Can you be a scientist if you believe in a god?

Eglinton

While watching athletics on the BBC today I remembered having seen former world champion triple jumper Jonathan Edwards presenting Songs of Praise a few years back. This stuck me as odd at the time because he has a degree in physics and is a widely travelled, articulate individual. He spoke at length about his love of Jesus etc. I cannot reconcile in my mind how such a man can have that level of 'faith'.

Richard Dawkins in 'The God Delusion' discusses the fact that he knows of no reputable scientist that is truly religious and most, if not all, are really atheists, whether publicly or privately.

So I suppose I have two questions:

1) What is your opinion of Jonathan Edwards in regards to this?
2) Can one truly call one's self a scientist, engineer or similar if you believe in a god?

aidan_walsh

Does one have to disregard all that can be proven and verified in order to believe in God? Because thats what you seem to be suggesting.

As long as a scientist doesn't allow his beliefs to cloud what he can prove and recreate, then he is a scientist.

melekalikimaka

science is defined as

A method of determine how the universe works by use of the scientific method

Scofflaw

Can one truly call one's self a scientist, engineer or similar if you believe in a god?

Unequivocally yes. The majority of scientists are theists. Asking this is the same as asking "can one truly call oneself a prostitute, or car mechanic, or accountant, or doctor, if one believes in a god?".

Science is a discipline, open to anyone as long as they adhere to its rules. Individuals may do bad science because of their faith, but they are equally or more likely to do bad science because of money, or status, foolishness, or a thousand other reasons.

One can be a Creationist, and not only do good science, but do good palaeontology.

To suggest that scientists cannot be theists is to portray science as a faith. Leave that to the Creationists.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> Science is a discipline, open to anyone as long as they adhere to its rules.

Got it in one. But then:

> Individuals may do bad science because of their faith,

In which case they're not sticking fully to the rules.

For my part, I can't understand how somebody could be the strict rationalist required to make a good engineer or scientist while at the same time seriously entertaining the idea that whatever framework they're operating in can be arbitrarily invalidated either by their religious belief, or by a deity lowering his hand into some mechanism to give some parameter a yank like deceitfully putting just the right proportion of some decay product into a crystal to make it look like it's billions of years old when it's not.

For example, Ken Ham's "Statement of Faith" specifically demands that people ignore evidence if it conflicts with his requirement for ideological conformity.

> To suggest that scientists cannot be theists is to portray science as a faith.

An uncharacteristically inaccurate comment. The scientific method requires rationality and the willingness to change one's mind, while religious belief demands irrationality and unchangeable beliefs. They're simply incompatible modes of thought and I find it difficult, bordering on the impossible, to believe that somebody can ringfence these modes from each other to be a good example of both.

Or inverting the problem, it should be clear that the opposite of a religion is not another religion, but no religion at all.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> Science is a discipline, open to anyone as long as they adhere to its rules.

Got it in one. But then:

> Individuals may do bad science because of their faith,

In which case they're not sticking fully to the rules.

For my part, I can't understand how somebody could be the strict rationalist required to make a good engineer or scientist while at the same time seriously entertaining the idea that whatever framework they're operating in can be arbitrarily invalidated either by their religious belief, or by a deity lowering his hand into some mechanism to give some parameter a yank like deceitfully putting just the right proportion of some decay product into a crystal to make it look like it's billions of years old when it's not.

Perhaps because the majority of theists are moderates, and don't believe the rubbish the fundies are into?

In particular, having done my primary degree in geology in Ireland, I know quite a lot of Catholic geologists. The conflict simply never arises, as far as I can tell - the Catholic Church actually gives somewhat more weight to its inheritance of apostolic traditions than it does to the Bible, so there isn't a doctrinal emphasis on creation.

In general, I think moderates don't believe in a God who interferes with the workings of nature except by way of an overt miracle (and miracles gets a reasonably stringent going over before they are considered to have 'no known natural explanation').

In the case of creationists, I would regard it as a testimony to the strength of science that even a creationist can, by correctly following the rules, produce authentic science.

robindch wrote:

For example, Ken Ham's "Statement of Faith" specifically demands that people ignore evidence if it conflicts with his requirement for ideological conformity.

Sure, but then he's a creationist.

robindch wrote:

> To suggest that scientists cannot be theists is to portray science as a faith.

