BS: Science and Religion

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:54 PM

One of my less explicit points in this thread is that discarding religious phenomenology as merely "beliefs" is to ignore the range of experiences included among them, some of which are potentially of great human value. Categorical dismissal is arguably a disservice to the world of ideas. The problem, of course, is weeding out the kinds and degrees of such phenomena.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:16 PM

The remark about preferring to err with Galen than to "believe with Harvey" is attributed by Amita Lal Sircar, writing in the Calcutta Journal of Medicine in 1908, to one Riolan, a follower of Hippocrates and Trousseau. Presumably this is Jean Riolan II (1580-1657), a Court Official to the French Queen Mother and physician to Henry IV and Louis XIII.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:15 PM

I think it was Russell who described "The eternal tragedy of science--the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact"
Religion, essentially, is a belief system. Science, essentially, is a technique for learning. Peaches and Pomegranates.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:03 PM

WHen William Harvey took to dissecting circulation systems and lectured to the London Academy that the system was pump, valve and tube in nature, he was flying in the face of accepted wisdom --decreed many centuries before by the Greek Galen -- that circulation occurred in tides which were flavored by humors. Harvey caused a huge controversy and one old stalwart of the academy (possibly Theodore Baronius) is reported to have exclaimed "I would rather err with Galen than be right with Harvey!".

I don't know if this story is apocryphal or true, but it loudly illustrates the point about new paradigms looming up in the face of entrenched ones. Truth is much harder to swallow when it requires you to give up what you already believe.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:03 PM

Yup. ;-) It is.

You should see how short-tempered the dachshund gets over differences in doctrine.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 01:52 PM

"...and if you don't lose your temper or your sense of humor about it while you talk.

I've heard that's true....

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 01:22 PM

"srguing"??? Well, I meant to type "arguing".

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 01:18 PM

Excellent point, Bill. Yes, even some of those in the science community will sometimes cling to their own pet theory in the face of evidence which strongly (even conclusively) suggest they are mistaken...and they will go on clinging to it one way or another...because they will put a different interpretation on the evidence.

Why do they do this? Well, for the same reason that people cling to their own viewpoint in any theatre of human thought: they have grown emotionally attached to their own viewpoint, that's why. ;-) To ever change it would be to admit they had been WRONG! (gasp!) This they will not do.

One finds this attitude even more, needless to say, among religious fundamentalists of all kinds since they are free of having to deal with any actual evidence of a verifiable sort. Their "evidence" is normally the text of some ancient books or the past traditions they are attached to. That's not really evidence for much of anything at all (though it is interesting in its own right)...but it does carry a powerful emotional charge for those who are attached to it, that's for sure.

And it's the degree of emotional charge that determines how tenaciously the person will cling to his favorite viewpoint, in my opinion.

Then too, it also depends on how insecure he is. If he (or she) is quite insecure, then all the more tenaciously will he or she defend a favorite viewpoint and refuse to alter it no matter what. He may also presently stoop to the pointless tactic of personally insulting and attacking those who have another viewpoint. At the deepest emotional level of insecurity, he may even begin to want to humiliate or destroy them in order to hammer home the fact that he is RIGHT and they are WRONG!

That is the unpleasant engine driving the most contentious threads on this forum and it will drive them to literally thousands of posts... ;-)

Anyway, it can be fun if you like to talk, and most of us do...and if you don't lose your temper or your sense of humor about it while you talk.

Everyone would do well to ask themselves now and then: Am I talking here in order to communicate with others? Or am I merely srguing in order to conquer and win? And which would yield a better result? And why?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 12:37 PM

Many of the scientific advances in the last 1000 years were "counter-intuitive" in their day. ;>))

And even when some 'scientists' are SHOWN results that differ from their pet theories, they resist change. Fred Hoyle never did give up on the "steady state universe".

It's .....ummm.... not surprising that those who espouse certain theories outside the realm of most modern physics can hold on to THEIR pet ideas with less fear of being 'formally' shot down.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 12:11 PM

"pre-biotic life" should read "pre-biotic chemistry", since pre-biotic life is a self-contradiction. That's life for ya!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 11:48 AM

Not to put to harsh a slant on it, it must be acknowledged that life shows highly ordered, anti-entropic structure, while matter that is not involved with life, shows a fondness for entropic decomposition. I fully appreciate the temptation to view this as an indication that there is an additional life-force element (call it God, call it elan vital, call it phlogiston) but this is a temptation, not a theory.

