The debates here over scientific fact versus articles of faith has heated up even more lately it seems. The liberal arts and the 'exact' sciences, used to try to reconcile these more, decades ago.
But with the march of anti intellectualism in religious matters, on the one hand, and the march of science on the other, these efforts have waned.
Nevertheless many Americans who have technical, even exact scientific, college credentials nevertheless discard the scientific or empirical methodologies underlying them when it comes to matters of faith or morals.
Lisa Randall, a physicist, in Knocking On Heaven's Door comes out strongly implying, if not stating flatly that scientific facts and articles of faith cannot be reconciled, and that the effort to do so has been superseded by scientific knowledge.
While I appreciate her efforts to explain this position to non physicists and others, it seems worthwhile to point out in passing that there are also other sources of factual investigation than the history or current state of physics, to which one can look, for insight on ancient faiths and ancient facts called into question and doubt today.
She does, in fairness, give some every day non physics examples, and weaves history of science, church politics, and philosophy together nicely so far.
Although creationism stirred much debate, Near Eastern History and archaeology has made many strides, in recent decades, ever more closely bearing on the origins of various middle eastern faiths.
The work of scholars regarding Old Testament and middle eastern history and archaeology has been very revealing, but few here, especially Christians, even know about it, yet it bears profoundly on matters of concern to all, Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.
If you want to get at the roots of many problems still present in the West, including nationalism, anti Semitism, multiculturalism, and other things, it is a good idea to keep up with current research, I call it scientific, in some of these areas, going back 2,500 or more years, going forward.
term search: Richard Elliott Friedman
Someone happened on my old post, after this post, and so I thought to add that older reference:
http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/07/torah-richard-elliott-friedman.html
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