Mark,
Sorry to take so much time to respond to your email.
I had in fact somewhat misread your thought, which was that it would
be inappropriate for a scientist, who is a Baha'i, to derive a
hypothesis from the texts of the Baha'i Faith. I had read you as
saying it would be bad scientific
Here is an edited posting I made to the Study Circle list:
As I have suggested,, even if a *possibly* empirical claim were contained in the
scriptures of my religion, I would not accept its authority over a scientific
discovery.
At one time, the Roman Catholic Church used biblical literalism
Social Darwinism.)
The problem with Gould's approach to the dual magisteria of science and religion, and
Dawkins' attempted refutation of it, is that both have committed the logical fallacy
of reification. They have essentialized religion. As I suggested here before, there
is, objectively
Dear Mark,
You wrote:
I don't question that revealed scriptures may, in certain instances,
contain empirical information. However, to me, it is a matter of
authority or magisterium. It would be inappropriate, in my view, for
a scientist to derive hypotheses from the religious texts of my