There is a lot of literature in the last few years on the subject of self-organizing systems and how new orders of complex order can emerge from a group of elements who are operating only on a small set of rules and a very large number of transactions. THere are also some interesting studies on the emergence of amino acids from combinations of pre-biotic life.

So even though the idea seems very counter-intuitive to me, I am interested in seeing how the physical science boyos do at filling in the bits of this puzzle. They are not there yet, and bear in mind they are only explaining the most primitive stages, hoping the Grand Complexity of Evolution will take care of all subsequent stages.

Life forms from clay and gas seems a bit of a stretch, but then I think about some of the people I have met, and it doesn't seem all that far-fetched... ;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 11:23 AM

plnelson said, in part:

But as I said to Amos - show me an example of where some religion has changed its core theology because someone convinced them that there was a better theological model.

No surprise there. Those who become convinced of a "better theological model" don't get along (again, no surprise) with the conservatives of the religion, so they move out (in a group or singly), leaving the conservatives in possession of the group identity as "Church of the Pluperfect God" or whatever. The ones who changed join someone else or found their own church/religion under another name. So the perception is that the church hasn't changed, and indeed it hasn't; it has exported the change, as it were.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 11:02 AM

Of all the possible explanations for anti-entropic vectors in the universe, I would submit that a giant Hand in the Sky is probably more improbable in discovery and useless in explanation than many others, right up there with the notion the universe as a cheaply-made hologramic projection being run in some two-bit pleasure dome on a back street of the Xenigorbian city-ship of Ban'driangeroffian for the entertainment of substance-abusing octopods who are the real denizens of the real Universe. But, wait!! If that's so then....oh, wow, man....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John P
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 10:49 AM

Gosh, Don T, you are actually postulating Intelligent Design and putting it forth as a scientific theory! Wow! You really don't get science, do you? Or logic, either, with your statement that proving a negative is desirable or possible.

Here's the thing: there doesn't have to be any evidence against the existence of God, anymore than there has to be evidence for or against the existence of anything anyone could dream up. An example: given the degree of order that exists in the universe, I postulate the existence of a giant computer located in the center of the moon. It keeps gravity working. Please show me the evidence against this. Another: given that the universe is composed mostly of big balls of flame floating around, it seems obvious that Satan punched a bunch of holes in the cosmos so the flames of hell could leak into our reality. Again, please disprove this or admit it might well be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 10:17 AM

So, if one were to have a vote, how would it be conducted? How would it be counted?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 06:08 AM

I have already stated that my vote is for AND.

Sorry to perpetuate the unwanted drift, but I really can't let the following pass unanswered.

""Uh, Don, find me a scientist that would call something a theory that has absolutely no supporting evidence. In order for a theory to be proved wrong it has to rise to the level of being a theory in the first place""

There is exactly the same amount of evidence FOR as there is AGAINST.

In a universe which tends toward entropy, the degree of order which surrounds us is sufficiently curious to validate the concept of a guiding hand, and therefore I would claim that my suspicion that there MAY be a God constitutes a viable scientific "theory", until such time as SCIENCE is able to PROVE an alternative.

That, we are constantly told by self proclaimed (sometimes genuine, sometimes far from it) scientists, is the way science works. Unless of course the results conflict with their desired outcome.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Slag
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:37 PM

OK Susan, I answered the first part "Yes" because in reality it IS both "and/vs".

The points of contact are that these strange bedfellows, along with philosophy are attempting to answer what are commonly called the ultimate questions: existence, origins, destination and what is the unseen part? Religion, in part, fills the gaps of unknowing and often attempts to calm the fears of those frightened of the unknown. It also helps serve as crowd control. It ALL involves reaching beyond our given sensual limitations and discovery.

The language we receive from our progenitors tends to reflect the spiritual and religious. Some of this language gets modified or recast to fit improvements in our collective understanding about the nature of things and the world.

Sciences, hard sciences, are devoid of ethical consideration. Anthropology, philosophy and religion do a much better job at establishing moralities and ethics. Medicine is described both as a science and an art. As a science it might be interested in preserving life if understanding life were the focus. The motive of easing pain and life preservation draws from a sense of community, love and the needs and rights of society's individuals. Russia and Germany in WWII demonstrated that medicine does not necessarily HAVE to have the ethics which we most value today. It got along fine ( for a while) without such emcumberance where the Jews and Gypsies, Blacks and other minorities were concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:16 PM

DOrothy:

I don't believe my remark was aimed at you; more towards those who insist on making an inusperable division between these highly semantic distinctions.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:08 PM

heh. Amos said "articulateness".   heh.

