Though I have become highly spiritual, I often have questions when it comes to religion. I rarely tread this area in my blog, yet this is an interesting dialog I learned of via a "please forward" email we received at home and a link provided by a reader. Definitely worth a read no matter your viewpoint on the topic and no matter who "actually" wrote it... Enjoy.
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God vs Science Dialogues
Thoughts?
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7 comments:
I don't think evil is the absence of good. Lots of things are not particularly good without being at all evil. Evil is a positive attribute. People are evil and do evil things because they made the choice to do them. And for those who believe that God is infinite, and omnipresent, that God is everywhere, the notion that it is possible for God to be absent, in any sense, is logically impossible.
I have never understood this notion that God and science have the potential to be incompatible. Among other things there is the difference in scale. God is infinite and universal, beyond human understanding and rules. Science is just what a few human beings have been doing in the last couple of hundred years in labs some place. To say that God is inconsistent with science, is like saying God is inconsistent with th NFL or any other human activity, a total non sequitur.
Among other things I could say about this dialogue, you notice how very Jewish, and how not Christian it is, despite being ostensibly a dialogue between an atheist and Christian. Einstein thought in Jewish terms, not Christian terms. The very act of engaging in this sort of dialogue reflects a Talmudic tradition where authority is based on the winning of arguments, and not through a mystical process. Interestingly, the student, not the professor, the nominal authority figure, wins the argument.
The other thing I would point out, that Einstein fails to understand is that the notion of an absent God, of a God who is less than infinite, is completely alien and contradictory to Christian tradition and theology. And that isn't the way Christians address the problem of evil which the dialogue raises. Einstein is making incorrect assumptions so basic, he doesn't even realize he is making them.
Where does the concept of "free will" fit into your discussions?
My understanding is that though God can be everywhere... God gave us free will, so he/she is not everywhere... By our choice.
Where does the concept of "free will" fit into your discussions?
"Free will" is in fact the rather awkward way in which Christians address the problem of evil. For Jews who aren't so committed to this notion of the omnipresence of God, who are more comfortable with the notion of a personal God who at times turns away and abandons His people, free will, the ability to choose good, evil or nothing at all can be assumed. For Christians, however, far more committed to the universality of God, than are Jews, the notion of free will within the context of the omnipotence of God is what my Catholic friends describe as a mystery, one of the more convenient ones as it happens.
Let me explain the problem science has with religion
I love that sentence. It's like an ant trying to explain a problem he has with an elephant. How much do you think the elephant cares, or needs to care?
http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp
The Snopes link suggests an attribution to Einstein is false. I don't think that matters much to the substance of the discussion.
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