Science vs Religion - There is room for both.

Post Reply New Topic

While watching a documentary on the ABC Network last night, I was reminded of zealots and became afraid. The documentary was narrated and hosted by a neuroscientist whose name escapes me, due to the fact that as soon as I heard him open his mouth, his name became unimportant.

He was speaking of the fundamental importance of science, and given a few years humanity will realise just how ridiculous religious dogma is, and unconditionally accept science as the ONLY reason anything exists. In other words, Christianity will be wiped out of the human life and replaced with dogmatic science. I found it strange that Christianity was the only religion mentioned. what about Judaism? Islam? Buddhism? Won't they be wiped as well as we all embrace a scientific utopia on our quest for ultimate reason?

My first and immediate thought was "Who the hell does this guy think he is?". How can he make those lofty assumptions? He then went on to discuss his terrible plight for 15 years with a bunch of animal rights activists, making his life hell. And his reasoning, without actually admitting that he tested on animals, was it was all for science. Not for science in general I'd say, but for the betterment of MANKIND. There is a difference. You do not test on animals for the betterment of the environment or species conservation, generally. No animals were harmed in the making of THIS film. Maybe those animal rights activists had a reason for being fanatical. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't doing the right thing, the ethical thing. Maybe he did not take responsibility for his actions and his brand of science did not take into account, the suffering of animals.

Being of scientific leanings, I am not naive enough to think that testing on animals is not part of the journey to finding cures for virulent diseases or cancer, but it is those animal rights fanatics that keep it in check. They provide the moral and ethical barometer for correct and humane practice. We may not like having it shoved in our face, but without the polarity, science would spin itself out of orbit.

This brings me to my point, and that point is, is that it matters little what we think of Christianity or any other religion for that matter or how much we might think that Evangelists or fundamentalists of any kind are completely mad, they keep the balance. It is the strong force of polar opposites that actually keep us on the planet. If one where to lose any of its mass, and therefore affect gravity, it would spin off into the unknown and throw the whole balance out. Even though a scientific utopia sounds quite nice to me, the idea of not having any faith terrifies me. That mysticism and the spiritual meaning of life would become obsolete. That the idea of explaining altruism in terms of scientific measurement, or divine visitations as a simple act of delusion or psychosis, makes me feel hollow. How can any one person say that what a person thinks or feels or sees can ALL be explained by science? And even if it can, does that not diminish our joy and exhilaration in experiencing natural phenomena as human beings? That even though we can look at the skies and understand constellations and the material of stars and of earths orbit around the sun, we should not also feel goose bumps at the majesty and mystery of it?

Maybe God or other deities had nothing to do with it, and my scientific brain says so, but that does not stop me from saying a silent prayer of thanks for the brilliance of the Universe and for the humility I experience when I measure myself against planets. Science does not teach humility, the human spirit does, and for some, the human spirit is cemented in religion and faith. As human beings we need to keep both religious dogma AND scientific dogma in check.

Finally there is nothing worse than a professional scientist, driven to find the truth through experimentation and trial and error, banging on about religious zealotry, when he is perpetrating the same. He is a scientific zealot and in my opinion, one is as bad as the other.

A quote comes to me from Lao-Tzu (Tao Te Ching(Book of the Way)) that sums up what I am thinking and it is this, "Is and Isn't produce each other". In other words, one cannot exist without the other and "extremists" of any kind are very, very dangerous, without their polar opposites to keep them in check.

Mics

Last edited by Michhsta on 25 Jul 2010, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I also see no reason that science and faith preclude each other; I see the supposed battle between the two as unfortunate, and a false dichotomy. Faith teaches purpose and moral response to our circumstances...science shows the tools used to bring those circumstances to pass and provides us with the kinds of choices we can make in our environment. Divorced from each other, or when one is used to pervert or suppress the other, I think that something is missing.

There really isn't room for both.

Science will continue to find things that religion pushes forward as false and religion will continue to push those things despite the evidence and will instead insist upon the authority of holiness of their book and their power.

As it is, physics presents a very direct threat to religion in terms of a deity and psychology poses a threat to both the social order and counseling aspect (which is why Scientology directly targets psychology and psychiatry: they understand the place of religion is essentially in the same arena as psychology/psychiatry).

I don't see the point of mysticism or spiritual meaning or why they are so important?

I don't see how explaining this all should make anybody feel hollow.

I don't see the epistemic problem with one person saying that what another person(or even what he) thinks or feels or sees can all be explained by science.

I don't know whether it diminishes the joy and exhilaration of these experiences. I don't see why it is better or worse to feel goosebumps or not. Frankly, I think that newnesses will always cause us to feel somewhat in awe. I recently watched this with Richard Dawkins and was awestruck:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNN2E2bWU3A[/youtube]

However, Dawkins is one of the people who is charging towards this notion that you consider problematic, as he really does seek to reduce religion's importance.


