Are you small A or big A?

[DaisyDeadhead]

(05-13-2012 03:39 PM)Hollandmichigan Wrote:  A scientist who privately believes in gods is in the same league with a scientist who privately believes the earth is flat, or one who privately subscribes to the geocentric model of the universe, or a mathmetician who privately believes 2+2=5. Can it happen? Sure. I just don't want them teaching me or anyone who values their education if i find about it.

Stephen Jay Gould disagreed with you... did you read his famous essay
"Non-overlapping magisteria"?

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

Excerpt --

The text of Humani Generis focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church—a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for "teacher." We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed "conflict" or "warfare" between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or "nonoverlapping magisteria").

The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.