Science and Religion...

@kdryan,

Zetherin,

As happens so often, philosophical impasses come down to the way words are used. I like to use the word 'confidence' because it can simultaneously refer to the strength of a belief (or a nugget of knowledge) and to the basis behind that strength.

Some people can argue that we never really know anything. That's fine, but at a different functional level (i.e. below the really), we do know some things more than we know others. That's where confidence fits in.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Zetherin,

As happens so often, philosophical impasses come down to the way words are used. I like to use the word 'confidence' because it can simultaneously refer to the strength of a belief (or a nugget of knowledge) and to the basis behind that strength.

Some people can argue that we never really know anything. That's fine, but at a different functional level (i.e. below the really), we do know some things more than we know others. That's where confidence fits in.

I think my impulse to argue the contention was influenced by my current research (probably not the best word) behind what really is. I've been surrounding myself with various texts from various philosophers (Pyrrho, Plato, Descartes, etc.) trying to make sense of "belief", "knowledge", "understanding", "empirical", and how confidence fits into the whole mess. I'm trying to come to my own conclusion, a conclusion that speaks to my personal reason, but alas, I'm still in a cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for your understanding and kindness,

Z

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@Zetherin,

I have been a student of both religion and science, Today I do not consider myself to be a member of either philosophy, because neither could provide me with explanations of my own, verified, "metaphysical" experiences. Science considers my experiences to be "delusions", and religion considers them to be "acts of the Devil."

I am an honors graduate in Applied Science who has applied my knowledge and skills as a commissioned officer and airplane pilot in the Navy, as a design engineer of leading-edge technologies in telecommunications, and as a manager for nuclear-electric generation services.

I also studied in a university seminary and applied my knowledge and skills as a Sunday School superintendent, a teaching elder and an organist in traditional religious communities.

From my current perspective, Science and Religion are both manifestations of human societies which are still in very primitive stages of development. I don't have a name for any third alternative, but I can attest to its ability to provide me with feelings of happiness, fulfillment and love for my fellow humans and the elements of our universal environment. I am awed by the tremendous amount of knowledge which is available for us still to acquire.

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@mindlink,

mindlink;43458 wrote:

From my current perspective, Science and Religion are both manifestations of human societies which are still in very primitive stages of development.

If we're very primitive, then we have a very long way to go to become average, let alone advanced.

What does an advanced society look like to you, and do you think it's achievable? If so, how?

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

If we're very primitive, then we have a very long way to go to become average, let alone advanced.

What does an advanced society look like to you, and do you think it's achievable? If so, how?

What an advanced society looks like to me, based upon my current level of experiences and observations.

o There is a sustainable balance between all animate and inanimate resources on Earth. This probably means that there are much fewer humans than there are now, and that humans live much longer.

o Because of humankind's abilities to sense the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of each other, deception and manipulation are not possible; worldwide resources of goods and services are matched with the worldwide needs for those goods and services, with little waste and with competition based on quality, not price; we get much greater "highs" from helping others to develop as our allies, than we did from killing them off as our enemies.

o Because of humankind's abilities to harmonize and direct the thoughts, feelings and intentions of each other to influence specific physical interactions, much of today's technology is no longer needed.

Do I think that it is achievable?

o As long as we allow ourselves to be dominated by fear-mongers, it is not achievable.

How do I think it could be achievable?

o Stop being afraid of our own power.

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (Marianne Williamson, "Return to Love", Harper Collins, 1992)

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@mindlink,

I don't mean to butt in here guys, but:

What a beautiful quote, mindlink. That one really spoke to me. Also, if you have any ideas concerning escaping this fear of our own power, please make a new thread somewhere. I'd love to hear these thoughts.

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@Zetherin,

"......with little waste and with competition based on quality, not price..".

Mindlink, your post contains a lot of wisdom. Thank you for sharing it with us. As to the above quote from your post, please, if you don't mind, explain how we can ease off "competition" and move toward a more "cooperative" reality? It seems to me competition in any aspect as it relates to cooperation among people and states and nations will only continue the sad state of the status quo. When you state "competition based on quality" assumes the issuance of lesser quality for those who "can't afford" the quality we are so capable of producing. Quality is quality no matter how you look at it and to deprive anyone of that quality creates a judgmental environment creating again animosity, envy and greed. I think most here will agree to the wastefulness of "planned obsolescence" that feeds out deplorable economic system as we become buried in junk.

Sorry for getting off topic here a little, but I wanted to get this out before my feeble mind lost it. Ha. Yours seems to be hitting on all cylinders here and you are definitely going in the right direction as I see it. I think we have the resources to provide quality for every one once we reduce our desire for "quantity" as people are programmed to believe quantity is somehow a measure of happiness. I would like your thoughts. Do you think it is possible to get away from mass production and profits that are so responsible for the junk we are buried in and create a more rewarding compensation system that involves the unique talents of individuals. We certainly have enough people.

