The scientific community should recall that most of the...

[Awaken4e1]

The scientific community should recall that most of the founders of modern science believed in God, albeit often unconventionally. To Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Pasteur, and Einstein, science was not simply contradictory to religion. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) developed the theory that the sun was at the center of the universe and the Earth spins on its axis. He believed his model of the universe demonstrated the wisdom of God�s layout: �At rest in the middle of everything is the sun. For in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position?� Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) carried on Copernicus�s work and calculated the orbit of the planets. Kepler began his studies with the intention of becoming a theologian but switched to astronomy when he realized Copernicus was right about the placement of the sun. �I believe this,� Kepler noted, �because I have constantly prayed to God that I might succeed if what Copernicus had said was true.� �For a long time I wanted to become a theologian,� Kepler wrote to a friend, �for a long time I was restless. Now, however, behold how through my effort God is being celebrated through astronomy.� To Kepler, the mechanics of nature did not negate God; rather they were His tune in a grand melody. �Man can play through,� Kepler wrote about the mechanics of nature, to �the delight of God, the Supreme Artist, by calling forth that very sweet pleasure of the music that imitates God.� Kepler even compared his discoveries to the birth of Christ. �I am writing the book�to be read now or by posterity, it matters not. It can wait a century for a reader, as God himself has waited 6,000 years for a witness.� Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) formulated the laws of gravity and motion and the elements of differential calculus, and found no contradiction between faith and science. He thought science�s scope should be limited to the provable: �We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.� Newton, who lived before philosophy and science split into two disciplines, believed scientists should follow empirical evidence and not be afraid to see the hand of God in their conclusions. �All sound and true philosophy is founded on the appearance of things; and if this phenomena inevitably draws us against our wills, to such principles as most clearly manifest to us the most excellent council and supreme dominion of the All-Wise and Almighty Being, they are not therefore to be laid aside because some men may perhaps dislike them.� Nor did Newton believe that scientists could find a place in time or in nature devoid of God: �He endures forever; and is present everywhere, by existing always and everywhere, He constitutes duration and space.� Religious-minded founders of modern science were not limited to physics and astronomy. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), the founder of modern chemistry, began every day with a prayer and spent all of his income from lands in Ireland as a good Christian (two-thirds went to help the poor and support the Protestant church, one-third to spreading Christianity among American Indians). Boyle devoted many of his later writings to arguing that modern science was not atheistic, nor would mechanics replace God. He was in awe of the beauty of nature: �When I study the book of nature�I find myself often times reduced to exclaim with the psalmist, �How manifold are thy works, O Lord, in wisdom hast thou made them all!�� Contrary to modern belief, Boyle found science enhanced the glory of God, and he believed the pursuit of science would even increase religious convictions: �Reason when assisted by revelation may enable a man to discover far more excellencies in God and perceive them, than he contemplated before, far greater and more distinctly.� Francis Bacon (1561-1626) developed the scientific method used to authenticate research. He saw religion and science as complementary. �Science, so far from being antagonistic, has enriched religious thought.� He admitted, however, that at first science appears to negate religion. �This I dare affirm in knowledge of Nature, that a little natural philosophy and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to Atheism.� �But, on the other side,� Bacon continued, �much natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men�s minds to religion.� Bacon thought scientists too often saw themselves, not God in nature: �We clearly impress the stamp of our image on the creatures and works of God, instead of carefully examining and recognizing in them the stamp of the creator himself.� The most famous work of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), of course, was purifying milk with the process that now bears his name. He often referred to a �cosmic asymmetric force� that created life, and he thought the word cause �ought to be reserved to the single divine impulse that has formed this universe.� Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who formulated the theory of relativity, did not believe God was involved in the day to day operation of the universe, but he wasn�t hostile to religion either. He recognized that �the main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God,� but he also acknowledged the �harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.� To Einstein, �the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.� Simply put, �science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.� Many leading scientists today see no contradiction between religion and its fabled antithesis. Physicist Charles Townes, 1964 co-winner of the Nobel Prize, sees religion and science as �basically the same thing.� Townes, who recently outlined his views in an interview with the Washington Post, explains that �both are human creations. In both we use faith, we use assumptions, and we have uncertainties.� �I�ve always based my moral and religious ideas on the idea that there is something out there �bigger than [man].�� That view, he adds, �is what I base my actions on.� Townes believes some scientists take bigger leaps of faith than religious believers: �To get around the anthropic universe without invoking God may force you to extreme speculation about there being billions of universes,� which �strikes me as much more freewheeling than any of the church�s claims.� Francis Collins sees God in his discoveries: �When something new is revealed about the human genome, I experience a feeling of awe at the realization that humanity now knows something only God knew before. I don�t believe God is threatened by scientific investigation. On the contrary, I presume that God is gratified by our curiosity,� he told tae. Joel Primack, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Newsweek the galaxies of the night sky are �the handwriting of God.� Evolutionary biologist and 1958 Nobel Prize-winner Joshua Lederberg recently told Science magazine, �Nothing so far disproves the divine. What is incontrovertible is that a religious impulse guides our motive in sustaining scientific inquiry.� The scientific community itself seems poised to rethink its position on the religious question. Many universities, think tanks, and professional organizations are conducting research on the relation between religion and science. mit is now offering a course on �God and Computers.� The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences are both launching projects to promote a dialogue between religion and science. The Chicago Center for Religion and Science, the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley, and the Discovery Institute�s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture are all studying the overlap of faith and science. Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA�s Goddard Institute and author of God and the Astronomers, thinks the relatively recent discovery of the universe�s birth in a Big Bang has played a large part in this rethinking of the cosmos. It means �there are limits to scientific inquiry,� because it suggests a beginning and a creator�something science can�t explain. The situation, Jastrow says, is as if a group of scientists and astronomers are climbing up a range of mountain peaks, and when they come to the highest peak, they are �greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.�

[bradybaker]

Again, for hundreds of years, belief has been the standard. In modern times, higher IQ correlates quite nicely with diminished belief in the supernatural.

[spoon]

The religious community should recall that most (actually, the entirety) of its founders believed in a flat earth. Whats your point?

[Rakkantekimusouka]

I'm so glad I kept this.

[Neruo]

If Every single person in your community believes in god, you can not but belive. And if you believe that the sun revolts around the sun, you disagree with Everyone before like 500 years ago. If religion was wrong on that part, what are the odds that it's wrong on more. The people that wrote the bible thought the sun revoled around the earth. Think about that. =)

[Ex Nine]

Every time I hear that science owes some of its success to monotheism, I keep thinking of Archimedes. The man was a hair's width away from inventing calculus about 1500 years before Leibniz and Newton, and he was no monotheist. Why were there no successors to Archimedes? I hear it's because people were not interested in questions as much as they were interesting in answers. People stopped asking questions and instead looked to Archimedes' books as the source for answers about mathematics and other facts of nature. A similar behavior occurred alongside the bible, and still persists to this day.