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The Religious
Dimension in Scientific Speculation
by
GLENN STATILE
1)
The Great Divorce
From Augustine to Galileo to Stephen Jay Gould there has
been a recurring effort to highlight the reasons why
science and religion should retreat to neutral corners.
G.K. Chesterton once described his relationship to his
brother Cecil as one long continuous argument which
somehow still managed to escape the friction that so
often accompanies fraternal quarrels. Likewise,
civility should always govern whatever passes for
dialogue, however vigorous, between the complementary
disciplines of science and religion. Yet as we all
know, quite often this is not the case. In Andrew
Dickson White’s extremely influential book entitled A
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom (1896) a metaphorical word portrait
paints human progress as a river whose freedom of flow
is stifled by the icy chill of dogmatic theology.
Whereas some perceive the need to advocate for a proper
marriage between science and religion, others clamor for
a quick divorce.
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