"`Thrilled as he was with the reputed properties of asbestos, what lovely analogies would he not draw from such discoveries of our modern science as wireless and invisible rays, and with what merciless logic yet unfailing charity would he not expose the weakness of modern unbelief(Griffin, C.S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life, 216)!'"
"Some religious reject science. The ones that live in caves and eat bugs, anyway. I like the lifestyle available only because of scientific inquiry. Pure religious inquiry wouldn't have even told us which bugs to eat - we'd be too busy deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (and we wouldn't have invented pins)!"
"Both science and religion claim to be a search for truth."
In the Judeo-Christian faith, we are not searching! We have found the truth in God's word, the bible, and in Jesus, the son of God. We are not searching for Jesus, because he has found us. He manifests himself in the hearts of all believers. We are not searching for him, then. We are not searching for God, because Jesus is the Son of God, the word of God, a reflection of God, so we have no need to look further. The bible gives us all the truth we need for our daily behavior and for the welfare of our souls. Granted, the bible is not a science book. It is unhelpful when you want to figure out a better way to manufacture staplers or a more efficient way to bake bread, but we can live without that information. The bible doesn't have to tell us everything, only what's important, the truths that are important. If I died today, without ever learning what was beyond our solar system, or what kind of thing exists at the sub-quark level in specialized microscopes, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't affect me personally. But if I died today without believing in Jesus, there's going to be a problem. We are not truth seeking, we're truth having. There's a difference. If you are skeptical and doubt God's word, the bible, then you will receive nothing good from Him. Too many scientists are skeptical, picking apart religion. Being skeptical and picking apart a religion is called doubt. Faith is the opposite of doubt.
"Christianity is no better than the sun cult, that made human sacrifices in order to `make the sun rise' every day."
Ptolemy's Alamagest says something like `The earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point.' In fact, for centuries, the immensity of the universe and the smallness of the earth had been known. So scientists can't seriously use that as an argument against Christianity.
"I prefer science to religion because science at least has objectivity."
There is no such animal. That's like saying newspapers are unbiased. I've never read a textbook that isn't at least a little biased in some way or another, trying to promote some secret agenda. Like, for example, I had a history textbook with a glaringly obvious anti-Christian slant. They always brought up the negative things about Christianity, but never talked once about the positive things Christians do. That's a part of history, too, but the author refused to mention it. A person comes away from reading something like that and believes that Christians are 100% evil and the religion should be avoided at all costs. There are also children's programs with New Age concepts in it. Every medium of communication has a hidden agenda to it. People can't put together anything that doesn't have at least a little bit of a bias to it.
"Science tries to find out how the universe works by examining the universe. Religion tries to find out...well, what does it try to find out?"
While it is interesting to know how the universe operates, that's not the point of religion. In religion, specifically the Judeo-Christian faith, we are told that God created the universe, and that is enough. Religion doesn't need to find anything out. Unless you can use that scientific knowledge to cure diseases or do humanitarian work, or build up the faith of believers, science is just a hobby. The most important study a believer can do in a religion is to pray and search God's word for the truth. Granted, there are Christian archeologists who study the lands described in the bible to validate what the bible says with scientific evidence, but not all Christians do that. Most of us Christians are regular people who live and die for God, because we believe his word, and because we believe there is no need to search further, we have found the right religion and the right truth. Faith isn't about picking things apart and trying to see how they work. Faith is about building up and supporting people.
"I rely on science. I believe the universe has rules, and that the sciences provide the best way to learn about those rules, so I don't have to waste time praying the sun up every morning, or fearing that if I quit thinking about it, gravity will fail."
You can do that without being an atheist. I have faith enough to believe God will take care of such things(the sunrise and gravity), and has taken care of such things for thousands of years, so I don't worry about that. But think about it. How do you know you'll get paid for your job, or get your next paycheck or whatever? What if you just get "unlucky" and you lose a bunch of money and the business goes under, due to no fault of yours(freak accidents, natural disasters, political turmoil)? Faced with problems like that, I personally would pray to God about them, because there are some situations that are just out of our hands, we have no control over them, unlike our muscles and our attitudes. Because in those kinds of situations, in these types of cases, we don't know if "the sun will rise," so to speak.
"I know there are so many wonders in the real world - and in our minds - that I will never (and cannot) know their extent. But those very (almost infinite) wonders are enough for me. I dont need to include God in order to be quiet adequately fascinated and amazed."
So just worship a tree, then?...Who cares about the sublime? Sublimity can't be a good religion on its own!
"For science, the universe holds still for inspection and as better means of inspection become available, the conclusions of investigators can be refined by the test results- but religious investigators have nothing to inspect and use as a correcting and refining guide!"