An uncharacteristically inaccurate comment. The scientific method requires rationality and the willingness to change one's mind, while religious belief demands irrationality and unchangeable beliefs. They're simply incompatible modes of thought and I find it difficult, bordering on the impossible, to believe that somebody can ringfence these modes from each other to be a good example of both.

Or inverting the problem, it should be clear that the opposite of a religion is not another religion, but no religion at all.

Hmm. Perhaps I should explain that a little further. Science makes no demands of its practitioners beyond the practice itself. It opens no 'windows into mens' souls', and is genuinely agnostic about the religious leanings of the scientist.

For me, to suggest that science cannot be done by those who have religious beliefs is to suggest that science and belief overlap to the extent that they can conflict - I don't think they do.

Even the underlying belief that science requires - what one might call 'faith in a rational, knowable, and objective universe' - is not contradicted by religion in many of its forms. God the watchmaker, or God the engineer, was the paradigm that motivated early European science - a belief that God had created the world in such a manner that we might discover, through science, how he did it.

Even without that belief, it is still possible to do science, as long as one follows the rules. The only thing that prevents one doing science is the mythic mindset that cannot under any circumstance follow rules.

So, to suggest that the practice of science and religious belief are in conflict is to suggest that they sufficiently similar to conflict, which they are not. It is to suggest that the science that one does is not actually objective, but necessarily coloured by the mindset of the scientist - an post-modernist viewpoint appropriate to Lit.Crit., but very little else.

Perhaps faith is the wrong word - perhaps it is clearer if I say say:

"To suggest that scientists cannot be theists is to portray science as a subjective system sufficiently subject to the worldview of the scientist that one requires the correct worldview to do it 'properly'."

Frankly, that's a creationist claim. Or possibly that of a postmodernist. It's difficult to tell which I hate more anyway.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> Science is a discipline, open to anyone as long as they adhere to its rules.

Got it in one. But then:

> Individuals may do bad science because of their faith,

In which case they're not sticking fully to the rules.

For my part, I can't understand how somebody could be the strict rationalist required to make a good engineer or scientist while at the same time seriously entertaining the idea that whatever framework they're operating in can be arbitrarily invalidated either by their religious belief, or by a deity lowering his hand into some mechanism to give some parameter a yank like deceitfully putting just the right proportion of some decay product into a crystal to make it look like it's billions of years old when it's not.

Perhaps because the majority of theists are moderates, and don't believe the rubbish the fundies are into?

In particular, having done my primary degree in geology in Ireland, I know quite a lot of Catholic geologists. The conflict simply never arises, as far as I can tell - the Catholic Church actually gives somewhat more weight to its inheritance of apostolic traditions than it does to the Bible, so there isn't a doctrinal emphasis on creation.

In general, I think moderates don't believe in a God who interferes with the workings of nature except by way of an overt miracle (and miracles gets a reasonably stringent going over before they are considered to have 'no known natural explanation').

In the case of creationists, I would regard it as a testimony to the strength of science that even a creationist can, by correctly following the rules, produce authentic science.

robindch wrote:

For example, Ken Ham's "Statement of Faith" specifically demands that people ignore evidence if it conflicts with his requirement for ideological conformity.

Sure, but then he's a creationist.

robindch wrote:

> To suggest that scientists cannot be theists is to portray science as a faith.

An uncharacteristically inaccurate comment. The scientific method requires rationality and the willingness to change one's mind, while religious belief demands irrationality and unchangeable beliefs. They're simply incompatible modes of thought and I find it difficult, bordering on the impossible, to believe that somebody can ringfence these modes from each other to be a good example of both.

Or inverting the problem, it should be clear that the opposite of a religion is not another religion, but no religion at all.

Hmm. All humans harbour irrational beliefs of some kind. Humans are irrational, science isn't.

The reason I made the remark in the first place is perhaps to point up the immense difference between the religious mindset and the scientific mindset. For me, this shows how religion and science don't come into conflict, because they are entirely different 'compartments' of the mind. So, to me, the only way we can make them conflict is if we erect science as religion, with orthodoxy, right-thinking, and so on.

You, on the other hand, "find it difficult, bordering on the impossible, to believe that somebody can ringfence these modes from each other to be a good example of both", but the evidence is against you. The link I gave is a good example - a creationist producing excellent work in palaeontology. As JC would be quick to point out, prominent scientists are not universally atheist. Indeed, the proportion of atheists in science has remained relatively steady at about 30-40% (I forget the exact figure - higher than the general population, but less than half). Certainly my personal experience is that theism makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to scientific capabilities, and that people are very capable of compartmentalising their religious beliefs and their scientific rationality.

