He's threatening to put me in "hell" if I don't convert to an ideology that has no evidence whatsoever.

I'm an engineer, and have a great deal of scientific background and understanding. I'm also a Christian. So, I'm living proof that science and religion are not oil and water :)

First, from your subject line, he cannot put you in hell. While as an atheist I'm sure you don't believe in hell, from a religious standpoint only God can sentence anyone to hell.

Second, to answer your question, I think it is unusual for someone to reject science entirely but fully embrace religion as their answer. Usually it is the other way around...rejection of religion and embracing of science. While it cannot be proven, there are many theories about why the Bible is written with such seemingly terrible timeframes. For instance, it is thought that although Methuselah was said to have lived to over 900 years old, most likely he did not...the reasoning there being that age was sometimes seen less literally in those times and more like a "score" of how wise, wealthy, prodigious, and prolific the person was. Methuselah was a very well respected man for his time, and it is thought that his age was reflective of his merits and not of his actual age. Personally, I believe the timeframes in the Bible for the age of the world are figurative. From God's perspective, 1000 years for us is only an instant of time. Therefore, relatively speaking the age of the earth in the grand scheme of things is very young when considering the whole universe. There are many theological studies surrounding this concept, it's pretty interesting actually.

So, if that truly is their approach, I'm not sure that you will have much success in having a productive conversation with them if they have their mind made up. I also know some people who believe that, and they just choose to be ignorant because it's easier. I actually enjoy the challenge of trying to understand what I believe God created. Just agree to disagree and then change the topic to football or something...lol.

Good answer

How do you handle situations in which science and religion come into conflict?

As a religious person, I default to faith and allow that God knows more than me and I will never understand all that He does. That doesn't stop me from trying to understand though, or at least try to find reasonable explanations for things.

Thanks for sharing

Anytime :)

Beautiful , , , ,

Thank you. It's tough to understand these types of topics, and will definitely stretch your brain if you really try. I'm not afraid to challenge myself or accept new ways of thinking, nor should anyone who seeks better understanding of the world around them. Cheers!

Of course. I don't even know how I found this conversation, but I'm glad I did.
It's always amazing to see people with different views have a civil conversation, and you explained everything perfectly.

Well I try, so I'm glad it worked out this time. Sometimes it doesn't, nobody always has the perfect answer, but we all find a good logic line every once in a while, lol :)

Yes I try to be civil with everyone I encounter, it certainly makes life much less dramatic and I've found we can learn from one another. Which is always nice.

I'm glad you found this too, and I hope it's helped you grow in your own thinking in some way. God bless!

Just tell him that you don't need to agree with him

He's going to tell me to go to hell because I don't agree with him.

Then ask him if there's proof that god exists

He's going to say tHe BiBLe iS mY pROoF

And ask him how does he know the bible tells the truth

ok

ye

Then he's not your friend...

He's saying that the Earth is 4,000 years old, when it is scientifically proven with radiometric dating that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. He keeps on saying that scientists are "stupid" and should go to hell for committing "sins". So far, I don't know what to say. There is no evidence that god exists, yet there are 2.4 billion people who think that way.

hold on what, if earth is 4,000 years old and Jesus was born in the roman times that means Jesus isnt from earth. H

GOOOOOOOTTEM

Radiometric dating is about as reliable as dating online. It works sometimes if you know a lot, but it usually doesn't.

Well, at least it's better than some random book.

Amazing. You broke the universal record for Lowest IQ!

hey dude.. I support you but you should switch to different insults rather than "low IQ" and "nobody asked". People are starting to hate you for this. Just sayin

Hey, the entire bible isn't wrong. The pager numbering is correct.

That is true, but when you say "the entire bible isn't wrong" it sounds as if some of the Bible is wrong, which is incorrect.

lol, fwoosh

CLUE_DOOD is a science denier, don't worry about them. They won't change their opinion based on evidence, which is their right.

Your ad hominem attack on me is noticed and pointed out. I am not a science denier.

Do you accept the scientific consensus that the universe is 13 billion years old?

How about evolution, do you accept that evolution is how species occured?

Do you believe the earth is billions of years old?

Or

Do you believe the Universe and Earth are about 6000 years old?

How about humans, did they evolve, or were they formed perfect and whole?

Science does not say that the earth is billions of years old, some scientists say that the earth is billions of years old. Macro-evolution and forming life out of non-life is scientifically impossible. I do believe that the earth was created approximately 6000 years ago, and I do believe that humans were created.

