Godlorica

That's just what William Paley said in the last century, to the LETTER. Now he looks pretty silly, what with the invention of science...
 

"Can a person be a scientist and also be a Christian?" Allan Sandage asks in his article. It is the wrong question. It should be, "Can a person be a scientist and also be religious?". Then I would say yes. Subscribing to a mainstream religion which have lost credibility over and over again for many centuries does not look good. Christianity lost when the Roman empire adopted it as the imperial religion. It is like G.W.Bush and his fellow neo-cons chosing to look like Christian and going and killing tens of thousands of Iraqee children.A state is by definition controlled by the powerful and rich who prefer to persue their worldly interests by any means available to them. Don't they keep saying "for our values and way of life", and when they really talk "for our interests" before they commit to wars? Politicians are just puppets in their disposal. Not all rich pple and politicians are for sale but they always remain in minority.

I see the mainstream religious leaders just like the politicians. Most of them behave like any other broker. Politicians sell political votes, priests (or mullahs or any other religious broker) sell religious votes. They will do anything to hide this fact. This is the reason why they take the side of the state in almost all cases that really count. They will sell the rights of the minorities, like women wanting abortion or gays wanting to get married. Their doors are closed to the poor in the real sense, but they will give it lip service. They will do anything to please the state.

Mainstream religious institutions are extensions to the political parties which are the proxies of the state which is ruled by the rich and the powerful, very simple. When a revolution happens, it doesn't take too long for the rich to take control again. It didn't take too long for the Russian elite to take control and started killing the opposition. A religious-political revolution seems to have happened by the birth of Christ, as a reaction to the Roman Empire. But it didn't take too long before Romans adopted Christianity and modified it to suit their ends. Similar things happened to all mainstream religions. Imperialist Arabs adopted Islam didn't they?

When a scientist adopts a mainstream religion, he commits intellectual suicide. God is beyond all horizons but right within you at the same time. You don't need to adopt the political philosophy of the ignorant masses to reach God. Don't forget what they did to Galileo.