Do faith in God and science contradict?

Creationism is well documented in science.It is actually showing better results leaning towards creation than evolution.

Atheists are very upset because the scientific community would rather be truth full instead of repeating fallacies.

Texas becomes the seventh state to specifically require in its science standards that students critically analyze key aspects of evolutionary theory, joining Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Missouri, South Carolina, and Alabama. Two other states, Louisiana and Mississippi, have adopted legislation protecting the academic freedom of teachers and students to discuss scientific evidence critical of Darwin’s theory.

The problem is the credibility of the bible.

Christianity relies on the bible being a reasonably accurate document. Some Christians claim that it is a 100% accurate document.

But as science keeps finding things in the bible that are just plain wrong, or that the bible has changed over the years, then the credibility of the entire thing fades.

Some Christians ignore science. Claim evolution and cosmology false. Because their faith will shatter if they admit a single error in the text of their God. Others are more flexible, especially as there is little archaeological evidence around Jesus. But what will they do when archaeologists finally 'fess up that Nazareth did not exist in 1st century Judea, and other major flaws exist in the evidence about the Christian faith?

As science has progressed there has been less and less evidence for God. God got the credit for lots of things almost all of which science has shown to have natural causes. God has been pushed back from a being that touches us every day, in making rain, storms, lightning and such, to some cosmological pool player who set the big bang in motion just so, to give the universe we see today.

DNA is much less complex than the coast of Norway. Over time simple laws can give rise to incredibly complex things. If Earth was the only planet in the universe then things like this would be incredible. But it is not. Every indication is that the Earth is just one of billions of billions of life-suitable planets. Why is it surprising that life occurs on a planet where life can occur?

You believe in God. And then you see things in the world and use those to justify your belief, while ignoring other facts that discredit your belief. Your 'priests' of science do not put knowledge above God. They evaluate all knowledge and see that some of it is incompatable with God. If you are going to accept most of science then you should accept all of it. Even the parts that point out the falsehoods in your beliefs. Or do you really think that your belief is enough to alter the facts of the universe?

Faith is being sure of what we cannot see.

Science is based entirely on observation.

Therefore, they cannot ever coincide. If you can't see it, it can't be science. If you can see it, it can't be faith.

(Using "see" in a metaphorical context here....)

But a few nits here....You say "....(some) theories ultimately cannot be proved or disproved." This isn't completely true. Science is all about falsification. All theories can be disproven, or they would not be scientific. If a hypothesis cannot be disproven, it does not meet the falsification criterion. It can't be experimented on, and it is therefore not part of science. That's why intelligent design isn't science, it's not falsifiable. No one has come up with a hypothetical data set that would disprove it. The data set doesn't have to exist, just be hypothetically obtainable.

No theory can be proven, but all theories must be disprovable. This is why people get the idea that science has been "wrong" in the past. It hasn't; it's just been incomplete in the past, and is incomplete now as well.

The way it works is this: You make an observation. You then come up with theories to explain it. You then come up with experiments that would disprove any given theory and conduct those experiments. You adjust your experiments and theories according to what you observe during the experiments. Last theory standing "wins." But there's always the possibility that there is another way to disprove it, or another theory that explains everything just as well (or better).

Personally, I like Gallileo's take on the matter: "The Bible tells man how to go to heaven. Not how the heavens go."

Some science, evolution for example, threatens faith because it goes so far in explaining how the diversity of life (once seen as a collection of miraculous events) could have happened by normal processes. So, some science is a threat. Also, elementary physics, if it does any better job at explaining the origin of matter and energy, will put a real dent in religion.

If I show you a taxonomy of fish, there's no threat: I'm just describing God's creation. But if I tell you how all those phyla came to be by natural selection over a million years, I'm playing God all of a sudden! At some level, Science demystifies the universe. And that gets rid of the need for God, for all but the most spiritually needy.

OTOH, I'm surprised God has lasted this long! Frankly, when we discovered the correct relation between earth and the sun, back in Galileo's day, I thought the church was done for. Every time one of it's cherished conservative dogmas falls to intellect, the priests just move the goalposts and keep faith alive fo rthe needy. But the fundamental theories about the creation of things, and the true nature of physical matter and existence are threatening. That's supposed to be out of bounds to reason. If you can help the average Joe get a handle on that, as well as the social matter of the individual's proper relation to the world and to society, then religion may be done.

Rationality and faith aren't contradictory, but i would have a few provisos. Science is largely socially determined and there are pressures such as career interests, commercial funding and cultural bias which lead to science being less than objective. However, this is in no way an attempt to claim that evolutionary theory isn't correct. Evolution is clearly a fact and those who deny it are either ignorant or in denial. Another major consideration is the limitations of human thought and rationality. We are sometimes dominated by our passions and also are not as perfectly wise as God, so we make mistakes or fail to understand the Universe adequately on many occasions.