Thanks for you thoughts,
William

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@kdryan,

I think the ideals are noble.

I don't think it's achievable. Not even remotely. Maybe on a microscale it is, but not on a global scale. Why should I be so cynical? Because the complexities of doing even simple things are so vast, so multivariable, and so dependent on the interaction of complex systems, that to sustain any kind of lofty goal over the centuries needed to achieve it would be nigh impossible. And this is in the absence of a plague or meteor or climate change or something that changes the different systems.

Not that we shouldn't work towards such outcomes, but I don't think they're possible in the real world.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

I think the ideals are noble.

I don't think it's achievable. Not even remotely. Maybe on a microscale it is, but not on a global scale. Why should I be so cynical? Because the complexities of doing even simple things are so vast, so multivariable, and so dependent on the interaction of complex systems, that to sustain any kind of lofty goal over the centuries needed to achieve it would be nigh impossible. And this is in the absence of a plague or meteor or climate change or something that changes the different systems.

Not that we shouldn't work towards such outcomes, but I don't think they're possible in the real world.

You response is accurate if one concludes continuing on the path we are going. When we, as in the past, consider the overwhelming responsibility of the very few accomodating the so very many we get into complexities that are truly boggling. Expecially when we try to do that handicapped by an economic system that is absolute stupidity. If we were to develope a reality that included all in that effort I think we would find that it would not be that complicated at all. But you are right Aedes, any attempt in that direction will, I think, supply us with the answers we need to motivate us to press on. How long it will take should not be a part of those equations as you limited it to centuries. This is about forever, you can't put time limits on it. We just need to do what we need to do to obtain the balance we sorely need and have never had.

William

1 Reply

@William,

Thank you, Zetherin: When time permits, I will be happy to start a new thread on "Our Greatest Fear".

Thank you, William: In my dream society, people choose the highest quality of goods and services because the price is irrelevant -- it varies according to each person's ability to pay.
"He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. The he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." (Mark 12:41-44)

Thank you, Aedes: Based upon my personal experiences and observations, I believe that my dream society is achievable by humankind. I have no idea how long it may take for a sufficient number of people to become aware of the incredible influences which interact between the beings and elements in our environment, but if I can have "exceptional" abilities, then I think everybody has such capabilities, to some degree.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

3 is the closest to the truth, but the answer is either none of the above or all of the above.

Science and Religion are not things. They're entirely separate domains of practice and thought. They don't even speak the same language, so there's no real possibility of #1 and #2 being valid -- except insofar as they can convince an individual one way or another about a given issue.

I can't agree with this. Science doesn't depend on the absolute demonstrability of an infinite chain of causation. It just depends on immediate demonstrability.

In English, what I mean is I can demonstrate to you in scientific terms that there is a chair in this room. I can demonstrate in scientific terms that Yosemite Valley was carved by a glacier. I can demonstrate that bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis. You may not have believe in all that quantum and relativity stuff, but that stuff is incidental -- because what I've demonstrated stands on its own merits regardless of quantum science.

You can't demonstrate the same thing with unobservable religious contentions. It's lack of observability that makes a belief require faith. And to people who understand science, relativity and quantum science ARE observable.

PERFECT!

Just want to add, religion per se is not the end here. Discussion about God is also invoked here. God believed as the creator of everything, means that he is also the creator of all laws governing the world. Science then is not a tool of mankind to disprove God, but rather is for discovering and explaining laws encoded by the Supreme encoder which is God. Science doesn't not know infinity for its proper object is the observable therefore the finite. God knowledge cannot be fully understood, for the finite cannot fully comprehend infinite. That is why some scientists offer new theories to make us look more at ourselves in an infinite manner. Science and religion are not opposed to each other, they are all laws permeated by the One who has made them. Religion is the domain where the emphasis is on the "then and there" while science is much of the "here and now." Here and now referred to as life of the physical body. If a man is an atheist and is therefore a man of "here and now," then secular knowledge is obviously best for him.On the other hand, a theist must believe that there are laws to obey for him to achieve the immutable then and there but still has to live with the structure of the here and now. It is proper for theist to know both, though the then and there is far more important.

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@kdryan,

Patty, I think what you've written captures the rationalization that very many people use to unify belief in God with respect for science.

It's still not an even 2-way street. I think intellectually someone who understands and follows science can get on quite well in this world without making an effort to reconcile that with god.

On the other hand, people who believe in god must have some kind of way of reconciling that with science; perhaps not ALL science, but at least certain things that are immediately demonstrable, for instance believing a weather report or trusting a medication.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

On the other hand, people who believe in god must have some kind of way of reconciling that with science; perhaps not ALL science, but at least certain things that are immediately demonstrable, for instance believing a weather report or trusting a medication.

