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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Only because of an implicit scientism that is pervasive in our society, which is particularly popular among liberal atheistic/agnostic types. I can't speak for every religion but the Catholic Church believes that there is no conflict between (Catholic Christian) religion and science, a belief I share.

All very well and good for the Catholic Church to believe that (what else are they gonna do?). But that is a theological tenet, not fact, that many people find difficult to accept, for many real reasons.

I'll not get into Christianity because...well, there's significant differences. But, as a former Muslim, we're just kinda hemmed-in on certain matters.

Modern Muslims can now call it "scientism", but it's pretty clear historically that scholars believed a lot of these things (the Qur'an itself attacks those who say it only repeats "tales of the ancients"*) that science now "debunks". Apologists love to say that "the Qur'an is not a science book" - but you can't combine it being the divine speech of God, with it explicitly saying that it describes natural phenomenon as signs for the willing and also call scientism when it turns out to be wrong about the moon or mountains being pegs.

The "subtraction theory" that Charles Taylor tries to debunk (aka secular society just kept removing things we assumed to be proof of religion and replacing its value) may be overly simplistic (you are right that a lot of this was actually driven by people who thought we could know God's ordered creation and with a belief in progress rather than cyclical time) but the tension isn't easily dissolved. Like, just as naive observers we should assume premodern religions clash with modernity no?

* Which removes an important avenue of escape liberal Christians have

All very well and good for the Catholic Church to believe that (what else are they gonna do?).

Become Protestants? Which was the whole point of a little debate back in the day 😁