Should religion and science be regarded as NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria)?

[wynn]

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in a God for whom there is no reliable evidence?

In the same manner, one can also ask:

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in democracy for which there is no reliable evidence?

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in free will for which there is no reliable evidence?

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in equality of all humans for which there is no reliable evidence?

 

[James R]

wynn:

Your comparison doesn't address the question you quoted.

There's lots of evidence for democracy. For example, I vote.

Free will is a trickier problem. You might need to start by defining what you mean by "free". Similarly for the idea of "equality". What kind of equality?

But all this is by the by. Would you like to attempt to answer the question you quoted? You, after all, presumably believe in God for whom there is no reliable evidence, don't you? Or am I mistaken?

 

[kx000]

In the same manner, one can also ask:

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in democracy for which there is no reliable evidence?

Democracy is fair vote. Its unfair to believe in people to vote fairly at a 100% clip.

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in free will for which there is no reliable evidence?

Lets all be mindless zombies?

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in equality of all humans for which there is no reliable evidence?

Where all given equal opportunity, thats all I'll say about that.

 

[wynn]

Your comparison doesn't address the question you quoted.

There's lots of evidence for democracy. For example, I vote.

And? Does that mean that democarcy is a good thing? That we should strive for it?
Is the voice of the statistical majority of voters really the best way to make decisions about important issues?

Free will is a trickier problem. You might need to start by defining what you mean by "free". Similarly for the idea of "equality". What kind of equality?

Doesn't matter. People widely believe in human equality and free will, and much legislation is based on taking for granted that they exist - even though there is so much dispute over whether human equality and free will exist, or what exactly the terms mean to begin with.

But all this is by the by. Would you like to attempt to answer the question you quoted? You, after all, presumably believe in God for whom there is no reliable evidence, don't you? Or am I mistaken?

You are mistaken.

People believe all the time in things for which there is "no reliable evidence."

There is no reliable evidence that democracy, free will or equality exist, or that they would be good for us, but people believe in them anyway.

This is because belief in this or that is driven by a lot more than evidence. And the alternative to evidence is not "gut feeling."

Many things we believe mainly because it would be demoralizing to believe otherwise.

It's demoralizing to believe that democarcy isn't good; it's demoralizing to believe that people are fundamentally unequal; it's demoralizing to believe that we don't have free will; it's demoralizing to believe that world peace is not possible.

While people may differ in what in particular they find demoralizing, they all have in common the conviction that there are things that would be demoralizing to believe.

And this concern over demoralization isn't simply a matter of "seeking happiness over truth."

It's that our beliefs inform our actions, and are thus self-fulfilling determinations:
If we believe we don't have free will, we will act as if we don't have it - and we will feel helpless, we will deteriorate - it will seem to us that we don't have free will.
If we believe that world peace is not possible, we won't strive for it, and as a result, won't have it.
If we believe that democracy is no good, we won't strive for it, and we won't have it.
Etc.



This is not to say that if we believe in God, then God will exist.
But it does mean that if in advance we deny God's existence, we're not likely to ever find God because we won't even try.

 

[spidergoat]

The objects of science and religion are necessarily non-overlapping magisteria, even just by definition. The natural sciences cover tangibles, and religion is primarily concerned with explicit intangibles.

False.

 

[wellwisher]

Religion of often misrepresented, by atheism. as only being about the intangibles of faith. If you ever tested this hypothesis with a reality check, by simply reading the bible, there are also accurate geneologies in the bible, which tells the lines of descent from particular people (genetic lines). There is also wisdom, such as from Solomon, which have to do with human nature.

Because we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been

I wonder where he learned about chance?

There is also history about wars and conquests, etc. Much of this overlaps science in the sense of data collection.

Maybe the question should be reformulated to say; based on the propaganda that is taught about religion......

 

[spidergoat]

Religion can and does contain many objective facts as well as historical information with varying degrees of accuracy. This is something different than asserting the deity as an objective fact. To assert that something is outside of natural laws is a fallacy called special pleading.

 

[GeoffP]

Religion of often misrepresented, by atheism. as only being about the intangibles of faith. If you ever tested this hypothesis with a reality check, by simply reading the bible, there are also accurate geneologies in the bible, which tells the lines of descent from particular people (genetic lines). There is also wisdom, such as from Solomon, which have to do with human nature.

