IP: RE: Science vs. the Bible: Debate Moves to the Cosmos

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "Shaya Potter" <spotter () yucs org>
> To: "David Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
> Dave, you have been posting many messages on the religion vs. science debate
> recently.  However, there are many of us in the sciences who are religious
> and don't see contradictions between accepted scientific theory and our
> religious beliefs.  The main problem is probably by Christian
> fundamentalists because they take a literal view of the bible (while I don't
> want to stereotype people, that's been by observation) .  Personally, I
> think they are short changing god by saying the bible has to be taken
> literally.  When one reads a Shakespearean sonnet, one doesn't expect the
> meaning to be literally visible, they expect to have to work through the
> sonnet to try to understand Shakespeare's intent, and even then there are
> many
> arguments on interpretation that could be equally valid.   Why would the
> bible be a lesser work?  If you want arguments showing how (for at least my
> beliefs) religion and science don't contradict, I'd be happy to either write
> up some answers for you, or direct you to the sources I'd use.
>
> It should also be known, that the true believer in god can always answer
> that there is no contradiction between religion and science: Since god is
> omnipotent, god could have just as easily created a Universe with all the
> trappings of a Universe many billions of years old, as easily as god could
> have created a "newborn" Universe.  While this is (IMHO) a cop out answer,
> there is no reason why it is necessarily wrong for a truly religious person
> to believe it.  However, there are many other answers that I've seen that
> don't rely on this "cop out" that I prefer.
>
> ----
> Just for the record, I'm currently in Yeshiva University, double majoring in
> Physics and Computer Science and minoring in Math.   I'd classify my
> religious beliefs as modern orthodox (Jewish) leaning towards ultra
> orthodox.
> ----
>
> Thanks,
>
> Shaya Potter
> --
> spotter () ymail yu edu        spotter () itd nrl navy mil
> spotter () yucs org            spotter () betanews com