[paraclete]

Not suggesting society be run as a theocracy, the power in such a system corrupts just as much as secular power, but there is a place for a moderating voice

[talaniman]

I can go with common sense balancing the religious fervor that prevents us from celebrating difference with the space to believe whatever you believe. We aren't at the point of mutual respect as a race obviously.

[paraclete]

All these things come down to your view on religious matters. There can be only one truth, and while there are different perspectives, there are also differences which means that not all perspectives have equal value. Race doesn't come into it, although certain races appear to be more open to particular religious views than others. The difficulties are, as you know, at the fringes where fundamentalism spills into warfare.

If you are saying that as a race we don't respect other religious views, I would say the problem extends far beyond religion, nor is it confined to the caucasian. Go to other parts of the world and see how much you are respected

[talaniman]

Extremism is not confined to any one area of the world. Nor the reaction to it. Being willing to die for your beliefs is vastly different than killing in the name of whatever god you worship.

[paraclete]

Basicly tal we are not called to die for our beliefs, at least most of us are not and anyone who thinks we are is a nutcase. Just about all our problems stem from misintrepretation of the message. I personally am fed up with the manipulation that results from laying a heavy revy on people with a few well chosen verses

[JoeT777]

I looked through the tread and thought I might give a better response, we'll see. In my estimation there is no conflict between religion and science. What conflict there is comes from ignorance, a sense of self importance, or chaos and disorder.

God created the cosmos, the heavens, earth, and everything contained therein. This creation is the product of His will. All there is, or all there will ever be, in the cosmos comes from nothing other than His Will. Everything whatsoever is made ‘real’ or ‘true’ in the decrees of His order. This order is called the Laws of God, i.e. Divine Law. Divine Laws include the supernatural and as well as the natural worlds, both, are a reality however only the natural reality is material. The material world is in harmony with the laws of God simply because He created it. And the laws of the material world are said to follow a subset of laws called the laws we call physics. These laws are no less 'Truth' as any other Divine Law. The cosmos was declared to be good in Scripture hence the physical laws as are good. These laws are generally thought of as being fixed, interacting with those underlying precepts of humanity as man exists within the real and material world. These Natural Laws are "nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II, I, 92)

Adam and his decedents were given "dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth"[Genesis 1:26], therefore it is incumbent on us to observe and utilize how God intended His creation to work. More simply, the laws of physics observe the order in His creation and in doing so we fulfill our fiduciary obligation in maintaining a dominion over the whole of the earth.

I just recently wrote in another thread, truth functions within the intellect acting in the processes of knowing, weighing and dissecting both the essence and the attributes of a thing. We know that truth is desirable in knowledge as good is desirable in nature, thus we see truth is convertible with knowledge, as good is convertible with nature; “so the true adds relation to the [human] intellect.” Consequently, any supposition that seeks truth adds weight to the idea that the proposition is good and true. Of course greatest of good is found in God’s act of intellect; as a result it follows “not only that truth is in Him, but that He is truth itself, and the sovereign and first truth.” Truth of the physical world mirrors the Divine truth and since God is one, we can conclude that there is one truth and that truth is immutable and eternal in all reality including the physical world [Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa I, 16].

We also know that evil exists insofar as things are deficient of good and contrary to good [Cf. Aquinas, On Evil (p. 63). Kindle Edition]. Accordingly to distort or break the laws of physics creates disorder and chaos, a privation of order in God’s physical world. To shut the door on the reality, or to turn out the lights, in the observance of the cosmos invites not only ignorance but evil; in much the same way that where a vincible ignorance becomes sin in moral law. Deliberately turning our back on God’s truth more often than not to substitute our own relativistic truth wherein we substitute our will for God’s.

Therefore, to see conflict between God’s Divine Laws and the laws of science is disordered, it misses the point of truth and reality which brings us closer to the will of God. In some small way we can say the laws of science is to know God on an earthly or material level. Any faith that impedes the knowledge of God is a dead faith failing a living enhancement of our knowledge of God. Knowing any truth, whether supernatural or natural, assuming it is revealed, is an object of our love of God. Concluding, to retreat in the face of a conquerable ignorance is evil, perhaps sin, resulting from a disordered view of truth failing our fiduciary dominion over His creation on earth.


JoeT

[paraclete]

Any faith that impedes the knowledge of God is a dead faith failing a living enhancement of our knowledge of God.

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a good point, there has been a great deal of this over the centuries and some may continue to this day