Should science replace religion?

I wouldn’t consider people’s spiritual beliefs to be based on “superstition.” Possibly for some, that may be true. But faith for many, doesn’t stem from fear of something bad happening while superstition generally does. Faith often requires you to give up control (let go, let God type of ideology) while superstition tries to keep you in control.
 
wegs said:
I wouldn’t consider people’s spiritual beliefs to be based on “superstition.” Possibly for some, that may be true. But faith for many, doesn’t stem from fear of something bad happening while superstition generally does. Faith often requires you to give up control (let go, let God type of ideology) while superstition tries to keep you in control.
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I agree. But that's the difference between spiritual beliefs and most religions. Most religions (with a few exceptions) have a deity that's supernatural, and generally require you to believe in the supernatural powers of that deity. That carries over into their beliefs. Many people, for example, hold the superstitious belief that if you pray for something you are more likely to get it due to divine intervention.

That's different from someone's spiritual outlook on life; you can have one and not the other.
 
billvon said:
I agree. But that's the difference between spiritual beliefs and most religions. Most religions (with a few exceptions) have a deity that's supernatural, and generally require you to believe in the supernatural powers of that deity. That carries over into their beliefs. Many people, for example, hold the superstitious belief that if you pray for something you are more likely to get it due to divine intervention.

That's different from someone's spiritual outlook on life; you can have one and not the other.
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I think that's a common fallacy about prayer life. Sure, for many, prayers are little more than a wish list, and the idea that if you wish long enough, God will grant you the wish. But, I've come to see prayer as a way to meditate on my beliefs, and to ask God for strength, etc. Not necessarily asking him for ''things,'' and wish granting.

I think it's impolite for lack of a better word, to assume that one knows why people believe what they believe, simply because one doesn't share those beliefs. It's just as impolite for a believer to force their own beliefs onto others.
 
billvon said:
Belief in the supernatural. Gods, angels, ghosts, demons, devils, curses etc.
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Ok, so why do you exclude "facts" from the "etc." ?
Do you have any rational reason for that ?
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye ?

billvon said:
Then you don't understand science.
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I understand science very clearly.

billvon said:
Religion asks "what do you believe?"
Science asks "what can you prove?"
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Religion dont asks, it makes affirmations without the need of presenting any "scientific proof".
Or you would name religion "science".

Science on the other hand dont need any proof too.
How could anyone proove something ???? This is nonsens.
For doing this you would need supernatural abilities... ability that you could suppose God have.
This is some basic philosophical interrogation : You can not proof something using nothing, so you need to refer to something else... and proof the "something else" and so on...
A possibility to not have something not prooved in you rational chain is to do "a circle", so to use finaly the thing you wanted to proove first.
This is a circular thinking and this is how science work.

But by chance you dont need to know all that to pratice science.
The only thing we asks science is to be able to predict correctly.
The science duty is not to explain or such (this is philosophical, metaphysic or religion) but it is a usefull technik with a "scientific method".
All sciences objets that "exists" doesent realy exists, they are usefull objects invented for the purpose of usefull predictions.
The real existence is related to the "being" a philosophical, metaphysical or religious concept (to be or not to be) but science dont care about this sort of objects (conceptual facts), it cares about scientific facts (invented facts).

If you think scientific facts are real, so you are super stitious, you go too far above the object you are dealing with.
 
wegs said:
I think that's a common fallacy about prayer life. Sure, for many, prayers are little more than a wish list, and the idea that if you wish long enough, God will grant you the wish.
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Agreed. That is superstition expressed in prayer.
But, I've come to see prayer as a way to meditate on my beliefs, and to ask God for strength, etc. Not necessarily asking him for ''things,'' and wish granting.
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Also agreed. That's meditation through prayer.

I think it's impolite for lack of a better word, to assume that one knows why people believe what they believe
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Right. I don't assume that. Some people believe in the superstitions inherent in most religions; some do not. Up to them.
 
wegs said:
I think that's a common fallacy about prayer life. Sure, for many, prayers are little more than a wish list, and the idea that if you wish long enough, God will grant you the wish. But, I've come to see prayer as a way to meditate on my beliefs, and to ask God for strength, etc. Not necessarily asking him for ''things,'' and wish granting.
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I agree.
You dont even need the use of any cult.
The use of the cult is to remember, today we have books.
If you go further, using cultist objects, places like churches, statues, etc, you have a superstitious behaviour.
Same with praying, there is no "technik", everybody can do as he like (myself i am almost permanently "connected" to my Creator).
 
billvon said:
Agreed. That is superstition expressed in prayer.

Also agreed. That's meditation through prayer.


