Dissident Veteran For Peace: Quotable: A Critical Difference

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Quotable: A Critical Difference

At the root of the apparent conflict between some religions and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world. Whether there is a purpose to the universe or a purpose for human existence are not questions for science. Religious and scientific ways of knowing have played, and will continue to play, significant roles in human history.

No one way of knowing can provide all of the answers to the questions that humans ask. ...

Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.

Source: Working Group on Teaching Evolution, National Academy of Sciences. Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. (Washington, DC: National Academy Pr., 1998) p 58.

Labels: quotations, religion and science

# posted by VFPDissident @ 12/12/2012 09:40:00 PM

Comments:

That presumes there is such a thing as the "supernatural": things that are not explainable by science. I would define the "supernatural" as "things were are not yet able to explain at our current level of knowledge".

# posted by

Anonymous : Friday, December 21, 2012 4:09:00 AM

You may define supernatural any way you wish but, according to the NAS report, your definition is not based on science as "Science can say nothing about the supernatural." They reiterate: "... science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance" (p. 124). As quoted, they also assert: "No one way of knowing can provide all of the answers to the questions that humans ask." That includes science (and religion). The ideology that says only science can provide true answers is known as "scientism".

# posted by