Going with the evidence, it is clear that theists can, and do, make good scientists, who do not let their personal irrational beliefs conflict with the operations of rationality, much the same as the rest of the jumped-up monkeys in the labs...

...and the only way we can claim that science is in conflict with (moderate) theism is by "believing in" science, as opposed to simply practicing it. The reason that God is not allowed in the equation is because he is a term that means everything and nothing, not because science requires the absence of theistic belief.

Creationists, of course, are a different kettle of fish. The problem there is that they wish to pretend their religion is scientific, while denying the evidence that science produces.

cordially,
Scofflaw

5uspect

Well any of the, usually brief, discussions that I have had with fellow engineers about religion and god have effectively shown them to be very moderate theists, reluctant atheists (they don't like the word and its implications) but mainly agnostics.

They are often quite reluctant to discuss their beliefs. It seems they don't want to question them because maybe they know they cannot be rationalised. Also its may be seen as not terribly Irish to deny fully Catholic dogma (Many of them for example would support Sinn Fein but could tell you nothing about their policies). Also it scares them I suppose.

Also none of them have read the bible either but generally hold to the idea that there "has to be something". So its not like they're practicing Catholics etc.

Then they go and do some great scientific work, most of my colleagues work on designing cancer diagnostic devices, and can to some extent embrace the scientific method. I say this because I'm not sure they fully "get" the scientific method yet. They know they must do the experiments to get their PhDs and then most of them just want out so they can get into a "proper job" where they can make some decent money. It seems that when it comes to difficult questions their confidence in science as a means of providing answers is forgotten. As one of the lads asked me once during a debate, "Do you not accept that science doesn't have all the answers?" My reply was, obviously enough, what answers does religion or god provide? Science is the method that we use to find answers it doesn't come written down is a handy book that is why you are here.

robindch

> religion and science don't come into conflict, because they are entirely
> different 'compartments' of the mind.

I see where you're coming from, but I think you're still missing what I believe is the central point (and probably would have wrote more clearly, had a fine bottle of merlot not been derailing my train of thought last night).

Science is a way of thinking, a meta-meme, a framework which helps to work out what's likely to be accurate and what's not. While all religions are thoughts, memes, things that are accurate and in their one and final form, and not open to change.

Science and religion operate at different cognitive levels and are not in conflict per se, but an acceptance of the scientific method which does not dictate conclusions, must invalidate a fixed religious belief which requires them. You can't accept both science and religion while remaining cognitively consistent.

That's a possible explanation for 5uspect's observation that most of his engineering colleagues don't discuss god at all and probably seeing the vacuity of the whole shebang and being unwilling to spend any energy on it, since it makes no effective difference to their daily lives one way or the other anyway.

> the only way we can make them conflict is if we erect science as
> religion, with orthodoxy, right-thinking, and so on.

Not true. See third para above. They're at different levels.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> religion and science don't come into conflict, because they are entirely
> different 'compartments' of the mind.

I see where you're coming from, but I think you're still missing what I believe is the central point (and probably would have wrote more clearly, had a fine bottle of merlot not been derailing my train of thought last night).

Science is a way of thinking, a meta-meme, a framework which helps to work out what's likely to be accurate and what's not. While all religions are thoughts, memes, things that are accurate and in their one and final form, and not open to change.

Science and religion operate at different cognitive levels and are not in conflict per se, but an acceptance of the scientific method which does not dictate conclusions, must invalidate a fixed religious belief which requires them. You can't accept both science and religion while remaining cognitively consistent.

That's a possible explanation for 5uspect's observation that most of his engineering colleagues don't discuss god at all and probably seeing the vacuity of the whole shebang and being unwilling to spend any energy on it, since it makes no effective difference to their daily lives one way or the other anyway.

> the only way we can make them conflict is if we erect science as
> religion, with orthodoxy, right-thinking, and so on.

Not true. See third para above. They're at different levels.

