What if I told you I wanted to watch the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Texas Rangers?
Huh? No, I'm not crazy. Those who know me well are probably impressed I even know names of sports teams. And guess what else; I also know they don't even play the same sport.
My ridiculous pairing of sports teams is an attempt at a humorous analogy of when people say "Religion vs. Science" or "The Bible vs. Science". The two things deal with different issues and use different means to do it.
Evolutionists and atheists repeat over and over again that "science" has proven The Theory of Evolution to be true right along with the universe being billions of years old, and if we don't accept that then we are denying science.
Not to confuse matters, but what do they mean by "science"? Go do an Internet search for "science definition" and see what comes up. In the ancient world science and philosophy were connected. People just tried to figure out the world, whether natural or metaphysical. It's been through the last 200 years maybe that we've come to understand "science" in terms of the scientific method of experimenting and observation, where data is collected and it all has to be documentable and testable.
Religion and experimental science have no conflict whatsoever because experimental science gives us observed data about the present condition of the world around us.
The more I've thought about this, the more I realize evolutionists commit a sort of bait-and-switch logical argument. Many may not even realize they do it. When they say that religion isn't "science", the "scientific method" is being implied: testable, repeatable, documentable, observable. Since faith can't be quantified or measured, it's not "science", by that definition.
Then the same people, with the big brains and white coats with all their fancy gadgets and alphabet-soup of degrees after their names, begin describing what happened in the distant past. Here's the rub. To do that, they have to take off their "scientific method" hat, and get back to the philosopher roots of scientists, because they're addressing things that cannot be tested and observed. However, they don't usually make the distinction, and whether intentional or not, the implication is that their philosophical ideas carry the same factual weight as their experimental data.
Let me explain when this became clear to me:
I was raised a Christian and taught the bible, so yes, perhaps I had a bias and willingness to give the idea of creation more weight. However, I never really gave it much thought. I loved school and learning, so I soaked up whatever my teachers taught me. Somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, I saw in my science textbook a contradiction.
The first chapter said to me that "science" is the experimental aspect: observation, hypothesis, experiment, data, confirm/revise hypothesis, repeat. Things that can be demonstrated through physical, laboratory testing and observation.
Then, somewhere in the middle it mentioned that a nebula will condense over millions of years to become a star. That's when something clicked. I flipped back to the beginning, double-checked the definition, and then thought to myself, "who held the stopwatch in THAT experiment?"
They cannot know that a nebula becomes a star. I understand there is some information gathered from experimental science used in forming this idea, but ultimately that is an unprovable idea. Keep in mind, this idea was presented as known fact. There was no hint of subjectivity or possibility of some other understanding. The book simply stated it as true.
But think about this, it is not possible for a person to actually know what will or what did take place over millions of years. All we can really know is what has been observed and recorded since mankind has been writing things down. Even then, that information is limited and potentially flawed.
This just threw open doors. What else do scientists make a truth claim about that they can't actually know?
Automatically, anything that involves events prior to written history is in doubt.
When we can't KNOW something, observe it and confirm it with our own senses, we have to either rely on others' testimony (which we may or may not accept) or we have to draw inferences from what we already know ... or believe. We make educated guesses.
Here is where the conflict comes in:
Naturalists / Materialists, people who don't believe in anything supernatural or spiritual, use that belief to draw conclusions. This is where they leave modern science (experiment) and enter into philosophy, making claims about things they cannot actually know or prove. But, they still want us to accept their philosophy as equally as the "scientific" facts.
Religious folks have a different set of beliefs that give us different conclusions. However, since we admit ours is religious, or philosophical, there appears to be a conflict between "religion" and "science", when in fact, religion does not conflict at all with the experimental science, only the philosophy of the scientist.
When you ask, "where did we come from?" religion and experimental science cannot be at odds, because they have different rules by which they frame the answer to the question. (I would even say that science is incapable of addressing the question). Who is right: religion or science? You may as well ask, "Who would win: The Cowboys or The Rangers?"
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