The other thing is, religion and science are not the same kind of discourse. Religion is primarily allegorical and prescriptive in nature whereas science aims at description, though not always successfully.

It's not specifically faith in god which contradicts science, it's just faith itself.

I'm using faith in the sense of believing aspects of nature (understandings of reality) without evidence, as distinct from its other day-to-day meanings. Science demands permanent open-mindedness, in other words the realisation that nothing we presently believe can be guaranteed to be reality. There may always be new information around the corner.

This forces a form of humility, where nobody can claim surety. Current belief is based on evidence, and lack of evidence means no current belief. Evidence can also overturn current beliefs; the key is to follow the evidence, not presume things. People can still have hunches and hypotheses, often a basis for investigating, but they still know the difference between these and a validated idea.

This is at odds with faith, which demands no doubt. I see many believers who, when saying they have doubts, are told to have more faith. If such a stance is acceptable in one area, then it's acceptable in others. The whole underlying philosophy of scientific principle would be utterly compromised by such a stance, where people could believe anything they want by declaring they have faith.

So yes, they contradict.

Edit:

@Hot mess-

<<you will see that the Quran and modern science coincide>>

I disagree. The Koran demands submission and acceptance of absolute knowledge. Science demands the opposite - open-mindedness and rejection of absolute knowledge.

No, they do not contradict at all. The Bible is not, and never was meant to be, a science textbook. So whatever alleged "contradictions" that are in it are completely irrelevant to science.

What is more, Newton, Galileo, Copernicus believed in God, as did a whole slew of modern scientists. Science and religion have only come into conflict when churches were connected to the state and felt that science challenged their authority, which is an issue of power and not religion-- or when atheists started to utilize science to justify their position in society and dumb conservatives took the bait. Ultimately, however, religion has never been in conflict with religion, except when people utilized both for their ulterior political agendas. That still holds true today.

What is more, I am a Christian and I believe in evolution, global warming, and even the Big Bang. I know literally hundreds of Christians who believe the same, personally, let alone the millions of others. Yes, there are right wing nut-jobs who don't believe in science, but they are just that: right-wing nut-jobs.

So the real issue here is not religion and science. It is merely politics.

i did not read your questions in its entirety, but i skimmed it and get your point.

science is not, however, the conflict arises from religious sources refusing to change thier "beliefs" when science provides evidence of a discovery.

strict interpretations of creationism vs. evolution are an example of this conflict- most rational theists will justify thier further belief by saying "evolution is the method god used".

however- keep in mind that eventually there will be a conflict when we discover the cause of the universe.

basically what will happen is that science will find more and more general answers for things that previously were attributable to "god", thus taking away god's involvement in a reat many things-

until finally you are pretty much left with a "deist" type of religion as the only plausible one, then in the far far future, when we finally do have the ability to discover the creation of the universe's cause, deism itself will come into conflict with science if that study does not reveal god as the cause for the universe's creation.

you think it will, i don't because there is nothing to suggest it.

however science is not necessarily in conflict with religion, religious leaders feel threatened when thier strict interpretaiton of thier faiths are beseiged by evidence that this strict interpretation is incorrect.

That is only a problem for the fundies!!

The Pope, Catholic Church, Church of England and mainstream churches all accept evolution and the big bang!!

Lord Carey the former Archbishop of Canterbury put it rather well – “Creationism is the fruit of a fundamentalist approach to scripture, ignoring scholarship and critical learning, and confusing different understandings of truth”!!

Christian Fundamentalist is a complete contradiction in terms!!

CHRISTIAN – A follower or believer in Jesus.

FUNDAMENTALIST One who believes the Bible is literally true and must be followed exactly.

Therefore they are followers of the bible and not Jesus making them non Christians!!!

But worse is to follow it also makes them ideologists.

IDEOLOGY An idea that is false or held for the wrong reasons but is believed with such conviction as to be irrefutable.

So Christians have a loving and forgiving god and fundamentalist - well - Just are not Christians!!!!

They don't contradict so long as you recognize each for that they are. Science is a tool for answering objective questions about the natural world. Religion is a tool for answering personal questions of a philosophical nature. Too many Christians seem to mistakenly try to use one to do the job of the other.

>>Much of science supports the existence and work of God.

No, YOU have taken YOUR own philosophical interpretation to the results and came to that personal conclusion. The discoveries of science are not "proofs" of God.