::nods::

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:52 PM

The counterargument is wholly anthropomorphic; while it is true that science is biased toward reality (it hinges on an agreement about pervception of results, and agreement about logic in making conclusions from results) reality is biased toward neither science nor religion. If anything it is biased toward survival in a broad sense, as far as life-forms are concerned.

It is odd, but I believe there is some scientific evidence that self-selected religious beliefs (not those shoved down one's throat) correlate with longer survival, statisically. I would have to hunt around to find the paper from which I recall this, and memory could be wrong.

Let me add, PnL, that I appreciate your clarity and articulateness, but I don't give a hoot if this is your first or one thousandth foray into this discussion. We've had them a dozen times on this site alone. There is no more force in an ad meum argument than there is in an ad hominem one.

Little Hawk has argued that money is a religion-like subject, and elsewhere has argued that the logic of science is religion-like in its adherents, but I think this is just slipshod semantic foolery. The differences, in terms of what we do to get information, how we evaluate data, and how we accept data, are quite palpable.

I suppose you could run up a case like this: religion is the pursuit of truth about spiritual matters; all beings at some level are spiritual entities; therefore anything that grabs there attention is a spiritual quest. It was on such a line of reaosning that I founded the Temple of the Golden Globes, for those whose Quests led them to meditate on mammary glands. It is entirely a specious line of reasoning, as far as the topic is concerned. It might have some ultimate Truth hidden in it but not one that would stand up to logic.

Which brings us to Bill's point about science. Within the perception-and-reasoning machine of the human perspective, certain process of seeing and thinking are pretty much thought of as common to anyone using a normal language system.

Science has built on this accepted mode of transaction since the day of Galileo's first lens and E pur si muove." But I think anyone who has even begun to master Godel, Escher, and Bach will perhaps acknowledge that there is a self-referential aspect to the dialogue. Phenomenology which stands outside the vocabulary is easily said to stand, also, outside the realm of those things which can be sensed, measured or experienced by skeptics practicing hard science, and this, in turn, is a self-fulfilling assertion. To conclude from this neat barrier that the phenomenological events often described (enlightenment, out-of-body experiences, telepathy of various degrees, remote viewing, non-local perception and so on) are outside the range of possibility, to be dismissed because their communication is of the wrong hue, is close-minded in the extreme. Scientists of one sort kind of relish that condemnation because they think they need to be close-minded in the skeptical sense in order to be true to their epistemological creed. This is comfortable, if self-serving, for them.

It is not, however, a step toward truth, as such; it is only a step toward scientism. It makes of science a kind of categorical imperative which, in an amusing twist, can be said to betray its own highest goals.

To put it more simply, science is a way of knowing, but it can become rootbound and undermine its own purpose by rejecting alternative ways of knowing.

I am reminded of the story of Mark Twain whose wife decided to teach him to stop cussing so much. She walked into his billard room and let out a stream of the foulest cussing she could muster. He looked at her with great amaze until she finished and then told her calmly, "The words are all there, my sweet, but the music is missing." (Or words to that effect).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:48 PM

"A parallel dualism could be drawn up pitting kindness against insight, with equally senseless results."

I was not setting up any dualism, nor pitting anything against anything. Science has parameters which change as new information arises. Religion is totally individualistic in my estimation. And, frankly, Scarlet, I no longer give a damn. I know where I stand - at the moment and for most of my life, basically. The rest of you can pontificate for the rest of your lives for all I care. Words are poor substitutes for... I won't go there. Those who are there understand; those who are not are probably content where they are. No one is right or wrong, IMO. I respect where each person is BUT I am tired of the words, words, words!!!! I shall try very hard not to even look here again, even in curiosity to see "what they are up to today."

I appreciate that some people love this kind of word play. For me, endlessly playing with semantics gets to be a bore. Go for it!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: plnelson
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:47 PM

So your objection to religious thought is based primarily on an objection to the most hidebound and rigid forms of religious thought

But as I said to Amos - show me an example of where some religion has changed its core theology because someone convinced them that there was a better theological model.   

