Originally published in 2015. Edited and corrected.
A guest post by Canadian Atheist
What is Science?
Science is a process that methodically gathers knowledge about the natural world. Science leads us to knowledge about the world around us, and how it works. We all make observations about the world around us all the time, but those using the scientific method are careful not to jump to conclusions based on those observations until they are testable repeatedly and independently. This means that, for scientific findings to be valid, anyone with the right training and resources must be able to repeat the experiments and consistently come out with the same results. Science, though it is conducted by biased and imperfect humans, must be conducted in an unbiased way. Scientists have to learn to put aside their biases and preconceived beliefs before they conduct their experiments. Bias can very easily cause someone to misinterpret the results. This is the fundamental difference between the scientific approach and the approach taken by most people in society. If you have a favorite political party or sports team, you are likely to cheer for them no matter how they perform. Even if your sports team never wins, you may still convince yourself they are the best team. The difference between the scientific method and what I would call the political or religious method is best explained by the following illustration:
In the scientific method, all the evidence on a particular topic is examined. Then the conclusions are drawn from the findings of the evidence regardless of whether the scientist likes the conclusions or not. Conversely, in the political or religious method, the conclusion is generally formed first and then evidence is gathered to support that conclusion or theory. When it seems like science has been wrong about something, usually it is because scientists have not properly taken their bias out of the methods and therefore have misinterpreted their findings. A very important part of science is also acknowledging when you don’t have enough data to form a conclusion. (More on that later in relation to scientists being wrong all the time).
Deliberate Discrediting of Science and Scientists
There are two classic examples in recent years of how good science has been rejected because it conflicts with an agenda: 1) evolution; and 2) climate change. Evolution is a process that explains how biological diversity arises by changes in the inherited genotype (genetic make-up of the organism) and phenotype (the observable characteristics) through generations of offspring. The word “overwhelming” is often used to describe the amount of evidence supporting evolution. There is no doubt that evolution happens in biology, and that humans evolved from more primitive primate species (not monkeys!). Evolution is as established and verifiable as many other parts of science, such as gravity, germ theory, etc. I don’t need to list all the evidence in favor of evolution here, that information is available to anyone who honestly wants to know the truth. However, evolution goes directly against the concept that God created the species (including humans) as they are, and that humans are somehow special among the many species of animals. Therefore, those people who are unable to let go of their belief that God exists and that he created the species as they are, must reject evolution, try to discredit the science behind it, and even teach children known falsehoods in science classes, all because the truth of evolution challenges their pre-conceived conclusion that God created humans as we are.
Another example is climate change. The global climate is a complex phenomenon. There have been large variations and cycles in the earth’s climate throughout its history. Cycling between ice ages and warmer periods seems to be a natural occurrence. However, in the past decades, the earth’s climate has been changing much more rapidly than ever before. This has been occurring in concert with an increase in carbon dioxide levels, higher than they have been in roughly 100 million years. The rate of change is completely out of whack with the natural cycles that have happened in the past, and corresponds to the recent centuries of industrialization of our society and our massive increase in use of fossil fuels (which give off carbon dioxide). Again, there is no doubt in science about the facts of climate change. Though the process of climate change is not as established as evolution, there is no doubt that human activity is dramatically affecting the climate on our planet. But to alter this process would take some very, very significant changes in all our lifestyles. (This is the part where climate change deniers roll their eyes and claim that environmentalists would have us all living in caves). One of the huge changes that would have to take place is a shift towards cleaner energy sources, and there are very, very wealthy and powerful people who make all their money by having you and me use fossil fuels. They have an agenda, and they don’t care about the science. Therefore, the science of climate change has been very deliberately attacked by organized and well-funded groups with special interests.
Both of these (evolution and climate change) are great examples of the political and religious process of having an agenda or a conclusion, and then going out and looking for evidence to support that agenda, rather than forming conclusions based on all the evidence. Sadly, many people have been led to believe exactly the opposite: that scientists have an agenda with evolution and climate change, and they are making it all up to support their agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t Scientists Have an Agenda Too?
