Can a Modern Scientist Be Religious?

[T.O.E Dream]

Can a modern scientist be religious or even have a religion?

 

[CompuChip]

I don't think that is a problem and in fact, I think many scientists are.

As a very simple example, consider the belief that God has created the universe and the laws by which it operates. This is even unifiable with the theory of evolution, although it doesn't place us humans in such a central position as "traditional" religion seems to do.

Moreover, there are still many things that cannot be explained through science (for example: what was there (and where is "there") before the Big Bang) and unprobable events (for example, the odds of humans evolving as they did and getting as technologically advanced as they did) that may not obsolete religion.

 

[exciton]

I think this is OT.

But beside that:

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson

Dyson disagrees with the famous remark by his fellow-physicist Steven Weinberg that "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion."[33]

“ Weinberg's statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: "And for bad people to do good things—that takes religion." The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" he said, "I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things, but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.[33]
On the scale what Dyson achieved he is a very modern scientist, then again
he is just one famous example. Most of the famous guys did at least pretend
that they don't believe in anything. Science is not about this particular
question, but that's a personal view.

 

[diffusion]

I think the only reasonable, scientific, and intellectually honest position with respect to the existence of God(s) is agnosticism. I regard God(s) the same way I do any hypothesis - what is the evidence, and to what conclusion does it lead? In the case of God(s), there does not seem to be any convincing evidence either way, so I will remain neutral until shown otherwise.

 

[exciton]

The problem is asking the question does god really exist in scientific terms
makes as much sense as asking if mathematical theorems are "really" true.
One stays in a sorry state.

It's the same with physics are there really true fundamental models or can we
really understand nature ? No model of nature is perfect and in physics you always
calculate as much as to feel that it is coherent with experiment. Period.
So in that perspective a particular model is "true".

Physics/Science does not address questions about pain, suffering, success, luck,
family, friends, health, feelings, soul, perspective, will, relations, right, wrong, life style,
etc.

So you have to make a choice and then live with.

 

[Vanadium 50]

It is a fact that many scientists are religious people. So the OP's question has an answer: "yes". Beyond that, we're drifting into the realm of Should a Modern Scientist Be Religious?

I maintain that the answer to that is none of our business.

 

[Count Iblis]

Can a doctor smoke?

Can a politician preach family values and have an affair at the same time?

 

[lubuntu]

It can happen, but I think that learning about how science works and the kinds of answers we get about things it tends to turn people away from religion. The idea of religion is very human and Earth centered when you try to look at the universe objectively a lot of these claims quickly fall apart. So let me really put it coherently this way:

It seems to me that any scientist who allows himself to look at the "god hypothesis" objectively would probably not be religious. However, there are a great deal of scientists who create a wall between these two realms.

 

[eri]

Many scientists are religious (studies have shown the percentages of atheists/agnostics is highest in the physical sciences, lower in the biological sciences, but still higher than the general population). But very few scientists will be evangelical - while many retain their religion throughout their studies in science, they tend to be the 'milder' forms of religion (the ones that make few demands on your life and don't expect you to reject things like science, birth control, womens rights, etc). Or they ignore that part (all the Catholics I know use birth control).

 

[lubuntu]

Actually I'm pretty sure studies found biologists are the least religious not physical scientists.

 

[Count Iblis]

Few of the top theoretical physicists are religious. Abdus Salam was one of these few exceptions.

 

[Moonbear]

It is a fact that many scientists are religious people. So the OP's question has an answer: "yes". Beyond that, we're drifting into the realm of Should a Modern Scientist Be Religious?

I maintain that the answer to that is none of our business.

Well stated. I would only add that people are religious for many different reasons, not all relying on a deep faith in God. For example, many follow a religion the same as they would any other family or cultural tradition they grew up with. And, only a few religions teach beliefs that are really incompatible or contradictory to scientific knowledge, most others are pretty neutral on the subject.

 

[DavidSnider]

If they go home and drink goats blood, none of our business.

If they start trying to get funding for a power plant based on theory that Djinns are fiery creatures and thus must contain a lot of energy.. then you start to worry.

 

[leroyjenkens]

There's lots of different kinds of scientists. As long as what the scientist is studying and/or teaching about doesn't conflict with any religious doctrine, I could easily see him or her being religious. Now if you're a cosmologist or an evolutionary biologist or something like that, I don't see how you could honestly be religious, since you would be gathering information that contradicts scripture.

 

[muppet]

I did actually lose my own strong religious faith because of science; specifically, the idea that every human thought and action is a direct consequence of something going on in a physical brain. To me, it made no sense that someone's soul could then be held accountable for any virtue or wrongdoing, or that the identity we associate with a person could in any way survive their death, when it's so inextricably linked to their mortal frame.

Still, no-one makes the scientific point more emphatically than Robert Winston in his book on the human mind, and he is strongly religious; he claims in another book simply to have no idea what a soul actually is. I need to sit down and read the whole of his book on religion, to work out where he's coming from. Most of my religious friends don't really seem to know what they believe a soul is; I asked my (religious) mother what she thought happened to the soul of a sufferer from multiple personality disorder, and she considered it an interesting theological question to forget (with the intention of chatting to a priest about it).

John Polkinghorne (now an Anglican vicar, with a background as a Cambridge particle theorist), John Barrow (Cambridge cosmologist and templeton prize winner), Ken Miller (molecular biologist at Brown and Roman Catholic who stood as an expert witness against ID in the Dover vs kitzmiller trial), Chris Isham (eminent theoretical physicist at Imperial college who has written about his Christian faith) and Alistair McGrath (now a vicar and theologian, but has a PhD in biochemistry from Oxford) are all examples of the fact that it is possible to be religious- and specifically, to adhere to some particular religious creed- whilst being an extremely accomplished scientist. I'd really like to get round to reading some of their stuff to restore my faith in religious belief- the student Christian union in my university specialises in the evangelical scrag end of belief (science is arrogant, evolution is just a theory, natural disasters are punishments from God, homosexuality is morally wrong ...).

 

[muppet]

There's lots of different kinds of scientists. As long as what the scientist is studying and/or teaching about doesn't conflict with any religious doctrine, I could easily see him or her being religious. Now if you're a cosmologist or an evolutionary biologist or something like that, I don't see how you could honestly be religious, since you would be gathering information that contradicts scripture.

It'd be a mistake to assume that every religous person swallows scripture whole- or at least, takes it literally and swallows it whole. Both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches have publicly acknowledged evolution as a scientific fact.

 

[Quincy]

Absolutely not. How a scientist can believe in something without evidence/accept mystical answers, I'll never understand. It's cognitive dissonance.

 

[DavidSnider]

Absolutely not. How a scientist can believe in something without evidence/accept mystical answers, I'll never understand. It's cognitive dissonance.

It's only dissonance if you play the notes at the same time.

 

[FayeKane]

In the case of God(s), there does not seem to be any convincing evidence either way, so I will remain neutral until shown otherwise.

What do you mean "either way"? The proposition under question is whether x exists. A complete lack of evidence of x combined with no good reason to believe x, doesn't require the Scientist to abstain from believing that x probably doesn't exist, even absent the fact that belief in gods and goddesses is ridiculous, prima facie.

Sure, technically, all REAL Scientists are atheists about everything. And qantum uncertainty makes, literally, anything possible. But as Bertrand Russell said, "I cannot prove that no Chinese teapots orbit Mars. But I consider the likelihood so remote that there is no detectable distinction between my opinion on the matter and complete disbelief".

Agnostics are cowardly atheists, fearing popular opinion, death, or both.

Note that none of the above precludes awe and wonder.

Or love.

--faye

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What do you mean "either way"? The proposition under question is whether x exists. A complete lack of evidence of x combined with no good reason to believe x, doesn't require the Scientist to abstain from believing that x probably doesn't exist, even absent the fact that belief in gods and goddesses is ridiculous, prima facie.

That is if you limit evidence to mean scientific evidence. We have over 4000 years of history as well. There is also personal experience. Faith is often motivated by experience and the experiences of others.

Sure, technically, all REAL Scientists are atheists about everything. And qantum uncertainty makes, literally, anything possible. But as Bertrand Russell said, "I cannot prove that no Chinese teapots orbit Mars. But I consider the likelihood so remote that there is no detectable distinction between my opinion on the matter and complete disbelief".

Agnostics are cowardly atheists, fearing popular opinion, death, or both.

Note that none of the above precludes awe and wonder.

Or love.

--faye

So are you saying that once a scientist, only a scientist? Science is a tool for discovery that has limits. You make it sound more like a religion.

What would be your opinion of someone who made a religion out of Newtonian physics [in fact some people still do]? They would seem pretty silly now, wouldn't they? Is it your opinion that we know everything of siginficance that will ever be known?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Agnostics are cowardly atheists, fearing popular opinion, death, or both.

This bashing of agnostics as being indecisive and cowardly is really ridiculous and annoying. As if its not enough to bash the theists, anyone who is not atheist must be bashed as well. It seems a rather "either yer with us er agin us" sort of attitude.

 

[FayeKane]

Your objection is not, (for lack of a better term) "fair". The question was "Can a Modern Scientist Be Religious?"

One would think that implies the context of "when he's considering propositions in a scientific way". Otherwise the fact that he's a "scientist" is irrelevant to the question.

You're turning it from a legitimate question into a trick question.

You might as well say "A scientist can be religious because he's of a species with a sufficiently evolved brain. Dogs, for example, cannot be religious."

-Faith Kane

Faith is often motivated by experience and the experiences of others.

Yes, I often am!

 

[noblegas]

Sure why couldn't they? Issac Newton , who established the foundations for basic physics and created calculus was a religious zealot and devoted more time to christian rituals and practicing alchemy than physics. I don't think you are automatically irrational because you believe in a deity or you are religious nor do I think you are automatically a rationalist or a person of scientific inquiry if you choose not to believe in god . You have to actively against in scientific inquiry to be a rationalist . You might be consisted with your disbelief in god best on the little evidence you are given for the existence of god, but be irrational and ignorant in a completely another field , like economics for instance .Science hasn't dispproved that god does not exist, science cannot proved that god exist given the tools humans used to conduct and form experiments to tests hypothesis/observations and formulated theories based on those experiments. Proving whether or not a deity does exist is totally out of the domain of science.

 

[Count Iblis]

Proving whether or not a deity does exist is totally out of the domain of science.

I disagree. You can imagne that God does exist and that he has communicated evidence for his existence to a prophet. Suppose then that a religious text is found somewhere that is scientifically confirmed to be thousands of years old. If the text gives details about scientific facts such as the exact mass ratios of fundamental particles, facts about astrophysics (e.g. facts about our solar system, nearby solar systems etc. etc.), then confirming this information would prove beyond a resonable doubt that the prophet had received the message from some unknown intelligence.

This would not really prove that this intelligence is really God. If we define God as the creator of the universe, then a proof could still be given this way. To prove that you created the universe instead of just having access to a lot of accurate information, you need to demostrate that you had actual control over that information. When you created the universe you had some free parameters available. You can then tune the precise value of these free parameters so that the decimals of certain mass ratios, the fine structure constant etc. etc. contain a message.

In the text you give the code neded to decode the message. If the code is specified by only a few bits of information while the text of the message contains many bits of information, then that is proof that the universe was created by a God.


The fact that none of the religious texts gives any nontrivial information about the universe, let alone the rigorous proof I just explained, strongly suggests that religion is nothing more than a fairy tale.

 

[Quincy]

Sure why couldn't they? Issac Newton , who established the foundations for basic physics and created calculus was a religious zealot and devoted more time to christian rituals and practicing alchemy than physics.

He wasn't a modern physicist. He didn't know about evolution or the big bang theory.

I don't think you are automatically irrational because you believe in a deity or you are religious nor do I think you are automatically a rationalist or a person of scientific inquiry if you choose not to believe in god . You have to actively against in scientific inquiry to be a rationalist . You might be consisted with your disbelief in god best on the little evidence you are given for the existence of god, but be irrational and ignorant in a completely another field , like economics for instance .Science hasn't dispproved that god does not exist, science cannot proved that god exist given the tools humans used to conduct and form experiments to tests hypothesis/observations and formulated theories based on those experiments. Proving whether or not a deity does exist is totally out of the domain of science.

It's impossible to try to prove that something doesn't exist. Scientists can't prove god doesn't exist, and neither can they prove that santa clause or invisible pink unicorns don't exist. It doesn't mean that there's a good reason to believe in those things. You can't prove a negative, that's a law of logic.

 

[noblegas]

He wasn't a modern physicist. He didn't know about evolution or the big bang theory.

I never said he was a modern physicist and I never said he new about evolution, I implied that he laid out the ground out the ground work for classical mechanics and created a mathematical language for physicist. Since when does the theory of evolution disapproved that their is no deity? As I recalled , it only disproves the christian version of how God created the universe as told in Genesis.

It's impossible to try to prove that something doesn't exist. Scientists can't prove god doesn't exist, and neither can they prove that santa clause or invisible pink unicorns don't exist. It doesn't mean that there's a good reason to believe in those things. You can't prove a negative, that's a law of logic.

As I said in my in post. I think it is futile for human beings to try to prove/disprove the existence of God just like it is futile for an ant or dog to attempt calculus; I think our brains might not wired to fully visualized a deity; We humans sometimes make the mistake of assuming that we are omniscient creatures; We are not; if we were , we would not have to developed the scientific method to helped us better understand the world around us. We would know everything already. A species of lesser intelligence might say that 'they cannot visualized calculus, therefore it does not exists'; Just because a person does not understand or perceive something does not mean it does not exist.

 

[Pinu7]

First of, haven't you heard of the mideival Islamic scholars who INVENTED the scientific method?

Although I'm not a scientist, I aspire to be one and I'm a theist. In my opinion, "religion" may fall into two categories.