N.B. that I'm talking here about something core to the theology, like the nature of the deity (-ies), life after death and other bedrock stuff.   Religions change all kinds of other things - liturgy, ordaining women, positions on slavery, gay marriage, etc, in accordance with social conventions of the time.   But the core tenets of the major religions haven't changed in a thousand years.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:45 PM

Actually, that is a gross oversimplification of my state of knowledge, Little Hawk, as you well know from prior conversations. You don't have to have a primitive idea of the supernatural to notice that all the actual evidence from science demonstrates that the natural suffices to explain any phenomenon once assumed to be mythical. It is not even slightly a matter of opinion. But again, I think in *this* thread we should go back to tallying.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Slag
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:03 PM

As stated much earlier (by me, I think) science has a good argument going for it because it works! However some use the same argument for their religion or God. What is sad in both cases is that many, a vast many, use such a view of science or religion or UFOs as a basis to STOP THINKING! Or to not begin thinking in the first place.

pln hit a big nail on the head when he said that many religions can't wait to set in stone (I paraphrase) their doctrine upon the demise of the founder. There are some, though much fewer examples, of those who will not let go a defunct scientific theory.

I am a believer but I have never stopped learning and thinking. It amazes me that so many so-called believers cannot perceive (conceive?) of their God having a greater understanding than they. Their God is only large enough to fit their particular view point on things. To me, science is the discovery or the attempt to discover HOW God did it; how it all works together.

This seems to be a perennial "hot topic" below the line, here at the 'cat and I have comptemplated beginning a thread with an interesting point of view. The only problem is, that it will readily lend itself to humor and the serious aspect would never emerge. I'm working on it. It would be something along the lines of "What would you do if you were God?" After all, we are the most god-like beings of which we know within time and space. In Psalms 82:6 (YWHW speaking)"I have said 'Ye are gods; and all of you (are) children of the most High." Jesus cites this in John 10:34 and states that the Scripture cannot be broken. Whether you are a believer, doubter or antagonist go with it for a little serious thought. In what way are we gods, or god-like?

In a similar vein, Oscar Wilde said (again I paraphrase for the same lazy reason) We are all born kings but most of us live out our lives in exile.

In regards to doubters and especially doubters who have suffered at the hands of "believers" let me say this. True faith cannot exist without doubt. That is precisely why Kierkegaard described faith as a leap (into darkness/unknowing). I would submit that those who become militant about their religion or "faith" have little or no faith to begin with...only religion. They do not have enough understanding or their god is so limited that the only way they/He can cope with the opposition is to do violence. It is all about THEIR power and ego. This makes them and their God, or at least their understanding of their God, very limited.

Some scientists have suffered ridicule and shunning from their own colleagues also. Doubters. Some were so far advanced in their understanding that they were ostracized by the mundane hacks who had power and position. This is one of the reasons why I said earlier, that ego really has no place in science. That's true for religion also and virtually anyone who has every had an awe-inspiring religious experience will tell you that ego was the farthest thing from their minds at the time.

Well, I DO go on, don't I? I try to stay out of it and just read, but I seem to be afflicted with the same bug as the rest of you. Fortunately, with dial-up it keeps taking longer to load the thread and eventually the weight (WAIT) of time will tip the balance in favor of other threads, other pursuits.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 04:55 PM

plnelson, you said: "The basic premises of the world's major religions have not changed in centuries.   The idea that some test or experiment might disprove some basic religious truth fills them with horror because religions think of truth with a capital "t" - not subject to change or disproof.   If a Christian believes that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected a few days later and will return again, this is NOT subject to debate or experimentation.

A scientist can convince the rest of the scientific community that he's right if he has good data and a solid theory.   But put a Christian, a Muslim, and Jew together in a room and there's nothing any of them can say or do to convince the others."

You are absolutely correct IF you are referring to fundamentalist and dogmatic individuals IN the various major religions. However, not everyone in the major religions is of that mindset. A great many are not...and they ARE willing to debate all of the above assumptions and beliefs you mentioned, and they do have the humility of the scientist, and they ARE open to new ideas.

So your objection to religious thought is based primarily on an objection to the most hidebound and rigid forms of religious thought...and I object to it also...but not to religious thought as a general subject.

Then there are the millions of free thinkers who do NOT belong to any specific religion and yet they do believe in something spiritual. They also do not fit your definition regarding a dichotomy between religion/spirituality and science.

