Religious Education Update: November 11, 2007
Religion and Science
Today our middle group of children (ages 7-11) will begin their study of Unitarian Universalist contributions to science and technology.
Science and religion are frequently thought to be in conflict with one another. For example, the four year daughter of an astronomer asks, “How old is the earth, Mom?” and is told that our earth is 4.5 billion years old. Next door, another four year old asks his father, who belongs to a certain fundamentalist Christian group, and is told that the earth is 6,000 years old.
In most cases, however, I believe that religious views and scientific views tend to move towards accommodation, rather than conflict. For example, the people who wrote the Bible clearly believed in a flat earth. The Old Testament refers to four pillars in the four corners holding up the vault or firmament which held all the celestial bodies. This flat earth model seemed obviously true to most people of the time, with some exceptions such as Aristotle, who proposed a spherical earth. Much later, astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo challenged the flat earth model. Galileo was forced by the church to recant and lived the rest of his life under house arrest. By the time of Columbus, most educated people believed in a spherical earth. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for Galileo’s punishment and said the church was wrong. The Catholic Church and the astronomers had come to accommodation at last.
For me, scientific knowledge contributes to my faith. When I study astronomy and learn about the billions of galaxies in the universe, I am full of awe and wonder. Moderns have the good fortune to be able to look at the images from the Hubble telescope and see nebulas, star clusters, and distant worlds that the ancients could never imagine. Unitarian Universalists believe that scientific knowledge is a source for our faith, and that reason is one tool towards finding religious truth and meaning.
Marlene Abel
Director of Religious Education
Today our middle group of children (ages 7-11) will begin their study of Unitarian Universalist contributions to science and technology.
Science and religion are frequently thought to be in conflict with one another. For example, the four year daughter of an astronomer asks, “How old is the earth, Mom?” and is told that our earth is 4.5 billion years old. Next door, another four year old asks his father, who belongs to a certain fundamentalist Christian group, and is told that the earth is 6,000 years old.
In most cases, however, I believe that religious views and scientific views tend to move towards accommodation, rather than conflict. For example, the people who wrote the Bible clearly believed in a flat earth. The Old Testament refers to four pillars in the four corners holding up the vault or firmament which held all the celestial bodies. This flat earth model seemed obviously true to most people of the time, with some exceptions such as Aristotle, who proposed a spherical earth. Much later, astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo challenged the flat earth model. Galileo was forced by the church to recant and lived the rest of his life under house arrest. By the time of Columbus, most educated people believed in a spherical earth. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for Galileo’s punishment and said the church was wrong. The Catholic Church and the astronomers had come to accommodation at last.
For me, scientific knowledge contributes to my faith. When I study astronomy and learn about the billions of galaxies in the universe, I am full of awe and wonder. Moderns have the good fortune to be able to look at the images from the Hubble telescope and see nebulas, star clusters, and distant worlds that the ancients could never imagine. Unitarian Universalists believe that scientific knowledge is a source for our faith, and that reason is one tool towards finding religious truth and meaning.
Marlene Abel
Director of Religious Education
posted by Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma @ 6:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home