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originally posted in:Secular Sevens
8/9/2013 11:32:50 PM
2
Albert Einstein had some thought provoking words on this:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be..."
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well he was a pantheist, so he was biased just as everyone that ever held an opinion ever.
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Well nobody's perfect :) But I think his point is valid. Basically, he's echoing Kant's ideas on Enlightenment. A person can believe whatever faith he chooses to, but to be enlightened, he can't believe blindly. He has the responsibility to challenge dogma that he feels conflicts with the true meaning of his faith. He also shouldn't ignore or reject the physical world, but seek to understand it as well, and educate himself on physics, mathematics, etc. The reverse is also true. A scientist shouldn't dismiss any religious belief as "ignorance". He should seek to understand them and challenge dogma to "improve" the religion, not destroy it. IE, he would challenge the Church's stance on homosexuality on the grounds that Jesus would have accepted homosexuals as he did prostitutes and tax collectors. Einstein saw both expanding our understanding of the physical word and improving belief systems as actions with the same goal. Both actions would benefit and improve humanity, physically and spiritually. From Einstein's point of view, a religious person who says science is the work of the Devil, and a scientist who broadly labels all religious people as stupid morons would both be "ignorant".