It would again be convenient for the purposes of your argument if everyone who was religious fit your expectations of what "religious" people are supposedly like, but they do not. Many of them are just as willing to embrace change as are the scientifically minded. In fact, THAT is why religions change over the centuries...the reformers in the religions insist upon change, and part of the reason they do insist on it is that they believe it ought to be in accord with known science, known evidence, and reason.

This is not (in my opinion) a debate in which to secure victory for one side or the other, plnelson. It's a discussion. So let's see what we can discover together through discussion rather than fighting a battle for exclusive supremacy here. What say to that?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 04:28 PM

plnelson....

re: " But there are serious thinkers who take the position that such a bias is just that: a bias, a value judgement."

We have had exactly that claim made here in some of these discussions over the years. I have been *told* that my 'favoring' of logic & science was "just as subjective" as their favoring of some metaphysical or religious or 'extra-sensory' explanation of various phenomena.

It has gotten so you can almost predict who will show up with a certain viewpoint as soon as certain issues arise. ☺
(And we do have a real mixture of viewpoints....some of whom accept 'X' but deny 'Y'...and most of the other capital letters.)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: plnelson
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 04:08 PM

THis is like declaiming against the subject of statistics because the local numbers racket has been cooked by Mafiosi miscreants.

If the only examples we had of statistics were criminally-cooked numbers then that might be understandable.    But it's easy to find. statistical data that are accurate and useful.   Which is why I asked for a good demonstrable real-world counterexample on this topic.

I'm an old hand at this debate and I've taken on tougher crowds than this, so I'll tell you what the canonical counterargument to my position is (just to keep this interesting)   The pro-science argument is based on the premise that, given two theories about reality, the theory that can be shown to be more accurate, or have better predictive power, and which is more consistent with other data and models, is to be preferred, i.e., it is the one that represents progress.

The counterargument is that there is no basis for that assumption. That it's biased on my part to assume that just because a theory works better by accounting for the data and making better predictions, that we should prefer it.   Stephen Colbert once said that "reality has a liberal bias", and one might paraphrase here by saying that "reality has a scientific bias".   But there are serious thinkers who take the position that such a bias is just that: a bias, a value judgement.    A lay person might call this "ignorance is bliss", but there are some pretty serious thinkers who given that serious consideration.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 03:58 PM

Fundamentally, a piece of information is as valuable as it can lend evaluation, weight, alignment, etc. to other data. If someone comes up and asserts that God is a gigantic turnip, the datum has very little value. It sheds no light on anything. Some other datum, such as the idea that all life forms have certain common denominators to their behavior such as self-determination and the achievement of survival, (assuming such a datum matched individual experience) would have a lot more value.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Paul Burke Cookieless
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 03:46 PM

pl has a point there, all you cognsent of the transcendent- how DO you decide if your version of uber-religion is better than, say, a cracker fundie's?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: plnelson
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 03:39 PM

Unfortunately, most religions, certainly in the west, belive in getting organized, freezing their doctrine and becoming dogmatic as soon as they can

I don't think it's an east -vs- west thing.   I'm not aware that the major eastern religions have a body of knowledge that has shown any particular progress over recent centuries.    Like the Protestants in the west, eastern religions such as Hinduisn and Buddhism have a propensity to divide up into new sects when they disagree over doctrine, rather than settling it by deciding which doctrine is better by some test they agree on.

One point about science is that, because it welcomes ideas and data that undermine the status quo, as long is it can be shown that those ideas do a better job of explaining whatever the issue at hand is, it demonstrates continued progress.   So science today can describe and model stuff with far greater precision and completeness than science of 50 years ago. And likewise science of 50 years ago was way better than science of 100 years ago. Etc.   And this progress has been across the board - physics, chemistry, the life sciences, environmental science, astrophysics, etc.

Are there any religions that can demonstrate that they have their theological domain more right today than 100 years ago?   I'm willing to accept the idea that what I'm saying only applies to the large organized religions if you can show us even a small organized religion that can demonstrate objective progress in a theological or spiritual domain (e.g., a more accurate description of their deity/-ies, more predictive prayer, better spiritual powers, etc).

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 02:39 PM

This is another example of confusing babies and bathwater, though. Your understandable reaction against religious mugwumpery -- authoritarian smugness, doctrinaire certainties, unwillingness to sustain a dialogue--is not (as I said above) a reaction aginst the general basic nature of religious thought, but against what happens to it after it falls into the hand of manipulators and advantage seekers.

