Reply #29: Horrors! You've convinced me to become an atheist! [View All]

:rofl:

Honestly though, conflicts between my religion and my science don't even register on my charts. If they exist at all they are lost in the background noise of my spirituality.

But my political views very often contradict the official views of my church.

I probably keep going to church for the same reason I remain a U.S. citizen. Many of my political views contradict official U.S. policy. I feel I can accomplish much more as a subversive insider than I can by burning my passport and moving to a neutral nation. Our Priests might read some flame I wrote in their morning paper and then they see me in church, and I know it sometimes makes them stop and think. It's also sort of fun to come up with various ways of not contributing to the church slush funds of evil. If only I could do that with the IRS! Nope, sorry, that's an Iraq war expense, Mr. Bush; I'm writing this check to the womens shelter instead...

I think it's a very odd thing to accuse the religious fundamentalists of black-and-white sorts of thinking, and then as a self proclaimed progressive, engage in the same sort of black-and-white thinking yourself. Someone like Stephen Jay Gould did not dodge the question -- for those religions that respect the findings of science what Gould claims is entirely true. Science and Religion become two entirely separate spheres.

Well, look at that, will you? The earth isn't 6000 years old and the Universe is much bigger than we thought. Glory be to the Deity or Pure Random Chance.

Most of the argument boils down to what you consider "traditional religion." If you define traditional religion as some sort of young earth creationism, then yes, science does conflict with that. But if you are arguing about something like "Do dogs have souls?" it seems a silly thing to get your panties in a knot about. That's the kind of question you ask in religion class to get out of doing any real work... Hmmm, I wonder what St. Francis really thought about that...

I personally think dogs have some sort of soul... Oh no! Is that blasphemy?