History of Science and Religion

Fire and brimstone, bellowing prophets, and a good dose of old-fashioned sermonizing ― these are the images the Bible brings to mind. But this assortment of sacred writings, in particular the Old Testament, is more than a collection of colorful allegories or miracles-and-morals mythology. Though written in the first millennium BCE, these holy writings are a nostalgic recounting of a lost 'super-religious' mentality that characterized the Bronze Age. The Psychology of the Bible explores how the Old Testament provides perspective into the tumultuous transition from an earlier mentality to a new paradigm of interiorized psychology and introspective religiosity that came to characterize the first millennium BCE. By examining the Old Testament’s historical background and theopolitical context, utilizing linguistic analysis, and applying systems and communication theory, this book interprets biblical passages through a new lens. It analyzes divine voices, visions, and appearances of heavenly messengers―angel and prophets―as neurocultural phenomena and explains why they were so common. This book also answers why definitions of God changed so radically, illuminates the divinatory role of idols and other oracular aids (e.g. the Ark of the Covenant), provides a framework for appreciating why ‘wisdom literature’ became so significant, and clarifies the linkages among music, poetry, and inspiration. 
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Bible-Explaining-Divine-Visions/dp/1788360370/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=brian+mcveigh+bible+psychology&qid=1589128298&s=books&sr=1-1

Throughout a significant portion of history and within modern culture, the fields of science and religion appear to be competing for the same holds in a person’s belief system. Universities are where academics and the sciences are the prevailing held truth, while in churches, the Bible reigns as supreme authority. However, in a Christian academic setting, the predominate school of thought in belief systems might turn into a little more of a melting pot. By analyzing gathered personal data (via surveys and interviews), one can begin to piece together the predominate thoughts on the apparent conflict between religion and science at such a setting. Institutions such as this, while always diverse in thought, can present a cohesion between the two seemingly opposed parties in a way where neither side loses ground culturally. Data gathered on personal religious experience, beliefs and experiences gathered around evolution, creationism, the Big Bang, and other issues that fall from that have been collected to present an image of how science and religion might be in understanding at a Christian house of higher education.

The relationship between science and Greek Orthodoxy in recent decades has not been systematically studied in the literature of History of Science and Religion. This paper explores the perception of science by certain Greek Orthodox Christian circles as this is made manifest in three representative Greek Orthodox periodicals from 1980 to 2010. In the light of the stereotypes of “true science” and the “true scientist,” it is proposed that the diverse group of agents involved perceives science through two mid-scale observable patterns, the complementarity schema and the synthesis schema, in which discourse between science and Greek Orthodoxy is considered plausible, meaningful and respectful.

In recent years, historiography has begun paying attention to the relationship between Judaism and early Christianity; the Jewish roots of Christianity; and the causes, modalities, and timing of the progressive fracture between them.

Despite the normalizing factor which sees Judaism as the only heir to the Yahwistic tradition, at the birth of Christianity, the situation was very complex and varied. Alongside Judaism, with its classic separation into several groups, we find other non-Jewish traditions, such as the Samaritan and the Galilean ones. In this context, Christianity originates, then gradually detaches itself from Judaism. In this detachment, we can recognize three progressive phases. The first is the Apostolic phase, with openness to the gentle world and awareness of the universality of the message. In this phase, Christianity is proposed as a messianic form of Judaism. There is an internal dialectic to rising Christianity, and a Christian-Jewish dialectic. The catastrophe of 70 precipitates positions, especially due to the crisis suffered by Palestinian Judaism for the destruction of the Temple. Probably around the year 100 A.D., this second phase of controversy and clash between Jews and Christians ends, and the next phase begins which leads to an increasingly decisive climate of confrontation and mutual hatred, accompanied by the progressive marginalization of Judaism.

