Can you say science and religion fit when science can never call a real miracle a miracle?
Religion is supposedly about bringing the supernatural to us and us to it while science is only about the natural.
One vaunted difference is how God supposedly plants the miracle of love inside us while science only finds chemical responses and other physical ties. This is supposed to be an example of how we need both to learn and understand.
We are not told how one is guessing/hearsay and the other is not. Nobody really knows if anything is planting the love or what it is. Science says there is always more to what is tested than we will ever know. But that should mean we say, "I'm not sure." It is not a go-ahead to bring in the preternatural or paranormal.
Science would not use the word miracle, but it would call it -
"something that nature cannot explain and which needs further information".
Religion and science cannot really fit together in everything. The fitting as we have seen is forced.
A book about life in Alaska and one about life in Australia are not necessarily both correct just because one does not contradict the other. The "science complements religion" is spoken nearly always by religionists. That is having two disciplines and saying they fit. But you cannot know that.
There are gaps in religion and in what it says it knows. Don't put science in them.
To have a science of the gaps is making a religion look more credible than it is. Any faith can do that. If your faith is that all who kiss a leprechaun statue every morning before 10 am will be saved and cleansed from evil, that will suffice.
There are gaps in science and in what it says it knows. Don't put God, ie miracles, in the spaces. Where would we be if we could not explain lightning and just said that God does it and that is all we need to know? Using science is clearly trying to tell God if he is doing it then he should not.
Religion of the gaps and science of the gaps are simply dishonest.
To avoid science is to be against it. Jesus said that to avoid him is to oppose him. The point is that the truth cannot go away and if you stare the other way that is opposition to it.
Ask religion if there was a choice between:
burning all science books
burning all its faith books
what it would choose. The answer will be that science should go.
Christianity claims that the Bible respects and grounds science and so it claims to be the one religion that should not be suspected of being a secret or open foe of science.
Science ignores the supernatural. To say something has
come from nothing - that is has been created - is supernatural. It is not
naturally possible. The Bible teaches that only God can create or make from
nothing. The Bible sees creation as a miracle endorsing a supernatural
worldview. The conflict is fatal - to religion.
Religion responds that though science does not deal with the supernatural it
doesn't refute it. But that is confessing there is no scientific evidence for
the supernatural. So why suppose there is a supernatural then? Why take it
seriously? And there are liars who claim that science has proven the Turin
Shroud and the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano to be real miracles and really
supernatural! That is all they are - liars.
The claim that science tells us how things came to be; the Bible (or religious faith) tells us why is untruthful. The Bible does say how things came to be. Jesus did not rise from the dead so we could simply wonder why he did it. The answer to the how of the resurrection is that God, the master of life, raised Jesus. Acts 2:32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. The how is inseparable from the why because if God was not the cause of the resurrection then the why does not matter.
Believers would read all this and chant, "Science is Based on Faith too!"
Some believers in Christ argue that what we call science is really just taking
the testimony of some scientists on faith. Usually people believe what Stephen
Hawkings says even if they don't read his books or think it through. That is
really an abuse of science. Science demands that you try to check them out in
your own head.
Some complain, “Why do so many people today insist on adopting a literal
approach to Genesis - one that inevitably puts them on a collision course with
science?” Stannard, R. Science & Belief, The Big Issues (Lion, 2012), p. 19. The
reason is that they are getting away with it and when they get support they feel
their opposition to truth is being validated and supported.
Christians say that the fact that the scriptures give evidence that God has
spoken doesn’t make them unscientific but shows respect for evidence. They
will say that evidence matters hugely in science so there is no
necessary conflict of methodology.
They will add, " We put faith in what the scientists tell us and trust that they conducted experiments honestly. We just cannot get away from faith and faith is scientific. The Bible like science requires faith. The importance of the Bible is that it gives us a way to ‘divinise’ science and fill it with light and life so that it is not a source of insipid and dry facts. This leads logically to the outrageous conclusion: science is based on testimony, surely the person who grounds himself on divine testimony is the most scientific person of all? God is in a better position to tell us than anybody else. Matthew 6:4, Your Father, who sees what is done in secret ... "
Again we know from earlier that the testimony of science will always be more
dependable than the testimony of the Bible. This is not to say that science is
always right. It is because science isn't always right and is self-correcting
that it should be taken the most seriously.
Significance of the Bible
God’s word is said to be significant to the people of Bible times for it
developed their knowledge and thus science was able to take shape. Christians think
that God saved us from pre-scientific forms of dangerous and blasphemous
religion - for example, the worship of human type gods. Exodus 20:4-6 has God
decree:
You shall not
make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the
earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship
them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the
sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but
showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my
commandments.
The Christians are saying that since statues for example are not even alive we
cannot make gods of them. They argue that God opposing idolatry was scientific.
That is a stretch!
It contradicts the Christian claim that science and religion are two separate
fields and that science cannot disprove anything religious and cannot prove that
a statue is not a god.
The believers go as far as to make out that the Bible is the foundation of
modern science! Not true! There is no record even of the apostles conducting a
commission of investigation to satisfy the sceptics and the scientifically
minded that Jesus really rose.
Evaluation: If Bible religion was an improvement on paganism, that is a very
weak argument in its favour. Many forms of paganism were civilised and
humanistic.
Finally
The Bible was written by ordinary and often poorly educated people and it shows.
Faith in the Bible is anti-science. We are told that faith in science and in
Christ are complementary. That is an untruth.
If the Bible is not from a higher being then it should
contradict science. To argue that it is from somebody who knows better
than science is to interpret science through the Bible prism. It is to
oppose science while making it look like you do not.
The Bible should contradict science. And it does. It does it in attitude more
than it does in specific scientific detail. Such vital truths as evolution are
not even mentioned. We read about the Virgin Mary having not known man and the
most important truth of all is not even considered worthy of mention. Nobody can
say that the Bible approves of evolution. That is only guessing for it never
gives any hint that the fact of evolution is a fact.
Christians may say there is no conflict between religion and science. Surely
they know that there are forms of Christianity that differ hugely from one
another and are we to think that there is no conflict between any of these and
science? The following has to be shouted for it is so important. CHRISTIANS SAY
THERE IS NO CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY. THEY SAY THEY FIT
TOGETHER AND COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER. BUT IT IS NOT UP TO CHRISTIANS TO SAY THAT
BUT SCIENTISTS WHO ARE CHRISTIANS (AND THE FEW THAT ARE DON'T THINK ABOUT
RELIGION MUCH OR UNDERSTAND IT CORRECTLY). THAT YOU HAVE POPES AND THEOLOGIANS
SAYING IT PROVES THAT THEY ARE ARROGANT AND UNTRUTHFUL.