The short answer is no. Scientists are human, of course, so they all have biases and are capable of making mistakes. But the scientific method is specifically designed to remove human bias, errors, and agendas. The whole point of the scientific method is to discover without bias. Yes, some scientists have an agenda. Yes, some scientists do take money from funding agencies that want to prove they are right more than they want to discover the real truth about something (think pharmaceutical companies). But the vast majority of scientists deliberately try to remove bias from their work, look for the honest answer regardless of what they want the answer to be, and when they do have their findings, they present them publicly for others to review and criticize to ensure they are valid findings. That is the way good science is conducted in research institutions, and the vast majority of the time it works to uncover a lot of knowledge about the world around us.
If you get into a disagreement or argument with a scientist about his or her particular area of expertise, then one of two things is likely to happen. Firstly, and much more likely, you are wrong and are not accepting the evidence that the scientist is using to back up their position. (A simple example would be arguing with a physicist about whether the earth is round or flat. You are wrong. He is right. The physicist is right because he based his position on the evidence). Or, secondly, you are right and the scientist is wrong because he has either left the scientific method of examining only the evidence, or he has over-extended himself beyond what the evidence tells him. (An example of this would be if a physicist tells you that we know we are in the only universe in existence. We don’t have enough evidence to support that claim, and if a scientist claimed that fact, then he has forgotten not to extend his conclusions beyond the evidence).
Why Do Scientists Seem So Arrogant?
In short, because they are right! Remember, when they are doing their job properly, scientists only form their conclusions based on evidence and facts and limit their conclusions when they don’t have enough evidence. Therefore, when they do draw a conclusion about something, it is very, very likely to be correct. You’ll notice that it is very hard to win an argument with someone when they do this. Try to take the position in an argument that the sky is not blue, or that gravity does not exist and see how you do. If you knew nothing about gravity, you might think a physicist seemed arrogant for being so adamant that he is right about gravity. But the physicist is only adamant because the evidence overwhelmingly supports his position. If you base your arguments on evidence and are careful not to overextend your position beyond the evidence, then you will always be right, simple as that. Of course, most scientists have extensive knowledge on one specific topic that is far greater than that of the average person. Therefore, when you argue with them on that one topic, they are always right and you are always wrong (assuming they base their argument in evidence). This can seem like arrogance.
Of course, in reality many scientists do overextend themselves beyond the evidence and make claims that are not supported. Then they are just being arrogant.
Aren’t Scientists Wrong All the Time?
Scientific findings are often corrected as we learn more about the natural world. Sometimes scientists discover something and then realize down the road that their discovery was not quite right after all. But that is not a good reason to reject science whenever it conflicts with your particular preferences, and to explain it away by saying that scientists are often wrong anyway. The scientific method gradually produces knowledge and facts about nature, but one experiment might not immediately provide all the answers. For example, if you want to know whether drinking aspartame has negative effects on pregnant women, you don’t want to draw your conclusions after one experiment. After many experiments by many different scientists, we may discover the truth about that question. But each experiment by itself tends to give an incomplete picture. The important thing in understanding science is to distinguish between the findings that are preliminary and those that are overwhelmingly supported. If you read in the news about a study that found that eating seven carrots a day will reduce your risk of cancer by 36%, then you can likely assume that it is a preliminary finding. Much more research needs to be done to establish the actual benefits of a certain number of carrots per day. But, if you read a textbook on evolution, you would be wrong to roll your eyes and think that this is a preliminary finding. Over 150 years of scientific research in many different fields (geology, biology, genetics, microbiology, etc.) all lead to the same conclusions about evolution.
It is easy and tempting to look back over time and claim that scientists have been wrong about so much. You could look back in history and claim that scientists first thought the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth and so on. But most scientific claims have a degree of uncertainty to them. (Statistics dictates that certainty is not possible in any one scientific experiment. Most scientific experiments are set up statistically so that the likelihood of misinterpreting the results are roughly 1 in 20. But that does not mean that the chances of science being wrong on well-established findings are 1 in 20. For example, any single experiment on tobacco smoking leading to cancer will have a 1 in 20 chance of being wrong. But the chances that smoking does not cause cancer are much, much less than 1 in 20, almost infinitely smaller.) That is why scientists have to be careful to say that the evidence supports their findings, given what we know so far, but that there may be a lot more to the whole story. Scientific findings have to be interpreted with a great deal of humility about what we still don’t know about nature. Anytime scientists conduct one experiment and then claim to know the truth about that phenomenon, they are probably being hasty and arrogant. Only over time, with careful and unbiased repetition of results, can we state things to be true with a very high level of certainty.
