To borrow my own post from the other thread
Quote:
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Originally Posted by n0nsensical
I think the entire science/religion debate is the result of misunderstanding, not that it is something that can or should actually be debated. Science and religion are not at all exclusive and one is not a replacement for the other. Science is merely the study of nature. Science can't prove or disprove the existence of God any more than the existence of life can. In fact science doesn't purport to prove or disprove anything. A true scientist would know that is impossible. Mathematicians make proofs. Mathematics can be proved as a human construction. Scientists make theories. The nature of the universe is observable, not provable. Evolution is a theory as much as gravity. It is observed that matter is attracted to other matter. It is impossible to prove that all matter is attracted to all other matter in the same fashion. The theory of gravitation is simply accepted to the point of 'law', but it is acknowledged that the laws too, being based in mathematics, are human constructions.
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I take a humbler approach to the 'evidence'. We don't actually know much about the fundamental nature of the universe beyond our models for the behavior of matter and energy. I don't believe there is any evidence specifically precluding the existence of a 'supreme being' or other religious concepts even if it doesn't fit with traditional views of 'God'. But there are many such views, and it doesn't mean that the current crop of believers in any given faith are correct. But the bottom line to me is belief is just as (un)supported as disbelief. I see both views as a matter of faith, an entirely separate concept from science. Science is based in reason and logic, but faith cannot be as we simply lack the base of evidence on which to support any argument.
Truly a lot of harm has been done in the name of God. But harm has been done in the name of science as well. Neither is intrinsically good or bad but it's what we do with it. I would say theism still has plenty of good to offer humanity, just maybe not in many of its currently popular (particularly radical and fundamentalist) forms.