Science and Faith/Religion are NOT Mutually Exclusive

Thanks for responding. You bring up a lot of interesting points, a lot of which I am sure will tempt both of us to expand the scope of this argument. The originally proposed argument, made by the Plaintiff (myself), is this: "One can be a devout person of faith, and be a person of science with no conflict between the two ideas of faith/religion and science." and your ultimate summarized response to that was... "Just like rape is fundamentally not compassionate, faith is fundamentally not reasonable or scientific. In the case of Christianity, there is not sufficient reason to accept any of its essential claims: Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus is God incarnate, Jesus rose from the dead, by accepting his sacrifice we will be saved from an eternity of suffering in the afterlife, etc." OK. So now we move forward. I will actually start by pulling what you said from the comment section, if you do not mind, as I believe you wished it to be an addition to what you already wrote. I can appreciate that, as I often do so myself. It also ties into a point I was going to bring up: squonk "the proper domain of faith concerns questions which cannot be settled by evidence" What exists outside of the reality that humans perceive? This is a question that cannot be settled by evidence. MY RESPONSE What exists outside the reality that humans perceive? Well that's a very deep question and you and I BOTH must be careful not fall victim to equivocation of terms and start spilling into complex fields like metaphysics, solipsism, objectivism, and so on. But I if I get the sense of what you are saying, my response is this... You are a victim of scientism, and are failing to see the irony of your own statements. You say, "Science and religion do not conflict insofar as religion keeps its nose out of scientific matters, i.e. matters of fact. " Well, how about the other way around? Science cannot answer existential questions. Science can only tell you what is there, but it cannot tell you WHY it is there, or WHY it is the way it is, as opposed to not. Why is there something, rather than nothing? Science cannot comment on aesthetics. Science cannot give a human MEANING, and that is something everyone across all cultures strives for. I'm about to steal some quotes from Fr. Robert Barron. The sciences can tell us the chemical compound of pen and paper, but the sciences can never understand the meaning of a book. Source: There is more to our existence than simple "facts" that be systematically observed, analyzed, and expounded or retracted upon into a narrative spun from data interpretation (science). So if you are saying that science can give us all the answers, and the ONLY RATIONAL thing to do is base everything off of evidence....well you're going to live a sad unfulfilled life. And I truly do not believe, you think or act that way. No one does. DAWKINS QUOTE My response to your quote from Dawkins is as follows: OK, so what is he saying? That we could objectively prove these things as having happened or not? I do not disagree. That does not take away from the them happening or not. We have no way of determining the evolution of human language. Why? Because all of the evidence we have of past languages are ancient written texts. Language existed for hundreds and thousands of years prior to our earliest evidence of language. Does this mean that language did not evolve, because the evidence is not available to us? You tell me. But the way you're using that quote indicates that you are saying...it is not worth believing to have happened. Now a counter to that is that but we see it now. Ah, yes we do see it now, and we perhaps cannot see the miraculous things described in the Bible. Or do we? http://www.ncregister.com... http://www.catholic.org... ^Those are just a few resources, there's a plethora of others. I really suggest you take your time to consider them, and I really welcome your armchair analysis. There was a new Eucharistic miracle approved by the Church (as they do debunk quite a few based on scientific evidence...IMAGINE THAT!) happened VERY RECENTLY. I see ZERO New Atheist scientists rushing to prove the Church wrong. In fact, I seriously scoured the internet for the counter arguments, main stream media coverage, ANYTHING. The world just does not want to cover it. Why? You could disprove the Church once and for all! And they are open to the public! You can go examine it, look at it, and historically, scientists who work on such miracles end up converting from agnostic and/or atheist to Catholic! So we see evidence of miracles. We see reports of even mere scientific curiosities...like bread turning into a heart tissue. Wouldn't you be curios as to that? On a purely scientific basis? THINGS YOU FAILED TO COUNTER Let's take a look at Dr. Francis Collins, the first man on the list I presented in the opening argument. He was head of the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT. That's not a project sponsored by a Church. Do you think he might know more about human biology and evolution than you or I? And he writes a book called "The Language of God", justifying fully his profession, discoveries, and work as a cutting edge scientist with his faith in Christianity. And you have the gull to compare him to a rapist of fact and science? What scientific advancements have you given the human race? Who are you, so highly rational and intelligent and great in science, to question the man who gave us the Big Bang Theory? And those are just Christians! You are also only limiting your argument to Christianity. Why not Islam? Why not Taoism? Why not Sikhism? Why not other people of other faiths who are great scientists? Why did you completely ignore everyone on that list, and in fact by doing so, you degrade your own main point. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Watch this before you respond, to avoid the danger of equivocation of the word "God" And see if you can wrap your factual mind about "Ipsum Esse"