Ever since I conducted a poll here ("Do You Believe in God") which showed that about ¾ of the progressives on this site were atheists, I’ve been wondering if this really might be the right fit for a raving mystic such as myself.
Either way, it’s been fun (and I’ll probably hang around just to annoy you all).
So, I thought I’d perhaps push the envelope a mite and point whomever might still be reading to an article on the subject of scientists and religion I’m a bit familiar with.
It is yet another little piece put up on OpEdNews.com a year or so ago, by Mr. James Quandy (I’ve already posted a couple of his ditties). This one was called A Few Facts Regarding Religion and Scientists: (Excerpts used with permission by the author.)
... many (and perhaps most) of the truly greatest scientists in history were also devoutly religious: Michael Faraday, Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Sir Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Johannes Kepler, Max Planck, Renes Descartes and Werner Karl Heisenberg, to name just a few.
He then cites a a fairly recent study which would seem to indicate that faith among our thinking classes was not just a throw back to a relatively unenlightened age:
… a 2009 Pew Research poll
click here put the percentage of scientists who believe in some form of deity or higher power at 51% (which, technically, as any scientist will tell you, is "most".)
Indeed, included in that Pew study: "... the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power..."
Which is actually another way of saying that nearly 60% of scientists, in fact, do not reject the idea of religion, out-of-hand. This (unless I'm missing something...) would have to be regarded as a distinct majority of the scientific community.
This would, for me, fly directly in the face of the very aggressive attitude I very often encounter among those who find the very idea, that any sentient being could possibly (however fleetingly or even whimsically), entertain the idea of the existence of a Supreme Being, well beneath their bountiful contempt.
But JQ didn’t stop there. Oh no:
But back to Wikipedia:
"Statistical data on Nobel prize winners in science between 1901 and 2000 revealed that atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers have won 7.1% of the prizes in chemistry, 8.9% in medicine, and 4.7% in physics; while Christians have won a total of 72.5% of the prizes in chemistry, 65.3% in physics, 62% in medicine and Jews have won 17.3% of the prizes in chemistry, 26.2% in medicine, and 25.9% in physics."
I’m assuming the obvious distinction made in the study between “atheists, agnostics and freethinkers” and “Christians and Jews” would also indicate that said Christians and Jews were indeed believers, and not just identifying themselves thus in a strictly ethnic sense.
Mr. Quandy sensibly goes on to point out how much greater even those percentages would have been if the study had included practicing Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (which, combined, I believe account for about half the planet). I don’t at all understand why it didn’t, quite honestly.
And, I must say, I particularly liked this kicker:
Furthermore, judging from the data, it would seem that a case might be made that religious conviction among scientists actually increases in direct proportion to the significance of their accomplishments in their particular field...
He approached the end of the piece with a few choice quotes:
"The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness."
Albert Einstein
"In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on. Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point."
Werner Heisenberg
"A little philosophy inclinith man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
Francis Bacon
"Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."
Arno Penzias (Winner of Nobel Prize in Physics)
"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence."
Carl Sagan (an agnostic)
I must say that I (for what it’s worth) echo the sentiments of his penultimate sentence:
I do hope, that even with this little snippet, those who frequent this particular site, might now be somewhat more reticent and circumscribed in disseminating their own personal assumptions regarding this intriguing topic to the members as a whole.
I frankly haven’t been here long enough to know if this particular topic (science vs religion) has popped up from time to time at DK. But I certainly have already experienced the somewhat less than… seriousness... with which progressives often regard “believers”.
It does lead me to wonder why a political ideology (if that is indeed what “progressive-ism” is) which defines itself in terms of what (to a great extent) would seem to be spiritual values, such as compassion, truth, inclusiveness, fairness, environmentalism, etc, would be the group which is so often so rabidly anti-religion (thereby invalidating most of the above, btw). And, if the so-called Christian right, or perhaps Muslim jihadists, are what progressives think religion is all about, I also wonder how a bunch of generally highly educated folks could come to that conclusion, given the religious orientation (more often than not) of the men and women who forged such a significant portion of... all of history.