Right. I don't assume that. Some people believe in the superstitions inherent in most religions; some do not. Up to them.
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Just to be clear, I didn't mean to infer that you're being impolite. It was a general statement.

Upon abandoning Catholicism, there are a lot of traditions and rituals in that religion that border superstition, imo. In my experience, it seemed like the emphasis was on the RCC itself, and not on God. God was this faraway judgey entity that one could only ''access'' through the RCC. I don't really ''belong'' to any particular denomination or church now, and just follow Jesus' teachings.
 
billvon said:
Your words - "science invent facts." From those three words, it is clear you do not understand science.
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You dont really try to understand what i write, do you ?
Did you at least read the wikipedia facts about facts ? (no joking)
 
Dicart said:
I agree.
You dont even need the use of any cult.
The use of the cult is to remember, today we have books.
If you go further, using cultist objects, places like churches, statues, etc, you have a superstitious behaviour.
Same with praying, there is no "technik", everybody can do as he like (myself i am almost permanently "connected" to my Creator).
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Interesting. Did you ever follow an ''organized'' religion prior to coming to this position?
 
Dicart said:
You dont really try to understand what i write, do you ?
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Yes, I did - and they reinforce what I said. For example, you claim that "How could anyone proove something ???? This is nonsens." So you don't even understand the concept of a proof.
 
wegs said:
Just to be clear, I didn't mean to infer that you're being impolite. It was a general statement.

Upon abandoning Catholicism, there are a lot of traditions and rituals in that religion that border superstition, imo. In my experience, it seemed like the emphasis was on the RCC itself, and not on God. God was this faraway judgey entity that one could only ''access'' through the RCC. I don't really ''belong'' to any particular denomination or church now, and just follow Jesus' teachings.
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"Imply" not "infer":) I'm just being difficult...:)
 
wegs said:
Interesting. Did you ever follow an ''organized'' religion prior to coming to this position?
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It happened that i was there, but only as an observer or to debate about religion.
Because of my need of independance, i dont want anybody to tell me how i should deal with my Creator.
And i dont want to lie, so i can not do as if i would agree what the priests (or church) attend from me and be part of the group (thats what "the cult" is sometime used for too, to be part of a group, but this is not the primary purpose of the cult) .
 
billvon said:
Yes, I did - and they reinforce what I said. For example, you claim that "How could anyone proove something ???? This is nonsens." So you don't even understand the concept of a proof.
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Ok then, it looks like you try to understand.
I dont joke, the concept of proof in science is really a circular concept, but it is not a problem, it has the advantage to deal exactly with the objects we want to use (because it is simple to deal with etc).

Wikipedia said:
The problem of induction
Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that "using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning".

Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. However, per David Hume's problem of induction, science cannot be proven inductively by empirical evidence, and thus science cannot be proven scientifically.

An appeal to a principle of the uniformity of nature would be required to deductively necessitate the continued accuracy of predictions based on laws that have only succeeded in generalizing past observations.

But as Bertrand Russell observed, "The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil".[6]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning
 
Some other lecture about proof in science :
The Conversation said:
UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH: What do we actually mean by research and how does it help inform our understanding of things? Those people looking for proof to come from any research in science will be sadly disappointed.

As an astrophysicist, I live and breathe science. Much of what I read and hear is couched in the language of science which to outsiders can seem little more than jargon and gibberish. But one word is rarely spoken or printed in science and that word is “proof”. In fact, science has little to do with “proving” anything.

...

So, science is like an ongoing courtroom drama, with a continual stream of evidence being presented to the jury. But there is no single suspect and new suspects regularly wheeled in. In light of the growing evidence, the jury is constantly updating its view of who is responsible for the data.

But no verdict of absolute guilt or innocence is ever returned, as evidence is continually gathered and more suspects are paraded in front of the court. All the jury can do is decide that one suspect is more guilty than another.

What has science proved?
In the mathematical sense, despite all the years of researching the way the universe works, science has proved nothing.

Every theoretical model is a good description of the universe around us, at least within some range of scales that it is usefull.
But exploring into new territories reveals deficiencies that lower our belief in whether a particular description continues to accurately represent our experiments, while our belief in alternatives can grown.

Will we ultimately know the truth and hold the laws that truly govern the workings of the cosmos within our hands?

While our degree of belief in some mathematical models may get stronger and stronger, without an infinite amount of testing, how can we ever be sure they are reality?

I think it is best to leave the last word to one of the greatest physicists, Richard Feynman, on what being a scientist is all about:
I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything.
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https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-proof-in-science-there-is-none-30570
 
Someone should start a new thread:

“How does evidence and proof differ?”
 
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