Many ancient religions(and some contemporary ones!), are invented by the human mind to explain natural phenomena, like the Greek and Roman religions. This type of religion is, fundamentally, unscientific. I'm not sure why any scientist could believe this unless they were spoken to by a god or a strong feeling or something. Atheists often attack those religions who still have this old theology(not naming any) who may believe the Earth is flat and is held up by an infinite column of turtles. A more "modern" theology(ex. Apostolic Church, if you can consider that modern) is not contradictory to the scientific method(remember, the scientific method is a TOOL, not a DOGMA for belief) because it does not explain scientific phenomena(for the most part, depending on your flavor of theology). Instead, modern theology is more like a philosophy connecting us, as conscious beings, to each other and the essence of reality(i.e. God).

 

[Integral]

A "real" scientist knows the limits of science. There is much that is outside of those limits. That includes pretty much any "why" question such as "why life" , and the whys and hows of human relations. All the why stuff is perfectly good fodder for religion, a man (or woman) of science can and does have interest and curiosity about these questions not addressed by science. Therefore the doors to religion are wide open to any human who needs to believe in something bigger then themselves or needs a guide on how to relate to other humans.

 

[protonchain]

I'm Hindu, and I'm an astrophysicist.

I don't go to temple saying "My observations of the universe contradict what's written in the Bhagavad Gita, so the Gita is incorrect".

And I don't go to research going "This contradicts with what is written in the Bhagavad Gita, so it's incorrect".

I think it's all a matter of how you take religion and science. For us (my family and many other Hindus), Hinduism is the pursuit of knowledge and truth and is NOT a definitive set of rules, codes, conduct, and unwavering facts about the universe and nature. In fact it's more flexible than many people first realize.

I'm not trying to advertise my faith here, please don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to provide an example.

Most scientists that I know that are somewhat religious (not just Hindus, I'm talking of all different faiths) feel the EXACT same way about religion. It's not a strict set of laws when you actually understand their scriptures. They all say the same thing.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Therefore the doors to religion are wide open to any human who needs to believe in something bigger then themselves or needs a guide on how to relate to other humans.

Do you recognize the cheap shot? So all religious people NEED to believe, but you don't?

People have faith for probably thousands of reasons. Need is sometimes the motivation. Others explore and find what they believe to be truth based on any number of criteria. The most direct measure of truth is often the effect that faith has on a person's life. In fact this has always been one of the strongest sales pitches for faith: Test it. See if it works. But do so with all of your heart. Those who never have can have no common frame of reference with those who did.

 

[WhoWee]

Well, there's always this (G is the greatest force).
http://www.kisol.com/science/gravity.htm

A scientist can have strong faith and still do their research. There's nothing wrong with rooting for the home-team, as long as the work is un-biased.

 

[Count Iblis]

A "real" scientist knows the limits of science. There is much that is outside of those limits. That includes pretty much any "why" question such as "why life" , and the whys and hows of human relations. All the why stuff is perfectly good fodder for religion, a man (or woman) of science can and does have interest and curiosity about these questions not addressed by science. Therefore the doors to religion are wide open to any human who needs to believe in something bigger then themselves or needs a guide on how to relate to other humans.

Human relations fall under science. Humans consist of atoms that are described by the known laws of physics.

 

[Count Iblis]

Could a future intelligent machine be religious? I think only if that intelligent machine does not accept that it is a machine. But if you are a machine and you know that your mind is implemented by transitors, then it is hard to imagine how you could also be religious.

 

[Quincy]

I never said he was a modern physicist and I never said he new about evolution, I implied that he laid out the ground out the ground work for classical mechanics and created a mathematical language for physicist.

But the question in the thread is: "Can a modern scientist be religious?"

Since when does the theory of evolution disapproved that their is no deity? As I recalled , it only disproves the christian version of how God created the universe as told in Genesis.

Evolution doesn't disprove anything. As physicist Steven Weinberg once said, "Science doesn't make the existence of god impossible, it makes the non-existence of god possible." Before evolution and the big bang theory, there was really no way to explain the origin of life and the universe without bringing up god, so it was excusable for people and even scientists to believe in god. But evolution and the big bang theory made it possible to explain those things without god.

A species of lesser intelligence might say that 'they cannot visualized calculus, therefore it does not exists' Just because a person does not understand or perceive something does not mean it does not exist.

lol bad analogy. Humans can't visualize a deity just like species of lesser intelligence can't visualize calculus, BUT humans are the ones who invented the deity and the species of lesser intelligence did not invent calculus. Humans invented the concept of a deity but can't really explain it and don't really know anything about it -- religion is not humankind's best work...

 

[Integral]

Human relations fall under science. Humans consist of atoms that are described by the known laws of physics.

There is indeed a science called psycology that covers human behavior. But it is a study of how people interact. It makes no effort to dictate how we interact or why we should treat others the way we do. Religion is where many people find those rules.

Ivan,
Of course there is nothing universal. There are acceptions to every rule, but I thought that it was pretty common knowledge that many people "need" the belief in a higher power. Do you disagree?

Sorry, no peer reviewed links.