Usually, when science has turned out to be “wrong”, it is in fact a case of a scientist having drawn a conclusion before there is enough evidence to support it, so that when enough evidence does come to light their conclusions don’t hold up. In ancient times, a true scientist would not have made assumptions about the earth being flat, but instead should have said: “We don’t have enough data yet to know what shape the earth is.” This is the approach modern scientists take on many unknown issues surrounding things like dark matter, and the exact origins of the universe. Since we don’t have enough data yet, we have to be careful not to draw too many conclusions. Sadly, this acknowledgment is often exploited by the religious with a statement that God must fill in the gaps in knowledge, or that since science can’t explain everything about the origin of the universe, God must have created it.
Can You Be A Scientist and A Christian at the Same Time?
It is possible, but very uncommon. In my time as a scientist, I’ve met very few scientists who are religious. The vast majority of those have grown up in religious cultures and families that they have just continued with in their lives as adults. When they go to work each day and conduct experiments, they almost always set aside their religion and just work as scientists. To work as a scientist and keep your firmly entrenched Christian beliefs in the forefront of your mind would create a conflict because science requires that we set aside personal biases. If your personal bias is that God created the world and is ultimately responsible for how everything works, then you’re unlikely to be very good at interpreting your scientific findings objectively. In my experience, the vast majority of scientists are not religious. Most of them, if asked, would probably admit to agnosticism since there is no sure way of knowing whether a god exists or not. The best answer I’ve heard on this was from my high school chemistry teacher. When asked if he believes in God, he replied: “You define God for me, and then I’ll tell you whether I believe in your definition.”
Are Science and Religion in Opposition?
This is an age-old argument. Carl Sagan’s fictional book Contact has a great debate on this topic. Everyone seems to have a different point of view on whether science and religion can co-exist. My position (which I am not saying is the only correct one), is that the two are in conflict. The whole point of this post has been to show that the scientific method is one that forms a conclusion only after examining the evidence. The religious method is the opposite: you hold a belief (or have faith) and then look at the world and find things that support that belief in God. If you always stick to the scientific method, I am confident you’ll never find a reason to even bring religion into the conversation. In my mind, everything in the world is explained naturally with no need for the supernatural. It was science that ultimately helped relieve me of my religious beliefs. After years of studying science, I finally realized that the level of scrutiny I demanded of myself for my religious beliefs was completely out of whack with the level of scrutiny for everything else in my life. I lived an evidence-based life, always being careful to critique what politicians and others claimed against what the evidence actually stated, but when it came to religion, for some reason, I just accepted what the Bible said about God without ever questioning it. Eventually I overcame that inconsistency in my life and left Christianity behind, so it is not surprising that my particular point of view is that science and religion are not just incompatible but are in direct opposition to one another.
I wrote at the beginning that: “for scientific findings to be valid, anyone with the right training and resources must be able to repeat the experiments and come out with the same results.” The beauty of science, therefore, is that it is freely available for anyone and everyone. No one can come along and claim to have knowledge that is not accessible to you. No one can claim that they know better than you, and you should just trust what they say without independently verifying that knowledge. You will notice that this is in direct opposition to the religious approach to knowledge by revelation. The Bible tells us that Jesus died on the cross and came to life again three days later. But this is not independently verifiable. You cannot test this claim. You must rely on someone else’s description of that event in order to believe it. This is exactly the opposite of the scientific approach. While you may have to rely on scientists’ description of things that are very complicated for you to understand, nothing is stopping you from going and getting trained in that field of science and then conducting your own experiments to find out for yourself if they are correct. If you do that, no honest scientist will ever tell you: “Yes, but I have superior knowledge and findings in my experiment, so I’m still right.”
Why Do We Need Science Anyway?
The way science is conducted is changing rapidly in universities and research institutions. Governments are focusing funding on things that they think are important and ignoring or actively discrediting the science that they think is either unimportant or that goes against their political agenda. This is not the way science is supposed to work. Science is a process of discovery, but you often don’t know what you are going to discover. Many of the greatest scientific discoveries in history were made more or less by accident when a scientist was actually looking for something else. When Alexander Fleming stumbled upon penicillin in 1928, he did so by accident. He wasn’t even studying antibiotics at all. Yet, that accidental discovery changed all of our lives for the better, probably more than any other medical discovery in the twentieth century. Imagine if governments had shut down Fleming because they didn’t feel his relatively obscure scientific research was contributing to society. The point is, you never know where the most important scientific discoveries are going to come from. So, trying to focus on curing cancer while stopping the study of sea-slugs would be a big mistake because ultimately the cure for cancer could lie in knowledge gained by studying sea slugs. When you limit the process of discovery, you limit the discoveries you will make.