Meanwhile, a process of reductio ad unum takes place in Judaism, from which only rabbinic Judaism will survive. While the other forms of interpretation of the Jewish tradition, already first marginalized in the production process of the Torah and in the centralization of the worship in Jerusalem, tend to disappear, Rabbinic Judaism will have a normalizing effect on previous traditions. The only eccentric element that survived after 70 A.D. is Christianity, which however soon broke away from the Judaic substratum.

The purpose of the volume is to investigate how much the Samaritan culture, but also the popular culture spread throughout Palestine above all in its most marginal (both culture-wise and geography-wise) areas, contributed to the birth of Early Christianity, and to its progressive detachment from Judaism. Moreover, we will try to understand how much the progressive Hellenization and the development of an anti-Yahwistic dualism (first in Marcion, and then in Gnosticism) contributed to this process.

Dr. Augusto Cosentino

Ali Sedâd Bey Kavâʿidu’t-Tahavvülât fî Harekâti’z-Zerrât (Parçacıkların Hareketlerindeki Dönüşümün İlkeleri) adlı eseriyle 19. yüzyıl Avrupa’sındaki atomculuğu, ilk defa olarak da termodinamiği ve Darwin’in doğal seçilim kuramını Türkçe olarak ayrıntılı bir şekilde tanıtır, felsefi bir değerlendirmeye tâbi tutar ve bunların Eşʿari kelâmı perspektifinden nasıl yorumlanabileceğine dair önerilerde bulunur. Kitabı yazış amacını açıklarken Avrupa’da ortaya çıkan yeni (modern) bilimlerin (fünûn-ı cedîde) ülkemizde de tanınmasını sağlamanın yanı sıra bu bilimleri İslâm aleyhine kullanmak isteyenlere de cevap vermek istediğini belirtir. Ali Sedâd modern bilimin İslâm ile çelişmediğini, tam tersine İslâm’ı desteklediğini iddia eder. Bu tezini gerekçelendirmek için atomculuk ve termodinamiğin pek çok noktada Eşʿari kelâmıyla aynı tezlere sahip olduğunu göstermeye çalışır. Ayrıca bu bilimsel teorilerin materyalist bir metafiziğe değil de Eşʿari kelâmındaki vesilecilik (occasionalism) anlayışına sahip bir metafiziğe nasıl oturtulabileceğini enerji, kuvvet ve doğa kanunu gibi kavramları felsefi bir analize tabi tutarak göstermek ister. Kısaca Ali Sedâd bu eseriyle Batı’daki bilimsel gelişmeleri epeyce yakından takip ettiğini gösterir. Fakat daha önemlisi bu gelişmelerin sadece nakilciliğini yapmayıp onların felsefiarka planına dikkat çekerek onları kritik bir değerlendirmeye tâbi tutmakla çağını anlamaya ve onunla hesaplaşmaya çalışan zihni tavrı temsil eden bir örnek- model ortaya koyar.

The modernist critique of religion is often presented in banal and prosaic terms by enthusiasts of contemporary techno-culture as war (mostly won) between science and religion with just a small group of conservative, if not militant religionists (like terrorists) still responding to the call to arms.  While historians have gone far in dispelling myths that the war discourse has generated and have traced many complexities that the warfare model has obscured, this paper will be mostly concerned with just one such complexity among many.  This paper will explore the Weberian hypothesis that modern empirical science developed in consequence of the Protestant Reformation in England, to find out what the complicated interaction between religion and science in seventeenth century England might reveal in the shadows of the warfare model of their historical interaction.  In particular Robert Merton’s “Pietism-Science” thesis, namely that Reformed Theology with its emphasis on providence, personal calling, salvation of the elect, utilitarianism, millenarianism, and transcendent rational theism produced modern science, will be examined with a view towards evaluating its explanatory value.  It will be argued here that the value of Merton’s hypothesis (after some qualifications and adjustments) depends largely on its deployment relative to grand(er) historical narratives, and that, though historians have commonly misunderstood Merton’s working model, his basic thesis, further developed by Charles Webster in his Great Instauration, remains an important historical model for understanding the relationship between science and religion.

