Should science replace religion?

[wegs]

Yes, that would be key to understanding faith and it's alleged values. That's why science avoids the subjective, so that claims of value are substantiated rather than falsely asserted.

But, I honestly don't think that many religious people feel they are trying to fool people, by making false claims. Of course, some religions ''require'' evangelizing others, which perhaps can be quite annoying, because it can come across as intrusive. But, there are religious people who believe that the Bible is objectively true, because they were taught that, perhaps in childhood. I don't disagree with your point about indoctrination, it can be quite powerful.

 

[Goldtop]

Almost none of them are hypocrites.

It would be greatly appreciated if at least one of them could sign up here and explain their lack of hypocrisy.

Even people indoctrinated into science at an early age?

Sorry, what does that mean? How does one go about getting indoctrinated into a process?

 

[exchemist]

Okay, why?

You have no idea whatever how assiduously or otherwise religiously inclined scientists read the bible. From my own experience, they have often read it with some care, read around the subject and thought quite hard about what they think it really means.

 

[Goldtop]

But, there are religious people who believe that the Bible is objectively true, because they were taught that, perhaps in childhood. I don't disagree with your point about indoctrination, it can be quite powerful.

Exactly, and I would be one of the first to stand with those who make chooses without the use of indoctrination.

 

[Goldtop]

From my own experience, they have often read it with some care, read around the subject and thought quite hard about what they think it really means.

Fair enough. I would ask then, do those folks you refer consider science a gift from God? Or, do they understand it's all based on the hard work of individuals and not something handed to us on a silver platter?

 

[billvon]

Because it's a dictatorship under Communism. The situation of North Korea did not come about as a result of non-religious beliefs.

Ah! So there is more than one factor involved! We should remember that in these discussions.

Except when it comes to evolution, abiogenesis and birth control, which has provided religious people with plenty of conflict.

Some religious people. Not most. Most religious people have no problem considering the issues of evolution, abiogenesis and birth control.

Example - Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome project. He's spent his life researching genomes and how they evolve. He's also an evangelical Christian. he doesn't see a conflict between his belief and his work. In his wordsL

"I don’t believe there is an inherent conflict, but I believe that humans, in our imperfect nature, sometimes imagine conflicts where there are none. We see something that threatens our own personal view, and we figure that there must be some reason why that alternative view has to be wrong, or even why it has to be evil . . . Evolution has been very much on the scene for 150 years, and the science that supports Darwin’s theory has gotten stronger and stronger over those decades. That evidence is particularly strong today given the ability to study DNA and to see the way in which it undergirds Darwin’s theory in a marvelously digital fashion. "

Of course, those religious people who believe science is a gift from God have obviously never read the Bible.

Or they have read it and understand it better than you do.

 

[wegs]

Fair enough. I would ask then, do those folks you refer consider science a gift from God? Or, do they understand it's all based on the hard work of individuals and not something handed to us on a silver platter?

In regards to my comment above, the ''gift'' is simply that science is revealed to us; that God created it. This doesn't mean hard work and tenacity wouldn't be involved, or human strength and intelligence, it just means that a ''creator'' is responsible for science existing in the first place. In other words, many religious people feel that scientists have been gifted to discover the truths of the universe, that were created by God. I can identify with that idea, and this is why science doesn't conflict with my own faith beliefs.

 

[billvon]

It would be greatly appreciated if at least one of them could sign up here and explain their lack of hypocrisy.

OK. I believe in God and I don't feel like I am a hypocrite. However, I would not encourage other people who I have talked to to post here; there's a fair amount of abuse that is directed at religious types here.

Sorry, what does that mean? How does one go about getting indoctrinated into a process?

Are you asking how indoctrination works? I can refer you to the Wikipedia article:

===============
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies (see doctrine).Humans are a social animal inescapably shaped by cultural context, and thus some degree of indoctrination is implicit in the parent–child relationship, and has an essential function in forming stable communities of shared values.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination

 

[exchemist]

Fair enough. I would ask then, do those folks you refer consider science a gift from God? Or, do they understand it's all based on the hard work of individuals and not something handed to us on a silver platter?

