We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
When Science Starts to Smell Like Religion
image via theologicalgraffiti.com
Most of you know that, here at ReKnew, we try to come against some of the popular antagonism between the church and science. We think it’s a shame when christians pit themselves against legitimate scientific inquiry and discovery based upon a questionable reading of scripture. ReKnew strives to be a place where good science is not feared or mindlessly dismissed.
But sometimes the unthinking antagonism flows in the other direction.
T.C. Moore wrote a thoughtful, smart review of the first episode of the new Cosmos program starring Neil deGrasse Tyson that we wanted to share here. Entitled Cosmos, Episode One: A Religious Approach to Science and an Unscientific Approach to History, T.C. does an excellent job of pointing out deGrasse’s biases that he unfortunately presents as objective science.
From T.C.’s reflections:
The reality is faith and science are not enemies! As Hess points out, “Missing were the stories of Catholic astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo, Protestants such as Brahe and Kepler and Newton, or Fr. George Lemaître, proposer of the Big Bang.” 10 One of my personal heroes of theology is also a world-renowned physicist: John Polkinghorne. 11 He would certainly not say that science and faith are enemies, but would most certainly say they are complementary. Also, there is a whole host of noteworthy theologians and Christian church leaders who also affirm science and see no irreconcilable conflict between the two. One particularly clear space where these two worlds are both celebrated is in the BioLogos community.
We look forward to the day when people of faith and people of science can lay down their assumptions and stop insulting one another. In fact, it’s quite possible to be both a person of faith AND a person of science. These are not mutually exclusive ways of seeing the world.
You should check out Biologos if you’d like to learn more about the compatibility of faith and science.
Category: General
Tags: Biologos, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Religion, Science, T.C. Moore
Related Reading
Greg’s Interview on The Christian Transhumanist Podcast
Here is an interview I did for The Christian Transhumanist Podcast that I wanted to share with all of you. Micah Redding and I discuss everything from Relativity Theory to Politics. I think you’ll find it interesting, but I want to offer a word of clarification before you listen. At one point in this interview…
Glorious Creation
I’m not a scientist, but I’ve always loved to dabble in it. In fact, I collaborated with some friends and wrote a quirky picture book on the interfacing of various areas of science (e.g. quantum theory, chaos theory) and the open view of the future. It’s called The Cosmic Dance and, just to let the…
Evolution as Believers?
I guess we’re on a roll on science topics these last few days. As a pastor my only concern with the creation/evolution “debate” is that those who feel they must deny evolution don’t make this a hurdle people have to jump over to get into the kingdom. As a fellow member of American society, however, my concern…
Reflecting on Open2013
T. C. Moore has posted some of his reflections from the Open Theism conference. T. C. was one of several people who pulled this conference together and he did a great job. He’s also incredibly smart and very active in the open view community. Also, he’s a young church planter in Boston and I’m sure he’s…
Join the Revolution!
We are living at a very important, and very exciting, juncture of history. The old religion of Christendom that has been identified with “Christianity” the last 1600 years is dying, and out of its ruins is arising a new tribe of kingdom revolutionaries. All around the globe people are getting the revelation that the kingdom…
The Beautifully Bizarre Entangled You
Reality is not always what it seems. We get lulled into treating our miraculous lives as something ordinary if we’re not paying close attention. Last weekend Greg preached on some of the more bizarre findings of quantum physics and what this this reveals about how beautifully entangled we are with God and with one another.…