Which is why it's true - but I think we are using different meanings or nuances of 'conflict' here. Let me lay out my stall:

I agree that scientific thinking and religious thinking are contradictory, or 'at different levels'. They are totally different ways of thinking about the world, which will produce different answers to the same question - as you put it "an acceptance of the scientific method which does not dictate conclusions, must invalidate a fixed religious belief which requires them". They do, therefore, conflict.

We might similarly say that Islam and Christianity conflict - they too will produce different answers to the same question.

Now, accepting that they conflict (religion:science, Islam:Christianity) is not the same as saying that they are 'in conflict', except in one circumstance - when people are forced to choose between them.

Now, why should one be forced to choose between Islam and Christianity? The answer is obvious: each is a faith that claims to have the sole truth. One cannot claim to be a Muslim and a Christian simultaneously, because part of Muslim belief is that Islam has the sole truth, and part of Christian belief is that Christianity has the sole truth.

Now - does science claim to have the sole truth? No, it does not. Science claims to be a route to truths - the most reliable method for discovering objectively truthful information about the world. It cannot even really pose, let alone answer, the question as to whether science itself is the sole route to truth.

It is clear, again, from what 5uspect says, that his colleagues can use science perfectly well while remaining theist.

The situation that makes them uncomfortable is where someone tries to force them into 'cognitive consistency' by pushing them to evaluate their beliefs rationally. Then the latent conflict between scientific thinking and religious thinking becomes an active conflict.

However, this conflict is not necessary. It isn't undertaken to improve the quality of science, because moderate theism provably does not damage the quality of science an individual is capable of doing.

The conflict is not appropriate. Science is a methodology. No-one is required to examine every part of their life, beliefs, or thoughts using it, because it will not produce objective information from a single subjective input.

Finally, this conflict is not meaningful. Science does not, and cannot, answer questions about the supernatural. If the truth were in any way 'supernatural', science cannot 'handle the truth' - indeed, science cannot even tell you if a truth might be supernatural. Science does not, and cannot, answer questions about meaning - there is no scientific answer to 'what should I do with my life?'.

So, we have a conflict which is neither necessary, nor appropriate, nor meaningful, except to those who believe in sola scriptura - or sola scientia.


cordially,
Scofflaw

5uspect

Is safe to say that for the most part moderate religion and science are distinct and any conflict is down to personal ideas about how to conduct ones life?

Dawkins uses the example of scientific proof of Jesus having no biological father (or the opposite!) as an example that would cause conflict. History is littered with science painting religion into a corner as religion must give up one dogmatic stance after another, evolution being the hardest pill to swallow.

Are you suggesting that overlap between science and moderate religion, stripped of most of its unfounded ideas, has reached a steady state where science has rendered it vague and meaningless?

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

Is safe to say that for the most part moderate religion and science are distinct and any conflict is down to personal ideas about how to conduct ones life?

I would say so. I think one needs to have decided to live one's life using only scientific truths in order to have no place for religion.

5uspect wrote:

Dawkins uses the example of scientific proof of Jesus having no biological father (or the opposite!) as an example that would cause conflict. History is littered with science painting religion into a corner as religion must give up one dogmatic stance after another, evolution being the hardest pill to swallow.

It often appears that the Catholic Church absorbs scientific truths quite easily (I know that wasn't always the case). While it does lose ground in the face of secular society, it tends to do so because of sea-changes in morality, rather than science. Where the Church can get away with it, it will happily keep people in the dark about evolution etc, but I don't think it sees there as being a fundamental conflict between religious truth and scientific truth. Of course, Catholicism is far more of a mythic religion than many other brands of Christianity, and has its own corpus of teaching aside from the Bible (the 'apostolic tradition').

The Biblically literalist sects, on the other hand, find it almost impossible to reconcile the Bible with science. Since they split from the Catholic Church, the Bible has been their sole source of authority, so this is a genuine conflict for them - the proponents of sola scriptura.

5uspect wrote:

Are you suggesting that overlap between science and moderate religion, stripped of most of its unfounded ideas, has reached a steady state where science has rendered it vague and meaningless?

I would think so, yes. Science has proposed alternative explanations for much that was once laid at God's door. However, these are material, physical explanations of material, physical phenomena, and do not preclude supernatural explanations of the same phenomena. If God decided to wipe out New Orleans with Katrina, he has merely to nudge a butterfly in Japan, not stir the clouds with his fingertips.

