Science

@awoelt,

It is a belief system; but it is more correct to see religion as mankind's first attempt at science than the other way around...

@awoelt,

It could be a religion, but only if one ignores all the distinctions between the two in creating the analogy. I am not sure that calling both, for example, a "belief system" doesn't rely on using widely different meanings of "belief." And aren't there major distinctions in the origin and warrants for assent, say, between the 12 Mosiac laws and the laws of physics?

@awoelt,

I must agree with jgweed: one cannot believe in science, because you cannot disbelieve something that is invariably and truthfully there, tangible, watchable, so on and so forth.

@7skullz,

7skullz;139315 wrote:

I must agree with jgweed: one cannot believe in science, because you cannot disbelieve something that is invariably and truthfully there, tangible, watchable, so on and so forth.

I can believe that something is true. In fact, whenever I believe anything, I believe that it is true. Of course, that does not mean that if I believe that something is true, that I only believe it is true, since I may also know it is true. Maybe you are saying that we should not only believe in science, because science is so clearly true that we should know that science is true. After all, only believing is still believing.

@awoelt,

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Could science itself be a religon? The basic principles being gravity, energy, and electricity. The prophets we have faith in being any scientist. I mean, why trust all the scientists to tell us how the world is? Aside from science created medicine and technology, why do we beleive them? Could grass just be grass and not forms of carbon and water? Or can sky be sky and not a large formation of varied gases?

Could we say they're two different modes... different ways to approach things. So simplifying it:

A religious approach is passive. When you enter a church or temple, you can turn your brain off, so to speak... you've entered the house of God. Within this domain, the holyman speaks and the congregation answers. The litany is music, and they don't have to play Bach, and it doesn't have to be a gothic cathedral... it could be a cathedral of beech trees and the music could be Voodoo. The effect is the same: you meld with the rest of your kind, past, present and future, in the experience of birth, marriage, and death.

The scientific approach is active. When you enter the laboratory, you step into a quest. You arm yourself and plan your strategy. Though the temptation is there to give over to passion, your companions are there to keep you honest.

That said, there's a scientific approach to religion... a religious approach to science. When the spokesman says that "all scientists agree on this: blah blah blah...", he's posited the scientist as a holyman and he's demanding that you bow your head.

When the holyman seeks to persuade you through logic... he's forgotten the role of the holyman: to be transparent to the divine.

@jgweed,

jgweed;139296 wrote:

It could be a religion, but only if one ignores all the distinctions between the two in creating the analogy. I am not sure that calling both, for example, a "belief system" doesn't rely on using widely different meanings of "belief." And aren't there major distinctions in the origin and warrants for assent, say, between the 12 Mosiac laws and the laws of physics?

Whether it is God's law we impose upon each other, or the laws of nature that we propose are universal to nature, behind each is simple unprovable faith, and the sense, unproven, that some universal order exists...

@awoelt,

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Could science itself be a religon? The basic principles being gravity, energy, and electricity. The prophets we have faith in being any scientist. I mean, why trust all the scientists to tell us how the world is? Aside from science created medicine and technology, why do we beleive them? Could grass just be grass and not forms of carbon and water? Or can sky be sky and not a large formation of varied gases?

If you purge all the theory posing as science the science books get pretty slim. for instance all science with points lines and number lines being necessary to prove them are fallacious. most people would claim that science has figured out the magnet but in fact there is no valid conclusion as to how a magnet does what it does. quantum and the rest only make it as far as a theory that describes what a magnet does. science is how and why it does what it does which is unknown. any argument that involves a magnetic field is a fallacious argument via Reifying as a field is and abstract and science deals with the static. mathematical physics relys on terms such as point and line which are undefined terms. for something to be science you must be able to communicate it and you cant communicate undefined terms. this goes for relatifity as well. alot of people would think relativity was science but it has no conclusion and violates the scientific method in many ways and can only be described using several definitions of undefined terms interchangeably throughout its proofs(equations) without mentioning that this point ant that point are completely different and abstractions. the black hole for instance is talked about like it is a physical object but it is only and equation without shape or location.

---------- Post added 03-13-2010 at 12:21 PM ----------

Arjuna;139338 wrote:

Could we say they're two different modes... different ways to approach things. So simplifying it:

A religious approach is passive. When you enter a church or temple, you can turn your brain off, so to speak... you've entered the house of God. Within this domain, the holyman speaks and the congregation answers. The litany is music, and they don't have to play Bach, and it doesn't have to be a gothic cathedral... it could be a cathedral of beech trees and the music could be Voodoo. The effect is the same: you meld with the rest of your kind, past, present and future, in the experience of birth, marriage, and death.

The scientific approach is active. When you enter the laboratory, you step into a quest. You arm yourself and plan your strategy. Though the temptation is there to give over to passion, your companions are there to keep you honest.

That said, there's a scientific approach to religion... a religious approach to science. When the spokesman says that "all scientists agree on this: blah blah blah...", he's posited the scientist as a holyman and he's demanding that you bow your head.

When the holyman seeks to persuade you through logic... he's forgotten the role of the holyman: to be transparent to the divine.

fallacious via oversimplification and bad analogy

@awoelt,

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Could science itself be a religon? The basic principles being gravity, energy, and electricity. The prophets we have faith in being any scientist.I mean, why trust all the scientists to tell us how the world is? Aside from science created medicine and technology, why do we beleive them? Could grass just be grass and not forms of carbon and water? Or can sky be sky and not a large formation of varied gases?

