SCIENCE AND RELIGION A HISTORY - John Oakes精品管理文档.pptVIP

An Argument forSpecial Creation John Oakes Christian Evidences Conference June 12, 2009 Science and religion Science and religion Science and religion Science and religion Science and Religion Science The use of experiment to test theories about the laws of nature. Science Scientific knowledge is a relationship between observations Scientific knowledge is quantitative The observations are subject to refinement Scientific knowledge is progressive and tentative Scientific knowledge is neither true nor false, but rather consistent with the observations and consistent with prior knowledge Religion Religion is a belief in something The belief is not necessarily substantiated by physical or material evidence Religious knowledge obtained through holy writings, authority, revelations and religious experiences Believers have faith or trust in such knowledge Religion Religious knowledge is qualitative not quantitative. Religious knowledge is not gotten through measurement In religion knowledge is taken as either true or false. Religious knowledge is neither progressive, nor tentative. Questions Science Can Answer When? What? Where? How many? By what means? Questions Science Cannot Answer:(That Religion Does Answer) Why am I here? Is that the right thing to do? How valuable am I? Does God exist? Does God act (theism)? Will that God respond if I pray? Do supernatural events (miracles) happen? What you see depends on your “world view.” The Christian world view predicts that a human brain will be designed so that those made in God’s image can experience love, joy, anger, compassion, spirituality, jealousy, empathy, oneness and other feelings, some of which have an extremely dubious evolutionary advantage. A statement a scientist should not make (if he or she is well trained and is not manipulating you): Evolution is true. The Big Bang happened. Better statements: The theory of evol