They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing.
Interpretation
Science challenges and can undermine religious beliefs, but this is ultimately beneficial.
In this quote, Steven Weinberg expresses the idea that scientific inquiry and knowledge can be detrimental to certain religious beliefs. He suggests that this 'corrosion' of faith by science is not something to be feared, but rather welcomed, as it leads to a more profound understanding of the universe and our place within it.
In practice
In a debate about the impact of science on faith, this quote can emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.
No man is so great as mankind.
A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.
The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.