Thursday, 27 September 2007
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Religion and Science
I just wrote a loooooong post on Religion and Science. It's controversial stuff, so I'll sit on it and maybe post it tomorrow.
In the meantime, I am curious for what you guys think. Do you see a conflict between Religion and Science? Are they at war and we each have to choose sides... or can someone be both religious and a scientist?
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Comments (79)
of course! there have been plenty of devoted religious people that have done important scientific work :)
Why can't our science be something like god's tool box? Like what we call evolution is god's hammer and nails to creating life. Is it too hard to believe or even consider that the "Laws" of science that we can't control are just simple tool for The Creator?
I believe in science, but I am Catholic. Don't ask me how it works in my brain, but it does. :) hahaha
I don't think there is a fundamental conflict between religion and science. However, some specific religious beliefs seem to contravene scientific evidence.
One thing I deeply hate is people who try to insist that science is just another Faith. Sure, science takes some things on faith, but trying to say on that basis that science is essentially a religion is a confusion of semantics.
The real problem, I think, is that people are jackasses. They are unwilling to let someone else think differently than they do.
I mean, so what if you are a strict atheist, and you think someone who worships a god is a silly superstitious person? Is what they believe going to change the way the world really works? No, it is not.
Likewise, if you are sure someone is living a godless life and is going to hell, so what? They are a grownup. They have free will. If they do immoral sinful things and god punishes them for it, that is their problem. They had ample opportunity to hear the word of god and take it on board. So long as you don't actually block their path to god should they choose it, you're done.
But people don't want to do that. Instead they want to make it illegal to do any work on the day their religion says to rest, or force people to uncover their heads because their silly belief doesn't matter against the dress standard of the business.
Science and religion tend to get dragged into the crossfire of this pretty often. But in my opinion, it is not because they themselves are inherently antagonistic. Instead it's because they both make such good targets for people pushing their agenda of "My Way Is Best".
Yeah, I found myself wondering the same thing. He seemed pretty genuine, but then, you don't get to his position without being able to appear genuine.
It seems to me that every post on my blog that I find interesting (mostly because I disagree, but occasionally because I like something they said) links to the page of someone talking about religion. I suppose that people interested in discussing religion are people who enjoy discussions on ethics, so it's not that amazing. But I do wonder if I'm getting a skewed result only visiting the interesting comments-- as an atheist (caveat: atheist within the framework of modal ficitonalism) it would be kind of disappointing to find that the more secular commenters were boring, or all agreed with me.
Also, I haven't read any of your articles besides this one, so for all I know you could be nonreligious yourself. I tend to assume the other way, though. Now I'm kind of excited to find out... I'll probably forget to come back here though. Vet school distracts one's mind from internet browsing :P
PS, as for your question--
I tend to think that you CAN be religious and scientific, but if you are, your god needs to be very remote and have very few, if any, interactions with our world or anyone in it. I don't think one can be a very good scientist if--let me rephrase that, I don't think one is BEING a very good scientist WHEN--one asserts the power of prayer on daily occurences, or makes decisions based on their religion without considering observational or experimental evidence first.
I do think that many good scientists keep themselves happy and motivated by compartmentalizing their mind, and very carefully avoiding the serious consideration of their religion using scientific principles; emprically, then, you can be both. I'm more interested in whether you SHOULD be both-- meaning, is it better for the happiness and survival of the individual and the species in the short- and long-term when a scientist withholds some of his views from scrutiny.
or her.
Is it medicine that heals or God?
Great question John... :)
From my perspective, science and faith both strive ultimately after the same thing: truth. Or at least, I believe they should. Thus I think conflicts between science and faith usually have their roots in either bad science or bad faith. Now, by bad faith or bad science I don't mean something that's unpopular or that someone doesn't like, but rather a truth claim derived from one or the other that isn't actually true (so you could say that I believe in absolute truth, to some extent).
For example, one perceived conflict is that many Christians think the Earth was created 6000 years ago because of how they interpret writings in the Bible, while science shows us heaps of evidence that the Earth was formed 4-something billion years ago (or whatever it is... something around there) and that the Universe began 13 or something billion years ago. Obviously, a conflict. But there is also a number of Christians who don't believe that the Bible teaches that the Earth was formed 6000 years ago, and, I believe (and am sure almost all thinking Christians will agree), the main tenants of Christianity are not threatened whatever one believes about the exact time when the Earth was formed. Personally, I believe then that this is a case of "bad faith", or rather a false truth claim put forth by some Christians on the basis of their faith. But like I said, one's faith in Christianity is not seriously threatened either way.
A real problem comes when there are two conflicting truth claims about something vital to the faith, whichever it is (not science, since science's truth claims are by nature fluid). However, these are few and far between. Also, when discussing this sort of real conflict it is important to keep in mind the fallibility of human reason, which applies both to science and to matters of faith. For example, I said that science's truth claims are fluid, meaning they are ALWAYS open to revision if there is sufficient scientific evidence for it. Thus old scientific claims such as the 4 humors of the body and the spontaneous generation of flies have since been discarded in place of new theories. This is continually happening in science, and even "proven scientific fact" is technically open to revision, although usually something given the status of scientific fact has such an overwhelming amount of evidence for it that this rarely happens. At the same time this can be applied to faith, although it is a much trickier nuance than with science. The examples I know best and that I believe are most pertinent are from Christian history in the early days of the church, beginning around ad 200ish and ending I suppose around 800ish or later. It was during this time that many of Christianity's core beliefs were actually formed--or rather I should say that it was during this time that much of basic Christian doctrine was formed.