“O pessoal é político”.

É através dessa breve, porém assertiva frase, que começamos a ler o texto curatorial que nos introduz à vida, às cores e às texturas de Maria Auxiliadora – mulher negra, mineira, artista plástica e detentora de muitas histórias e memórias.

Cet article compare deux auteurs catholiques du XIXe siècle, l’abbé Moigno et Mgr d’Hulst, qui donnèrent chacun leur vision du rapport entre la religion catholique et le développement des sciences au XIXe siècle. L’abbé François Moigno (1804-1884) est à situer dans le mouvement de diffusion des sciences qui prit de l’ampleur dans la seconde moitié du siècle, il apparaît comme promouvant une sorte de pluridisciplinarité dans un contexte où, en fait, les disciplines scientifiques ne sont pas encore complètement mûres ni différenciées. S’il est moins engagé dans la diffusion des sciences, Mgr d’Hulst (1841-1896) s’efforça par sa réflexion et son action (l’organisation des congrès des scientifiques catholiques) d’améliorer la possible complémentarité entre sciences expérimentales, philosophie et théologie. A ce titre, il œuvra sans doute davantage dans un sens interdisciplinaire. Ces deux intellectuels se heurtèrent néanmoins à un obstacle méthodologique de taille : l’importance de l’apologétique. C’est ainsi qu’ils furent confrontés à la question de la « science catholique » héritée de la pensée de Lamennais.

Jean-Baptiste Caumeil, known as Brother Héribaud-Joseph (1841-1917), was a French Brother of the Christian Schools. He was the author of various works in Botany, including the Flora of Auvergne and the Muscinea of Auvergne, and made new discoveries in paleobotany, particularly concerning the fossil data on diatom taxa. In the years 1880-1900, several Brothers of the Christian Schools were botanists and they collaborated with Brother Heribaud-Joseph. In this communication, we shall synthesize the works of some of these Brothers who were in relationship with Brother Héribaud-Joseph and who had to leave France for South America during the abolition of congregations and public establishments of religion in France in 1904-1905. We shall particularly consider Brother Arsène Brouard’s papers (known as Brother Gerfroy-Arsène, 1867-1938), in which he introduced a systematic study of the Mexican Flora. We shall also glance at Jean-Sylvestre Sauget’s research (known as Brother Quadrat-Léon, 1871-1955), who explored the botanical resources in Cuba. In this paper, we try to understand the meaning of their research.

