Should religion restrict rational thought or scientific inquiry from pursuing its own conclusion?

Answer 1

Everyone has a free will, but different people also have varying definitions of what is rational thought, and what is scientific inquiry. Rational thought, scientific inquiry, and religion are not mutually exclusive. You can find both operating without and within religion.

Many of the founders of modern science and the scientific method were people who were either Christians or who believed in an almighty creator and that they were merely 'thinking God's thought after him.'

These include the astronomers Copernicus, Keppler and Galileo, Newton and many others. They had no problem pursuing pure scientific endeavor as far as reconciling this with faith in a creator. The difference between then and much of what happens today is that many proclaim science specifically as an attempt to explain everything on a purely naturalistic basis, which, interestingly, is an intrusion into 'pure science' of a philosophical presupposition which is outside of science.

Religion has no conflict with science, as far as science remains science. This is incidentally, why both Christians and evolutionists can work side by side on the space shuttle, since this 'operational science' as some call it is inquiring into 'the world that is'. === === Science teaches reason without belief. Religion teaches belief without reason. Science can not be reconciled with religion because religion is founded in unreasoned claims based on faith, yet claims to make statements about the natural world. The natural world operates according to natural laws which have nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Save for the individual right for a person to hold what ever belief he or she wishes, religions have no further claim in this world and should be banned form public discourse. The suggestion that religion should be allowed to interfere with science, is abominable and disgusting. I wouldn't lend religion my wheelbarrow, and that has a metal wheel. If by the question, you mean science, as science, then most people, including most Christians would not have any problem with that.

What tends to happen sometimes, though, is that science goes beyond the empirical world which is testable and repeatable experimentally and makes claims for itself which it cannot verify. Many have decried what has been described as a kind of 'scientific reductionism' whereby science, in going beyond what many see as its proper role, makes claims about things it cannot know about or test and attempts to limit everything to mere empirical phenomena. It thus intrudes into the area of philosophy and epistemology which are strictly speaking, outside its 'brief'. This is not an attempt to restrict or censure science, but merely a realization of what science is. In overstepping its bounds science ceases to be science and becomes something else. Some have called this 'scientism'.

In the past people such as Keppler and Newton had no trouble giving God the glory for their work and for the order they found in the universe. They did not worship science but they used science to discover more about the world that they believed God had made. They did not see that their religion was interfering with their science, simply that it formed the basis for believing that man was indeed a rational being, that the universe was created by a rational being and could therefore be investigated in a rational way. This was for them a logical deduction.

Thus historically, and there are many more examples, modern science was based on the work of many people who saw no conflict whatsoever between science and religion. The perceived conflict seems to be a relatively modern one, perhaps having its focal point in 1859 with the publishing of 'the Origin' but by no means originating then.

Some would contend that the idea that the universe is meaningless, as Dawkins asserts, gives no rational basis for investigating it, although of course in practical terms, we do not hesitate for a moment in doing so, since much of our modern science, particularly in the field of medical research, would hope to make life itself better or even to save life. Religion would thus place no restriction on science as science, but would certainly state that science has its limitations.