. Religion cannot prove (and not just because religion does not deal with “proof”) that the universe is not billions of years old and man is not a product of evolution.

Science is a study of the physical world around us. As it stands today, evolutionary theory is the paradigm under which science functions. There are literally mountains of data from many different fields that support this paradigm.

From a scientific point of view, God is not a viable paradigm. That doesn’t mean that all scientists do not believe in God, just that scientifically God is not an acceptable explanation.

If a scientist wants to discuss theology, then the discussion should be theological. If a theologian wants to discuss science, then the discussion should be scientific.

Rick’s point is that too many scientists don’t properly grasp religion and choose to refute it despite that lack of understanding. His case is not without merit.

Rick says he understands the science better than the scientist understands the theology. That may be, but I’m not convinced that Rick really understands, for example, evolutionary theory. I’m much more certain that you, Justin, do not understand evolutionary theory.

That this discussion (creationism/evolution) continues as it does on a pretty wide scale in our society is in keeping with where we are today. Red state/blue state, pro-life/pro-choice, I’m right/you’re wrong.

We really need to get past this and accept that there are other ways to view the world than our own. You are free to believe your view is the correct one (if you don’t, then what’s the point?), but you should be willing to accept that there are a lot of people living here on this planet and there is going to be a variety of viewpoints.

Then maybe we can have discussions instead of arguments.

I’m gonna throw a curve here by not saying I agree or disagree with the above. Frankly, it’s got some cogs turning in the engine of my mind, and I’ll likely be blogging on this subject soon enough.

Thanks, Dad.