THis is like declaiming against the subject of statistics because the local numbers racket has been cooked by Mafiosi miscreants.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 02:31 PM

Excellent contributions, if I may say so, 'plnelson'!

I think that I may have put it a bit more crudely further up the thread:

"A religious person tends to believe that all of the 'answers' are contained within an ancient, sacred text whereas a scientist can only attach probability statements to the outcomes of even the most well-designed and careful of experiments.

To sum up: religious people are certain, scientists are uncertain.

And to be really contentious: religious people are often full of pride in their certainty whereas scientists tend to be humble in their uncertainty."

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 02:24 PM

PN:

Thanks for your lucid commentary.

However there is nothing inherent in religion in principle that makes it an epistemological antonym to science. If one were to begin to explore spiritual phenomena with a firm grasp of heuristic logic, the results would be complementary to the usual intellectual efforts that fall under the rubric of science. But this is not the case with authoritarian religion anymore than authoritarian science, such as that which ran Semmelweiss out of town in disgrace or rejected Harveys lectures to the academy on circulation (to name two famous examples) constitutes good science.

Unfortunately, most religions, certainly in the west, belive in getting organized, freezing their doctrine and becoming dogmatic as soon as they can (usually within the first generation after the death of the visionary who starts the discussion). This, IMHO, is a sorry state of affairs. But it is not a reflection on the subject itself per se as much as reflection on the foibles of man as an inept social engineer.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: plnelson
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 02:16 PM

Just a follow-up on my last comment.   One way to think about why science and religion are epistemological opposites is that good scientific theories have to be falsifiable; the major religions have no concept of falsifiability.

Even really basic "laws" such as the laws of thermodynamics or of motion are falsifiable.   But things like the resurrection of Jesus or the writing of the Qur'an, or the tablets on Mt Sinai are not falsifiable, or at least no authority in those religions would say they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: plnelson
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 01:51 PM

It's science -VS- religion because they are epistemological opposites.

I'm a member of the American Assoociation for the Advancement of Science and I've been a science geek all my life.

Science is truth with a lower-case "t". It's PROVISIONAL truth. It's the best truth we can come up with at the moment based on our best data and models.   But it could CHANGE. A better theory, or a new observation, or a clever experiment might upset the applecart.   

And that's OKAY.   It's happened countless times throughout scientific history.   It's how science advances.   It's why we can do quantum encryption and quantum tunneling now even though Einstein pooh-poohed God playing dice, and spooky action at a distance.   It's why physicists today are all excited about "dark matter" even though that might upset LOTS of applecarts!   Scientists think new ideas are cool and exciting.   No intellectually-honest scientist can fail to acknowledge that some core belief he has MIGHT turn out to be wrong. And that's OK.

Not so much religion.   The basic premises of the world's major religions have not changed in centuries.   The idea that some test or experiment might disprove some basic religious truth fills them with horror because religions think of truth with a capital "t" - not subject to change or disproof.   If a Christian believes that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected a few days later and will return again, this is NOT subject to debate or experimentation.

A scientist can convince the rest of the scientific community that he's right if he has good data and a solid theory.   But put a Christian, a Muslim, and Jew together in a room and there's nothing any of them can say or do to convince the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 01:29 PM

Well of course the golden rule was around long before the Bible ever was, Mrzzy! ;-) Moral concepts and other ideals pre-exist any specific book that is written about them...

And as for things being "done by gods"....well, that can be anything at all. It does not pre-suppose having to choose between 2 stark alternatives such as creationism and evolution. One can just as well suppose that evolution itself is a mechanism of natural selection created in the first place BY a god as one can suppose anything else about it. It's strictly a matter of opinion...and conjecture.

Things (theoretically) created by a god do not have to happen in one minute or seven days or with a blast of heavenly trumpets. They do not have to violate what we think of as the "natural laws". They do not have to be in the nature of what people usually call "miracles" (extremely unusual or inexplicable events). They can just as well be normal natural events happening over a period of a trillion years. It all depends on how they go about happening, doesn't it?

And it's a matter of opinion whether or not a god or gods were involved.

I understand, Mrzzy, that you are objecting to seemingly quite unscientific Bible stories like that of the Great Flood and Noah and the Ark (although that could be a greatly exaggerated tale of one man and his family who rode out a very large flood that killed everyone else in their locality, and who saved a few animals with them on a boat or raft they had built...such stories are found in other ancient cultures too...not just in the Christian Bible...and they're obviously about some other "Noah" in some other part of the world...maybe at the same time period...maybe not.).