The other very important reason that science is important in society is that if everyone took an evidence-based approach to life’s decisions, we’d have a much better world. There would be far fewer (if any) wars, and governments would be forced to serve the best interests of the population, and not the party. The scientific method teaches us to take a humble and open-minded approach to life. Don’t go into things assuming you know the answer before you begin. Stick to your conclusion if the evidence supports it, even if everyone else says you are wrong. But do admit when you are wrong. These are the hallmarks of a good scientist, but most of us don’t act this way when engaging in politics, marriages, friendships, conversations, and so on.
Summary: Why Is Science Relevant to a Discussion About Religion & Atheism?
What does science have to do with religion? Isn’t religion outside the realm of science? Doesn’t religion require faith, which doesn’t involve science? Well, science is all about basing conclusions on evidence. If there is no evidence for something, then it probably isn’t reality. Therefore, science is relevant to discussions on religion because there’s no objective evidence for God. If there was a God, and if there was evidence for God, scientists would be the first people lining up to tell the world all about it. Discovering that God exists would be the single greatest scientific discovery in history, for which any scientist would be glad to get credit, if only it were true. The reason scientists do not generally agree that God exists is not because of some agenda or some grand anti-religious conspiracy. No, the reason science does not support the existence of God is simply because there is no evidence to support that claim. All the claims for the existence of God (or gods) are based entirely on personal experience. All the personal experiences recorded in the Bible are examples of exactly the opposite process of discovery in science: they are not reproducible, they are not supported by evidence that anyone can observe, and they are not carefully controlled observations by people trained to be unbiased in their interpretations. This is where conversations between believers and scientists can start to go in circles, with believers claiming that God is outside the ability of science to detect and therefore does not require evidence, and with scientists claiming that nothing is outside the ability of science to detect and therefore God must not exist since there is no evidence for God.
I’ll conclude with a statement and a challenge. My statement is this: “Everything that exists is explainable by science, given enough time and resources.” I state this because my position is that there is only the natural world. There is no supernatural. Since science provides answers to the natural world, science has the answer for everything. My challenge is this: “Come up with a question, for which there is a definite answer, that science is not capable of providing an answer with a reasonable level of certainty.”
Wonderful post! This deserves a yearly publication (or more) to celebrate the gift of scientific method in our lives. Such a gift to reason from a Canadian on Canada Day! Thank-you!
Good post.
I am presently reading Jerry Coyne’s book ‘Faith vs Fact’ and it is essentially a demolition of accommodationism, that somehow religion and science are compatible. Although I’m only part way through I’m impressed by Jerry’s thoroughness, and consider the book should be compulsory school reading. Along with his ‘Why Evolution is True’ of course.
Yes indeed, dear namesake. ‘Faith vs Fact’ is an excellent book. Jerry Coyne is hated by religionists, who constantly direct all sorts of ad hominem arguments at him (not a philosopher, ignorant of theology, etc) but just find themselves unable to defeat his arguments. I like especially the way he deals with educated people who are fervent believers, the likes of Francis Collins, about whom he says ‘leave their reason at the church door each Sunday’.
Science is a great tool for discovery and invention but like all tools it depends who is wielding said tool.
A statement like most scientist are not religious tells us what? it is akin to a statement that could have been made 30 years ago that most scientists are not women, or most scientists in the USA are white .
No as for the so called impending doom of climate (Global warming)change lets just look at some actual facts before we shut down the fossil fuel industry.The IPCC says that earths temperature has risen 1 deg c in the last 150 years if that is the case then also in that time humans lifespan has increased by at least 25% ,infant mortality has dropped by at least 50 % and deaths from climate related events have fallen by 95%,so whats the issue with the planet heating up.
