About science and religion - again!

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Adam

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Registered Senior Member
I've been reading a LOT of stuff around here about religious people saying "science can't give you truth", and many people seem to have the idea that science and religion are on opposite teams in the universal football match of the spirit or something.

This is simply not the case. Science has never been about providing spiritual or moral truth. It's just about figuring out the nature of the universe, learning how to do things, trying to make our material world better, et cetera. Through observation, experimentation, logic, and so on.

Not a single one of my lecturers has ever said "Follow this method and you'll be a better person".

Again, science IS NOT about morals and spiritual truth and finding meaning for your life. It is beyond a joke when religious people say it is but seems a failure in that regard.

People of any religion or no religion are capable of science. The RC Pope even digs evolution theory. The two were never opposing forces. Unfortunately, many people over the ages have tried to make it so and have caused great harm in the process.

That all said... As someone who tries to base his own morals and ethics and such around reason and logic, I find most religions I have studied quite lacking. Their holy books often involve murder, rape, mayhem of all sorts. Their rules often make little sense (although some have a few damn good ideas). As homo sapiens, it is our nature to think, the question, to find our own path. It is against our nature to simply accept something without reason, when reason is such a part of us.

So, science is not about finding our spiritual path, or whatever you want to call it. It is merely something we humans do to learn. However, like tools/technology, learning is our claw, our natural edge. We humans reason. Science is a part of that, and I can't see how any could rationally deny it. As for the spiritual stuff, well, that too must come from our reason and intellect, even if it is of a slightly different flavour than science.
 
The fact is, you're going to die.

How are you going to get around that?
 
I'm not going to get around it. People die. I'm a person. I'll die. The end.
 
The point of science?
To make a name for yourself so someone remebers you after you're dead. :)

I hear a lot about religion (mainly Christianity in this forum) "involving" or some other similar word murder, rape, etc. I think it is of paramount importance that religion addresses the wrongs in the world--from what people do to each other to what nature (disease and natural disaster) does. So of course religion is going to involve wrongs, and there is going to involve a punishment to those who do wrongs and blessing to those who are wronged to make fair what is an unfair world. The afterlife becomes the only means to make things fair. The only other choice is to deny that this is an unfair world and that "everything works for the greater good in the end". Such things are unreasonable to believe. As far as the Israelites killing off the Caananites (which is at the center of most of this), God promised to the people living in the region (shortly after Noah) that if someone murdered another, he would be killed "by man". Well, the Canaanites started child sacrifice as part of their religion, so He used the Israelis to keep His word. It becomes really difficult to figure out what is fair at that point. Would it have been more fair to let them continue to practice child sacrifice or allow such a religion to spread? Could God have done something different? Who knows? However, it is too murky of an issue to be able to assign the blame solely to God for His actions.
 
*Originally posted by dan1123
The point of science?
To make a name for yourself so someone remebers you after you're dead.*

Based on the principle that even bad publicity is good publicity?

*I think it is of paramount importance that religion addresses the wrongs in the world--from what people do to each other to what nature (disease and natural disaster) does.*

Religion does address this.
However, Christianity does it one way, the way that works, and all other religions do it in the ways that don't work.

*So of course religion is going to involve wrongs, and there is going to involve a punishment to those who do wrongs and blessing to those who are wronged to make fair what is an unfair world.*

You wouldn't happen to be Catholic, by any chance, now would you?
Blessings accrue to those who believe God, not to those who are wronged.

*The afterlife becomes the only means to make things fair. The only other choice is to deny that this is an unfair world and that "everything works for the greater good in the end".*

Everything DOES work for good for those who love God, and this world IS eminently fair.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
(Romans 8:28, KJV).

The world is fair because those who choose life get it, and those who choose death get that.
What is more fair?
 
Originally posted by tony1
Then what's the point of science?
Click to expand...

Do I need a reason to want to learn? Do I need promise of reward? That seems very shallow and greedy to me. Science is learning. Ever hear the phrase "Honour is virtue's reward"? I don't need happily ever after in some mythical paradise. I do what I do because I want to do it. I need no external source of encouragement or discouragement to guide my actions. My will is my guide and my memory is my reward. When I am dead and gone, hopefully I will have left something beneficial for my descendents (oops).
 
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Science is as much about learning as it is about trying to make our short lives as healthy and fulfilling as possible. Wouldn't you want your children to be free of cancer? Science is also about curiosity. We as humans are a curious species, we are constantly asking why, how and so on, and science gives us a way to find out. Some people are satisfied with an answer of "that's how God wanted it, so that's how it is", I for one am not.

Everyone wants to do something worthwhile and important with their lives, some choose to follow a religion, others choose to become doctors or firefighters or whatever. Still others choose to become scientists, in hopes they will discover something that will improve the future of humanity just that much more. True, some science has had a negative impact on humanity, but for the most part it has improved our lives immensely.

So before you ask what the point of science is, think about what you're using to type back your response, look outside and think about all the things science has provided to make our lives better. If you are so much against science, you should go live small wooden house without heat, light, electricity or any other type of technology. Otherwise, you are nothing more than a hippocrite.
 
Adam,

***As homo sapiens, it is our nature to think, [to] question, to find our own path. It is against our nature to simply accept something without reason, when reason is such a part of us.***

Agreed. Most of us, I think, use our intellect along the path to something we might think of as truth or happiness. Most of us, I think, have a desire to know the cause of what we see and, ultimately, the cause of everything. If the intellect is not extended so far as to arrive at the first cause, that which I call God*, then I reason that the intellect has probably not operated at its highest function. As such, the intellect which does not arrive at the first cause, that which I call God*, approaches what is thought of as truth or happiness but its truth or happiness would actually consist of something lesser.
 
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