Christianity would be pointless if it were constantly being revised and changed like science is. If Christianity were like science, with ten different theories on how the universe formed, no one would have any confidence in it. But we don't have theories, we have God's word, the truth from God's mouth. There really aren't any `religious investigators' as you call them. The bible is finished and complete. The word of God is unchanging. While various theories of scientifically minded Christians have been debunked by other scientists, like the geocentric universe theory, the bible itself has yet to have been disproved. This is important because millions of us are living and dying for God's word. Very few people, if any, are willing to die for science. Throughout history, scientists have mostly found it easier to renounce their beliefs and avoid death. Science doesn't give you a reason to keep living. It just tells you how to avoid dying, and only for a few years.
"Merely adding complication and extra levels is not an explanation!"
What kind of `solidity' are you looking for? A religion isn't bad because it doesn't endorse a scientific theory or tell you the formula for plutonium. That's not what religion is for. While Islam claims that all scientific knowledge is written in the Qur'an, Christianity makes no such claim. The bible says that God created the universe. How He did it was unimportant, so it wasn't included in the bible, even if the human mind could understand it.
"The idea of gods and goddesses is contrary to scientific evidence."
Really? Since when has a scientist discovered a rock, or a microbe, or any piece of physical evidence that clearly and distinctly proves that God doesn't exist? As far as my studies indicate, the Big Bang theory is only a theory, with no actual physical evidence to support it. It is no better than a religous belief. The same goes for the primordial soup theory. And evolution. So what if the claws on certain birds correspond with a different type of bird that appears later on the fossil record? Nothing here contradicts the idea of a divine intelligence creating human beings as special creatures set apart from the system of evolution. Why does the `missing link' remain missing? There's no scientific evidence to contradict the idea that God possibly made man with a slight resemblance to animals, without evolution being involved. And the Watson-Crick theory is flawed, too, because if it were so easy to `synthesize proteins' in a lab, why haven't scientists created their own lifeforms, or hamburger out of nothing? That's no better than the study of alchemy. Certainly, primordial soup theory is a weak case for random chance events causing life to arise on this planet. Sure, sure, you can spin theories all day about why I'm wrong. But you can't actually disprove anything in the bible with your `scientific' evidence.
"The only light in this room is a 10 watt bulb and the soothing amber glow of the monitor."
Yes, you are in darkness until you accept Jesus into your heart, so the monitor and bulb are all the light you have. That's true. But that can change, you know.
"Religion is haphazard, thereby violating almost all evidence that the universe does play fair, with `universal' rules for all."
And who made those `universal' rules? I see nothing haphazard or unfair about the Judeo-Christian faith, regardless of what you consider `evidence.' Unlike Odinism and some of those other religions, we don't believe thousands of mischevious gods fighting each other over failed romances, so no rule of non-interference is neccessary. God is not a God of chaos, but of order. He did not create us out of chaos. While he might have a conflict with Satan and fallen angels, God always has the upper hand, so the universe remains stable instead of being disrupted by drunken, reckless deities. If God sets up the rules for the universe, those `universal' rules, what makes it different from the world we currently observe?
"Inquiring minds still want to know how the universe came into being"
The bible gives those inquiring minds a simple, general answer, practical for daily living. Science is there to flesh it out a bit, to study and attempt to explain the various details. It's possible for them to work hand in hand.
"When a person is possessed by a demon, all they do is growl and gurgle. Why listen to an extradimensional intelligence unless there is astounding info imparted, including some, say, future knowledge or brilliant religious clarification to prove it is legit?"
Some of them do rattle off personal details about the priest or the family, or speak in foreign languages, but overall, you're assuming that demons have a benevolent will for humankind. If anything, a demon accomplishes its task of doing evil by not being intelligent and proving any spiritual reality. The greatest trick Satan did was to convince people he didn't exist. Demons would be doing no favor by proving the existence of spiritual things true. Rather they'd try to make atheism more popular.
"People don't see God anymore because they simply are eating better food. People don't get ergot poisoning anymore. The lack of miracles in our present age is the direct result of that. People stopped having religious hallucinations because the food was better."
This is not a very strong point for a number of reasons:
"People don't see angels or miraculous signs anymore because they simply are eating better food. (See argument above)."
I propose the contrary. Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science. It's possible that the God who caused all the `rules' of science to exist can also break them, or create them by means that cannot be defined scientifically.
"Religious beliefs are formed by an infant exiting the womb while under the influence of various chemicals."
This argument was proposed by Carl Sagan in The Amniotic Universe, after being under the influence of marijuana. Oddly enough, some agnostics find it implausible. Response to the Amniotic Universe
"Clarke's Third Law says that `any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' so there has to be a better scientific explanation!"