Ellis, I think of a scientist as anyone, not necessarily with a university education--but it helps--who is willing to take a scientific approach to any field of knowledge; one who has a thirst for new knowledge, is willing to challenge old ideas that no longer work, and drop them when they don't. Also, he is willing to do experiments to prove his claims and in the discovery of new principles or laws.
I have two postgraduate degrees in the history of ideas, including philosophy/psychology and theology (mta.Ca, the Atlantic School of Theology and Boston University). Interestingly, Darwin's only degree was a bachelor of theology from Cambridge. Edison had little formal education. Would he or Edison get a job in a modern research lab?
Not likely. But who would be the loser?
THEOLOGY AND PNEUMATOLOGY--the serious study of God and Spirit
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BTW, I agree with atheists who says that the claims, especially the extraordinary ones, made by all the religions ought to be challenged. They ought to be challenged to come up with statistics and other forms of extraordinary evidence.
If I had the financial resources I would love to set up a lab in which research experiments would be done on the claims of the religions, on prayer, meditation and the like. I abhor blind faith and equate it to superstition.
Take note that in Jesus day, what we call wind, air, breath and the atmosphere which surrounds the earth--then thought of as flat--was looked on as extraordinary. For the ancients it was as extraordinary as what we today call the space--the vacuum--into which the cosmos is expanding.
The New Testament Greek for SPIRIT is PNEUMA (from which we get words like pneumatology, pneumatic and pneumonia). It translates the Hebrew, RUAH, the Aramaic (the language of Jesus) ROOKA, the Latin SPIRITUS (from which we get spirit, Holy Spirit (of God) and the Arabic RUH. All these words refer to the mystery and emptiness of space, including the vacuum. In John 4:24, Jesus equates Pneuma with Theos (God). From theos we get theology.