So "forming life out of non-life is scientifically impossible", how would you explain how "god" came to be if that's true?

They gave you a confusing answer, because they are confused.

I don't know why Christians believe the universe couldn't come to exist on its own, but their God could.

I think the response actually said God doesn't exist "he was not, nor will he be". That sounds like something that doesn't exist to me, because it wasn't, and it never will be.

God is. God is outside the bounds of time, which is something humans, which are bound by time, can never understand.

The inanimate universe is. The inanimate universe is outside the bounds of time, which is something humans, which are bound by time, can never understand.

You make plenty of over the top claims, but offer no evidence or method of verification.

God is not a physical being, nor is He bound by time. God created time, He was not, nor will he be, with the exception of Jesus, the second person of the trinity, who humbled himself by taking the form of man, for the purpose of dying for the sins of the many. God created science and He, therefore, is above science, not bound by its grasp which humans cannot of themselves escape.

So the entire field of geological science, which establishes the earth as older than 6000 years?

And yes, astronomers and physicists agree that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-science-figured-out-the-age-of-the-earth/

It seems as if you disagree with the article you sent me. It said the earth is 4.55 billion years old, what's that about?

I said the earth was billions of years old, what did I miss here?

Universe 13.8 billion or so years

Earth 4.5 billion or so years

Big difference from thousands of years or so.

Misunderstandings happens, no worries, out of replies in this line

Yeah, sorry, that was my misunderstanding.

Bringing the conversation back up here, we were running out of replies.

What science do you accept, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here.

I understand that you don't believe in evolution, geological age dating, etc.

But what science do you accept as true?

I want to belueve you aren't a science denier, but you keep saying no to entire fields of study.

I would say that any assumption should be taken with a grain of salt, with radiometric dating there are three major assumptions:
1: Original amount of decaying radioactive material is known
2: The rate of decay stays the same
3: The daughter element (element into which the radioactive substance decays) was all formed by the decaying parent element
These are three pretty major assumptions, and if you want to believe that the assumptions are correct, that's your choice, but for me, I choose to believe the earth is young, especially considering the presence of carbon-14 in rocks that are supposedly millions of years old.

Also one thing I should clear up, a lot of Christians are flat-earthers, I'm not, that's crazy, the earth is an oblate spheroid, not a disc.

So the only science you believe, is that earth is round?

I'm sticking with my opinion that you are a science denier.

I believe all science, but I don't believe all scientists. Science says the earth is an oblate spheroid, scientists say the earth is 4.55 billion years old; they say this based on assumptions, not scientific facts.

So, you believe that as people recorded what happened in their lives back then, they got together and said, "Alright, we need to mis-record what we do and say that we are the beginning of time."

Do I think they could: think they were right, write about something they were wrong about, and insist they were right?

Yes. Flat earth folk still do this.

Do I think people create disinformation with hyperbole, exaggeration, and dramatic embellishment.

Yes. Tall tales are more interesting than mundane tales.

But, as they recorded their history, do you think they just decided to say certain recent events happened in different times?

What are you getting at, out with it.

The people who wrote the bible wouldn't just me misrecording their history to make it more interesting.

So you think:
1. the burning bush actually talked?
2. A snake actually talked to the first man and woman in a language they all spoke together?
3. that an entire generation of the first born in Egypt died overnight?

Do you believe the whole earth flooded too, and that only Noah's family survived?

Yeah. God operates through natural laws, though. Some of them, we don't understand. Science is all about trying to understand what natural laws govern what happen, and if science can't get explain or prove/disprove God, then we just haven't learned enough.

you can't disprove an imaginary thing exists. It is literally not possible.

This is why.

To prove something exists, you find evidence of it existing. Things that exist leave behind evidence.

Things that do NOT exist, nonexistent things, leave NO evidence. Thereby, you cannot find the evidence, to prove their non-existence.

Snakes don't have vocal chords, they can't talk. Believing in a talking snake is saying an imaginary creature is real.

If an entire generation on first birn children, died overnight in Egypt, that would have been news. Contemporary historians would have recorded it. There would be a mass grave, or many mass graves. There would be evidence.

There is no evidence, proving any god, of any religion, in all of time.

Could you disprove that Magical Pixie Unicorns exist? I can describe them: MCU are trickster gods, they created the universe when one of their parties got out of hand and exploded a new universe into being, they purposely trick mortals into believing in gods other than them for fun, they can turn invisible, and they are all the best colors plus one we can't see.