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From: bill@hpfcms.UUCP (bill)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Penses
Message-ID: <45200003@hpfcms.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-May-85 16:40:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfcms.45200003
Posted: Sun May 12 16:40:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 12-May-85 00:44:29 EDT
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Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Fort Collins, CO
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Nf-From: hpfcms!bill    May  1 12:40:00 1985

>It seems to me that the fundamental differences between "religious" 
>and "scientific" theories is that religious theories attempt to deal with 
>"private" experiences (people's inner relationships to the universe), 
>whereas scientific theories attempt to deal with "public" experiences
>("external" sense perceptions).  If this hunch is correct, it may explain why 
>religious and scientific theories are often in bitter conflict.

Being a Christian, I thought I'd contribute my point of view on this.

Christianity does not stop with personal experiences or feelings.  It
certainly encompasses this, but it goes further.  Biblical Christianity
(as opposed to that form which is based upon the Bible, supplemental
"experiences", and the like) addresses all of life - personal experiences,
feelings, your relationship with God, and your physical interaction with
the world around you.  There is absolutely no way that a Christian can
believe in God without that belief permeating all that is associated with
the person.

The bitter conflicts occur for one simple reason.  Science attempts to
explain things via concrete, understandable, conceivable, and believable
means.  Christianity recognizes such things, but is not afraid (or ashamed)
to attribute things to powers that are above, beyond, and not capable of
being understood by, us.  Science, by its very nature, refutes the
existence of a God, or, at the very least, limits His power to the
provable and understandable.  Examples:

    Man is ultimately responsible for his own fate.
    vs.
    God is ultimately responsible for everything's fate, including man's.

    Man evolved from other, lower life forms.
    vs.
    God created man, just as he created all other life forms.

How can there help but be bitter conflicts?  Scientific theories such as
these (remember, they're just hypotheses) directly oppose what we as
Christians read to be true in the Word of God - the Bible.

One last point.  This notestring has been discussing how all laws and
other absolute truths are but good hypotheses.  Thus, nothing is absolute -
it just hasn't been contradicted yet.  Well, in a Christian's life, there
ARE absolute truths.  Since basic beliefs state that the Bible is the 
Word of God, what's written there must be absolutely true, having been
written by the only One who knows it all!  Thus, if we really believe, we
have to stick by what's written in the Bible over what Science has decided
to be true, because man is the origin of one, and God is the origin of the
other.

Just another point of view.

Bill Gates         hpfcla!bill-g