A religious person needs to reconcile his faith with a weather report if and only if a weather report contradicts his faith.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;48372 wrote:

A religious person needs to reconcile his faith with a weather report if and only if a weather report contradicts his faith.

That misses my point. The point was that a religious person will constantly confront practical demonstrations of science throughout the course of life, and these arise independently of their religious teaching. This is true whether or not they come into conflict. Where things don't conflict, it's easy, the science can just be taken for granted or appreciated or whatever. Where things DO come into conflict, people reconcile the conflict with some sort of explicative rationalization (i.e. God created the big bang and evolution, or fossils are a trick by God meant to test our faith, or evolution is some kind of human conspiracy to undermine religion).

On the other hand, a non-religious person does NOT need to exact any kind of reconciliation with religion (except for social purposes).

Predicting the weather was just one example, DT (though I chose it specifically to avoid loaded issues like evolutioj). But the weather is actually an important one in the history of this reconciliation between religion and science. One of the greatest scientific developments of the early enlightenment was that Newton's understanding of gravity allowed him to predict tides. This rocked his contemporaries more than anything else he did and was one of the signature founding events of the enlightenment as a whole. And what better characterizes the enlightenment but the realization that the world can be understood through science, and a distancing of hitherto more orthodox religious teachings? In other words, it's not just the mere fact that weather can be predicted, but rather the fact that we can predict something about the natural world.

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@kdryan,

Late entry...

kdryan wrote:

Science requires as much faith in it's results as religion does. You and I can sit here and say that time slows as we near the speed of light, but you and I do not know that more than we know that God created the universe or Moses parted the Red Sea. You may say that science relies upon fact, but it as impossible for a lay person to verify those facts as it would be to verify the existence of Heaven.

You've hit upon something, but not what I think you were aiming for. Your reference to Einstein's special theory of relativity is a good case in point. It is a theory, not a discovery of some incontrovertible truth. It is a very good theory, and as a good theory it gives predictions about phenomena that we would not otherwise have been able to make. We can test these predictions and see how good the theory is. SR stands up 100% and as such it is as good a thing to believe in as anything... if you're looking for something to believe in. But no-one demands you believe it. It is not called the Special Dogma of Relativity. If you believe in something else and space and time and this has predictions that contradict those of SR, then I will personally reject your belief, not because of my overriding belief in SR, but because your belief is at odds with what we can see, measure, detect under a general set of circumstances. But there's nothing wrong with suspending judgement.

And this is what you've hit on. You look at science and you think it falls short because it relies on faith as much as religion. This is not the case. PEOPLE look to science to provide answers in the same way others look to the Bible, others to the Koran, etc. These people may be, but largely aren't, scientists. I think scientists generally egg people on in this way by selling books and making TV shows designed to attract people looking for answers to bigger questions than we can handle. And there's nothing wrong with putting belief in experimentally-supported theories. But this is a people thing, not a science thing. Feynman was a huge fan of 'We don't know'. 'What is energy?' We don't know. 'What is an electron?' We don't know. 'What is spacetime?' We don't know. We can just tell you about some of its properties, what it does in certain situations, etc.

kdryan wrote:

Science is supposed to be incontrovertible because the scientific method does not allow the individual to solely be responsible for accuracy any given fact.

I don't know where you get this from. Scientific journals are full of papers refuting other papers. Scientific history is made by showing certain models or methods to be not generally true.

kdryan wrote:

But in doing so, you will have invested so much of yourself that any scientific fact that disagrees with what you have learned has become a threat to your very existence. If our boy hit upon a theory that light stood still, he would tend to simply discard it because 'Well, everyone just KNOWS that light moves!'

This is simply your own (I'm going to say biased) imagining of what scientists do. You have no real justification to back this up. I'm sure in the history of science many scientists have fudged their results to get a paper or meet a deadline, but you talk about it as if it were standard practise. Your example makes your point ridiculous. If somebody actually discovered something new that contradicts everything we think we know and had huge consequences for our understanding of the world... you think they'd discard the results? Really? They wouldn't think 'Nobel prize, here I come!'? I think you have no actual knowledge of what a scientist does, but have instead decided to put your faith in an idealised version of your own invention. Pot & kettle, round 1.

kdryan wrote:

In the end, there is no real way to verify Relativity, so it really just comes down to the fact that you have to have as much faith in science as you do in religion.

You can verify its predictions. Whether you choose to believe that such verifications mean the underlying theory is an actual description of reality is up to you. But this 'faith' is at least grounded in empirical evidence and the lack of any other explanation, which is quite a different thing to the leap of faith involved in religion.

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