The history of science focuses our view on how early practitioners observed, recorded and understood the natural world. As such, it has long excluded or deprioritised the religious—the realm of gods, ghosts and divine beings, the search for salvation, and speculation about divine origins and structures of the universe. This despite the fact that, in pre-modern times, these domains were rarely if ever purely separated, or where they were, this occurred in inconsistent ways, with such varied contours, that it is problematic to talk of any kind of universally applied, consistent demarcation criteria. Recently, new approaches from the history of knowledge, and the Multiple Secularities project (https://www.multiplesecularities. de/), have opened the way for synoptic comparisons which do not prejudice or privilege the epistemic standing, or even the strict demarcation between science and religion from outside the European region. This question has occupied sinologists in successive waves.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION
By Werner Heisenberg [6.3.07]
---
One evening during the Solvay Conference, some of the younger members
stayed behind in the lounge of the hotel.
This group included Wolfgang Pauli and myself, and was soon afterward
joined by Paul Dirac. One of us said: "Einstein keeps talking about God: 
what are we to make of that?  It is extremely difficult to imagine that
a scientist like Einstein should have such strong ties with a religious tradition."
"Not so much Einstein as Max Planck," someone objected.
"From some of Planck's utterances it would seem that he sees
no contradiction between religion and science, indeed that
he believes the two are perfectly compatible."
---------------
"Mathematicians, as everyone knows, work with an imaginary unit,
the square root of –1, called i. We know that i does not figure among
the natural numbers.
Nevertheless, important branches of mathematics, for instance the
theory of analytical functions, are based on this imaginary unit, that is,
on the fact that -1 exists after all.
Would you agree that the statement 'There is a -1' means nothing else
than 'There are important mathematical relations that are most simply
represented by the introduction of the -1 concept'?
And yet these relations would exist even without it.
That is precisely why this type of mathematics is so useful even in
science and technology. What is decisive, for instance, in the theory of
functions, is the existence of important mathematical laws governing
the behavior of pairs of continuous variables.
These relations are rendered more comprehensible by the introduction
of the abstract concept of -1, although that concept is not basically
needed for our understanding, and although it has no counterpart
among the natural numbers.
An equally abstract concept is that of infinity, which also plays a very
important role in modern mathematics. It, too, has no correlate, and
moreover raises grave problems. In short, mathematics introduces ever
higher stages of abstraction that help us attain a coherent grasp of ever
wider realms. To get back to our original question, is it correct to look
upon the religious 'there is' as just another, though different, attempt to
reach ever higher levels of abstraction? An attempt to facilitate our
understanding of universal connections? After all, the connections
themselves are real enough, no matter into what spiritual forms we try
to fit them."
-----------------
"Einstein's conception is closer to mine.
His God is somehow involved in the immutable laws of nature.
Einstein has a feeling for the central order of things.
He can detect it in the simplicity of natural laws.
We may take it that he felt this simplicity very strongly and directly during his
discovery of the theory of relativity. Admittedly, this is a far cry from the contents
of religion. I don't believe Einstein is tied to any religious tradition, and I rather think
the idea of a personal God is entirely foreign to him.
But as far as [Einstein] he is concerned there is no split between science and religion:
the central order is part of the subjective as well as the objective realm, and this
strikes me as being a far better starting point.
"A starting point for what?" I asked. "If you consider man's attitude to the central
order a purely personal matter, then you may agree with Einstein's view, but then
you must also concede that nothing at all follows from this view."
-------------------

https://www.edge.org/conversation/werner_heisenberg-science-and-religion

According to Pew Research studies, most Americans think religion always conflicts with science. The popular writings of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Lawrence Krauss reinforce this idea, as do books by writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennet. Furthermore, the two versions of the enormously popular television show Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan in 1980 and Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2014, present a history of science in which religion has always acted as a barrier to scientific development, with scientists frequently persecuted or even executed for their work.

"Gods, Philosophers, and Scientists" shows that just because an idea is popular, doesn’t mean it’s correct. By examining the historical record from the time of the Ancient Greeks to today, readers are able to see that religion and science have been allies more often than enemies, and when conflict does occur it’s too simplistic to view it as coming from something inherent to either science or religion. Instead, as with the case of Greek philosophy or the reception of Darwinian evolution, complex social forces are to blame, and in cases such as the infamous one of Galileo’s conflict with the Catholic Church, clashing personalities are at least as important as those social forces. Anyone interested in the history of science or religion, who is curious about how science works, or who wants to have a better understanding of the world should read this book.

Muḥammad-Karim-Khān Kirmānnī, the leader of Shaykhists, was one of the opponents of modern astronomy in 19th century in Iran. Following him, his son, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn-Khān Kirmānī wrote his Shams al-Jārīya (1926) in Persian to reject the new arguments for modern astronomy and also to show how the Islamic holy texts admit the old Ptolemaic astronomy. A major part of his book included some rejections of Hibat al-Dīn Shahristānī’s claims in Al-Islām wa al-Hayʾa (1910). Hibat al-Dīn in that book had argued for the consistency of Islamic holy texts and some of the elements of modern astronomy such as rejection of the solid celestial spheres, motion of the Earth, immobility of the Sun, and the shadow and the orbit of the Earth. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn shows very well that Hibat al-Dīn’s interpretations of holy texts in favor of the modern astronomy are arbitrary and unreliable, however Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s own interpretations have the same problem.