Ok? I don't know what the point of the matter is. Frankly, I would think that it is better for such actions to correspond to truth.

Does science teach humility? I don't know, some people could come up with arguments either way. I would tend to think it does teach humility because of the possibility of failure for scientists and their theories and because of the brilliance of all of the people in the scientific community. I think even scientists talk about their experiences with this humbling them, but that isn't proof of the overall tendency. I don't know what "the human spirit" is.

I don't see scientists as representing a dogma like religion does, so I don't know what to keep in check. We should hold all things to epistemic standards, but that doesn't say anything one way or another on how we should handle religion or scientists, however, I would think it would hold back religion more than science given that science is all about finding truer things, but many religions are more dogmatic.


I don't know if they are equally bad. Some of the opinions of people of religion are hard for me to see matched by anybody else. That being said, this person may be a "scientific zealot", or he may be actively anti-religious. I would tend to think the latter, as science doesn't directly teach on religious matters, only indirectly.

As for my opinion? I think that there is a conflict between the truths about existence, including scientific truths, and religious beliefs. I don't think that this is a matter of "zealous scientists" as many of them don't try to prove this to be the case, but rather I merely think that the world we are finding is at odds with our conventional theological notions, and that even updating these theological notions seems silly in comparison.

Funny, I saw the same program and fervently hope he is correct. Colin Blakemore was trying to explain how religion (specifically christianity) sponsored science, believing that it would vindicate the position of the church, this sponsorship propelled scientific discoveries forward but of course, as we know, these discoveries did not support religion and many scientists were tried as heretics. He suggests that as science continues to expand our knowledge of the natural world, the supernatural one becomes meaningless and evidently false.

Lets face it Christianity is founded upon and absurd story, and yet has ruled the lives of countless millions for centuries and still continues to interfere with scientific truths. So I do not think science and religion can exist hand in hand. Religion needs to be seen for what it is, a belief in the supernatural for which there is absolutely no empirical supporting evidence.

For those who would like to watch this episode of a fascinating 7 part series

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2927360.htm

Even if Science and Religion can co-exist to some degree, I want no part of religion, and I will vehemently protest anything religious groups do to get in the way of scientific progress. The technological and scientific advancement of the human race is paramount.

I bet you are trivializing/satirizing/deforming his argument / making a straw man somehow. I doubt any scientist would say science is the reason things exist :/. Could you try finding an actual quote? No scientist wants dogmatic science (an oxymoron).

Some animal activists act within reason even though their arguments about ethical might be very arguable (For example, trying to push their self-created moral rules on other people to stop meat consumption). However, some animal activists (IE: PETA) are completely unethical themselves. Inconsistent, they are also extremists and would oppose even things that are for the betterment of mankind.


That's ridiculous. What's your worst fear? That without interference of extremist groups science "might go too far" actually heal cancer? That sounds scary.

There is a difference you know, between science itself (which is basically a set of methods and rules) and whatever use you make with it. Nevertheless, just because some animal activism might work as a moral compass it does not mean that ALL animal activists are worth of such respect. If you analyze PETA for example, they are just loonies that are just trolling and making no contribution to the world at all.


fundamentalists of any religion or ideology, animal extremists, etc. They are the opposite of "keeping the balance". Being nice to these people just so that they help us keep the balance is going to be counter-productive. Balance is the last thing these people want.

Showing that you heard of some physics does not help your argument.


Your argument seems to be that we need believe in some mythical being and be afraid of this being so that we are moral and ethical. That's the scariest part of some theists, specially extremist theists. That apparently the only reason they do good things is because this imaginary friend says so. It is actually a very dangerous thing. Because instead of keeping a real moral compass based on what's - according to your own consciousness and knowledge- better for mankind they just blindly follow the orders of an imaginary friend that is in fact controlled by some greedy, ambitious, violent people.

That such of mysticism-based morality tends to actually be just a kind of faux or dummy morality that allows these people to commit the worst crimes just as soon somebody manages to convince them it is their god ordering them to do such crimes. Ever since all the massacres Yahweh ordered the Israeli to perpetuate in the Judges book of the bible. To the crusades, nazism and Jihad. This faux morality has always been a cancer to mankind.

Really Nice Kids aren't be nice just because a bearded man in red suit will give them gifts in Christmas but because they want to be nice. Really good people aren't good to other people just because they avoid going to hell but because they want to be good.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 25 Jul 2010, 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Excellent points everyone. Thank you.

I am very fond of Richard Dawkins and find him fascinating, but my hero is Sir David Attenborough. He is not a scientist, but a naturalist. He observes the natural world and brings it to us with class and a great deal of accuracy. But he does not discount God. He does not count God either. He knows that he does not have the ultimate knowledge of EVERYTHING to make that fact. He does not have the evidence that God does NOT exist. It matters little of opinion. Everyone has opinions, but opinions are not fact. Just as we cannot prove the existence of God, we also cannot prove His non-existance.

I am not trying to convert anyone here to either side of the argument, in fact, I am offering the opposite, I am simply trying the portray the danger in ANY human being believing that any one instrument has all the answers. Religion might be archaic, bigoted and downright boring, but for a large amount of people, God isn't. By respecting and being in awe of science, you are identifying with your humanity, your ability as a human being to understand your world and respect it. If you were a robot, you might be able to understand the science, but you wouldn't respect it or feel awe for it. You would just crunch the numbers and spit out data. As human beings with spirit, we experience curiosity and resilience, and those poor scientists who were branded as heretics, did not seek the truth to defy the Church as such, even if that is how it turned out, they did it because they were curious, because they wanted to test their own mettle in coming up with the answers. Without the human spirit, we would not explore or question or persevere in the face of severe adversity. It is about the drive to understand, which is motivated by different things than just instincts or intellect.

Science does not explain why a mother will run into a burning building to save her child. You could put it down to a massive adrenaline spike and other neurotransmitters released into the blood stream to combat the fear of mortality and the physical strength to get that child out, which is undoubtedly true, but it does not explain exactly why it happens. It is her love for the child? Is it her primal instinct to protect her young? Most likely Mr Dawkins would put it down to our inherent drive regarding the survival of our species, and I agree with him. But I also believe in something unseen but felt. Something that is unquantifiable and that is our morality. Morality keeps social order. Morality makes us human, as well as the lack of morality can make a person appear inhuman. It is about love and the protection of our own. In saying all this, it does not mean I necessarily BELIEVE everything I say, but I am wise enough not to discount anything.

Just a 2 cents worth......

Mics

I regularly see some amazing and unexplainable things happen in the ministry to people who had science fail them so I wouldn't count out Christianity just yet.

As for me, I see no reason why explainability of a phenomenon in a scientific manner diminishes the role of a Creator. We only learn more about how He has done His works. Why should I feel threatened by or intimidated by the physical means by which the universe works, or feel any need to deny or edit them? At the same time, science offers neither proof nor disproof of faith.

You are right, no scientist wants dogmatic science, but what about the person that believed that the earth was flat and that ran the trend until it was discovered that the earth was round? It starts as an idea or belief(dogma) and is then proven by experimentation and evidence. How do we know unequivocally that what we understand of physics today will stand up in a hundred years? Or a thousand? I am not disagreeing with you, just offering another opinion. A scientist might not be wanting to appear as dogmatic, but they are by the very nature of BELIEVING that God does not exist, because it is only belief until they can prove, with hard evidence, to the contrary.

I do not believe or disbelieve in God, but I do believe in my spirit. My spirit is what provides me with my moral and ethical barometer. I am simply saying that both concepts can be true, because God is a human concept, just as science is. It is human beings doing the believing, the testing, the conclusions. We do not have a Extraterrestrial species with a couple of thousands of years on us and technology to boot to prove us otherwise. We make scientific fact with what we have available to us. That does not make it Gospel(forgive the pun). I believe in science with the full force of my understanding, but that does not mean that I ignore everything else or that nothing else exists.

And I do not support extremists from any organisation whether they be religious or scientific. Extreme anything is by its very nature untrue, because it defies logic and reason. ALL things should be investigated until they can be investigated no more even if it takes hundreds upon thousands of years.

Mics

Mics

Honestly, I tend to think agnosticism is sort of based upon squishy thinking. I think it is really just an easy or supposed middle-road solution, but that the epistemic foundations of it end up being questionable and unlike what most people believe.


Well, I don't think you actually present a strong case, and part of that is that you don't actually provide us much reason to think that science is being imperialist in a bad manner, or that science needs to be or even can be balanced out by religion. Part of the issue is that many people recognize the epistemic role of science. Science provides us with knowledge based upon rigorous testing of ideas. In the minds of many people, it really seems that nothing is more reliable as a guide to truth than a source that rigorously tests ideas, so how can religion honestly claim to balance it out? What valid claim method to find truth is there in religion? This is regardless of whether this is desirable or not. I mean, it may be that we don't want to rely on our telescopes too much to tell us about the stars, but that doesn't justify a kaleidoscope to give us "both sides of the story".


I think that a robot that performed the same intellectual functions of a human being perfectly is logically possible, so I don't see how "awe" is so amazing. Nor do I see why I should value "that we *FEEL*", as such an appeal often comes from people who can't really crunch the numbers and spit out the right data, and it seems from our reasoning that part of their problem is that they get distracted by the emotional appeals.


Umm..... ok, if we can explain everything based upon the physical facts causing it, I kind of have to regard this as an explanation of what and why this happens. I mean, given that you disagree, it seems that you have to explain how this fails to be an explanation, or what should be expected about an explanation.


Ok? But what is our morality? You've basically brought in something as a causative force, and made claims that it is "unquantifiable" and so on and so forth. So, what is it? I mean, invoking mysterious variables is all nice and good, but frankly, I can invoke variables all day, and claim that the "woo demons" are possessing you and overriding your actions. The issue is that we have to hold ourselves to epistemic standards, otherwise we just get a bunch of nonsense. Anybody who has studied human psychology KNOWS that human beings are full of s**t, and so guess what? We can't just say "there are *unquantifiable*, and *unseen* things" unless these actually advance our inquiry.

I am not trying to be too harsh here either, it is just that you don't actually seem to be adding anything, and I don't think that this is because I am such a "crass reductionistic atheist without a real sense of the truth", as it is that I am trying to hold this issue and other things up to scrutiny because that's the only thing that seems to work.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 25 Jul 2010, 9:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I would say that the person who believed that the earth was flat and ran with it is just fine if he did that for reasoning that we would consider valid given his background of knowledge. The issue is that any bit of knowledge could technically be proven wrong in our lives, but I don't see the point of being an "omni-agnostic" or even pretending that I am one. As it stands, some ideas can be shown better than others based upon our current bit of knowledge. We might be wrong, but that's no reason to not think we are right. The fact of the matter is that agnostics on God either have to be very bizarre people, or they seem to be inconsistent about how we handle knowledge claims.

Now, do I personally believe that God does not exist? Yes. I also believe that fairies don't exist. Do you think they exist? Or are you agnostic? Do you think that wizards exist? Or are you agnostic? Do you think that dragons exist? Or are you agnostic? Do you think that unicorns exist? Or are you agnostic? I am going to say that I don't think that any of these things exist, and that's because they disagree with our current background knowledge. Now, that might change where it is more probable that they do exist, but, I am not going to be agnostic because of an unforeseen possibility.


I believe in my fairy godmother. She is what provides me with carriages. I have to give up the occasional pumpkin though.

Look, the fact of the matter is that your "spirit" likely doesn't exist. In fact, it is very likely that you don't even function the way you think you do. We've cut into people's brains. We've seen big distortions in their ways of thinking. No spirit seems to get in the way of a flesh-wound that impacts the brain. One's entire personality and outlook can likely be changed with a hard enough blow to the head.


They're not the same. God is an entity in the external world that human beings identify as "God". Science is a set of institutions that we created.


Ok, umm... yeah? Even if there were aliens, it would just be them doing the testing. That being said, science only competes with religion when religion makes a conflicting fact claim, or implicitly relies on one, or because if our science starts to show the promise of being able to explain everything, we start being able to get rid of religion as not parsimonious in our set of explanations. But the notion that the conflict is so clear as what you seem to be thinking, or seen exactly like that seems to be rebutting a fool anyway.


You're not providing an argument against extremism. You assume extremism defies logic and reason, therefore you state it, but you don't prove it, and there is no reason why something extreme now might not become orthodox later, so your argument against extremism seems to fail.

True, and if one is a believer, that's the only scientifically sensible way to look at it. However, if that's the case, why do you even believe god exists in the first place, and why worship him? If you believe in science and a rational universe, what reason is there to believe in religious mythology? For example, in Christianity, without the miracles and the whole "son of God" thing, Jesus was just a philosopher.

If you fully accept science, yet still continue to believe in the supernatural, you're either reducing the concept of god to an abstract force of creation that may as well be a law of physics, or you're believing in an ancient, unprovable idea, for no good reason except that lots of other people believe in it.

Fundamentalist Christianity cannot coexist with science; it is hostile to many of its findings and theories. Scientism (not science per se) is definitely incompatible with religion because its an ideology that wishes to displace religion entirely; it is also incompatible with humanism and other philosophies. Scientism is an attempt to form a litany of dogma around current scientific theory.

A religion that is more flexible, spiritual, and less dogmatic can probably better tolerate the idea of science since the religion doesn't identify its beliefs on the basis of falsifiable histories, miracles, and personages. Religion and philosophy, when they impart wisdom, are not necessarily in conflict with science. A religion that helps a person understand themselves and their relationship to others can build wisdom, but if it relies on a chronology from the book of Genesis or a specific divine commandment, yes, science may show that religion's underpinnings to be false.

Oh, you civil atheists and agnostics.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 25 Jul 2010, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.