DAVID Ure Letters, July 16) rehashes the myth of conflict between religion and science as if this were self-evidently true. But this, the credo of dogmatic atheism is itself an article of faith. It has no basis in history.
Theologia mater scientiae – theology is the mother of science. With its profound regard for the principles of logic and rational argument, Christian theology elevated reasoning to the highest place, and thus gave birth to the sciences. So instead of despising believers as being inherently irrational cultists entrapped in a mire of superstition, Mr Ure might like to ask himself why such scientific luminaries as Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Robert Boyle, Gregor Mendel – to name but a few – were all Christian.
To go to modern times, he might like to consider that the proponent of the accepted cosmological model (the Big Bang theory) was Georges Lemaître, a Monseigneur in the Catholic Church. Or – to touch on a topical note – why are 35 craters on the moon are named after Jesuit astronomers?
Ex nihilo nihil fit – out of nothing comes nothing. This ancient saying is an indisputable truth. God’s existence cannot be proved by arguing from the natural world, because he is not in nature, he is the author of nature. So never argue about God – it’s a waste of time. As Gregory of Nyssa said “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees”.
I commend the words of Albert Einstein: “The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. It is like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books…a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."
Wise indeed was the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon, when he wrote: “It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”
Brian Quail, Glasgow G11.
DAVID Ure hypothesises that science is the “great liberator of humanity”. He may not agree but I suspect that, when people have rejected God, they need to look for “saviours” wherever they can find them. Unfortunately his hypothesis may not stand up to the testing he himself asserts is essential for its validity. It’s hard to see how science can be said to have contributed in any way to free humanity from such basic restraints as hatred, war, poverty, alienation, inequality, prejudice, shame or regret.
I’ll carry on looking to God for that while thanking him for making a universe which has the coherence and order which makes science and its undoubted benefits possible in the first place.
Dougie Paton, Glasgow G44.
I WOULD suggest that belief in a God cannot be proved in scientific terms. It is a matter of faith and belief. Equally science cannot prove that there is no God, however we understand "God", it is a matter of faith and belief. So let us be gracious enough to accept each other’s faith and belief and points of view.
Ron Lavalette, Ardrossan.
IN response to a British Social Attitudes report describing how an ever diminishing number of UK citizens are now Christian (just over one-third), the Church of Scotland has said it “will always seek to be a force for good in society” ("More people have stronger views on Brexit than religion", The Herald, July 11). We absolutely welcome this.
What must now change, however, is the increasingly-outdated notion that Christianity represents and is good for all of us.
It enjoys taxpayers’ money to run schools according to its own ethos, exemption from equality laws which apply to everyone else and unelected seats in government.
No one would condemn any private group for seeking to do “good for society” but religious leaders must graciously surrender established privilege before it is gracelessly torn from their grasp.
Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society, Edinburgh EH12.
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