"I here these arguments quite often. They imply that science and religion are something similar. That is simply not the case. Furthermore science doesn't disprove religion, that's not even the intention of science. I don't understand why this comparison is even used since there is irefutable evidence that scientific knowledge works. Even Quantum Mechanics works, the implication we draw from it are counter-intuitive and maybe even paradoxical but the results work otherwise I wouldn't have a computer to type this into and this conversation never would have happened in the first place."
This is what I mean, eugler. We're talking past each other a lot of the time. I was not demeaning the competency and effectiveness of science at all. Far from it. The reason why it is so successful is because it deals with the most rudimentary, basic aspect of our world, and very wisely all extraneous considerations are screened out.
No. What I was getting at is that, 100 years after Newton's mechanistic paradigm had been superseded by that of quantum physics, most atheists, yes even among scientists - at least the journeymen, are as keen to cling onto the old mechanistic paradigm as the large corporations (yes, I'm a big fan of Noam), and for much the same reason: as long as their paradigm is the only game in town that could easily provide evidence, they figure they are special - the high priests of the only real knowledge - which is beyond pathetic. They prefer the fabled "promissory note": One day my son, full knowledge of this whole universe will be yours." They don't want to let go of their clockwork universe, in which, unlike religion, they would say, there are no mysteries! All will be revealed. Love is nothing but chemical reactions, etc, etc.
Yes, the reason why quantum physics is also successful now, is because the really bright lads and lassies know that the paradoxes ARE absurd and utterly imponderable. It doesn't hold them back. On the contrary, they use these paradoxes as markers, as springboards, in the quest via straightforward logic for further knowledeg to build their overall context, the big picture, their world-view. As Bohr put it; "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory, hasn't understood it."
Niels Bohr - Wikiquote
In precisely the same way, the best theologians - some are not even Christians, strange to relate - are able to use the great mysteries of the Christian faith as points of reference and springboards to a yet deeper understanding of the faith.
By the way, it is not by chance that all the great paradigm-changers of physics have been at least deists. Einstein was a deist, Planck, Bohr and Godel were Lutherans - all believing in intelligent design, which our more unscrupulous atheist friends like to construe as a denial of evolution. The latter are all resentful of the notion that Darwin - who gave to the missions until he died - didn't kill off Christianity and other religious faiths once and for all.
Finally, I understand where you are coming from re the Christian missions. It has been a feature of the institutional Catholic Church that in traditional Catholic countries, in particular, where poverty abounds, as is often a feature of such countries, due to its political laissez-faire attitude towards the far right - that the status the excessive clericalism affords them in their countries and the material security it affords them are what motivate their 'vocation'. There's a nice little cameo of that in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, when Blondie and Tuco call at the monastery where Tuco's brother resides. there was so much that I found plain bad about the Tridentine Church, I try not to even think about it.
Anyway, it's not my intention to run down my church; but I understand all too clearly the scandal caused to so much of mankind, not only in the third world, either by the right-wing Catholics. In fact, Christ's denunciations of the Synagogue of his day, and most of its leading lights seems to reflect a mirror image of the Tridentine Church.
There were of course many good men and women in both, who bore the burden and kept it going. In fact, Christ left us his own example, still attending the Synagogue, even though its leaders wanted to murder him, and were eventually to do so, and his own local parishioners had tried to throw him over a cliff!
Fortunately, I've met so many outstanding priests, who are not in it for their own aggrandisement, it makes it easier for me to put the faults and derelictions of the institutional Church out of my mind. As someone once said, "If you ever come across a church in which there are no hyprocrites, whatever you do, make sure you don't join it, because you will surely spoil it." I also believe this pope is an egregiously great one.
"Well, yes they will, in fact in the West they have. How could a secularist accuse anyone of witchcraft? Secularists are a very diverse group with no common doctrine or morals, they only agree on the diversion of church and state (many of them are believers). So without a common philosophy there is nothing to denounce."
Now. Now. That's naughty. It wouldn't have been atheists, but Christians who put a stop to the witch-burnings, just as it was a Christian, British government that banished suttee and thuggee in India. A large majority of the formal atheists would have kept a low profile during that era of the witch-hunting. Incidentally, Christ pointed out that many of his opponents among the religious/political authorities of his day were in fact atheists: Satan's own. And do you deny that the West's current interest in the countries of the third world rich in natural resources is totally and unambiguously cynical? Surely not.
All empires engage in ruthless wickedness and cruelty, but as empires go, it seems Britain's could have been a lot worse. I'm not talking about the institution by Britain of India's legal and political infrastructure now, but a small item by Ephraim Hardcastle in today's Daily Mail:
He refers to Obama's speech comparing the ousting of Mubarak - are they better off under his junta henchmen? - with 'Ghandi leading his people down the path of justice with the moral force of non violence' - 'which is taken by some', Hardcastle continues, 'to be a swipe at colonial Britain. But Ghandi said only Britain would have tolerated his passive resistance - any other colonial power would have used force against him. And Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana, described us as 'such sweet masters. The Americans of course would have shot Ghandi.'