Yes, I understand your objection to the literal beliefs of fundamentalists in unlikely tales. For sure.

But so what? It doesn't prove anything one way or another about what a hypothetical "god" may have done...since a hypothetical god can theoretically put in place things like evolution and natural selection.

I do see much evidence which suggests that some of the old religious tales are either fabrications....or parables...or metaphors...or exaggerations of natural events that occurred. I don't see any evidence that conclusively stands as proof that there is no god. It's not possible to secure such evidence unless you INSIST that the "god" you are speaking of must meet the stringent limitations of your or someone's specific definition of "god"...period. And why must that be?

Just because there are some superstitious people out there who have a primitive idea of "god"...it doesn't necessarily follow that an actual "god" has to match their primitive idea, does it?

But it would be convenient for you if it did...because then you could be all the much more certain that "there is no god!" ;-) And that's what you want. It would give you satisfaction.

Note: I'm not arguing for or against the notion that there IS a god. I don't know if there is such a being or not. I have no final opinion about it. I sort of doubt it, frankly, but I have no final opinion about it.

I do tend to believe in Spirit (that there is a spiritual reality and an afterlife for all living beings)...I just don't necessarily believe in a "theos" (meaning a separate creator-God-being who rules over it all). That seems unlikely to me. However, I'm in no position to categorically deny it...because I don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 11:41 AM

What I prefer to say than "evidence that there are no gods" is "evidence that anything you might think was done by gods, wasn't." Like evolution instead of creation, the historical record that the "golden rule" was around looong before the bible or any of its current manifestations, etc.

But I'm with WYSIWYG - let's go back to the voting, or at least tally what we've gotten. The other stuff is really thread creep, of which I am also guilty.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 11:32 AM

A parallel dualism could be drawn up pitting kindness against insight, with equally senseless results.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 11:16 AM

Susan: It seems to me that much of this pontificating could have been avoided if you had defined what you mean by religion. You did not do so; you left the field wide open for all these guys to have fun.

I, broadly, cast my vote for science AND religion - whatever that is - based on the idea that each has a place. Most humans (probably all, by the broad definitions of religion given herein), regardless of their view of religion, have some form of "religion" even as they participate in work/research which is clearly and honestly absolute science.

Using the broad definitions of "religion" given in this thread and the most absolute definition of science, there is a meeting place for most if not all people - a place where the two intersect. For those who have that intersection, wherever it may be, it is a positive for each individual. I refuse to bend my mind around anything more specific than that.

"this is my simple religion. there is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
hh dalai lama

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John P
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:48 AM

Don T: Find me one reputable scientist who will state that absence of evidence FOR a theory is objective evidence against it.

Uh, Don, find me a scientist that would call something a theory that has absolutely no supporting evidence. In order for a theory to be proved wrong it has to rise to the level of being a theory in the first place. Go back to the King Kong analogy. You can spend all day saying that that King Kong exists, and pointing out that lots of other people think he exists, but until there is some actual evidence you won't get much traction. What you are saying is that anyone could dream up any idea at all and claim it as a theory. Fortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. The idea that someone saying something is true and then calling it a theory has the same logical content as someone creating a controversy over Intelligent Design and then saying that since there is a controversy over over it we ought to teach it in the public schools. Stuff and nonsense!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:43 AM

"How could anyone,therefore, be so wrong-headed as to argue against the selective use of violence against your own species?"

Virtually every government on Earth seems to be in agreement with that proposition, Amos! ;-) What else are they building armies, navies, and air forces for?


Quite aside from that, however, your closing statements are quite correct, and deserve to be repeated, I think:

The popularity of theism (mono-, poly- and pan-)is no argument in its favor in a tribunal of truth. Neither is the popularity of pure materialism a supportive argument for its correctness. Authority (scientist or priest) is not an argument. The thing must be decided on its (own) merits, and because of its highly phenomenological nature, probably by each individual for himself.

Ain't nobody else gonna walk it for you.
You gotta walk the lonesome valley for yourself.

****

I am in complete agreement with that. Each individual must decide for himself whether he wants to be a materialist or a person with spiritual beliefs or someone who embraces both materialism AND spiritual philosophy. He must decide for himself whether he defines himself as an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Taoist or a Jane or a Parsee or a Jew (religiously speaking) or a Wiccan or a Satanist or a free thinker or someone who believes absolutely nothing at all (strictly theoretical concept...I've never encountered anyone who believes nothing at all).