But is that religious? Is it a tenet of faith, or a fact of action? There's gravity in the Bible too, but it's only if there weren't that someone would say there was something miraculous about it.

 

[quadraphonics]

My wife and I go through elaborate, heartwarming family Christmas and Easter celebrations with scarcely a moment's thought to the origin of those now-secular festivals.

It bears noting here that those were both pagan/secular festivals long before Christianity showed up and tried to co-opt them. Apparently nobody noticed that they coincide closely with a solstice and an equinox?

 

[Syne]

False.

Why not make an argument rather than an unsupported assertion?

 

[spidergoat]

I did. To say that something is purely intangible is special pleading. Obviously religion is not just philosophy. It's not just an intellectual exercise, it actually makes predictions about the real world. Science also does not limit itself to the material. If one could show that there is a supernatural effect, then it would become a new field of science. Science is only naturalistic at present because nothing non-naturalistic has been shown to exist.

 

[quadraphonics]

I did. To say that something is purely intangible is special pleading. Obviously religion is not just philosophy. It's not just an intellectual exercise, it actually makes predictions about the real world.

Yeah, which is obviously why religions are always getting worked up over assertions made by scientists - when you spend hundreds of years telling people that you have a direct line to the almighty, and that the sun revolves around the Earth, people like Copernicus present you with a serious credibility problem.

It's frankly pretty weird to me that people still trot out this whole "oh, religion doesn't say anything about nature so there's no conflict" thing with a straight face. It's true, in principle, that you could come up with a religion that had that property, but none of the actual religions we actually have to deal with comes anywhere near that. Which is why they have these long, famous histories of politicized conflicts with scientists, which in turn is why we end up having threads like this in the first place.

Science also does not limit itself to the material. If one could show that there is a supernatural effect, then it would become a new field of science. Science is only naturalistic at present because nothing non-naturalistic has been shown to exist.

That's not really right. Natural science starts out with the philosophical position that everything in nature has some natural explanation which can be discerned through repeatable experiments.

 

[spidergoat]

But it would also welcome any phenomenon that contradicted naturalism because that would be revolutionary.

 

[kx000]

But it would also welcome any phenomenon that contradicted naturalism because that would be revolutionary.

Wouldn't anything that is, or comes into existence in the universe be considered natural?

 

[spidergoat]

For instance if magic words were found to be effective.

 

[Syne]

I did. To say that something is purely intangible is special pleading. Obviously religion is not just philosophy. It's not just an intellectual exercise, it actually makes predictions about the real world. Science also does not limit itself to the material. If one could show that there is a supernatural effect, then it would become a new field of science.

You seem to be assuming a specific subset of religions, even though the most generally shared focus among all religions is spirituality. Scriptures may make any of a number of claims, but scriptures are not generally shared among religions nor are scriptural interpretations agreed upon within any single religion. Spirituality is an entirely subjective subject.

Science most definitely is limited to the material, as this is its only means of obtaining data about an objective reality. If science could demonstrate a "supernatural effect" it would, by definition, not be supernatural, and definitely not some "new field of science".

Science is only naturalistic at present because nothing non-naturalistic has been shown to exist.

That statement is just ridiculous and logically contradictory. By what means could a naturalistic subject suddenly become non-naturalistic?


Seems the only special pleading here is asserting that science could somehow transcend its current objective and material methodology. You provide no argument as grounds for any such assumption. On the other hand, spirituality is well-known to be a subjective experience.

Just on the grounds of subjective vs objective, science and religion are non-overlapping domains.

 

[spidergoat]

Your special pleading is that the non-material exists. I gave the example of magic words working, if that were proven true, then it would still not be considered natural, as there is no known naturalistic effect that would translate wishes into material actions apart from the material brain.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

In the same manner, one can also ask: Why do you think its a good idea to believe in democracy for which there is no reliable evidence?

So far the evidence suggests that democracy is indeed a good idea. This is of course in the modern era, in which education is universal, since "an educated populace is the cornerstone of democracy." It would not likely have worked 400 years ago, but today the democracies are, on the average, doing better than other systems in aggregate measure (prosperity, core freedoms, etc.)

This is an experiment and we are gathering the evidence. No one is asking you to accept the superiority of democracy on faith.