I have some more science facts if you want them , or look at the evidence on both sides of the argument before you make your mind up , as Einstein said when a book was presented to him written by 100 scientist who said his theory of relative was wrong , he said why 100 surely only one is required if they can show the evidence that I am wrong
Sorry Marfin, but this comment sums up fairly well the lack of understanding in science that the post was addressing. The point is that science isn’t dependent on the person wielding the tool, it’s only the tool that is relevant. If the science is done badly then it’s science being done well that shows it, and that’s something Einstein would have been first to say. As for climate change, it’s misleading to refer to ‘both sides of the debate’, things have gone much too far for that. Climate change denial is now developing into a dangerous brand of subversion.
Marfin,
Wow, we’ve missed your ignorance and stupidity. Wait, no we haven’t.
Going with talking points from the oil industry or the Republicans regarding climate change, will not work. Just like your normal denial of evolution.
I am not American so I have absolutely no interest in the Republicans or the Democrats, though at the time of the last election you had, I remember thinking if the best America can come up with in a country of 300 million people is Donal Trump or Hillary Clinton, boy you are in serious trouble.
Now as for the oil industry why on earth would I care about them I dont work for them they dont send me cheques in the post as a matter of fact they dont know that I exist so why would I support them.
Now as none of us have any skin in the Global warming game why not just look at the evidence and refute on that, so , has the temp risen by 1 deg c , are we living longer, are less babies dying at or soon after birth, have climate related deaths fallen by 95% , these are not Bible stories these are facts so please refute away.
Marfin, the primary danger from global warming is that by adding more energy to the environment it disturbs climate cycles and makes them more extreme. This can lead to migration of people away from affected areas (and potentially refugee problems and wars). Expect climate-related deaths to increase due to a greater number of powerful storms and crop failures, to name just two problems.
But if temperature has increased by 1deg c and and we live longer, are healthier, and less people than ever die from climate related disaster ,why do we believe warming is an issue.
Here is 2 questions that climate alarmists should be able to answer but dont .
What is the earths ideal temperature?
What is the ideal ppm for co2 in earths atmosphere?
If you can find the answer to these please reply .
Seriously Geoff did my comment deny climate change , or did my comment say the planet`s temperature has increased by one deg c over last 150 years.
So which side in the debate is doing the bad science and how do you know, is it because you understand it ,or you are taking the consensus view. Have you personally done any looking into this or do you accept everything you are told.
What about ,peak oil, an ice age is coming, if population grows any more we will all starve , these are just headline to get more funding , much as we are all doomed if we dont stop driving our cars and flying on vacation , but the facts I pointed out disagree with this.
And one last point if Al Gore and Barack Obama really believed sea levels would rise to catastrophic levels why on earth did they both spend millions on beach front property.
You maybe didn’t deny climate change but you did question it. That’s a form of denial.
However, am I an expert climatologist? No. Like everything in life I have to make a judgment on where to ‘place my bets’, so I follow the arguments, I listen to debates, and I’ve decided that the weight of informed opinion, as opposed to the Michele Bachmanns of this world, are overwhelmingly on one side of the discussion. That is a consensus and, yes, I do look to consensus to form my own views, as distinct from popular opinion which can often be disregarded.
Your comment about Al Gore and Obama buying beachfront property is just silly. We all do daft things, we all suffer cognitive dissonance of one form or another, and I’m sure both men would admit that they perhaps weren’t behaving that logically.
Try listening to, Willie soon , William Happer, Patrick Moore, Tim Ball , these are just scientists who don`t seem to have an agenda offering their take on the evidence and it seems convincing to me.
No serious scientist has any ‘agenda’, other than finding the truth. I don’t recognise the scientists you mention (I assume you aren’t referring to the astronomer, the late Patrick Moore) but if they are denying climate science then almost certainly they do have an agenda, and just a little research will likely show this.
No the Patrick Moore who was a founder of Green Peace.
Sorry I forgot to mention Freeman Dyson , maybe he is not serious enough either.
Of course it seems convincing to you. Those who hold the consensus on climate are agenda-driven, Marfin and his hand-picked scientists are not. Did I miss anything?
Bruce this in not a argument about religion or faith , so neither you or I should care about which side is right or wrong it should be only about the science, so honestly hand on heart have you spent anytime whatsoever listening to the science from the other side of the debate and if not why not.
As regard the changing weather in Ohio , the fact is climate is always changing , from extremes of ice ages to extreme warm periods when tropical plants and animals lived in northern Canada and Alaska , this does not mean man is having an adverse effect on the natural changes in climate variation .