محمدکریم خان کرمانی رهبر شیخیۀ کرمان در دورۀ ناصری از مخالفان جدی نجوم جدید بود. پس از او فرزندنش زین‌العابدین خان کرمانی، رهبر این فرقه، کتابی با عنوان شمس الجاریه (1345ق) به فارسی نوشت و در آن تلاش کرد که به استدلال‌های جدیدی که برای نجوم جدید مطرح شده بود پاسخ دهد و نشان دهد که چگونه می‌توان از آیات و روایات به نفع نجوم قدیم بطلمیوسی استفاده کرد. بخش عمدۀ آن کتاب رد ادعاهای هبةالدین شهرستانی در کتاب الاسلام والهیئة (1328ق) بود. هبةالدین در آن کتاب عناصر نجوم جدید -از جمله نفی افلاک صلب، حرکت زمین، سکون خورشید، و سایه و مدار زمین- را با آیات و روایات اسلامی تطبیق داده بود. زین العابدین به خوبی نشان می‌دهد که تأویل‌های هبةالدین به نفع نجوم جدید تا چه میزان دل‌بخواهی و بی‌ضابطه است. هر چند همین مشکل گریبان‌گیر زین‌العابدین در تفاسیر خود به نفع نجوم قدیم نیز هست.

Contrary to the current cliché concerning the opposition of the Imamate Shiite Ulama to the modern astronomy in the Qajar period, there is no evidence showing their literal or explicit objection of the modern astronomy based on Islamic doctrines, as one finds in the story of Galileo and Catholic Church. Although only for two oppositions we have evidence: Mahdī Narāqī and Muḥammad-Ḥusayn Shahristānī, their opposition were not because of their religious ideas, but for their traditional learnings of the Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian philosophy. Ulama did not extract a cosmology according to the Ptolemaic astronomy from Quranic verses and hadiths. Ulama even did not believe in the astrology and thus did not advocate Ptolemaic astronomy because of astrology. Accordingly they had no religious motivation to defend Ptolemaic astronomy against the modern astronomy. They were not the pretenders of a cosmology, thus they did not see the modern astronomy as their rival. Finally, Hibat al-Dīn Shahristānī in his al-Islām wa al-Hayʾa not only was not against the modern astronomy but also he believed that they admit the holy Quran and Islamic hadiths

بر خلاف کلیشۀ رایج در بارۀ تقابل علمای امامیه با نجوم جدید در عصر قاجار، تا به حال شاهدی از مخالفت صریح و گستردۀ علمای امامیه با نجوم جدید بر اساس آموزه‌های دینی در آن دوران، آن طور که در ماجرای گالیله و کلیسای کاتولیک شاهدش هستیم، یافت نشده است. تنها دو مخالفت از سوی ملا مهدی نراقی و محمدحسین شهرستانی وجود دارد که نه به دلایل دینی بلکه بر اساس دانش سنتی ایشان از نجوم و فلسفۀ طبیعی ارسطویی ابراز شده است. علما به خاطر تطبیق نجوم قدیم بر آیات و روایات مخالف نجوم جدید نبودند. علاوه بر این علما دلبستگی‌ای به تنجیم نداشتند و آن را حرام می‌دانستند و معمولاً وجود احادیث تنجیمی را مؤید تنجیم رایج نمی‌دیدند و در نتیجه به خاطر تنجیم مدافع نجوم قدیم نبودند. بنا بر این انگیزه‌ای برای مخالفت با نجوم جدید نداشتند. علما خود را متولی کیهان‌شناسی نمی‌دانستند، بنا بر این کیهان‌شناسی جدید رقیبی برای ایشان محسوب نمی‌شد تا اینکه هبةالدین شهرستانی کتاب الاسلام والهیئة را نوشت. او در آن کتاب می‌خواست نشان دهد که آیات و روایت نه تنها با نجوم جدید مخالف نیستند، بلکه مؤید آن هستند.