"because by definition that is a 'miracle' and cannot be touched by science." - Bugsy

True. Moreover, once a miracle is "explained" it is no longer a miracle. Science understanding the creation of matter ab initio would challenge miraculous design. That understanding is probably not far off.

George,

I have no problem calling myself a primate. Human intellect is brought about by the same evolutionary process that allows dolphins to (allegedly)hear in 3-D or birds to fly. I am looking at a full five-tier bookshelf. I can read these books, but, a chimp, not I, could, lift the selves, books and all.

Correction (above): "... Constantine’s helpers had a pre-existing Egyptian model, which they seemly used. As for my reference to “Nicaean Christianity”; again, I am making the point the Creed was constructed centuries after the time of Jesus and that the dogma handed down from that time might NOT have been that practised by Jesus and those of the first and second centuries."

Dear Banjo,

>>By "scientific proof" I mean whatever justifies the assertions of a scientist in the eyes of his or her pairs and competitors.<<

One could analyse away this definition of “proof” as consensus, but let us leave it at that (one usually retains the term “proof” for formal statements of logic or mathematics).

>>"what “scientific proof” beyond what can be investigated by science?" None. <<

Not religion - that is a phenomenon that can be looked at from many perspectives, both by theists or atheists as I keep on saying - but BELIEF in the existence of something that exists beyond the realm investigated by science (usually but not always, referred to as God) is the essence of the world view presuppositions of a theist (c.f. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389&page=0#150883)

So if you mean that there was no “scientific proof” of God's existence - anyhow, one does not “prove” presuppositions or axioms - then we are in agreement.

The rest of my comment was concerned with the sweeping nature of your statements, not with possible occurences: Of course, there are parts of e.g. the basic tenets of Abrahamic faiths that refer to historical events for which it is relevant to ask about their historicity, “historic proof”, if you like. Also, of course, there are/were religious institutions that serve/served certain "states and their political rulers".

The contradiction I pointed out was:

(a) If Communist states were served by ideologies that were in fact religions (as some atheists claim), then this is a counterexample of a religion that does not have a “promise of heavenly bliss”, neither had this Marx in mind with his “opiate of the people”;

(b) If Communist states were not served by what can be called religion, then this is a counter-example to your sweeping statement that “religion continues to serve the state and its political rulers”. Religion, i.e. religious people, did exist in Communist states, but it certainly did not "serve" the state and its rulers.

So I didn’t necessarily disagree with your statements, only with the sweeping nature of some of them. (ctd)

(ctd)
>>Competition between science and religion seems to have settled into a stalemate position for quite some time now, except in the minds of a fragmented and disorganised minority of fundamentalists on both sides.<<

My first reaction to this was that there was no point in me reading further [If you google science, religion, you get 132,000,000 hits, if you google “science and religion” you get 879,000 hits, and even if you google “religion and science” you get 490,000 of them.]

However I did read further. You seem to confuse - or at least lump together - religion as a phenomenon, religious (notably Christian) world-views, religious institutions in general, Evangelical movements, the Catholic Church, Christian politicians and scientists, etc.

Ramachandran’s findings were made public years ago (see e.g. the BBC debate “God on the Brain” on 17/4/2003, http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbraintrans.shtml, where most of your observations apparently come from), and misrepresented by sensationalists (see e.g. DER SPIEGEL 21/2002).

Ramachandran: “Just because there are circuits in your brain that predispose you to religious belief does not in any way negate the value of a religious belief. Now it may be god's way of putting an antenna in your brain to make you more receptive to god. Nothing our scientists are saying about the brain or about neural circuitry for religion in any way negates the existence of god, nor negates the value of religious experience for the person experiencing it.”

Well, I think one should distinguish between “predisposition to religious belief” (what I called sense of the numinous) and ability to have mystical experiences.

Even more explicit is Andrew Newberg (also featuring in the BBC debate) a leading neuroscientist and author of a number of books on the subject, one published a couple of months ago.

I would not have minded neuroscientists attaching electrodes to my brain while I was “doing mathematics”. However, I would object if they tried to draw conclusions from there about the subject of my research, correctness or not of what I claimed to have proved.

Dear Oliver,

Thank’s for the collection of historical (and anthropological) facts the plausibility of which I have to take your word for. As an external view, I have been writing about, they can only enrich a Christian's world-view, if one leaves out the judgmental, non-sequitur, parts of it (c.f. my repeated reference to “me” - i.e. Christians - sharing “95% of DNA” with a “chimpanzee” - i.e. predecessor religions).

I don't see the relevance of you last post, but of course I agree that you and I are primate the same as Christianity is a religion.

Now I also understand your connection between the Nicean Creed and the Procrustean bed: “Stretching the slumberer or cutting off the bits that didn’t fit” happens on many occasions, e.g. if a physical theory has to be adjusted to fit the experiments, or vise-versa, if experiments have to reinterpreted to fit an established theory (see my reference to quantum enigma in my earlier posts on this thread). I am not that historically and theologically knowledgeable to be able to explain what, where and why had to be a adjusted in the Nicean Creed, and what played the role of the bed.

Well, I still maintain, that religion is a phenomenon you can study from many perspectives - internal or external, each one of the named “wise men” can be a theist or an atheist - whereas the theist presupposition you can either accept or reject and try to draw conclusions from that. The latter, of course can be done on various levels of philosophical sophistication. Mother Nature is a poetic expression that, I think, not even Dawkins objects to, but I agree that a hunter-gatherer had a different understanding of his “faith” (the casue and puropse of his existence) than a modern Christian.

>>Christians see only Christianity.<<
Would you also claim that e.g. “Australians see only Australia”, or anybody born into a cultural environment is prejudiced to see the world ONLY from that perspective?

.

Dear George,

.

I googled as you suggested and obtained the following results:

"science, religion" = 183 000 000
"science and religion" = 76 000 000
"religion and science" = 74 000 000

I then googled the combination that was missing in your demonstration:

"religion, science" = 153 000 000

I should be interested to know how you interpret these results.

Perhaps we should ask somebody else to repeat the experiment so that we have a third indication.

What do you think ?

.