Can a scientist be a Christian? or of any other supernatural faith?

[MorkandMindy]

First define what you mean by 'a Christian' and then the answer should be obvious.


My definition of 'a Christian' is a follower of Jesus, a practitioner of the faith, a doer not just a sayer.

Following the O.T. is not difficult for a person with the right intent:

Rom 13.9:
For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Gal 5.14:
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Jam 2.8:
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

I'm not aware of a commandment to believe the Universe was created in 4004 BC or 10,000 BC at the earliest.

Fair enough.
But there is a command to believe Jesus was born to a virgin and was resurrected from the dead.

Why would a scientist believe in such events that contradict the laws of nature?

A miracle by definition is impossible or very very unexpected. If it was part of the normal course of events which fit in with what we know about the Universe, then it wouldn't be much of a miracle would it?

Science is an investigation of the way something works. A strictly one-off event which is contrary to all we know but produced by a metaphysical cause will not be subject to scientific investigation. One example would be a gamma that has been heading toward Earth at, yes the speed of light, for a long long time. We have no way of knowing it is going to arrive, and therefore no way of predicting where and when it will arrive.

Any chaos event, butterfly effect event is by nature also not scientifically predictable.

Local one-off miracles I would suggest in some cases would not be subject to scientific investigation.

Big events like a global Genesis (Noah's) Flood are within the realm of scientific testing.
The Biblical date for The Flood was around 2350 BC IIRC placing it in the middle of the rain of the Pharaoh Unas.
No date of under a 900,000 years is acceptable since there is no evidence of it in the annual layers in Antarctica. I've seen sediment layers that would have been disturbed by older dates also, so I don't know when the latest possible date that would presently avoid disproof would be, but it would have been way before any humans.
If the flood had been local then it would not have achieved it's purpose and it would have been a lot better to walk out of the local flood area than spend 100 years building an ark.

Again, I'm not sure what to make of passages like the Flood ones in any case. The text clearly shows that the Flood was completely ineffective, evil started immediately after the Flood, in fact because of the Flood, and there were giants again in David's time. Maybe the passage is hypothetical, that if God had become angry and flooded the Earth it would have achieved nothing.
I have a science degree but science v the Bible does not interest me much.

But I do know what to do about a passage like this:

Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (John 14)

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I think that philosophy has reached a stage where it can be fairly rigorous and scientific, and concludes that theres unfalsifiable beliefs (faith based etc) which we are open to as a individual, community etc. So a scientist knows that he has to take an attitude and that he is not necessarily bound by empirical (measurable testable) standards of evidence as he may be in the lab or in the fiels survey etc.

 

[Larniavc]

They certainly have no *empirical* effect on anything in a lab.

Too small a scale in the lab. It's more of a galactic scale. God could have created dark matter.

 

[Larniavc]

... until scientists discovered dark matter.

So you agree dark matter exist?

 

[lesliedellow]

When was the last time you saw a grant for evolutionary research go to anything but evolutionary research? How many hungry were fed?

As an American, you have doubtless been campaigning for the American Government to increase your taxes, so that it can spend more on welfare provision.

Or are the hungry just a useful stick with which to beat spending on biological research?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Fair enough.
But there is a command to believe Jesus was born to a virgin and was resurrected from the dead.

Command by whom?

 

[Armoured]

When was the last time you saw a grant for evolutionary research go to anything but evolutionary research? How many hungry were fed?

How do you think we improve crop yields?

 

[Michael]

Too small a scale in the lab. It's more of a galactic scale. God could have created dark matter.

I fail to see how "dark matter" can be 4 to 5 times more abundant than the dirt in my backyard, yet somehow remain "too small a scale" to find in the lab. It sounds like an exotic matter of the gaps claim from my perspective.

 

[Larniavc]

I fail to see how "dark matter" can be 4 to 5 times more abundant than the dirt in my backyard, yet somehow remain "too small a scale" to find in the lab. It sounds like an exotic matter of the gaps claim from my perspective.

Your fail, your problem.

 

[quatona]

Can a scientist be a Christian? or of any other supernatural faith?

Sure - as long as he doesn´t forget which is which.