Religion and Society

In your view do you think religion progresses society or does it slow it down?

We all know over the years, all religion done is slow down scientific progess all because in the name of "faith". I hate it when someone stops an idea due to his/her religious beleif.

A perfect example would be the Large Hadron Collider, it was put on hold because of a women who knew nothing of black holes was terrifed that smashing protons so that scientist can move forward in the world by taking a glimpse of what really happended shortly after the big bang.

After a series of trails in court, the party for won and the lady lost.

So what are your thoughts? Is your community backward like mine? Should we promote secular soceity and keep religion out of our soceity so that we can assure well being of everyone?

Thanks

In your view do you think religion progresses society or does it slow it down?

We all know over the years, all religion done is slow down scientific progess all because in the name of "faith". I hate it when someone stops an idea due to his/her religious beleif.

A perfect example would be the Large Hadron Collider, it was put on hold because of a women who knew nothing of black holes was terrifed that smashing protons so that scientist can move forward in the world by taking a glimpse of what really happended shortly after the big bang.

After a series of trails in court, the party for won and the lady lost.

So what are your thoughts? Is your community backward like mine? Should we promote secular soceity and keep religion out of our soceity so that we can assure well being of everyone?

Thanks

I am looking for any evidence that the Large Hadron Collider was put on hold for the reason that you mention. All that I can find is several accounts of a magnet failure (superconductiong magnets are cooled by liguid Helium, which leaked into the tunnel) which caused the collider to be shut down. BBC News - Collider halted until next year
What is the source for your information?

In your view do you think religion progresses society or does it slow it down?

We all know over the years, all religion done is slow down scientific progess all because in the name of "faith". I hate it when someone stops an idea due to his/her religious beleif.

A perfect example would be the Large Hadron Collider, it was put on hold because of a women who knew nothing of black holes was terrifed that smashing protons so that scientist can move forward in the world by taking a glimpse of what really happended shortly after the big bang.

After a series of trails in court, the party for won and the lady lost.

So what are your thoughts? Is your community backward like mine? Should we promote secular soceity and keep religion out of our soceity so that we can assure well being of everyone?

Thanks

Not to, as Pyrrho puts it, 'run you off':

The notion of progress as it applies to culture is one of complete perspective. Even if we completely dismiss any claims of religion being divine, we run into one of the classic manifestations of conscious self cognition.

We culturally are at a constantly modifying experienctial endpoint of an evolutionary process, much like we are at one of a biological evolutionary process. We apply the word progress to this because we see what is documented historically, and that which was projected to have happened prehistorically. We see a timeline with us at the end, and only having truely experienced us at the end egocentrically project us being the progressive culmination of something, not the evolutionary culmination of something. Thus that which is currently being rejected for whatever cultural reasons seems to be being rejected for an agentive purpose not just a reason.

Biologically having never been a pre sapien homo or a pre homo paranthrapus, or even having been an insect, we egocentrically presume that in terms of quality of life qua happiness qua whatever we have it better because they are not us, when all it really is is that we exist because we are better equipped to exploit our environment. Culturally much the same thing happens, technology, political structure, environment, charismatic leaders etc... continue to change, thus our general culture and personal interaction changes. Normally a successful cultural component is simply that which evolved to best exploit its environment.

Arj:

Yes reformers do just that the re-form, create another morph out of the material that was. The reasons for the new form are various. The ideologies involved just as much so. Pol Pot was a re-former. Kim Jong Il is a re-former. Newt Gingrich is a re-former. Some people made life 'good' other 'bad' all have made culture in general evolve and have been a part of the evolution that is current human culture. If we have 'progressed' all of these figures are components in the progression, as is religion, science, and pretty much every other trend ever introduced into the human experience including natural disasters, famines, arbitrary agricultural gains (al la Guns Germs and Steel) etc...

[...] and hasn't war been pointed to as a biggy in terms of technological progress? [...]
But I wouldn't say: more war! it's good for progress.

Given our current culture I think technology would continue to advance even without what we now think of as war. War might, ironically, be the only thing that could slow it down.

This is not to suggest however that cultures do not have their own idea of advancement (though some do not), and that whether change in a culture can even be graded on chronological plane to begin with. When we say advance, we imply a past, a present, and an ideal future - not all cultures have this. Certainly western society which is generally messianic has such -- but not all do. Some consider advancement to be a personal issue - to come to a personal state of perfection; some consider it more fatalistic, and thus advancement does not to justice to that which has been predetermined.

We certainly have our own plane -- I'm sure many people do - but one cannot say that "this other belief system is not advancing because they don't do as we see ideal" -

I am looking for any evidence that the Large Hadron Collider was put on hold for the reason that you mention. All that I can find is several accounts of a magnet failure (superconductiong magnets are cooled by liguid Helium, which leaked into the tunnel) which caused the collider to be shut down. BBC News - Collider halted until next year
What is the source for your information?

Religion put this invisible wall to seeking knowledge. Sure some might be lazy and don't care but most of the time it's religion behind the scene!

"Religion is..." is nearly always the start of a sweeping generalization. In fact, it is different things to different people.

It is obviously true that religious institutions can be obstacles to research, progress and development. But on the other hand, religions are not always regressive, and also, they can play a role in representing the interests of those who might not have a voice in the corporate, legal or academic worlds.

Why shouldn't there be ethical constraints on seeking knowledge? Is knowledge for its own sake always good? Is the human race better off for having developed weapons which threaten the planet? Sure science can cure diseases but it can also create biological warfare agents. What is the scientific basis for ethics and morality? What scientific value can we ascribe to human life or the meaning of the cosmos?

---------- Post added 04-07-2010 at 09:03 PM ----------

I also don't see any connection between religion and the lawsuits aimed at stopping the LHC. None of them were launched by religious organisations or mentioned religious motivations, that I am aware of.

I suggest taking a broader view of the concept of religion. A society is held together, I think, by common values. These common values serve as a religion, whether they associated with the secular or the sacred. For instance, the separation of state and religion is itself a central cultural value in the U.S. One might conceive of religious freedom itself as a sort of religion. And it's quite obvious to me that anti-religion functions for many exactly as a religion might. It's a value system.

It may be that the psychiatrist replaces the priest, or that the physicists replaces the priest, but we still have a class of folks who are looked to, by many, for truth.

I do have to agree that most of us have some sort of religion. We seem to following the herd and the leader of the pack. I like to view all of the churches and all of the herds. [so to speak] So that I can be informed of what is being preached to them. I would like to bring up one that seems to be preaching a philosophy that many think is great. I call this talk radio. There is one that many call the high preist of the church of the painfull truth [neal ] and another that some call the baby jesus [shawn] and another that some call god the father or is that the god father [rush]

Seems almost like a trinity to me. I heard a nun call rush the other day and tell him that it would be a delight if she was able to go on a date with him. I thought that was rather sweet of her.:detective: what are all of your comments on this religion being preached?:listening: