Originally posted by John Murdoch
I'll finish the thread within a thread by stating that anyone can have bias. For example, Dr. Richard "Dick" Lewontin, Harvard University geneticist, biologist, and social commentator:[B]"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen."
EDIT: Added bolding to the quote by Dr. Lewontin above. The rest of my original post continues below.
You are correct though, I'm not on topic. As I stated earlier, I'd be as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:16-22 - "most miserable" if Christ did not rise from the dead. The passage is in context talking about the resurrection of Christ from the dead, so I'd take the original question one step further and say that if Christianity turned out to be false, then my worldview would be that of 1 Corinthians 15:32 - "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die." [/B]
You make a great point. I'd just add that that materialism lures scientists, but it's not like it's their default state.
Some of the greatest scientists that ever lived like Copernicus or Newton, or modern, influencial ones like Francis Collins* (the head of the Human Genome Project) were/are devout Christians. Thus, religion and science can coexist in harmony, benefiting each other 👆
* BTW I recommend Collins's book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief