Religion vs science, take # n + 1

Religion vs science, take # n + 1

Click to expand...

I introduce the proposition that the title "Religion versus science" itself leads to error.

Because it is hopelessly broad and overly-general to the point of being meaningless.

One can be immediately challenged by the question "Which 'religion' are you talking about, in comparison to or as a supposed adversary of 'science' ???"

Allowing the issue to be so overly general from the very start seems to disqualify it as a fair and rational discussion.

So those practicing "science" have erased themselves from the conversation. Hitchins certainly can drag out his own assumptions and oozing intellectual and emotional wounds ("See?! See the void inside me where you claim God exists?! see?!" etc) in the interest of free speech and free thought, I suppose.

Science can certainly proclaim "We don't go there" (into non-materialist aspects of human existence) ... but Science cannot render a definite or valid argument that there is in fact no "there" there.

Specific "religions" of course can make all sorts of unfounded statements of fact, which Science is free to try to prove or disprove factually ... but there is no "versus" that can be applied by Science, there's only "in this one specific case, here is the factual evidence against this claim made by this specific religion."

* Science cannot present their evidence against the existence of God.
* Cannot present evidence against the existence of the Soul.
* Against the existence of an Afterlife or Reincarnation.
* Against the fact of PAST Miracles which, if you think about it, are Miracles because they occur so rarely or are unique, and not at Man's deciding.

Hitchens has a droll Brit accident, doesn't he?
He has the force of his own bias and convictions, and a literary ability to snark.

But even he cannot justify a "versus" where there is only a one way street. Science can defend itself with materialist facts, Faith doesn't need to where material facts fall flat or are empty or do not apply.

Science can certainly blunder beyond its own wise limits, in which case it is not bad Science but rather blind arrogance and hypocrisy. There, at its worst, I confess that it is sometimes accompanied by the arrogance and hypocrisy of those who reject science, also.

ETA: The hypocrisy of those who only pretend to practice good Science in their attacks against Religion, do not diminish the validity of truely good Science.

Too often, some seize upon the hypocrites out there pretending LOUDLY to practice certain religions ... to try to discredit ALL true and good religion.

In doing so, they themselves fall into error.

They should stop it. Many people I fear spout for or against religion or for or against science ... but are only doing it because it pays a pretty penny (or an ugly million $$$ or two)

I wonder who would fight the fight, if it PAID NOTHING?

Besides me, I mean. ME ... I'm in it for the crack-thrill high, and to dodge the terrible itching of addictions of not having the next high in my pocket!

I don't at all mind a polemic, but ignorant polemics -- especially those lacking originality -- are tedious, attention-seeking and distracting.

Science is a method. You accept the method or you don't. Rational materialism is a philosophy that happens to make heavy use of scientific method. You can accept the scientific method without accepting rational materialism. These distinctions should have been put to bed centuries ago. Anyone who digs up the carcass of that deceased equestrian deserves to be reinterred with it. Not all atheists like science. Not all scientists like atheism. Pshaw.

Moreover, it should be very evident to anyone who cares to look that 'religion' cannot be 'the solution' to moral dilemmas. Firstly, 'religion' doesn't agree on morality -- even within a faith, morality can be in hot dispute and between faiths there may be little agreement at all. Secondly, nobody can prove that there's only one solution to human moral quandries (in fact there's no objective proof that there's even one solution, since every creed contains people who are floundering). Therefore the most one can respectfully say to someone not of one's own creed is that a creed might be a solution if people got smarter at working it.

Lastly, if you take the myth, dogma and custom out of morality then you're left with exercises in compassion and reasonableness. I for one can't tell a compassionate, reasonable atheist from a compassionate, reasonable theist of any stripe. Stripped of custom, good people seem to act like good people all over the world. But put the dogma back in and you're defining morality entirely by conformity to custom. If you do that then good luck in not looking like a xenophobic bigot to everyone outside your creed.

Blah.

small axe said:

I introduce the proposition that the title "Religion versus science" itself leads to error.

Click to expand...

You're right, but in the sciences "error" is assumed to exist potentially in any task. You try to figure out what the error is. Is it in the measurement? Is it in the type of instrument you are using? Is it "noise"...is it indications of a bit of symbolic dynamics (AKA "chaos theory") in the mix...should your model have "error" (eg. variation in some parameter) introduced at stage A or Stage B? Is there a way to factor out the error? Should a new model or measurement be used?

It's only in the realm of religion that a little mental error
sends you straight to everlasting torment. Try telling God on Judgment Day you thought Jesus was merely the highest of created beings and not as Divine as the Father. Not only will admitting to such thoughts get your thread cancelled in the Christian subforum, but it will make God very mad at you. In the sciences, you deal with error and try to figure out what is going on.

ColoradoGuy said:

All true. But in my last life I was a practicing biomedical scientist. And it often seemed to me that tribal beliefs, dogma, and all the rest played a pretty big role in the day-to-day workings of at least that branch of science. The great ones (and I knew a few of those) rose above it, but not a few of the lessor ones hurled anathamas at one another rather than data from new experiments.

Click to expand...

I'm sure science -- after all it is a big set of human and social endeavors -- resembles religion in some ways. After all, even in the name of religion, people have been reasonable. Presumably absence from God's Love is torturing all those people now and for all eternity, but that's eschatology and not a scientifically well-grounded practice.

ColoradoGuy said:

in my last life I was a practicing biomedical scientist. And it often seemed to me that tribal beliefs, dogma, and all the rest played a pretty big role in the day-to-day workings of at least that branch of science.

Click to expand...

There's plenty of evidence that the scientific method converges to material truth; I've seen no evidence that it converges to decency. But why should it? That was never its intention.

What is a good way to converge to decency? Some folks say religion, but history shows us repeatedly that religion unchallenged does no better than science unguided.

I believe that decency is grown by observing our impacts, being compassionate and responsible for them, and by fostering the decent as our role-models and leaders. There's plenty of evidence that both science and religion will follow decency, if you demand that decency lead.

ColoradoGuy said:

A big part of my interest in those particular reviews is that Stanley Fish, the inventor of Reader Response Theory, argues for Eagleton. Reader response is, if nothing else, the notion that each reader of a text brings his or her own meaning to it. Indeed, the text is incomplete until it is read. So if everything is a text (and we are all readers), how in the world can Fish posit any absolutes about anything?

Click to expand...

Fish is also rightly famous for being fooled by the even more famous Sokal Hoax:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/fooled-again/

Fish claims that the Hoax is now Sokal's career, but Fish remains ever-alert to signs of hoaxes, even in wine magazines.

Higgins said:

Fish is also rightly famous for being fooled by the even more famous Sokal Hoax:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/fooled-again/

Fish claims that the Hoax is now Sokal's career, but Fish remains ever-alert to signs of hoaxes, even in wine magazines.

Click to expand...

Stuff on the Famous Hoax:

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/weinberg.html

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/sokal.html

Higgins said:

Stuff on the Famous Hoax:

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/weinberg.html

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/sokal.html

Click to expand...

I went to the museum of hoaxes and all I got was this boilerplate website thing:

http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/

Ruv Draba said:

There's plenty of evidence that the scientific method converges to material truth; I've seen no evidence that it converges to decency. But why should it? That was never its intention.

What is a good way to converge to decency? Some folks say religion, but history shows us repeatedly that religion unchallenged does no better than science unguided.

I believe that decency is grown by observing our impacts, being compassionate and responsible for them, and by fostering the decent as our role-models and leaders. There's plenty of evidence that both science and religion will follow decency, if you demand that decency lead.

Click to expand...

Decency is variable. What is your idea of decency?

Gehanna

Gehanna said:

Decency is variable. What is your idea of decency?

Gehanna

Click to expand...

Good question. There are some pretty decent models for sea ice in the arctic and the real world seems to be falling apart faster than the standard deviation of the average model predictions:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786910.stm

Am I the only one here who sees no conflict whatsoever between science and religion?

Yeah, I work in medicine too. If anything, it just gives me more opportunities to appreciate G-d's work.

Am I the only one here who sees no conflict whatsoever between science and religion?

Click to expand...

There are plenty of areas where some religions and science clearly contradict each other. For example, I have spoken with people who have a firm religious belief that the fillings in their teeth were transformed into gold by a religious healing service. Science teaches that the fillings in their teeth have not been transformed into gold by the healing service.

Is there a conflict between the two beliefs?

(I appreciate that this may not be your religion and you may feel that their religious belief in their fillings is incorrect. But they truly believe it, and it is certainly a religious belief)

So clearly that is a conflict. The teachings of science do not agree with the teachings of that particular religion.

Now there may not be a conflict between YOUR particular religion and science, but can we agree that there definitely is between SOME people's religions and science ?

And in those cases, which do you believe?

Mac

science, assuming that I must take one to be "factually" true over the other. but "factually" true isn't the only kind of truth imo, so it's difficult.

if on the other hand it's as simple as, "is earth 6000 years old?" I might say, "Yes, and then some..."




AMC

Mac H. said:

For example, let's look at rainbows.

There are several possible explanations. Not all of them can be correct.

The explanations include:
(1) It is a path made by Iris between Earth and Heaven.
(2) It is a slit in the sky sealed by the Goddess Nuwa
(3) It is the bow of the goddess of love
(4) It connects the realms of Asgard and Midgard
(5) It is the jewelled necklace of the Great Mother Ishta - a reminder that all the gods except for Enlil can come to the offering.
(6) It is the seven chackras.
(7) It is an effect due to the different refraction of different wavelengths of light.

Which explanations do you find are in conflict with each other? Or are all of them equally correct in their own way?

Click to expand...

1-6 are crap. 7 is the physical explanation of how G-d creates it. There is no conflict.

So, ignoring the philosophical issues for a moment, if a religion teaches something that conflicts with science, what do you do? Accept the religious explanation, or the scientific one?

Click to expand...

It really depends on the question, so you'll have to provide an example if you're really curious. Basically though, there's a reason why a lot of [even nominally] religious Jews become doctors or scientists. We see no conflict between science and religion. Science is merely our feeble attempt to explain how G-d does what He does; however, we can never really know, which explains our many errors.

An example of this would be a maklokes a friend and I had a few months ago. We were discussing evolution, more specifically human evolution. She wanted evidence, and I told her that what most people offer is the appendix. It is what is called a vestigial organ because it has no known function today and is seen as a product of evolution that will eventually disappear. Now, why would G-d create us with a body part that is useless? He wouldn't.

Well, an article came out a few weeks ago that cites some research done a few years ago. The new research has basically confirmed the previous study, which showed that the appendix actually has an active function that has become less important because of our societal changes; however, it still plays a role in our health. Viola. Conflict resolved.

If science conflicts with my religion, the first thought is that science is wrong. This is not to say that science will always be wrong, just that it hasn't quite gotten there yet. There is a midrash that talks about the Earth spinning and revolving around the sun that was written a good couple hundred years before Copernicus. The belief by almost everyone at that time was in a geocentric universe, and this Rabbi was speaking about a heliocentric universe. Eventually, science caught up. The same thing happened with the Big Bang, and the same thing is happening with evolution. It just takes time.

My second thought, however, is to look at what is actually in conflict. There are examples of conflicts between religion and science where no conflict exists at all; rather, the understanding of what the Torah says is incorrect. An example would be that there were no other humans on Earth before Adam and Eve 5770 years ago. There is no real disagreement there, because that's not what the Torah says at all.

And does it make a difference if it is your religion or someone else's ?

Click to expand...

This will probably upset people, but since you asked, I feel that I have the right to answer. I view other religions as false, so it doesn't matter to me one bit if science conflicts with them.

There are plenty of areas where some religions and science clearly contradict each other. For example, I have spoken with people who have a firm religious belief that the fillings in their teeth were transformed into gold by a religious healing service. Science teaches that the fillings in their teeth have not been transformed into gold by the healing service.

Is there a conflict between the two beliefs?

(I appreciate that this may not be your religion and you may feel that their religious belief in their fillings is incorrect. But they truly believe it, and it is certainly a religious belief)

So clearly that is a conflict. The teachings of science do not agree with the teachings of that particular religion.

Click to expand...

That doesn't bother me at all. As I said above, I view their religion as meaningless and irrelevant anyway. The only concern I have is if science conflicts with Torah.

Now there may not be a conflict between YOUR particular religion and science, but can we agree that there definitely is between SOME people's religions and science ?

And in those cases, which do you believe?

Mac

Click to expand...

I believe the Torah. If there is a conflict between Xtianity or Islam or Buddhism or any of the other myriad religions and science, it means nothing to me. Torah is the only truth to me. If science and Torah match up, then science is correct. If they don't, then either science is misunderstanding what is going on or there really is no conflict, but just a misunderstanding in language.

AMCrenshaw said:

science, assuming that I must take one to be "factually" true over the other. but "factually" true isn't the only kind of truth imo, so it's difficult.

if on the other hand it's as simple as, "is earth 6000 years old?" I might say, "Yes, and then some..."




AMC

Click to expand...

Excellent example. The view that the Earth is only [almost] 6,000 years old is based on a misunderstanding of what the Torah actually says. There is, in reality, no conflict between the scientific age of the universe and Torah. In fact, Torah teaches us about relativity and the doppler effect through its language and account of creation.

By the way, the 5770 years is the count from the birth of Adam, not the creation of the universe.

Or that angels or demons or six-armed devas exist; that a great flood wiped out creation so a god could start over without the dinosaurs; that a man might live to be 135, enlightened beings can levitate, etc etc etc




AMC

AMCrenshaw said:

Or that angels or demons or six-armed devas exist; that a great flood wiped out creation so a god could start over without the dinosaurs; that a man might live to be 135, enlightened beings can levitate, etc etc etc




AMC

Click to expand...

Exactly. The flood is one of the most misunderstood parts of the Bible. As far as the ages go, it depends on who (whom?) you're talking about. Even science says today that a person should be able to live until 120 (hmm, sound familiar?) if not for the things present today.

Angels and demons do exist though.

AMCrenshaw said:

Or that angels or demons or six-armed devas exist; that a great flood wiped out creation so a god could start over without the dinosaurs; that a man might live to be 135, enlightened beings can levitate, etc etc etc




AMC

Click to expand...

I think various religions have traditionally collided with each other much more than they have with science. Since science is far from monolithic and isn't really built to collide with massive socio-ideological things...it is kind of hard for science (or any particular area of active research) to collide with things. I think people find this lack of collision a bit disturbing, but, you know, unless you are trying to say figure out how to understand bacterial genomes under the ocean deal with methane and you can't get funding because some other research group is already doing that...you aren't really going to collide with scientists who are busy working on something. Basically you have to be doing some kind of research somewhere near the cutting edge to actually collide with some subset of science.

I think that it's just a different type of collision. There hasn't been the bloodshed over whether or not G-d created the universe in 6 days or 16 billion years that their has been over the acceptance of jeebus, but there is still a problem between science and religion. There are fundamental differences in opinion regarding a number of subjects, and there is often not a clear cut answer. While no one is really dying because of this, it is causing some people to be affected quite powerfully on certain levels.