no, Manz, no. I don't think JT has been rejecting your arguments blindly.
It's just that the
fundamental tenet of science is that everything has to be observable and detectable AND, most importantly,
no assumption of a deity (Occam's Razor). The last criterion has been passionately disputed by many religious advocates who believe that the assumption of a deity is also a good enough start for a theory. Going back to what JT and I said earlier, the reason why Occam's Razor exists is to ensure a a continuous, constantly renewed idea which is used to assess and explain a given phenomenon. We have progressed this far because of that.
Have you ever wondered why within a decade of our time, we are almost close to creating a quantum computer (super fast computer) and space travelling is now a reality and excitingly, the prospect of the "then sci-fi only" teletransportation, whereas during the millennium of religious ruling in Europe, they only managed to come up with beautiful architecture and scattered scientific discoveries? True advancements were realised when all those states became secular and Science Academies turned up like never before.
Christianity, like other religions, is a system of beliefs. There's nothing wrong with forming a personal belief and view on the world around us. Science, however, is the source of human intellectual strength and its survival relies on our repeated attempts to ask and find answers and then ask again when something unexpected shows up. Darwin's theory of evolution has been modified since his time (Darwin got the idea but we needed to refine it). With the advent of molecular biology, evolutionary theory is now defined as follows:
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Quote:
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"The major tenets of the evolutionary synthesis, then, were that populations contain genetic variation that arises by random (ie. not adaptively directed) mutation and recombination; that populations evolve by changes in gene frequency brought about by random genetic drift, gene flow, and especially natural selection; that most adaptive genetic variants have individually slight phenotypic effects so that phenotypic changes are gradual (although some alleles with discrete effects may be advantageous, as in certain color polymorphisms); that diversification comes about by speciation, which normally entails the gradual evolution of reproductive isolation among populations; and that these processes, continued for sufficiently long, give rise to changes of such great magnitude as to warrant the designation of higher taxonomic levels (genera, families, and so forth)."
- Futuyma, D.J. in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates, 1986; p.12
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I had to find the quote to prove that I'm not making it up.
All in all, Manz, you are not "closed minded". No one here is. I don't think so. It's just that religion and science have been irreconcilable because of their conflicting interests. Religion nourishes faith whereas science promotes informed scepticism (note the presence of the word "informed", meaning you have to assess everything carefully, not just sitting idle and saying "nah" to someone's proposal). In your view, God seems to be the reasonable explanation and yes, it is, in a religious context. Intelligent Design, for example, was not rejected on the spot. The science community did examine it thoroughly and found that its major flaw is the one unknown being at its core doing magic. Thus, we
can't possibly ask any more questions because we simply don't need to. It would be the end of science and, hence, our advancement.
EDIT: I kept making typos. Kt, it's your fault! LOL