You can test it yourself. Proving the Pythagorean theorem is easy, spend a few minutes and you can see that it is true. Can you do the same for religious claims? Maybe you can think about God for a while and see that he exists, but other people will come to wildly different conclusions. There are many religions with many prophets and many beliefs, despite all originating from humanity. The basic laws of science are consistent across culture however, and indeed cross species, if any intelligent alien species are out there they have most likely discovered the same principles. One doubts they are Christians or Muslims however.

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;139355 wrote:

You can test it yourself. Proving the Pythagorean theorem is easy, spend a few minutes and you can see that it is true. Can you do the same for religious claims? Maybe you can think about God for a while and see that he exists, but other people will come to wildly different conclusions. There are many religions with many prophets and many beliefs, despite all originating from humanity. The basic laws of science are consistent across culture however, and indeed cross species, if any intelligent alien species are out there they have most likely discovered the same principles. One doubts they are Christians or Muslims however.

And thus the part philosophy plays: to help us examine what we really mean by this or that statement... to try to see ourselves as if from outer space while we're bound to the earth... to ask what we mean by "laws of science" and what we're really saying when we say a belief originates in humanity, to define humanity.

@awoelt,

I'd have a hard time saying that science is a religion, but on the other hand, I think a lot of people are religious about science.

@awoelt,

In some ways it occupies the area that was previously inhabited by religion. The obvious case in point is the 'origin myth'. The fact that Darwinism is being used as a weapon to denigrate religions throughout the world cannot help but make me think that science is treated as a religious ideology by some of its proponents. See for example The God that Failed by Stengl, Breaking the Spell by Dennett, the God Delusion by Dawkins. All these are books which claim to show that religious thought is basically made obsolete by science. For a counter-argument, see Evolution as Religion, by Mary Midgely.

@awoelt,

But jeeprs. Proponents of representative democracy often denigrate monarchy as well, pointing out it's failings (though it may have been a good system at one time). I think they are quite right to do so, even to call monarchy obsolete.

Would you then argue that "democracy is just another form of government"? Inherent in all these "science as a religion" debates is an anti-science current. But it seems better dealt with explicitly.

@awoelt,

Nearly all these debates start with the words 'religion is...' followed by a sweeping generalisation. Much of the time this will be expressed by an atheist who has come to his or her own conclusion in the matter and for whom it is settled. They know what they mean. But religion has many meanings and many forms. Religion might be an 'institutionalised belief system based on traditional dogmatic authoritarianism' (which is what is mostly meant). Or it might be 'a school of philosophy, reflection and ethical discipline intended to assist the human in realising an identity beyond the purely secular', or perhaps 'a systematic philosophical and devotional practice which seeks to situate the individual and society within a cosmic narrative'. These last two are more sympathetic descriptions, but also quite accurate.

For many scientific thinkers, the entire issue is situated within the meta-narrative of 'progress', where 'religion' represents archaic aspects of human life and culture that belonged to an earlier age of mankind, to be replaced by 'science' which provides verifiable truth and means of control over the world. This certainly is the attitude of a Dennett, Dawkins, or Stengl. They will generally understand only the first of the definitions given above. But there are many more meanings and layers within religions then they are aware of. Not least of which is the nature and the actuality of the idea of the Eternal in the midst of human affairs.

---------- Post added 03-14-2010 at 10:19 AM ----------

When I say 'nearly all these debates' I don't mean this particular one. I should qualify that by saying 'many debates on science and religion generally'.

@awoelt,

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Could science itself be a religon? The basic principles being gravity, energy, and electricity. The prophets we have faith in being any scientist. I mean, why trust all the scientists to tell us how the world is?

With scientists, the trust is limited and dependent upon their success. This differs greatly from religion, where there is generally no measure of success required. The preacher may pray for anything, and get nothing, and yet still is a preacher who has a flock all the same.

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Aside from science created medicine and technology, why do we beleive them?

You mean, aside from the fact that they have proven the basic endeavor of science to be successful, why should we believe them? To ask the question in the right way is to realize the absurdity of the question. It is precisely because science has been proven to work that we trust it. Our trust in science is not blind faith, but is belief based upon evidence.

awoelt;139137 wrote:

Could grass just be grass and not forms of carbon and water? Or can sky be sky and not a large formation of varied gases?

There is this tremendous gulf between science and religion: In science, everything is to be supported by evidence, or it is to be discarded. If you have any real doubt about anything in science, you can research the matter and examine the evidence for yourself so that you can see whether or not it is satisfactory. So if you are seriously concerned about the grass or the sky, you can research the matter to find out why it is that certain things are believed about the grass and the sky (which is to say, you can examine the evidence for yourself if you wish to do so). With religion, it is common for people to insist that there is no need for evidential support. For why that is a bad thing, see:

The Ethics Of Belief

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;140012 wrote:

This differs greatly from religion, where there is generally no measure of success required.

I have read many of your entries on religion. They are all generally true, tor a particular type of religious attitude, or a particular definition of religion. There are however many different forms of religious attitude and practice of which you may not be aware that are completely different to what you describe. There is no benefit in characterising them all the same way.

@jeeprs,

Science is the exploration , discovery , understanding of the Universe

sometimes right , sometimes wrong

nothing more , nothing less

@awoelt,

I have a serious question. How do we know for sure if gravity is real? It could just be God pulling the strings.

@awoelt,

'Gravity is a myth. The earth sucks'.

@Diogenes phil,

Diogenes;140395 wrote:

I have a serious question. How do we know for sure if gravity is real? It could just be God pulling the strings.

Gravity would still be real, as far as we could possibly know, God would just be the underlying reason for it all

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