Welcome to RINO Sightings for November 21, 2005.

I’m going to lead with Jane at Armies of Liberation, who is doing one of the things about the ’sphere that may really mak…

Speaking from the “other side,” I must state that the opposite is quite true, as well - many who claim faith in science (alone) try to figuratively destroy God, despite the many benefits from Him that they enjoy everyday.

I was raised in an atheistic (”agnostic” was the claim) household, where any religion, but expecially Christianity, was held in mocking contempt, and all faith was placed in the hope of completely secular science. Anything remotely metaphysical (including discussions of quantum physics) was harshly ridiculed, and any question that remained unanswered was excused as awaiting the next great breakthrough in one or more of the scientific disciplines.

Without going into a lengthy defense of religious faith, let me just suggest (as you touched on yourself) that the two arenas are not distinct or seperate in any way from one another - Dad used to point out the exact, predictible nature of mathematics as “proof ” God did not exist, for example. I believe quite strongly the opposite, that finding consistancy and predictability in seemingly random systems (as Glick explained in his book “Chaos” some years ago), suggestions very strongly the existance of an “intelligent designer,” e.g. God.

The way I see it, there was (and is) indeed an “intelligent designer,” God, creator of the heavens and the earth, whose methods and intents may often be tracked and studied through the use of scientific methodology. I am a historian and seminarian, and make use of the same tools you do in reserching my own fields. If God is one of a random and unpredictible nature, then this, and indeed all of “science”, would be a futile effort. Because He is very, very consistent, unchangeable, and to a high degree predictible, then both faith and science can exist side by side quite comfortably.

I’ve often thought (and preached) that the study of faith is the study of “why” and the study of sciences is the study of “how”.