Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote an article that was interesting. He argued that Science and religion cannot co-exist. Granted, what he is picking on is the insistence of some Christians that the Bible talks about nature, about how the universe came into existence. He argues that it is not science and that it should not be taught in a science classroom. I agree with that. But he goes on against even more general pronouncements issued by scientists like Newton and LaPlace. DeGrasse warns: “But a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when staring into the ocean of their own ignorance. They call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.”
They invoke God out of necessity in the face of something that they do not understand. But I am not convinced by this sort of argument because it assumes that the scientist in question did not have a previous belief, a fundamental belief- God is a function, ad hoc, only present when we don’t understand something. I think that for some who see mathematics, for example, as the language spoken by God, I think that the practice of science is an act of piety and that invoking God at some point is not the creatio ex nihilio, or in other words that up until then they had no use of God, no belief, nothing, but rather that the belief expresses itself differently depending on the circumstances. Thus the same belief could animate a scientist writing equations that for him or her are a sort of revelation of His handwriting and also be present when he or she gives space to contemplate the mystery of God. We don’t always understand what someone meant by their poetry. Doesn’t mean that we cannot understand or give up hope of understanding, but that understanding might require a rephrase, and indeed this is the equivalent of scientific progress.
Thus, I do not believe that “God” is simply there ONLY at the perimeter of our ignorance but that God is the required belief that secures the possibility of knowledge. “God”, furthermore, is shorthand for something we believe in without an empirical, scientific, reason.
Religion is not a meaningful word.
Let’s say jews and muslims are both taught that God hates the other group.
God can’t attack and love both sides.
Religion is just a shitty poor word.
God also has many meanings as a word.
Pantheism is very different than the dual christian ideas.
I think you’re this close to a straw man.
But it is so common that it appears normal and coherent.
Omar,
“Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote an article that was interesting. He argued that Science and religion cannot co-exist. Granted, what he is picking on is the insistence of some Christians that the Bible talks about nature, about how the universe came into existence. He argues that it is not science and that it should not be taught in a science classroom. I agree with that. But he goes on against even more general pronouncements issued by scientists like Newton and LaPlace. DeGrasse warns: “But a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when staring into the ocean of their own ignorance. They call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.””
This is me railing against some of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s statements.
clearing throat Neil, science and religion do co-exist, so you’re point of “cannot co-exist” is moot. Furthermore, all sciences and religions are tools inspired by The Creator to benefit men and us women. Frankly Neil, it boggles my mind that man cannot reconcile the two with some genuine giving and taking from both camps, so everybody avoids a hypocritical life. A very smart philosopher I’ve read has a relevant forum thread, “Concise Definition of Free Will,” in which CelineK’s opening post states, "The only free will that exists is the ability to notice or not.
Both camps need to reflect on the words to notice or not. Both camps exist in this physical reality. A reality which affects both camps, some in subtle ways, some not. And I agree with you Neil that the poor Creator gets slighted by both camps.
Omar, I agree with everything else you wrote, with the exception of “scientific progress” which is offensive in itself as another slight of God. I am combining both camps in one camp which will be called __________? Suggestions welcome. 
RM:Affectance Ontology. 
Hello Dan
You are again returning to a narrow definition of “religion” and of “God” by talking about Muslims and Jews. What I am saying is that there are other ways to conceive of God and to live a religious life which in turn is compatible, in fact feeds from science.
Agreed, therefore I think that DeGrasse has to specify what he means. Is it fundamentalist Christians? “Religion” is a very general term under which you can find instances of beliefs that go just fine with science, and not because people need assurance at the perimeter of their ignorance, but because they carry this belief in their research.
Agreed. And Spinoza, like Hyugens, lived a life were his science and his version of religion complimented one another.
Dan I think that you misunderstood what I wrote. I see very little disagreements between what you are saying and what I am saying, so I don’t know what else to tell you.
Hello Maniacal,
Philosophy.
I believe that religion and science meet in philosophy.
Einstein noted that he did not question the existence of a God who created the universe, he simply wanted to find out how God did it.
Science and religion are not incompatible. Many scientists have also espoused religion.
Hello to you, Omar,
Philosophy? 
I question this for two reasons:
Is philosophy contradicting itself in nature?
If philosophy isn’t contradicting itself in nature, in it’s very nature, what has it reconciled?
Something is missing.
This all works from the perspective of the scientist who (as I suspect Neil DeGrasse Tyson does) only hears about God as a proposed fix at the limits of human understanding. If that’s all theism was, then he’d be right to reject it. But anybody who’s actually a practicing theist knows that this is all in all a relatively tiny portion of what it means to be a part of any particular faith, or even a faithless philosophical theist. Theism has it’s own set of metaphysical claims, ethical claims, historical claims, epistemological claims, all networked together and cross-examined. In other words, it’s a broad field like any other.
I have never seen any serious theist put forward the idea that the existence of God is primarily justified/believed in as an explanation for features of the natural world that we don’t understand- this notion seems to purely come from atheists just before they shoot it down again. It is as though they think Aquinas was coming up with God when he wrote the cosmological argument or something.
Hello Ucissore
I have enormous respect for DeGrasse but I thought that on that article he went out of his way to disassociate religion from science. He brought the faith of Newton and others to judgment and found them disingenuous. When they were describing the laws of the universe they did not mention God but where their understanding falters they then mention God. His main argument is against the “God of the gaps”. That opinion, I think, speaks too much about the reasons, if there are any, behind the scientists’ omission of God. I think it serves his argument only too well. Science, in my opinion begins with the theistic perspective, the intuition, and search, of the immutable behind the transient. We know this. I think that as science has progressed that first order studies have been abandoned. I think that questions that once were central to reasonable people, such as “Why is there something instead of nothing?” or “What is A?”, or “How can the finite know the infinite?” that has all gone out of the window.
I think that science has no need for a personal God, but the impersonal God is another story. When Einstein says that God does not play dice he does not mean Yahweh, or Jesus. What if he had said “The Law does not play dice”? I think that many scientists are religious because religiosity can take many different meanings; for me the meaning that ties them together is the belief that the infinite can be known by the finite, which is, in my opinion, a declaration of faith.
Omar,
“I think that science has no need for a personal God, but the impersonal God is another story. When Einstein says that God does not play dice he does not mean Yahweh, or Jesus. What if he had said “The Law does not play dice”? I think that many scientists are religious because religiosity can take many different meanings; for me the meaning that ties them together is the belief that the infinite can be known by the finite, which is, in my opinion, a declaration of faith.”
Such a declaration of faith falls short in the experience of to notice or notregarding each individual’s free-will. A faith that science will outlive God is misspent energy, time, earthly resources, etc. Developing a open-ended faith, a willingness to notice or not God’s various methods of communication is the key to reversing the ever-increasing damage we, as a species, are doing to our environment.