Yes I think so, just as music would be, for example.

Religiously inclined people are often willing to see manifestations of human ingenuity and intelligence as God-given "gifts". It's the way they view the world and does not detract from the effort of the individuals that use human ingenuity and intelligence to build these intellectual edifices. It goes back to things like the parable of the talents - if you know your bible.

 

[wegs]

OK. I believe in God and I don't feel like I am a hypocrite. However, I would not encourage other people who I have talked to to post here; there's a fair amount of abuse that is directed at religious types here.

I didn't realize you have a belief in God and yea, I don't feel hypocritical, either. You are a great example of someone who can maintain the integrity of science, without it compromising their beliefs.

 

[Goldtop]

the ''gift'' is simply that science is revealed to us; that God created it

Okay, could you please post the relative Scriptures showing how God revealed science to humans?

a ''creator'' is responsible for science existing in the first place

Of course, if a creator created the universe, that creator would be responsible for creating the environment in which science might be discovered, but there is nothing showing such a creator revealed science to anyone.

many religious people feel that scientists have been gifted to discover the truths of the universe

If that were true, why didn't Moses come up with Relativity or Quantum Field Mechanics? Why didn't Jesus come up with Germ Theory of Disease?

 

[Goldtop]

Yes I think so, just as music would be, for example.

Being a paid musician, I would argue there are a great many folks who couldn't carry a tune if their life depended on it, and some of those are folks who show up for auditions.

Religiously inclined people are often willing to see manifestations of human ingenuity and intelligence as God-given "gifts".

Very true. The problem is I've never heard a single person ever follow through the logic of getting from Point A (manifestations of human ingenuity and intelligence) to Point Z (God-given "gifts"). And, I would wager the very scientists you refer couldn't do it either. But, I'd still like to hear them try, notwithstanding.

 

[Goldtop]

I believe in God and I don't feel like I am a hypocrite.

It's not really hypocrisy believing in a god, it's hypocrisy trying to rationalize or incorporate it with real life situations, like science, especially considering it's track record these past many centuries.

Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person

The key word in that explanation is "inculcating", and if we read further into that wiki article, we find this essential gem of information:

Some distinguish indoctrination from education on the basis that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.

 

[billvon]

It's not really hypocrisy believing in a god, it's hypocrisy trying to rationalize or incorporate it with real life situations, like science, especially considering it's track record these past many centuries.

Uh - OK. Do you believe in God?

Some distinguish indoctrination from education on the basis that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.

Exactly.

This forum is full of people "questioning and critically examining" things like Lorentzian contraction, Maxwell's laws, the laws of thermodynamics and even the theory of gravitation. Is that what we hope for kids in school? Or should we hope that they learn basic science before they question and discard it?

 

[sideshowbob]

This forum is full of people "questioning and critically examining" things like Lorentzian contraction, Maxwell's laws, the laws of thermodynamics and even the theory of gravitation. Is that what we hope for kids in school? Or should we hope that they learn basic science before they question and discard it?

As I (try to) tell people: Before you can think outside the box, you have to understand the box.

 

[Yazata]

If we had enough time, the right technology, a surplus of geniuses, and we could answer all of the currently unanswered questions about our universe - would that be enough?

It looks like an extremely hypothetical question, since I question whether human beings will ever run out of questions, or ever be in a position to answer all of the ones we do raise.

Every preschooler intuitively knows this. Just ask "why?" about anything. The parent (or later the professor) provides an answer. Ask "why?" about the answer. If you repeat this a surprisingly small number of times, you will arrive at the frontiers of human knowledge. It's as true of science as of anything else. Every bit of knowledge that we think we have is built atop exceedingly shaky foundations, liable to wash away upon any kind of deeper scrutiny.

I ask that because a friend of mine answered ''yes,'' to this question. He is an atheist, and continued by saying ''we need science

OK, why do we need science? To support engineering and medicine? Why do we need engineering and medicine? To live more comfortable lives? Why do we need to live more comfortable lives? Are engineering and medicine enough to provide us with the kind of comfort that we seek?

we don't need religion.

