Mjpb

If I am responding directly to a post you have made I will begin it as I have above.

My previous two posts were directed generally at people (there are many who read and do not post) to clarify my position.

I do not know whether you are a curious person, mjpb, your posts indicate you are intelligent, but restricted because of your desire to substantiate your religious beliefs.

I thought it hilarious that you should berate Boaz for his often discourteous posts when you had already described this thread as a "hornets nest of atheists" - charming. I thought that a number of posters here were discussing how wonderful the universe was in comparison to the limitations of religious dogma.

You could have entered the discussion by stating why you believe that formal religious dogma does or does not limit scientific endeavour. You know; expressed an opinion. Instead you have chosen to sit on the sidelines and make a few snide comments. All which says more about you as a person than your choice of religion.

The latest estimate on the age of our universe is:

"The universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years, astronomers said last week.

That age, based on precision measurements of the oldest light in the universe, agrees with results announced in 2006. Two additional years of data from a NASA satellite known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have narrowed the uncertainty by tens of millions of years.

“Everything is tightening up and giving us better and better precision all the time,” said Charles L. Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and the leader of the group analyzing the data. “It’s actually significantly better than previous results. There is all kinds of richness in the data.”

About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to combine into hydrogen atoms. That released a burst of light, which over the billions of years since has cooled to a bath of microwaves pervading the cosmos.

Yet there are slight variations in the background, which the NASA satellite has been measuring since 2001. Those variations have given evidence supporting an idea known as cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of its existence.

The new set of data is precise enough to differentiate between various proposed models of inflation. “Some of them are now completely ruled out, some of them are hanging at the edge and some of them are perfectly fine,” Dr. Bennett said. “We are sorting between these things.”

read on at:

The New York Times

http://littlurl.com/dsitt

Another wonderful example of scientific research, learning more, ruling out some theories, confirming others.

:-)

Sorry again Fractelle honest mistake. When you said:

“To the intelligent and curious mind religious dogma is a form of death.”

I figured that as a Christian it would refer to me.

“I thought it hilarious that you should berate Boaz for his often discourteous posts when you had already described this thread as a "hornets nest of atheists" - charming. “

I was telling it like I saw it without trying to be discourteous or telling either side what they want to hear. Now that you mention it I have half got my head around how the metaphorical approach could sound discourteous. I’m just used to people being offended when the metaphorical approach is used to label them as stupid or ignorant or something equally insulting rather than to describe something like that. At the time I just thought a bland description would be boring.

I could see how comments would have stung Christians and knew that could happen to me but wanted to make an explanation and had issues with Boazy’s approach.

“I thought that a number of posters here were discussing how wonderful the universe was in comparison to the limitations of religious dogma.”

I’m sure they were.

”You could have entered the discussion by stating why you believe that formal religious dogma does or does not limit scientific endeavour. You know; expressed an opinion. Instead you have chosen to sit on the sidelines and make a few snide comments. All which says more about you as a person than your choice of religion.”

Sorry again my comments weren’t specifically intended to be snide or antagonistic.

From that can I assume you want my opinion? I thought this thread was intended as a discussion comparing the infinite possibilities of scientific inquiry to the limitations that are the result of religious dogma rather than considering whether or not it does represent a limitation. There didn’t seem to be much tolerance of dissent.

I believe science and religious beliefs are generally compatible and without Christianity we wouldn’t have science or perhaps modern science. In that respect they couldn’t be more compatible. On the other hand the focus of many religions is ethics and that can in a sense limit certain types of scientific endeavour but not to any great extent. Further, the diversity among both atheists and religious even within religions also means that certain subgroups are always going to pop up who don’t like something scientific and some of those subgroups will be religious. In that respect formal religious dogma could try to impose a limitation. Thus in a general sense I’d say no but with exceptions some worthy some human error.

mjpb: "I believe science and religious beliefs are generally compatible and without Christianity we wouldn’t have science or perhaps modern science."

I must say, you've talked quite a lot about your second assertion, and yet you haven't said one thing I've found convincing. I did try to be open-minded about it.

I've got a question about the first assertion though. If that's the case, why do you think there's so much conflict between science and religion? Fundamentalist USA in particular is really hostile to science. How do you explain that within the "generally compatible" theory?

Vanilla,

mjpb: "I believe science and religious beliefs are generally compatible and without Christianity we wouldn’t have science or perhaps modern science."

”I must say, you've talked quite a lot about your second assertion, and yet you haven't said one thing I've found convincing. I did try to be open-minded about it. “

Actually I thought that I didn’t say much about it because the discussion didn’t get past the timing of the birth of science or modern science.

”I've got a question about the first assertion though. If that's the case, why do you think there's so much conflict between science and religion? Fundamentalist USA in particular is really hostile to science. How do you explain that within the "generally compatible" theory?”

The USA is considered to be a Christian country but I don’t know why you say it is “really hostile to science”. It has produced scientists like Robert Oppenheimer, and Francis Collins, research facilities like the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, NASA, and discovered things like the accelerating universe, human genome, the top quark and, RNA interference.