Dawkins, in using the example of Jesus' biological paternity as somewhere where religious truth and scientific truth would be in conflict, has missed the point. Jesus' biological paternity is irrelevant, except to those who believe that Jesus was literally fathered by God in the form of the Holy Spirit. If one is going to believe that Jesus' father was physically God, that he had God's DNA mixed with Mary's, then no end of silliness ensues - we can ask "does God have a big one?", and "did Mary achieve orgasm?", and similar schoolboy questions - angels dancing on the head of a pin wouldn't be in it!

So, scientific proof that Joseph was, or was not, Jesus' father is meaningless in religious terms.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

Albert Einstein, going by the above, believed in God....just not in a "personal God".

I'd consider him a scientist.

5uspect

Scofflaw wrote:

...but I don't think it sees there as being a fundamental conflict between religious truth and scientific truth. Of course, Catholicism is far more of a mythic religion than many other brands of Christianity, and has its own corpus of teaching aside from the Bible (the 'apostolic tradition').

The Biblically literalist sects, on the other hand, find it almost impossible to reconcile the Bible with science. Since they split from the Catholic Church, the Bible has been their sole source of authority, so this is a genuine conflict for them - the proponents of sola scriptura.

So a moderate religion is by definition one that does not or cannot impose its beliefs on science? Most religions, apart from those who worship the Caps Lock key, do tend to fall into this category. But they've been essentially put there because of science. Most of them still hold views about the divinity of Jesus etc. I'm not comfortable with your dismissal of it:

Scofflaw wrote:

5uspect wrote:

Are you suggesting that overlap between science and moderate religion, stripped of most of its unfounded ideas, has reached a steady state where science has rendered it vague and meaningless?

Science has proposed alternative explanations for much that was once laid at God's door. However, these are material, physical explanations of material, physical phenomena, and do not preclude supernatural explanations of the same phenomena. If God decided to wipe out New Orleans with Katrina, he has merely to nudge a butterfly in Japan, not stir the clouds with his fingertips.

If a supernatural force interacts with the natural world causing a hurricane with his atmospheric tea spoon or by willing a butterfly to exert a flap of its wings is irrelevant. By whittling down the hypothesised supernatural interactions to the dark spots in our scientific knowledge is the same as assuming that the sun is a god. I'm not sure the steady state has been reached at all.

Scofflaw wrote:

Dawkins, in using the example of Jesus' biological paternity as somewhere where religious truth and scientific truth would be in conflict, has missed the point. Jesus' biological paternity is irrelevant, except to those who believe that Jesus was literally fathered by God in the form of the Holy Spirit. If one is going to believe that Jesus' father was physically God, that he had God's DNA mixed with Mary's, then no end of silliness ensues - we can ask "does God have a big one?", and "did Mary achieve orgasm?", and similar schoolboy questions - angels dancing on the head of a pin wouldn't be in it!

So, scientific proof that Joseph was, or was not, Jesus' father is meaningless in religious terms.

Of course its meaningless, Dawkins's point was that should such a discovery ever occur then his money would be on the moderates to jump back on the literalist bandwagon. If you go the other way then you must either dismiss science, or at least admit that, yes, Jesus had no natural biological father but that in no way proves or disproves your faith. So whats the point?

If you go either way, fully literal, fully metaphorical or somewhere in between you run into trouble.
Did Jesus perform miracles, resurrect etc etc. Most Christian religions sit somewhere in between in their literalism. Silly schoolboy questions have defined the fracture of Christianity throughout history.

So back to the point about being a scientist and a religious believer. Sure you can probably have the "I'd like to think there's a higher power" view but no more.

EDIT: Fixed quotation error, oops!

robindch

> Albert Einstein, going by the above, believed in God....

I don't believe that's a reasonable conclusion -- boiling down the text a bit, all he seems to have said was that he understood the amazement that some people perceived as god.

Diff'rent thing.

5uspect

Also if Einstein did or didn't believe in god is unimportant. If Einstein's theories were shown to be the ramblings of a bumpling fool tomorrow how would that change our ideas of his views on God? Everyone here is equally qualified and unqualified to discuss what God is.

Tar.Aldarion

He believed in Spinoza's god, ie, none.
Just in the wonder of nature.

Eglinton

Some very interesting discussion going on. Great.

Just looking back at my second question, maybe I should have worded it slightly differently -

"Having completed some sort of higher/advanced education in a scientific discipline and having the benefit of all the knowledge modern science has to offer, could one still reasonably justify a belief in a god and carry on a religious affiliation?"