Bruce if you spend 10 minutes you can also find that forest fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes,etc have not increased over the last 50 years, and the funny thing is no matter what weather conditions we get global warming will explain it , more storms , less storms, more snow less snow, more heatwaves , less heatwaves etc Global warming will predict it all.
How many times are you going to ask me this question? Yes, I’ve read enough from climate change deniers to form an opinion. Neither of us have sufficient knowledge and training in this matter, so we look to experts for answers. You choose to put your faith in a handful of outliers. I choose to put my faith in scientific consensus.
I don’t appreciate the passive-aggressive undertone in your moment. Want to call me a liar, stupid, or ill-informed, just do it. Hand over heart, take ten minutes, really, Marfin?
Every year, I take you off the banned list, and every year end up getting banned again. The only subjects that seemingly matter to you are climate change denial, defending anti-abortion rhetoric, and challenging my viewpoint on morality. Year after year, the same bullshit. You might want to come up with new material.
Willie Soon:
https://www.desmogblog.com/willie-soon
William Happer:
https://www.desmogblog.com/william-happer
Patrick Moore:
https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-moore
Tim Ball:
https://www.desmogblog.com/tim-ball
Freeman Dyson
https://www.desmogblog.com/freeman-dyson
You’ll note just how many of these people are associated with various fossil fuel entities, extremist thinktanks, cranks, and the like. I provide this information not for you, Marfin, but for others so that they can better understand just how dishonest your comments are.
I do as you do, Geoff. I tend to pay attention to my surroundings, always have. I’ve lived in rural Ohio most of my 62 years of life. I know the weather is changing, becoming more extreme, less predictable. Is this just cyclical weather change? Perhaps, but when taken along with what is happening in other places in the world — record highs, storms, rising water levels/temps — I’ve concluded that scientists (in the main) are right about climate change.
Bruce do you think the people running the IFB , Southern Baptist, IPCC , IOC, FIFA, or any other large body are fundamentally different in any way , or do all these organisations run on power, money, agenda , I would like your honest opinion
marfin, you do yourself run on and on with an agenda. Asking someone for their honest opinion infers that they do not normally offer it. Is that what you want Bruce Almighty to hear? Do you no fear the Almighty?
Scientists have to learn to put aside their biases and preconceived beliefs before they conduct their experiments.
I think an important point here is that science assumes that scientists, like all humans, have biases — and it includes mandatory procedures to filter those biases out of experimental results. The supreme example of this is the double-blind controlled experiment, which ensures that results are assessed without the persons doing the assessment having knowledge that would allow their biases to influence their conclusions.
No other supposed “way of knowing”, religious or otherwise, shows such humility in recognizing the flaws of its human exponents, or takes such care to compensate for those flaws.
Are Science and Religion in Opposition?
Of course they are. Every religion makes claims about objective reality, and many of those claims are capable of being tested against objective evidence, and when such claims are tested, they almost always turn out to be hopelessly wrong. The Earth was not formed in six days. It is not genetically possible for all humans to be descended from a single pair. There was never a global flood. There was never a Hebrew mass exodus from Egypt. There was never a great empire of David and Solomon. Nazareth almost certainly did not yet exist at the time of Jesus. And on and on. Most of the Bible has no more connection with reality than Greek or Norse mythology does. And it’s science — objective testing of claims against evidence — that shows this. That’s why religion for most of history has fought bitterly against science.
Frances Bacon, Johann Kepler, Blase Pascal, Isaac Newton , Samuel Morse, Louis Pasteur , lord Kelvin , Wernher Von Braun, its a pity these guys were not as smart or honest as Infidel753 as these guys were Christians and Scientists but
obviously they had no one like Infidel753 to show them the error of their ways.
All of whom lived at a time when there was little questioning of the religious status quo. One can be reasonably confident, statistically speaking, that we’re these scientists alive today they would be atheists.
My high school chemistry and physics teacher said, “Science is discovering God’s laws.”
And I must say that observable evidence in my location indicates some scientists are wrong most of the the time. Those scientists are meteorologists.
That’s the first I’ve read that Nazareth didn’t exist at the time of Christ. Atheists can say the darndest things, too.
Actually, there is some discipline about Nazareth, it’s location, size, etc.
Bruce you needed to live outside the evangelical bubble for a while I think its coloured you view too much.
