That's like saying that science has no issues with homeopathy or telepathy except when they try to supress science.
No, it's not.
'Homeopathy' doesn't do anything. It posits a rational framework that is simply invalid.
Religions ultimately deal in matters of the 'soul' or whatever word you want to use that describes the nature we have beyond the material. If you want to accept the current 'Scientific Materialist' premise to it's full extent, then you must accept that you are a 'bag of random particles' and that there can be no 'live' 'love' 'culture' 'thought' or even 'intelligence' - after all none of those things can exist in pure randomness.
We all (well, almost all) believe that we are 'alive' - implying that life is something beyond the crude material, and it's the obvious 'fail' of materialism as a workable world view.
The 'trunk' of the tree of science as posited by Descartes is 'physics' - but the 'root' is metaphysics. Sometimes we forget the roots because they don't fit well into equations :) :)
As far as I know, believers in telepathy are not attempting to suppress science, they simply believe in something that has no scientific support.
I know some do, but I think most Christian people don't actually believe it took god 6 days or 144 hours to create everything. I think the accept that it's a metaphor, that doesn't try to explain it.
While I don't believe in any religion, I still think these two things can coexists. For instance the originator of the Big Bang theory was both a scientist and priest.
Also religion is not only concerned with what happened, yet often very active in prescribing what has to happen: abortion, divorce, homosexuality,...
The follow on questions are usually, "But how would God have done that and why?" Good questions, but not ultimately scientific ones. They are metaphysical and theological, respectively.
EDIT: Do downvoters care to comment with their thoughts?
But more generally it's a little weird asking someone outright why they belong to a particular religion. It's not something you're meant to litigate. We rightly feel irritated when fundamentalist Christians proselytize to strangers; this is another instance of the same thing.
Even in a thread whose whole point is a discussion of religious belief and why people are religious?
> We rightly feel irritated when fundamentalist Christians proselytize to strangers; this is another instance of the same thing.
When people proselytize for their religion they are implicitly if not explicitly telling you that your current beliefs in that area are wrong and that theirs are right. I agree that is irritating.
I don't think that asking someone why they believe their religion is the same thing.
I wasn't trying to compare to animism. I included the Wikipedia link because I said that there were hundreds of creation stories and thought that if I didn't give some link to a bunch of them someone might get testy over the number. (I'm kind of surprised that hasn't happened anyway, as the Wikipedia list only has 40 or so).
But, to narrow things down, the Genesis account is dislike most of those in that:
1. It's ex nihilo, so it doesn't leave loose ends out there like, "Yeah, but where did the giant turtle come from?" I'll point out that atheist philosophy has this problem at least with respect to matter and energy.
2. It's monotheistic, so complications about where the many gods come from, what rules they have to follow, and how they die are moot.
3. It doesn't make clearly-not-true claims about the nature of reality (great beasts, corpses of giants, etc.). I know people disagree on this point, but I think most people who reject the Genesis account haven't fully deliberated on this question.
Now, I didn't start at genesis and work my way through the Bible to my current beliefs. I don't find that people generally convert to Abrahamic religions that way. But I do find that people mistakenly think there's a contradiction between science (evolution, astronomy) and the Genesis story, which is why I said something.
I didn't say or imply that they are all false. You are reading more, I think, into my question than was there.
I was trying to point out (for the lurkers if not you) that atheism doesn't get a free pass just because there are all sorts of creation stories to consider. A materialist story is a story nonetheless.
No, it's not.
> so it doesn't leave loose ends out there like, "Yeah, but where did the giant turtle come from?"
How is “Yeah, but where did God come from?” not a loose ends almost exactly like that?
> It's monotheistic, so complications about where the many gods come from, what rules they have to follow, and how they die are moot.
It has a single creator (like many polytheistic creation myths), and multiple supernatural entities raising the same type of questions (even if you literally interpret the serpent as just a really smart snake with an unexplained defiant streak, by the end of Gen 3 you’ve got the cherub with the flaming sword.) That the supernatural entities besides the creator in the Judeo-Christian tradition are called something other than gods doesn't actually eliminate any of the issues they raise.
Where is a question that can only be asked if there is a coordinate system.
What do I mean by this?
Okay, so you know the room God is sitting in? That room is also God. It's just a part of him that he turned into a room. Okay, but what about the thing outside of God? The thing outside of God is just God himself too. Because there is nothing outside of God. God already includes that everything outside and inside. Because there really is no outside and inside. To have an outside or inside, God have to split himself into two part, an outside part, and an inside part. At that point, the outside part and the inside part are still just parts of God. Also, a coordinate system doesn't even exist until God split himself into some kind of plane, and then separate that plane from the other unlimited part of himself. This is why they say God is truly unlimited, in every way.
But what about the guy that created God? Technically doesn't exist. However, God can split himself into some guy and pretend to create himself, if that's what he wants. Doesn't matter. In the end, it's all still just God himself. Just another part of God that he himself split into. All him. There is nothing else. Just God.
The universe? Just a part of God that he himself splits into, then afterward, he lay down some rules and laws for that part of himself to obey. He call these rules the Laws of Physics. Earth? Formed from the universe through the Laws of Physics that God set. Human? Evolved from evolution, which are rules naturally occurring in a natural environment in a universe bounds by the rules God had set.
Note that it is also meaningless to ask when God was created or when God first appeared, since time is an artificial restriction God created to bound our universe and to force our universe to play by. God is not bound by this rule. Which is why they say God is eternal. Because time is only an artificial restriction that God set upon our universe.
EDIT: most Christians I've heard talk about this say that God put natural laws into place but of course that is itself a theological point.
In other words, it's extremely rewarding and useful to know how things work assuming no miracles. Just because you believe in miracles doesn't mean all the science is pointless.
Which one? The one (Gen 2:4-) where the order of creation is man, then plants, then animals or the one (Gen 1:1-2:3) where it is plants, then animals then man?
>Which one? The one (Gen 2:4-) where the order of creation is man, then plants, then animals or the one (Gen 1:1-2:3) where it is plants, then animals then man?
Both.
They both are true, and they both are talking about two different events.
In Gen 2:4-, it is talking about men (men here = Adam and Eve) inside the Garden of Eden, while the Earth is still bare.
In Gen 1:1-2:3, it is talking about men (men here = Homo-sapians) outside of the Garden, on Earth.
So basically, God created men (Adam and Eve) inside the Garden of Eden at a time when the Earth was still bare. God then created the plants and the animals inside the Garden of Eden too (remember that outside, the Earth is still bare at this point).
Then, outside of the Garden, on a bare Earth, God created the plants. Then the animals. Then Homo-sapians, who will roam the Earth and evolve to eventually "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Adam and Eve, who are inside the Garden of Eden, are NOT the same as the Homo-sapians who roamed the Earth, though by the time Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, the Homo-sapians will have already evolved to look like humans too.
In other word, in the Garden, Adam and Eve were created as perfect humans beings already. Meanwhile, outside the Garden, primates had go through an evolution process over millions of years to reach the point where they look like humans.
Where Science finally converges with Spirituality because Spirituality is just really really advance science?