Do we need beauty? Do we need happiness? What do we really need?

We don't need gods.''

One of the things that annoys me about atheists is how many of them are really crypto-Christians. They were Christians and remain Christians, except now their faith has been ripped out (leaving a bloody hole in their chests). For most atheists, religion = faith in God (and faith in God = Bible). That just ignores non-theistic forms of religiosity and that's why I mentioned Buddhism in my earlier post. (Even you tried to rope me back to talking about the Bible.) Atheists don't know what to make of Buddhism and many of their atheist arguments seem to turn to dust before it.

We went back and forth for a bit, and I said that science has limits. Even from a secular viewpoint, science can't provide you with a moral compass, or instruct you how to use scientific facts or knowledge. He responded that science is the purest morality that one can have. Scientists have to be objective, transparent and honest with their findings, otherwise it would fail to be science_it would just be opinion.

Science is the purest morality.

That's a pretty idealized view of science. I agree that ideally, science is about truth, and truth is a very pure, if exceedingly austere, value.

But in real life, science doesn't always serve truth. Scientists are often struggling for full-time academic employment, trying to win tenure, competing for grant funding, and trying to make a name for themselves through the success of their pet hypotheses. Science is distorted by everything from rampant careerism through the need to please funding-sources to the excessive politicization of scientific rhetoric that we see today.

And that's led in part to the replication crisis in which some large percentage of published scientific results can't be replicated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

I asked him where does science come from, though? He insists that science simply is.

From the perspective of the history of science, that's pretty simplistic. Scientific concepts and methods have histories that can be traced back in time. Scholars can study how they evolved over time and what influenced them to become what they are today.

And there's the problem of justifying science's many assumptions.

For example, what are logic and mathematics, really? How do human beings come to know about them? Why do they seem so objective? Why do we assume that nature is somehow obligated to behave in accordance with them?

What does experimentally confirming a hypothesis really tell us? How can a small number (or any finite number) of confirming instances ever justify our belief in the truth of a general physical law? So what underlies our faith in all those squiggles on science classroom chalkboards?

And on and on... that's the province of the philosophy of science.

Admittedly many scientists ignore all that. Sometimes they can be very scathing about dismissing it. They just do what they were taught in university to do, without thinking overlong about why they are doing it or where the ideas and methods that they were taught originally came from.

I'm paraphrasing, but this is the gist of what he said to me, recently.

''Your problem is that you feel the universe should take care of you. So you search for answers about that. Science gives you answers, but that's not enough. You don't like that science tells you a story, you need a mystical story.''

What's the distinction between a scientific story and a mystical story? My suspicion is that they are more similar than we would like to think.

For the record, I replied to him that I don't ''need'' a mystical story. Or do I. Or do I just find comfort in believing that there is something grander happening here, and I'll never know everything. For me, science can coexist with faith/religion/spiritual belief systems. It doesn't have to be either/or. But, for him, it does.

Has he ever read that old-style science-fiction that imagined some unimaginable destiny for humanity out there among the stars? The wisdom of far older races? The secret of the universe revealed, evolution/ascension to some higher state of being, or whatever it is? Those are obviously religious themes, translated into a sorta-"scientific" idiom.

If you get the chance, read Arthur Clarke's The City and the Stars which examines precisely the issues you are talking about in this thread. The best science-fiction novel that I've ever read. (It's religious science fiction, but from an unexpected Buddhist perspective.) I think that it's currently out of print, which is very sad.

Is there really some point, some goal, to knowing more and more and more? To piling facts upon facts? Imagine a database that includes the geography, geology and geochemistry of a billion exoplanets. We can keep adding new ones, it will never end. Will that make us better off? Will adding the one-billionth-and-one to the list really provide us with anything of value?

Scientism seems to hope to avoid that difficulty by imagining probing deeper and deeper into the foundations, discovering the most fundamental principles, the origin and source of reality itself, and reality's larger context (if there is one). With the idea just tossed in that the secrets will be fulfilling and transformative. That's obviously religious metaphysics and it's not all that different from whatever it is that natural theology is seeking.

For some here, I wonder if you are like my friend?

