I disagree and propose the exact opposite — religion has had a profound positive impact on science both indirectly and directly. If you look through time I’m sure you’ll see an important role religion has played with the advancement of science.
First you have the Scottish Enlightenment period which changed the word. The cause? Local churches started schools (Education Act 1633.)
Then you have to account for any huge scientific advancements that were motivated from a design/creation aspect. For example Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic Priest who first proposed the big bang theory. He said that an “initial creation-like event must have occurred.”
Sure, religion gave science a few black eyes. However, so has the materialistic/secular view of the world. I’ll say not only has this view slowed the progression of science (things like junk DNA) but has been downright harmful (doctors removing vestigial organs because they are useless artifacts of evolution.)
Why does God allow evil? I believe that in order to know what is good you must know what evil is. How would you know what is good without knowing what’s bad? You would have nothing to contrast good to so therefore nothing can be considered good. Here is the best argument I have for this position.
A child who was fed and taken care of their entire childhood would not think that this is good — they just expect it. To them it’s a part of life, their parents take care of them and give them all they need and is neither good nor bad. It isn’t until they see other children neglected, or see other parents struggling to feed their own children that they come to the realization of what they had was good. Therefore we wouldn’t know what was good without knowing what was evil.
Also, let’s say a person intentionally murdered a child — that is evil. However, a loving God gave us freewill, therefore a loving God must allow that person to exercise their freewill and murder that child.
Often people will use the argument that if God existed why does he allow evil. Why does God allow people to be killed in hurricanes and other natural disasters?
First of all, is death evil? I think evil is the ultimate cause of death, but death in itself is not evil and is a necessary part of life as we know it. Therefore how can we say people dying in an earthquake is evil? Actually, I would argue it’s good — only spiritual bodies are allowed in heaven. It can be good in other ways too, for example, say you were to die right before you would commit the unforgivable sin? That is an example of death being good. You might even take it as far as that people dying in natural disasters is evidence of Gods grace.
Further, the fact that Read more…