RELIGION VS SCIENCE REVIEW OF ECKLUND AND SCHEITLE'S BOOK

If there is no problem between religion and science why does this book find that Catholics/Protestants are reluctant unlike the non-religious to recommend biology or physics as careers for their children? The book Religion Vs Science (Ecklund, Scheitle) tells us that. One excuse is that they are so nice they would rather the children became physicians. This is not consistent with how parents want their children in good careers with good prospects and it is not about the patients. Religion fears the two sciences of biology and physics - they unravel its lies. The fear with physics is that it is commonly seen as having the potential to transfer the impulse that fuels religion to physics. Physics can lead to an alternative sense of the meaning of life.

The book reminds us that Richard Dawkins and opponents of belief in miracles argue that miracles do not just oppose the facts of science but the spirit and ethos of science. It says, "most scientists would agree with him arguing that science has no ability to account for supernatural events, nor does it have any desire to do so." 38% of Americans we are told want scientists to be interested in considering the supernatural. 21% said they should not. 41% said they had no views on this matter. Actually these results are alarming. Not only that, they show too many parents are going to influence their children away from science.

The book mentions those who think that as God is outside the world and the maker of all and bigger than all he will not let us destroy ourselves and will intervene. I would ask them why they think they are so special that any intervention will do them any good? There is no mention of how he can defeat that destruction perhaps in a new world as opposed to rebuilding this one. Science demands that we take the threat as final and to fear it. This does not fit religious faith at all. It demands that it be overthrown. It is too dangerous and extreme. It makes little of a terrible fact.

The book however says that people like that fail to see that their religious tradition of caring for people includes caring for the world and the environment. One wonders then why something so simple and easy to think of is not sinking in. Why do they want to be caring about people while destroying the world which is the biggest failure in looking after others imaginable? Climate change and so on actually threatens the poor most of all. The National Association of Evangelicals said in 2015 that "a changing climate threatens the lives and livelihoods of the world's poorest citizens." Of course the book will not tell us that the religious don't want to see the obvious. They think God should and does want them to follow his rules about helping people and as he has not clearly spoken on the environment it does not matter. They get something out of doing what they are told even if people are left worse off. There is something egoistic about obeying the one perfect being. The Holy Spirit is has done nothing about these attitudes for years and is not doing much now so if that says anything then God wants concern for the environment left out.