As an aside, Einstein did not believe in a god. He is widely misquoted in this regard and as one responder quite rightly pointed out, he was usually referring to nature and the cosmos, not an entity.

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

So a moderate religion is by definition one that does not or cannot impose its beliefs on science? Most religions, apart from those who worship the Caps Lock key, do tend to fall into this category. But they've been essentially put there because of science. Most of them still hold views about the divinity of Jesus etc. I'm not comfortable with your dismissal of it:

If a supernatural force interacts with the natural world causing a hurricane with his atmospheric tea spoon or by willing a butterfly to exert a flap of its wings is irrelevant. By whittling down the hypothesised supernatural interactions to the dark spots in our scientific knowledge is the same as assuming that the sun is a god. I'm not sure the steady state has been reached at all.

Of course its meaningless, Dawkins's point was that should such a discovery ever occur then his money would be on the moderates to jump back on the literalist bandwagon. If you go the other way then you must either dismiss science, or at least admit that, yes, Jesus had no natural biological father but that in no way proves or disproves your faith. So whats the point?

If you go either way, fully literal, fully metaphorical or somewhere in between you run into trouble.
Did Jesus perform miracles, resurrect etc etc. Most Christian religions sit somewhere in between in their literalism. Silly schoolboy questions have defined the fracture of Christianity throughout history.

So back to the point about being a scientist and a religious believer. Sure you can probably have the "I'd like to think there's a higher power" view but no more.

Up to a point I agree. However, it's important to realise that the miracles attributed to Jesus are (a) not susceptible of scientific testing now; (b)specific to Jesus; (c) supposed to be breaches of scientific normality.

That is, someone who is a scientist and (say) a staunch Catholic doesn't believe that God intervenes in the world on a daily basis, but rather someone who believes that God intervened in the specifically on Jesus' behalf 2000 years ago.

Jesus' miracles are no longer scientifically testable, so applying scientific standards to them may seem pointless to the theist scientist.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Funsterdelux

This has nothing to do with the subject, but I really dislike Jonathan Edwards.

Dades

Funsterdelux wrote:

This has nothing to do with the subject, but I really dislike Jonathan Edwards.

Lucky for you he doesn't hang out here much.
And yes, it has nothing to do with the subject.

ironingbored

How can any scientist who is a Catholic possibly take the issue of transubstanciation, to name but one of the more riduculous tenants of Catholicism, seriously? In my opinion, logical thinking based on scientific fact and analysis is wholly incompatible with any belief in a supernatural creator. A theistic scientists surely loses any modicum of credibility.

Scofflaw

ironingbored wrote:

How can any scientist who is a Catholic possibly take the issue of transubstanciation, to name but one of the more riduculous tenants of Catholicism, seriously? In my opinion, logical thinking based on scientific fact and analysis is wholly incompatible with any belief in a supernatural creator. A theistic scientists surely loses any modicum of credibility.

I doubt any Catholic scientist believes that the wine physically changes into blood - which would of course be a scientifically observable change. They would say, I think, that it changes its spiritual nature - and since 'spiritual nature' is not something scientifically determinable, I don't see the problem.

Non-overlapping magisteria - science does not deal with the immaterial. Some people take that to mean that the immaterial is non-existent or irrelevant, others remember that the limit is both deliberate and artificial - or to put it another way, some see that limitation as being the boundary of what can possibly be true, others see it as a fence between what is measurable, and what is not. You pay your money, you take your choice - but whichever you choose, remember there's another option.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

The topic has come up a few times before and catholics are certainly required to believe that the bread and wine are literally converted by the priest into literal flesh and blood -- it's not supposed to be a "spiritual change", but physical one. Some posters claimed to believe that. If pressed, most have written semantic-gamey or well-you-need-to-get-a-theologian responses, so I'm not at all sure what they actually believe, or what they think they believe.

Googling briefly, it seems that bread and wine are only very rarely actually converted -- see this page which talks in hallowed terms of some strange events in the Italian village of Lanciano in the year 700:

http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/lanciano.html

...and reading through it quickly, it get stranger, as any one or more of the five pieces of coagulated blood each weigh as much as all five pieces of blood (search for '1574') while the flesh seems to have been a human heart, expertly removed from a human body according to an investigation in 1970.