Science & Religion - Fundamentally incompatible

Belief. One word, many different meanings.

I shall be brief in this introduction as the issue should be plain to anyone who isn't a moron.

Faith based belief, the religious kind, involves not being bothered about the fact that you have no evidence to support your conclusion. In fact having evidence would undermine that belief: You would not longer be able to have faith as you would "know". At least that is how I understand it.

That is why I will either laugh or roll my eyes when someone claims to have faith in Jesus/Allah/Jahweh and then claps their sweaty hands together with glee when they claim to also have proof and evidence. Nope, sorry. You can't have both.

It's just occurred to me... The bible teaches that faith is all important... but does the bible not undermine that faith by being "evidence" (to the faithful at least) that their god walked the earth/spoke to people? Oh dear...

Back to belief: Belief based on evidence, repeated observation etc is entirely different to faith based belief.

"I believe the Sun will 'rise' tomorrow." - Is that faith based? Some might say it is - and of course a scientist is duty bound to agree that there is some degree of uncertainty. We cannot know the Sun will appear. But we base our 'belief' on the repeated observation that the earth spins and does not (noticeably) slow its spin. The Sun has risen everyday for eons - we have no experience of it not doing so. As such our belief is more of an assumption based on countless repeated observations.

That short description of how different religious and scientific 'beliefs' are should give a clear indication as to why this piece in the Guardian by Michael White is so appalling:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/apr/07/martin-rees-templeton-prize-athiests-cross?

The fact that Mr White doesn't seem to understand the basic difference as outlined above is pretty much the only excuse I can think of for such a complete disregard as to why Rees is actually being criticised.

I post my (rather long) comment here to demonstrate how I believe Mr White to a bit of an arse:

"They've hurled abuse and reproach..."

You quote one thing only and that's a headline, and that isn't even overtly abusive if even intended as such. Surely if there are so many nasty and hateful words being said then you could find some to illustrate your point? Or is the "the way people are saying it"?

"...most militant atheist..."

"Militant", when applied to religion, can mean anything from the subjugation of women to the eradication of non-believers. The practice of applying this word to atheists, people who *never* raise a hand, weapon or anything other than occasionally their voices, is a disgusting practice. Those who criticise people like Dawkins for having the oh-so-terrible habit of talking about the problems with religion would do well to remember that that is all "militant" atheists are doing: talking. Such people might do well to ask themselves "Why does this bother me so much? Why do I have a problem with people talking about what is wrong with religion? Why am I so annoyed that these people are speaking out against practices which they see as being harmful?"
I encourage you to find instances of people doing harm, actual physical harm, in 'the name' of their non-belief. Finding an example of someone doing such a thing due to their faith is a trivial matter.
You and others who think like you would do well to remember that.

"Belief without evidence....We all do things like that, don't we?"

Forgive me, but if you think that the 'belief' that a football team will win a match is comparable with the belief that there is an all powerful creator the universe who we can talk to telepathically and will either roast us for eternity or shower us with roses, then you have no business in writing such a piece. Playing with such semantics is childish and transparent to anybody with an ounce of common sense.
I shall start by giving you a hint: We can actually observe the football teams playing a match.
Faith based belief is not the same as evidence based belief. Which is why the Templeton Foundation cheeses off so many scientists.

"The enjoyably funny part of all this is that Rees himself admits to being a non-believer..."

It's not funny at all. Unless the money somehow ends up with a secular charity.

"...all you have to do is say there is no conflict between science and religion..."

There's the problem, because fundamentally there is a conflict. There's a reason that the vast majority of scientists are atheists. What could that reason be, do you think?

"Take Lady R on a nice cruise, at the very least take her on a shopping spree in that nice new Cambridge mall before you do that, Marty."

Charity anyone? No?

"He does hold the Order of Merit..."

Is that now some kind of Infallibility medal?

"You could lose your livelihood, or worse, if you were suspected of atheism."

So good of you to mention what happened to non-believers in the past when they committed so terrible a crime as to state their observations and the implications of those discoveries.

To comment on what you say to follow that statement, I'd like to quote Christopher Hitchens (paraphrased):

"Don't ever forget what they [religion] did when they were in power and were so sure they had 'god' on their side."

Scientists retaliate with words. For some reason that causes so much upset and distress amongst the religions of the world. Considering they *know* the truth, you have to wonder why the trivial words of mere men gets them so riled.

As many have/will point out - The issue at hand is that a prominent scientist accepted money from an organisation that exists to promote faith. Having faith in something is believing without evidence - the antithesis of rational inquiry. Such a man as Martin Rees has managed to upset a good many people not because he might be religious but because he has kicked the chair out from under his own scientific credentials.

I think that's me done for now.