I am, sort of. But as I just suggested, not entirely. I don't imagine "religion" on the model of Christianity. (I've never been a Christian and am most attracted to a modernist sort of Theravada Buddhism.) I'm greatly interested in the philosophy of science, the discipline that asks all those annoying "why?" questions about the historical institution of 'science'. I'm fundamentally a skeptic (but nothing like the debunkers who like to style themselves "skeptics" without ever examining their presuppositions of their own faith).

If you feel that life has enough mystery without concocting legends, myths and religions to spice it up.

Philosophy supplies all the mystery that I need. (That "why?" thing...) I feel that I'm surrounded by mystery at every moment.

He'd be thrilled if religion died out, and suddenly, everyone woke up with a firm grasp on physical reality _ and only cared about that.

Wouldn't that require throwing out logic and mathematics, and the baby along with the bath-water?

I don't know... even when human beings know everything that can be known by human beings... will they be happy? Will they have found whatever it is that they are seeking? Will their lives be beautiful?

 

[billvon]

As I (try to) tell people: Before you can think outside the box, you have to understand the box.

Agreed.

I find that on forums such as this, basic learning, when it's on a well-liked topic, is referred to as "education" or "learning." When it's on a disliked topic, it's "indoctrination" or "shoving it down my throat."

 

[Goldtop]

Ah! So there is more than one factor involved!

There are many factors involved with incorporating Communism into a country. Replacing God is just one of them, but it has little if any effect over the economic situation of a country. Having all of your property, possessions and freedoms taken away from you has far more negative affects than trying to remove ones God.

Most religious people have no problem considering the issues of evolution, abiogenesis and birth control.

Depends of which country you refer. Even the US has millions of people who stand with Creationism.

Example - Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome project. He's spent his life researching genomes and how they evolve. He's also an evangelical Christian. he doesn't see a conflict between his belief and his work.

Ah yes, Collins, the poster boy of theists. Collins also said this about his work in the NIH:

"I have made it clear that I have no religious agenda for the N.I.H., and I think the vast majority of scientists have been reassured by that and have moved on."

That shows Collins knows only too well science and religion don't mix. At the very least, he's honest about it.

Or they have read it and understand it better than you do.

Maybe, but perhaps those who claim to better understand it could provide verses from Scriptures to actually support their claims. I'll continue waiting for that one.

 

[Jeeves]

There is much strife and dysfunction in North Korea, for example. I wouldn't classify Buddhism and Confucianism as religions, per se. But, Christianity is a minority. So, this is one example of how a country that is mainly non-religious, is still filled with poverty, strife and tyranny.

How do you put these disparate factors together to make political/economic situations about science vs religion?

Even people indoctrinated into science at an early age? They should reject the dogma that is forced upon them by their teachers?

Teachers don't enter the picture until age five or six, by when parents and grandparents have had absolute control of the child for its most impressionable years; formal science and - whatever you mean by its "dogma" (What, like "Observe, measure, compare, test, conclude, peer-review, revise"?) - isn't taught until about age nine - all during which time, the child goes home to and depends on its parents.

And of course science gave us eugenics and the Holocaust.

Eh? Was it nonoscientific people being exterminated by scientific people? I never heard this version.

 

[billvon]

There are many factors involved with incorporating Communism into a country.

Exactly. And many factors other than religion determine how peaceful a country is, what emphasis it places on science, how much conflict there is within the society etc. Thus, if religion didn't exist, we would still have war, strife, and there would still be plenty of ignorance to go around.

Ah yes, Collins, the poster boy of theists. Collins also said this about his work in the NIH:
"I have made it clear that I have no religious agenda for the N.I.H., and I think the vast majority of scientists have been reassured by that and have moved on."
That shows Collins knows only too well science and religion don't mix.

Not quite. It's not like oil and water don't mix. It's like oil and communism aren't in conflict with each other, because they're not even the same kinds of things.

Maybe, but perhaps those who claim to better understand it could provide verses from Scriptures to actually support their claims. I'll continue waiting for that one.

I have the feeling that, absent such an understanding of the Bible, you may be creating positions in your imagination to argue against.