Fortnight:
- New Pope
- Horsemeat FINALLY falls out of the news.
- The Tories open their mouths
- Inquiries into various hospitals occur
- I get my results back.
So, in the light of the Pope being elected, I decided to turn to religion for this fortnight. Makes a change from my reasonably middle-of-the-road posts.
Even then, this is still very middle-of-the-road, as far as I'm concerned. That's just how I roll.
Recently (also known as the last three months or so), I read an article on the BBC, about the "first atheist church". Apparently, it involved an informal meeting of a collection of atheists, and in it, there was "a power-point presentation from a particle physicist, Dr Harry Cliff, who explains the origins of antimatter theory."
It wasn't completely science-centric, but it had science in it. I'm not going to bash the "atheist church". If they want to congregate and create an organised religion out of having no religion, then go for it. As long as they're having fun.
But the science presentation is something I may bash, oh-so-slightly. It's not the presentation itself I have an issue with, but the idea that surrounds it.
There's some kind of myth going around, and I find this especially with both militant Christians and militant atheists, that you're either a man of "science" or a man of "faith". You either call out scientists on bullshit or are one, so to speak. This came to a head, not to long ago, with my incredibly specific example, as follows. A reasonably well-known atheist died, and on twitter there were some few tweets by other reasonably well-known atheists talking about something along the lines of "we cannot let faith override us and let us seek sanctuary in science".
Maybe when On Origins of Species was released, this was most likely true*. It was most likely* a case of "you're either science or faith". But we've moved on from that, and there are times when science and faith can mingle. Scientists can be Christians and Christians can be scientists. Case in point: I met a couple of priests a few years back, and I got the chance to question them. They both took the line that it wasn't a case of "faith or science", and they gave me a few examples that lead to the Bible proving evolution. Agnostic me naturally took this a little dubiously, but that wasn't the point.
The point is that it doesn't have to be a split. Atheists can't just be all about science, science, science. The two priests I met had kept themselves open to alternative ideas, and were more interesting people for it. Why can't some atheists do the same?
*I'm not guaranteeing anything I haven't googled.
- New Pope
- Horsemeat FINALLY falls out of the news.
- The Tories open their mouths
- Inquiries into various hospitals occur
- I get my results back.
So, in the light of the Pope being elected, I decided to turn to religion for this fortnight. Makes a change from my reasonably middle-of-the-road posts.
Even then, this is still very middle-of-the-road, as far as I'm concerned. That's just how I roll.
Recently (also known as the last three months or so), I read an article on the BBC, about the "first atheist church". Apparently, it involved an informal meeting of a collection of atheists, and in it, there was "a power-point presentation from a particle physicist, Dr Harry Cliff, who explains the origins of antimatter theory."
It wasn't completely science-centric, but it had science in it. I'm not going to bash the "atheist church". If they want to congregate and create an organised religion out of having no religion, then go for it. As long as they're having fun.
But the science presentation is something I may bash, oh-so-slightly. It's not the presentation itself I have an issue with, but the idea that surrounds it.
There's some kind of myth going around, and I find this especially with both militant Christians and militant atheists, that you're either a man of "science" or a man of "faith". You either call out scientists on bullshit or are one, so to speak. This came to a head, not to long ago, with my incredibly specific example, as follows. A reasonably well-known atheist died, and on twitter there were some few tweets by other reasonably well-known atheists talking about something along the lines of "we cannot let faith override us and let us seek sanctuary in science".
Maybe when On Origins of Species was released, this was most likely true*. It was most likely* a case of "you're either science or faith". But we've moved on from that, and there are times when science and faith can mingle. Scientists can be Christians and Christians can be scientists. Case in point: I met a couple of priests a few years back, and I got the chance to question them. They both took the line that it wasn't a case of "faith or science", and they gave me a few examples that lead to the Bible proving evolution. Agnostic me naturally took this a little dubiously, but that wasn't the point.
The point is that it doesn't have to be a split. Atheists can't just be all about science, science, science. The two priests I met had kept themselves open to alternative ideas, and were more interesting people for it. Why can't some atheists do the same?
*I'm not guaranteeing anything I haven't googled.
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