Do scientists believe in God ?

Question

Or is that all part of something that has no rational explanation ?

Answer 1

i am a scientist that believes in god. trying to prove god exists is futile.

Answer 2

Some do, mostly not.  Belief in god has no impact on real science.  Facts are facts.  There are some brilliant scientists out there who still believe in a creator albeit not many.  Does it matter?

Answer 3

What god are you asking about,  I mean it depends where you live.  I believe in lots of gods.  You must be one of those 1 god people I assume.  No I don't believe in that one.

Answer 4

Well, I am a Biology major and I am Agnostic. So....I Don't know...I'm sure some do!h

Answer 5

the greatest scientists from the earlier periods were believers of God

....so i dont understand why the current scientists choose not to believe...afterall when the earlier scientists made their revolutionary discoveries and/or inventions....their faiths are not shaken....

...personally i dont see anythg revolutionary abt the current scientists...(they are just doing "follow-up" works).....tat they began to question religion...

...wat they have attain is only a miniscule if not neglgible to wat they have not in the immense secrets of the earth...if not the universe....

Answer 6

That is kind of like asking if mechanics believe in God. Some scientist believe while others do not.

I have known only one man who claimed his study of science forced him to believe in God. He grew up a staunch atheist and majored in science in college because he was going to write a book all the fallacies of the bible and prove the bible wrong using science and according to him science forced him into believing in God. If you are interested here is his website

http://www.doesgodexist.org/

I used to have all his cassette tapes and VHS videos of his Does God Exist series but when I left Christianity and choose Wicca I gave them all away. His story of his self conversion is interesting.

Some people are not impressed with him, but still even today I like the man, I no longer believe but I met him twice and he is a friendly man. Everyone else I have known that studied science was either a Christian when they started or atheist and science did not change their belief either way.

The only problem I had was I was always told he was a scientist who was forced to believe due to science the reality is he was a science teacher. Maybe science teachers are scientists I do not know.

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Edit: I Just want to add that the people I know who are atheists claim that science just reinforces their atheism, but the Christians I know say that same thing about science reinforcing their belief.

Answer 7

Since scientists are individuals  they can believe in whatever they like. I guess they could modify their deity to make it seem more rational and believable than the biblical god is portrayed as being.

Answer 8

Some do and some don't.  However, studying science increases the likelihood you won't believe in god.  Or perhaps not believing in god makes you want to become a scientist.

Either way, this question probably belongs in the R&S section.

Answer 9

You can't make a blanket statement about what scientists believe as though scientists are a group that has a single belief.

Scientists are significantly less likely to hold a traditional religious view than the general population.  A higher percentage of scientists will identify themselves as being either agnostic or atheists than those with no college education.

Answer 10

Statistically speaking, it depends on the discipline of the scientist. For example, 76% of doctors believe in God while only 59% of biologists believe. Overall 2/3 of scientists believe in God according to a study.

Answer 11

Proportionally, far fewer scientists believe in God than the general population. Moreover, if you go from scientists in general to leading scientists (for example, members of the National Academy of Sciences or Nobel Prize winners) at each step up the ladder fewer scientists believe in God.

Even among the scientists who do, it's no big deal for most of them - they don't think much about it at all.

Answer 12

The majority of scientists believe in some version of god, but more scientists are atheist/agnostic than the general population.   There are millions of scientists in the world, and you couldn't get them all to agree on anything, much less religion.

But most of them will agree that they believe in spite of their scientific training, not because of it.  No, it's not particularly rational.

Answer 13

Some of the greatest scientists in history have had strong religious beliefs. For example, Isaac Newton wrote volumes of religious material, and considered that material more significant than the work he did on physics. A lot of modern scientists tend to go for atheism though, especially in the biological field, since the theory of evolution explains 99% of how we got here. Faith in other scientific disciplines tends to be higher, since the scientific work and beliefs are less closely related to each other.

Answer 14

Although the majority of scientists believe in evolution, and the earth being more than 10,000 years old, the ones that do believe in god interpret the bible as metaphoric (they must) and not to be taken literally.  And that evolution is just what god intended.  At least thats what my biology teachers did.

Answer 15

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” –Bertrand Russell

A scientist can never discover a reason, outside of God, for his/her own existence.

Answer 16

The best ones do--they don't feel threatened by things they can't explain--they embrace the immensity of the cosmos with the humility of a small child.