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in free will for which there is no reliable evidence?

You just love to put words in people's mouths. That is one of the most reprehensible forms of intellectual dishonesty and I wish you could stifle yourself on that one. Let us speak for ourselves. The very philosophical issue of free will is inextricably tangled with the very scientific issue of determinism. If every submicroscopic detail of the universe for its entire existence was precisely determined at the moment of the Big Bang, then obviously there's no such thing as free will. If on the other hand there is true randomness at the level of quarks and leptons, then... well hell, I don't know exactly what to say about that since I'm not a cosmologist. But at least it allows for the possibility of free will. In any case nobody has the answer to the question of determinism, therefore nobody has the answer to the question of free will.

However, at the macro level at which we live and operate, free will is a useful concept for analyzing human behavior. So long as we recognize it as a model, rather than an actual property of the universe, there's probably nothing wrong with it.

So to believe in free will is to not be much of a scientist, IMHO. To hope for it is something else.

Why do you think its a good idea to believe in equality of all humans for which there is no reliable evidence?

We don't believe that all humans are equal. We believe that all humans should receive equal treatment because we don't, and can't, know the details of their inequality. Big difference. Once again you have put words in our mouths. Please cut that shit out!!! I think you could be better than this, without sacrificing your position, if you'd just try harder.

It bears noting here that those were both pagan/secular festivals long before Christianity showed up and tried to co-opt them. Apparently nobody noticed that they coincide closely with a solstice and an equinox?

In the United States we celebrate Christmas and Easter. Only the wiccans and a few other groups celebrate the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. We may call Christmas by its traditional Germanic name "Yule," but in America that's simply a synonym for Christmas. You'd have to interview a hundred Americans before you found one who knows what Jul was.

The average Christian hasn't read the Bible critically enough to realize that Jesus's birth could not possibly have been in December (tax collectors--government employees!--trudging around in the snow???), and therefore that its celebration was moved deliberately to co-opt the solstice festival.

On the other hand, for the Resurrection to occur in spring, Nature's time of rebirth, is merely a reinforcement of archetypes, which is the stuff (and nonsense) of all religions.

 

[Syne]

Your special pleading is that the non-material exists. I gave the example of magic words working, if that were proven true, then it would still not be considered natural, as there is no known naturalistic effect that would translate wishes into material actions apart from the material brain.

The subjective is non-material, and it does exist, else it wouldn't be experienced. There is no special pleading in this simple fact. It is on you to show how science can intrude upon the strictly subjective, in complete contradiction to its methodology. The subjective is definitively intangible, so no supernatural need be invoked to discuss the non-material.

 

[NMSquirrel]

hmm..interesting..

what little i have read in this thread..

it seems to me that the arguments presented are like science trying to hold religion to scientific standards and religion trying to hold science to religious standards..

it doesn't work..

is the OP question;
Can science and religion ever agree on anything?
Is science and religion incompatible?
Is science and religion completely separate things?

if so..the first i would have to answer eventually, the second, to a degree, the third, yes..

first thing one has to do with religion is sort through all the BS that accompanies religions desire to Control ppl..

alot of ppl here cite science as a reason to dismiss ALL teachings from religion..to me that doesn't seem very scientific..science is the process of scrutinizing every little particle, measuring ALL variables in an equation..
testing all claims..

there are parts of the bible that line up with this attitude..(test all things,hold on to what is good)
there are parts of the bible thick with metaphors that some anti-religious will argue against the literal meaning of the metaphors without actually seeking the intended meanings behind the metaphors.(of course for fairness some religious ppl take the bible too literally)
One thing that most non-religious persons (and some religious ppl)can agree on is that the bible can be interpreted in a number of ways,which means they dismiss it without any clear understanding as to the contents..

I am sure there are examples in science where an idea was dismissed because it was not understood clearly, only later to be accepted..
and here on sciforums the scrutiny of the bible is incomplete as quoting from the bible is frowned apon..(how is this science, if we cannot scrutinize that which they are arguing against)
its like saying prove to me that electricity exist, but you cannot use physics to prove it..

anyway..

personally i think that science and religion need one another..its like two sides of the same coin, one should not exist without the other, they are ying and yang..
science is like the male, religion like the female..one is not better than the other, just different enough to argue constantly..through this arguing can be had understanding AND wisdom.