And once he does decide it, whatever it is...fine. He has decided it for himself. Not for anybody else. Not to force upon anybody else. Just for himself. Period. And that's okay.

As I've said again and again, I enjoy living in a world of many beliefs and viewpoints. I much prefer it to a world where everyone thinks in lockstep according to a single creed. Such a world would be stultifying, paralyzed in its thinking, and probably quite oppressive.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:38 AM

Bossy broad, you, Sooze!! :D



A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:36 AM

I started this thread. It's about curiosity-- something I am sure God and Science share, but in this case, my own. :~)

The instructions for my request for individual responses to my questions are contained/clarified in my first several posts. Altho I find the "debate" of some interest, my time to follow all the brilliant thinking is quite limited, and I am still eagerly hoping to see more responses in the form I outlined in my posts.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:14 AM

Throughout human history, and apparently human pre-history, there have been many examples of individuals who, confronting a contest of wills, emotions, or resources with another human, found the solution of choice to be violent eradication of the other.

From the pre-historic skulls with ax marks in them to the ashes of the Federal Building in Oklahoma and the fried corpses of 9-11, we as humans have a long and glorious record of returning to the truth that nothing solves a problem quite like killing other humans.

To argue that this is not the case is to fly in the fast of millennia of human thought and dispute the consensus of millions over the centuries. How could anyone,t herefore, be so wrong-headed as to argue against the selective use of violence against your own species?

---

(Pardon the sarcasm, but the opportunity was irresistible.)

The popularity of theism (mono-, poly- and pan-)is no argument in its favor in a tribunal of truth. Neither is the popularity of pure materialism a supportive argument for its correctness. Authority (scientist or priest) is not an argument. The thing must be decided on its merits, and because of its highly phenomenological nature, probably by each individual for himself.

Ain't nobody else gonna walk it for you.
You gotta walk the lonesome valley for yourself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:02 AM

Slag commented:

Rig, would you consider it evidence that throughout the entire history of modern man he has been a religious creature? Everywhere he has been he has left evidence that he worshipped something greater than himself. Idols, icons, pyramids, temples, music, scripture, grave markers, on and on, all evidence of a god.

I would point out that it is equally true that throughout the entire history of modern and ancient man there have been powerfully persuasive and highly influential doubters.

I recommend to you a wonderful book called Doubt: A History, 1965, by Jennifer Michael Hecht. She goes back to ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, and brings it up to date. I learned a great deal about the history of philosophy and religion in both ancient and modern times, including and cross-referencing such fields of thought as the Cynics, Stoics, Hinduism, the history of Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, and coming up to very modern thought, such as that of Tillich, Buber, and countless others.
An enthusiastic recommendation!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 08:40 AM

"I had an idea that you were so sure of your own rightness that you hadn't even bothered to read the whole of this thread."


                            I see. You just use the same call letters.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Slag
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:21 AM

Excellent Don T.! Opinion passing as fact is sometimes rampant in these threads. I Love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's line in One Sherlock Holmes story. To paraphrase, as I don't have the work before me, "mediocrity recognizes nothing but itself: talent instantly recognizes genius!"

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:12 AM

I think DonT has put his finger on, and done a good job of exposing the memes that what passes for "science" these days has used to build a tremendously seductive, but also terribly illogical thesis.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 05:01 AM

""But an informed people would not be so easily duped--in my opinion--so those of us who consider ourselves to be responsible citizens must do something to get the truth to the people.""

Whose truth?.....YOURS?

Your carefully thought out and considered opinion that anyone who disagrees with your theories is deluded and in need of education?

What proof can you offer of your capabilities which would support your assumption of intellectual superiority over a bunch of people about whom you know next to nothing?

The only thing that stands out in your responses on this and other threads is your supreme arrogance.

When I feel the need to learn, I will choose someone who is Qualified to teach, and learn from him/her. Meanwhile my opinion is as valid as yours, or anyone else's.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 04:50 AM

""I was told that the cat who started this thread "wasn't talking about religion, he was talking about god.""

I had an idea that you were so sure of your own rightness that you hadn't even bothered to read the whole of this thread.

Now you've confirmed that.

I DIDN'T START THIS THREAD!

So much for YOUR cleverness.

Don T.