Where do you draw the line? Religion, common sense and science?
October 7, 2009
Share your thoughts with us. Religion, common sense and scientific knowledge - Where do you draw the line in the face of the many stories of supposed men of God invoking curses, washing genitals of women etc?
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13 Responses to “Where do you draw the line? Religion, common sense and science?”
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a person who cannot blend the three is really lost cuz u don’t expect God to send u money from heaven if don’t work. even the bible says a ‘a man who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat’. it is sad to see very poor people giving their money to these so called men of God just because they won’t to see miracles. the saddest thing is that these same pastor turn to fight among themselves to see who is more powerful. religion helps us communicate with God, Science helps us to appreciate the amazing creation of God and common sense helps u to differentiate between a fake pastor and a real man of God. God help us
Please measure these developments with Philipians 4:8 &9 (Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you). Do they meet these standards?
Baba.
Hi Kojo
wanna draw yr attention to a new advertising medium springing up in accra these days.there is one in Osu and the other i hv seen around abeka lapaz traffic lights/lorry stations. big LCD advertising board with visuals of the suppose adverts scrolling on them.most times wat u find is more or less on short movie or documentary.well my concerns are wether a movies,documentary or an advert is just not advisable for our part of the world Kojo.de pictures are soo sharp and draws quick attention to its view and could be just the new cause of accidents to come esp. at nights.on two occasions in a trotro we had a near miss.our vehicle was running into another vehicle cos the driver just happened to be watching the sharp visual scrolling on the screen.
i hope this cld be looked at critically b4 we begin to loose lives on this one too.
regards
Pf
I believed in all of them (i.e Religion, Scientific and common sense) but I think I put SCIENTIFIC ahead of the rest. I believed that scientific is the building block of all nations and anyone who put religion and common sense before scientific would stand a chance to loose. God has done his part by giving us the brain to think. You cannot pray to god and get money, and you cannot pray to God to build your country for you, he has given you the brain to do so. For me I think scientific must be given more priority.
KOJO, I THINK PEOPLE ARE LAZY TO READ THEIR BIBLE THAT IS WHY THESE FAKE PASTORS ARE DECEIVING THEIR MEMBERS. PEOPLE READ YOUR BIBLE AND PRAY FOR DISCERNMENT. ANY PASTORS THAT WANT YOU TO PAY FOR ANY HEALING, GETING RICH FAST AND MANY MORE ARE FAKE.
I always wanted the chance to talk about things like that meaning God was, is and will be the one Who is providing knowledge, so if there is a law in science then it means it has been analysed and proven and also world wide accepted which makes the truth clear. When there is something in the Bible, Qur’an or any other Holy Book and it contradicts with the natural science phenomena it should be ruled out as void. More reasons would be given to those interested when contacted at this email: haqqot@yahoo.com
Anything that is intended for good can be used for bad. Many things in the Bible can be twisted to serve a personal agenda; good or bad.
One cannot put all the blame on the victims of these frauds; after-all our culture purport behaviors that are counter-active to the common sense we are all born with. We are brought up as puppets subject to the so called “cultural norms”: Don’t question your elders, do as you are told and so on. As simple a thing as common sense is, it’s sad to see how a culture stifles its development.
People need to challenge their minds; question some of the things those we have entrusted to lead us say.
If we continue to raise a generation of puppets, we will forever be stuck in this cycle.
Yesterday, I posted a message about the perceived kind of belief system we hold as a nation and perhaps as a people. Following this discourse, I am putting this little contribution as my suggestion for the way forward for us all. These concepts are categorically irreconcillable and perhaps the attitude to adopt in these matters is one of pragmatism. In one specific sense there is, according to pragmatism, no difference between science and religion. Both activities have to be understood in relation to the kind of beings human are. Neither science nor religion can address reality as independent of human experience. However, whereas science deals with experimental, observational experience, religion concerns existential experience. A theory is empirically adequate if it enables people to generate testable hypotheses and thereby maintain what is true in the observable world. Religions and their secular counterparts are existentially adequate if they provide people with conceptions of life at its best so that, in the tension between how life is and how it could be, they can attain a feeling for good and evil, right and wrong, and thus generate values and meaning, and express what is true in their lives.
Contextualism comes in stronger and weaker versions. What these versions all have in common is the idea that the context, the situation, or the particularities are taken to be of outmost importance. Contextualism is a reaction against the strong emphasis on universality and common human reason characteristic of the Enlightenment tradition and modernity. The catchwords are “Whose truth, rationality, science, religion, ethics, or gender?” For instance, there are titles of book that read Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (by Alasdair MacIntyre) and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? (by Sandra Harding). The idea is that it makes a crucial difference for the issues discussed whether one succeeds or fails to take the “whose” aspect or the contextual aspect into account.
Exactly what it is that could or should be contextualized in this way (whether it is, for example, theology, rationality, justice, or gender) varies from contextualist to contextualist. What also differs is the degree or depth of this contextualization. For instance, is the argument that one cannot determine what it is rational to believe without specifying who the agent is, including his or her particular historical and social context? Or is it that the standards of rationality (and not merely the particular application of them) or even truth is context-determined? If the latter, but not the former, is it the case then that rationality or truth would vary from one context (that is, culture, religion, gender, etc.) to another?
In the science-religion dialogue there are those who maintain that one cannot sensibly talk about science and religion in some abstract, universal, ahistorical, or gender-unrelated way. Instead one must be specific about, for instance, which religion (or what religious tradition within that religion), which science (or part of science), which historical period, which cultural setting, and the like, one is dealing with. For instance, John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor argue that neither religion nor science is reducible to some timeless essence, but must be understood in their historical particularities. Science and religion are inextricable from the times in which they arise. But there are also those who make different and perhaps more radical contextual claims. D. Z. Phillips, Peter Winch, and others who have followed the Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) maintain that there are no practice-transcending standards of rationality, that is, science and religion do not have any standard of rationality or criteria of intelligibility in common. Therefore, it makes no sense to compare or relate them. Science and religion are two autonomous practices with totally different languages, functions, and standards of rationality.
Contextualism in many of its forms is a healthy reaction against the tendency in Western tradition to talk about, for example, “man,” “human nature,” “science,” “religion,” “reason,” and “rationality” as if these are universal categories unsullied by the particularities of history, culture, traditions, gender, and the like. It is an open question, however, whether the strong emphasis of many contextualists on the local, the contextual, or the particular is just as questionable—if it is in fact to go from one ditch of the road to the other.
I’zac Hassan RN, BA Ministerial. MA Ed. PhD {Cand)
hi kojo,
how are you? am one of your secret admirers. l really like you alot. please i want to find out if you in a relationship? i do like you alot especially the way you talk. but am kind of surprise that you are not marry. please can i be your friend? take care and bye for now.
Ghanaians should depart from caucasian myths of jesus and plagarized personages and events. There is no religion or story for that matter that can stand the time of black African history. It, black African history, surpases all by millinia why do you settle for less?
i believe in common sense and nothing else
God created man in his image and gave him the authority over all that he’s created,i believe in science as it gives on the opportunity to know more about what he has personaly been given the mandate to control.Knowing how to properly utilize avialable resouces to satisfy needs and wants is common sence,but note God will actually not come from heaven and do that for any one,and that is the more reason why the Bible is alwayr available for our direction .Some pastors as a means of being of help to other people to testify and have a feel of Gods goodness all in the name of religion are exploiting them and that is so unfortunate!
I hope u are doing well, where do i click to see and Kofi Owusu dancing, i must see it to know the best dancer, you guys always make my morning. Say hi to Mr. White for me
Thanks