This is getting way too long so I'll just say there was a lot of debate and eventually some things were decided upon and some things were discarded (questions like "How was Jesus both man and God simultaneously?" and others). In the end I believe one can hold strong ties to faith and strong ties to science, since if both are true they should not conflict, although what to do in a true faith/science conflict (which, as defined above, is rare) is up to the individual. Do you reject faith based on fallible scientific theory? Do you reject a scientific theory that seems so sure to be true on the basis of possibly wrong theology? Where is the line drawn when you stop believing in one or the other? I think these are the important questions in this discussion.
Also, Anumati was totally right about people being jackasses--I believe there's way more room for maneuverability than some people are willing to give. Msg me if you want to talk about this more, I love this topic haha. Sorry it's so long, I'm sure most people won't read it.
This is way over generalized, but sometimes science is better for answering the "how" and religion is better for answering the "why."
A "religious" view and a "scientific" view may occasionally come at odds with each other, but it seems like any view will occasionally come at odds with another view. There's no war. Science and religion stay out of each other's way most of the time.
You can easily have both. it's when you start pushing your views of one side over top the views of the other side that pisses me off. That's fantastic if you're all about the science, or God has spoken to you about his job for you. Leave me out of it.
To a point, yes. However, one side will always outweigh the other.
I think you can be both. Why can't God have put all this in place, be the one that decided that we'd breathe oxygen and that plants would make chlorophyll and be green, etc? People assume that believeing in God and religion means everything has to happen EXACTLY as the Bible says, and that God does things directly... but maybe he just created this amazing world and set this whole long process in motion, and is watching as we discover the beauties of the natural world He created.
you can be both, but they're too different realms. not in conflict with one another. the problem is typically when religion attempts to become science and it always loses.
Thank you scientific revolution.
I don't think the proper question is if science and religion are compatible. It really depends on what one's religion is, or how fluid one is with his or her religion. Whenever there happens to be a conflict, compartmentalization is easy enough of a task to accomplish. People will come up with the own strategies for doing so.
I think that the real question is, "Is there a conflict between faith and reason," to which the answer is an unequivocal yes. Faith, unlike reason, requires belief in the complete absence of evidence, and so people are sure that something is true without good reasons to do so. This sort of non-thinking is not only absurd, it is demonstrably dangerous (there is a bit of a problem when a large portion of people are certain that the creator of the cosmos despises homosexuals, and demands them to be stoned to death).
As for the original question, when it comes to compartmentalization, someone will have to make a decision about what they want to believe. Fundamentalist Christians are sure that the world is some 6,000 years old for no other reason than that they are certain the creator of the universe uttered it in a holy text. Their religious faith is complete and unwavering, because their belief in the Bible cannot become more consummate. The drawback is, obviously enough (and many other Christians know this), they completely betray reason, science, and available evidence. On the other hand, we have our moderate and liberal Christians, who acknowledge scientific evidence, and will base their beliefs upon what it has to say, completely ignoring parts of the Bible which contradict that evidence. But they still believe in the existence of a being that not only created the cosmos, but takes an interest in what some creatures on a remote planet in the universe do, and listens and responds to their prayers. I have yet to see any evidence that this belief is true, and as a result, moderate and liberal Christians betray both faith AND reason equally. I cannot help but remember the Biblical verse about God spitting out those who would be "lukewarm" for him, those who were neither hot nor cold. The fundamentalists are hot enough for God, but I prefer to opt for unadulterated reason, and ergo am "cold."
There will always be points on which the two conflict. Some of those points will have nothing to with any religious basis other than some supposedly really godly follower saying it. I believe that they both have an important place in life and that there is a war between the two because some rather unintelligent people decided there should be and again these people had some important place in some church or other. This is all to protect an institutional ego though.
Neither one can explain everything and neither one poses any challenge to the other.
I think you can be both. Believing in a higher power is not a bad thing and I would think keeps a scientist humble. I believe in things from both sides of the fence.
I see no conflict, because I view religion and science both as ways people attempt to explain things we don't understand. And who's to say that scripture speaks the literal truth? Who's to say that a "day" was the same thing when the Bible was written, or "day" represented an epoch, but they used "day" metaphorically so that the earliest readers would understand?
Yet I'm still a practicing Catholic. hmmm.
Nah, I don't see a true conflict...just the ones people believe that they perceive.
Karanis said some interesting things in his response, like the relationship between faith and reason. I, for one, think that they can coexist. Though they seem totally different and incompatible, that does not necessarily mean that they cannot touch one another. They are distinct faculties, but one can certainly support the other.
You have to spend time studing if I you choose to be both, but most people are too lazy to do that.
I think you can be spiritual and still retain the ability of critical thinking that science requires. Religion, on the other hand, often requires you to suspend disbelief, put aside critical thinking, and take it all on faith. So, yes, I think there's a conflict there.
Anyone who claims to be both religious and scientific is actually neither.
at least science has been proven, muhahaha! Science > religion :).
I think that the two can co-exist and even complement each other. A long time ago people were scared of science because they didn't understand it, and because it went against their incorrect view of science. This created an us vs. them mentality that has been handed down from one generation to the next. But if we ignore the history and look at just the results sans coloring commentary, then everyone could be happy.
WOW..well thought out answers you've gotten so far.
Nice to see some good reasoning