Home > Work > Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible
61 " An alternative form of this argument is to claim that “the absence of evidence [for God] isn’t evidence of [God’s] absence.” Well, of course, if by “proof” you mean “absolute, unchangeable proof” (or in this case “absolute disproof”), Jacoby and Miller are right. Our understanding of reality—science’s “truth”—is always provisional, and we can never rule out some kind of deity with absolute certainty. "
― Jerry A. Coyne , Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible
62 " While some liberal churches deal with the conflict by simply accepting the science and modifying their theology where required, more conservative ones put up a fight. "
63 " a theory that can’t be shown to be wrong can never be shown to be right. "
64 " The notion of “free will”—a linchpin of many faiths—now looks increasingly dubious as scientists not only untangle the influence of our genes and environments on our behavior, but also show that some “decisions” can be predicted from brain scans several seconds before people are conscious of having made them. In other words, the notion of pure “free will,” the idea that in any situation we can choose to behave in different ways, is vanishing. Most scientists and philosophers are now physical “determinists” who see our genetic makeup and environmental history as the only factors that, acting through the laws of physics, determine which decisions we make. That, "
65 " come across as antagonistic to science. One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries. "
66 " Parents who refuse to vaccinate their sons and daughters for HPV are making a conscious decision to let their children risk death if they have premarital sex. "
67 " God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus probandi [burden of proof] rests on the theist. —Percy Bysshe Shelley "
68 " In the end I saw that the claims for the compatibility of science and religion were weak, resting on assertions about the nature of religion that few believers really accept, and that religion could never be made compatible with science without diluting it so seriously that it was no longer religion but a humanist philosophy. "