Re: Evolution and Creationism

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sun, 22 Aug 1999, Glenn Knapp wrote:

> Religions deal with things beyond the scope of science.

I don't agree.  Here's why.  Does the "invisible world" of religions
exist?  This might be hard to prove, but also it might not, and we cannot
know unless we expend genuine unbiased efforts to look into the question.

Suppose we intensively and professionally investigate the more-reliable
reported contacts with the dead, or contacts with angels, or communication
with any other supposed beings of the "invisible world."  Suppose we find
some of these which can give us information not available through any
other means.  (Get your dead grandpa to tell you where he hid his will,
get nonphysical beings to give the name and location of lost wrecked
ships, etc.)

One of the claims of religions is that beings exist out in the invisible
world, and that communication with them is not forbidden. If quite a large
amount of information derived from these "beings" was true, this would
give strong evidence that some type of "invisible world" must indeed
exist, and that not all religious claims are beyond the scope of science.


> The purpose of science is to discover universal truths, to find more and
> better laws of physics.
>
> Among the many purposes of religion are these: to establish the place of
> human beings in the universe, delineate the meaning of life, provide a
> moral framework for life, and to furnish information about what will
> happen after death.  Aren't these things are beyond the scope of
> science?

No, they are not all beyond the scope of science if some of the claims of
religion are testable.  If there is a way to investigate some of these
things with the methods of science, then we should not declare that
science has nothing to say about any of them.  If life after death is
real, and if a communication channel with the dead can be shown to be
valid, then science can proceed in verifying that some religious claims
are true.

> Can science really be used to prove or disprove a religion?  Since science
> proves or disproves things based on whether the thing violated a law of
> nature, religious claims would seem to be outside the area we can
> investigate. Religious events such as miracles, by definition, violate
> these laws all the time.  Thus, the religion cannot be proved.

Religion itself cannot be proved, only its testable claims can be proved.
We might be able to demonstrate that life after death is real.  However,
would this demonstrate that god exists, or that Christianity is real (as
opposed to all of the other religions which have life after death as a
component?)  Obviously not.  However, it would be worthwhile to explore
the life-after-death question, or even the general "invisible world"
question. It certainly would be very interesting to see what happens to
the modern world if mainstream science demonstrates that any components of
religions are real!


>  Believing in religion requires
> faith.   If you believe that there is an all powerful God who, quite easily,
> created a universe that looks like it's 15 billion years old or so in six days,
> what could a scientists do to convince you otherwise?  "Look, here's a fossil
> that is 125 million years old." You could tell this person.
>
> "Yes, God created the world so that people might think it was real old.  God
> can do anything."  Might be the reply.
>
> So, again, I wonder, is religion something that science can investigate?

Yes, science can investigate religion, but that doesn't mean that all of
the "100% true believers" in either camp would be swayed.  However, this
has always been the case in any controversy..  There's nothing to be done
about the true believers or the "true disbelievers."  The
religious/physics research would only benefit the rest of us whose minds
are not closed.


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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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