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the importance of religion to science
the influence of religion on science
the importance of religion to science
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Tutorial 1 – Sociological Perspectives and Investigation
Avani Jhanji
The reading I chose to discuss is “Does Science Threaten Religion”, found on page 497. I believe that this passage uses the theory and methods from cluster 1. The structural-functional perspective is used because this particular reading discusses how science and religion work together to give his how the natural world works and why the natural world exists (Gerber and Macionis 497). This collaboration of science and religion show a structural-functional approach because this approach everyone works together to create a stable society.
The next reason I believe this passage is from the cluster 1 approach is because of its use of a survey and quantitative
“The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.”
The first type of premise he uses is an empirical premise. “Empirical premises use empirical evidence that appeals to facts about the world obtained through observing or measuring the world” (Quant...
The 1920’s were a time of change. New ideas were becoming more readily experimented with and even accepted by large portions of the population. Some of these included jazz music and the fight against the alcoholic prohibition. The radical idea I will focus on in this paper, however, is Evolution. It is a theory that had been around for over half a century before the 20’s but had only more recently caught on in the US. It contradicted the Christian theory of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. This caused many religious fundamentalists to fight against it. They took their battle to the law books, and they were challenged by pro-evolution modernists in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.
Haldeman, I.M. Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909.
Since the beginning of the intellectual development of mankind, the question of whether there is god or not has been a question that still remains. However, its effects on our way of thinking has been shaped by a number of people, thinkers, priests, scientists so on and so forth. If we were to divide that continuum into two parts, they would be before the enlightenment and after the enlightenment. Namely the times of natural philosophy and times of science since the term produced after the mid eighteenths. Before the enlightenment religion was the core, center pillar of natural philosophy when the medieval Europe was thought. Nevertheless, after that era the religion was secluded from the “science” in a way that it may have affected the processes but it did not have such condition that could alter the methodology of thinking and contemplating.
Plantinga, Alvin, "Religion and Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
agree that “physics is the manner in which we argue about the objective side of
... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Thomas, C. (2011). The 'Standard'.
John F. Haught’s models for relating Christianity and Science begins with recognizing the conflict. Haught refers to conflict as the ruling that science and religion are definitely irreconcilable. This points to the beliefs that there is not room for understanding or agreement between the two. It is the controversy that arises when there is a belief that one cannot be both scientific and religious. Contrast follows conflict, in this state conflict intends to be no...
Throughout history, conflicts between faith and reason took the forms of religion and free thinking. In the times of the Old Regime, people like Copernicus and Galileo were often punished for having views that contradicted the beliefs of the church. The strict control of the church was severely weakened around the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Old Regime ended. As the church's control decreased, science and intellectual thinking seemed to advance. While the people in the world became more educated, the church worked harder to maintain its influential position in society and keep the Christian faith strong. In the mid-nineteenth century, the church's task to keep people's faith strong became much harder, due to theories published by free thinkers like Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, David Friedrich Strauss, and others. These men published controversial theories that hammered away at the foundation on which the Christian church was built. As the nineteenth century progressed, more doubts began to arise about the basic faiths of the Christian church.
Parsons claims that religion is our primary source of meaning; it answers the eternal questions and help to understand things like suffering and pain. It also produces, sacralises and legitimises the core values of society e.g. Protestantism in the USA encouraged individualism, democracy and equality of opportunity. Bellah claims that there is a civil religion and gives the example of America and its faith in Americanism, he says that civil religion unites society. However the functionalist view can be criticised: It focuses on the positive aspects of religion and ignores that it is the cause of conflict in much of the world e.g. Northern Ireland and conflict between protestants and Catholics, It does not explain the origins of religion, explaining what functions religion performs does not help us to know where it came from. Durkheim did his studies I small scale non-literate societies, it is difficult to see how religion performs its functions in out large complex religiously plural society.
Religion and science are complementary elements to our society. The notion that religion and science should not be merged together, does not mean neglecting to understand the parallel relation between these two concepts and will result in a better understanding of our surroundings. This will put an end to our scientific research and advancement because we will be relying on answers provided by religious books to answer our questions. If we don’t argue whether these answers are right or wrong, we would never have studied space stars or the universe or even our environment and earthly animals. These studies have always provided us with breakthroughs, inventions and discoveries that made our lives better.
At first glance, many facets of science and religion seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of this, I have generally kept them confined to separate spheres in my life. I have always thought that science is based on reason and cold, hard facts and is, therefore, objective. New ideas have to be proven many times by different people to be accepted by the wider scientific community, data and observations are taken with extreme precision, and through journal publications and papers, scientists are held accountable for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All of these factors contributed to my view of science as objective and completely truthful. Religion, on the other hand, always seems fairly subjective. Each person has their own personal relationship with God, and even though people often worship as a larger community with common core beliefs, it is fine for one person’s understanding of the Bible and God to be different from another’s. Another reason that Christianity seems so subjective is that it is centered around God, but we cannot rationally prove that He actually exists (nor is obtaining this proof of great interest to most Christians). There are also more concrete clashes, such as Genesis versus the big bang theory, evolution versus creationism, and the finality of death versus the Resurrection that led me to separate science and religion in my life. Upon closer examination, though, many of these apparent differences between science and Christianity disappeared or could at least be reconciled. After studying them more in depth, science and Christianity both seem less rigid and inflexible. It is now clear that intertwined with the data, logic, and laws of scien...
Often uses random sampling to select a large statistically representative sample from which generalizations can be drawn.
Stenmark, Mickael. How to Relate Science and Religion. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.