Ireland is now a secular country most of the people I work with are atheists of agnostic , we have talks about religion , abortion,politics,homosexuality all without wanting to kill each other , its live and let live .
I was not being passive aggressive , I was assuming you were like a lot of people I have spoken to in Ireland , just too busy to look and only getting the consensus view I apologise if I saw you as the same.
Seriously Bruce in 30 years you and I will be dead and gone with our families being the only ones who cared if we lived and died , you need to lighten up when it comes to these discussions , if you want to be an atheist and I want to be a christian who cares same with our views on climate change who cares , its just a bit of banter till we die , you and I are not changing the world.
“You and I are not changing the world”? What a defeatist attitude! Ireland didn’t become secular by itself. Neither did Canada just wake up one morning and decide to legalize same-sex marriage. In the latter case, I myself was out there at the local legislative grounds, holding a pro-SSM sign.
It’s people all the way down. They — We — *are* the change-makers on this planet.
If I took your approach to life and writing I wouldn’t get up in the morning. My goal is to actually inform and help people. I spend 25-30 hours a week on activities related to my blog. I spend around 2k a year to host my blog and maintain its software. (and I appreciate the donations I receive to help offset this cost) I take my work seriously.
As far as global climate change. . . I have six children and soon-to-be thirteen grandchildren. Global climate change is an existential threat to their future. People like you, because of your denial of science, are a threat to their future too. Bad ideas, conspiracy theories, science denial, and fundamentalist religion are all threats to their future. I hope you will forgive me, then, if I don’t take your approach to life.
Thousands of people read my writing. Some days, I tell myself, “why would anyone want to read this shit. Hell, I don’t want to read it.” ? But then I read blog comments, emails, and social media comments, and I’m reminded that I am making a difference in the lives of others (and happily pissing off Fundamentalists).
I hope you find something in life that matters. For me, as another commenter mentioned, life is all about others. You are a Christian, right? I “vaguely” remember Jesus talking about the importance of others. Did you miss those verses? Or maybe you have a MBV Bible — Marfin Buffet Version.
I suspect I’ll be dead in less than ten years, not 30. I “hear” what my body is telling me. With that in mind, I don’t have a lot of time for mindless banter. The Bible says “boast not yourself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” So true, a reminder of the importance of using our time each day to do things that matter.
Boy Bruce you really are a grumpy old man.
Thank you for not responding to my comments. You are done here.
Why would you want me to respond, sure you know everything about me already .They say travel broadens the mind but For a man who has rarely stepped outside rural Ohio you seem to know so much about the world.
I believe Donal Trump is a pathetic excuse for a man ,he is ego maniacal , I believe in a separation of church and state , render to Caesar, and render to God.
But you pigeon hole people based on you limited rural Ohio world view , I have been to the USA and have seen the parochial lens of little exists beyond the state and nothing exists beyond the USA they view the world through.
So Bruce you think you know every Christian but you dont and sadly for you in the context of our discussion instead of thinking for yourself you have changed the credo of the Pastor is always right for the scientist is always right.
You have just replaced your baptist world view with a leftist humanist world view and neither seem to let you see the other side of the discussion. Marfin Signing off
Well, I lived in Ohio, Michigan (twice), Texas, Arizona (3 times), and California. I’ve visited Mexico and Canada. I’ve visited/travelled through 30 states. So yes, I am a man who “rarely stepped outside of Ohio.” I also know how to read. That’s how knowledge is gained. That and meeting people from dozens of other countries through this blog. But, in your mind “I don’t know much about the world.”
The “other side” is Christian Fundamentalism. I understand that side quite well, Marfin. I was anti-science for a long time, but then I learned to read, and started devouring books beside the Bible and theological tomes. I’m no scientist, and neither are you. I put my faith in the scientific method. Look at all science has given us. And what, exactly, has the Bible done for us?
You continue to ignore my comments, choosing instead to insult and belittle me. You have been banned at least three times, yet when given an opportunity to comment again and show you can play well with others, you quickly revert to the behaviors that got you banned in the first place. This time, the ban is permanent. This makes you oh so special. You are only the second person to receive a permanent ban. Congratulations!
Bruce, the grumpy old man
No wonder Marfin can’t change the world. All those insults. I’d get a little grumpy myself if having to put up with those insults. How many other people is Marfin turning into grumps?
Zoe, the grumpy old woman from Canada.