Reasons for the conflict between religion and science.

[studiot]

 

If you want to extend the meaning of 'religion' to encompass all of strong subjective feelings, beliefs; of art and all kind of rituals; of every worldview; then you are stretching the meaning of the word pretty far.

 

No I do not want to extend the definition of Religion.

You are still only talking about substance, but as MigL observers much of Religous content is to to with its several and varied purposes, such as a moral code of conduct, a record of history, a source of social authority etc.

 

Talking of substance you have said

 

Creationist Religion is in conflict with cosmology.

 

and

 

Buddhist Religion defers to Science.

 

So what conclusion should I draw as to your views?

1)Religion is in conflict with Science.

2)Religion is not in conflict with Science.

3) Buddhism is in conflict with Creationism.

4) Some other conclusion.

Edited October 4, 2014 by studiot

[s1eep]

 

No I do not want to extend the definition of Religion.

You are still only taliking about substance, but as MigL observers much of Relious content is to to with is several and varied purposes.

 

Talking of substance you have said

 

Creationist Religion is in conflict with cosmology.

 

and

 

Buddhist Religion defers to Science.

 

So what conclusion should I draw as to your views?

1)Religion is in conflict with Science.

2)Religion is not in conflict with Science.

3) Buddhism is in conflict with Creationism.

4) Some other conclusion.

Not all religion is against science, religion is a concept that can be applied to almost anything if we extended our language; simply, God-belief is irrational.

 

Do remember you're speaking to people who believe what typical Atheists believe...

 

Even Heaven is not God-exclusive...

Edited October 4, 2014 by s1eep

[Strange]

 

Do remember you're speaking to people who believe what typical Atheists believe...

 

What do typical atheists believe?

[Eise]

You are still only talking about substance, but as MigL observers much of Religous content is to to with its several and varied purposes, such as a moral code of conduct, a record of history, a source of social authority etc.

 

Yes, and again: I concentrate on the substance because that is my answer on the question of this thread. There lies the source of the conflicts between science and religion. I am not talking about the question if religion logically always must be in conflict with science. That would be another thread.

 

The point is that many religions connect their 'other purposes' with this 'substance': it is true that God created the world in 6 days, and science that denies this, is a threat for morality. I don't understand why you do not see that this is the conflict as the creationists see it.

 

1)Religion is in conflict with Science.

2)Religion is not in conflict with Science.

3) Buddhism is in conflict with Creationism.

4) Some other conclusion..

 

You don't get to the heart of the matter: which religion do you mean? Enlightened modern day moderate Christianity? Or fundamentalist Christianity? Or Jihadism? Or secular Buddhism? You do as if 'religion' is the same for everybody. It isn't. Some religions do not get into conflict with science. Others do.

 

The topic of this thread is why those others get in conflict with science.

[studiot]

 

The topic of this thread is why those others get in conflict with science.

 

 

 

Now you are beginning to see past the beam.

[s1eep]

 

What do typical atheists believe?

A typical Atheist, the majority of Atheists that make up the public voice for Atheism, would say something along the lines of "I don't believe in heaven", or "Heaven is nonsensical", and add disbelief in heaven to something an Atheist ought to do; simply, full devotion to today's scientific discovery. Even though, that is not the definition of Atheist, it's what I'm referring to when I say the typical, anti-religious, Atheists.

Edited October 4, 2014 by s1eep

[Strange]

 

A typical Atheist, the majority of Atheists that make up the public voice for Atheism, would say something along the lines of "I don't believe in heaven",

 

That is about what Atheists (is the capital A significant?) don't believe in, not what they do believe.

[Eise]

That is about what Atheists (is the capital A significant?) don't believe in, not what they do believe.

 

That makes sense. It is exactly what a-theism describes. What they do not believe in.

 

Some might be deists. Or Buddhists. Or humanists. Or nihilists.

[studiot]

 

That makes sense. It is exactly what a-theism describes. What they do not believe in

 

Well said.

 

Personally I'm a don't care, rather than a don't know (agnostic), or a definitely against (aetheist) as it would make no difference to my actions.

Edited October 4, 2014 by studiot

[iNow]

Incidentally iNow, I may find the colour yellow most pleasing today, but after some conditioning I may find the colour purple most pleasing next week. This can also be measured by the brain'sresponse. Does that mean a 'truth' can change from day to day ?

It was never a truth to begin with. It was a preference.

[Phi for All]

A typical Atheist, the majority of Atheists that make up the public voice for Atheism, would say something along the lines of "I don't believe in heaven", or "Heaven is nonsensical", and add disbelief in heaven to something an Atheist ought to do; simply, full devotion to today's scientific discovery. Even though, that is not the definition of Atheist, it's what I'm referring to when I say the typical, anti-religious, Atheists.

 

A typical misunderstanding of atheism. So many people think of it as something active when it isn't. Why do YOU get to put words in my mouth about belief? Why is belief in god(s) the default I choose not to participate in?

 

Another reason why science and religion conflict. Science respects the null hypothesis, where religion rejects it for the fantastical. If I don't collect stamps, why would you label me an anti-stamp collector? Can't I just not care, as studiot points out?

 

Personally, I'm a humanist. Until god(s) decides to become observable, I'll focus my worldly attention on my fellow humans. I generally like them better, and they are more or less predictable.

[s1eep]

 

A typical misunderstanding of atheism. So many people think of it as something active when it isn't. Why do YOU get to put words in my mouth about belief? Why is belief in god(s) the default I choose not to participate in?

 

Another reason why science and religion conflict. Science respects the null hypothesis, where religion rejects it for the fantastical. If I don't collect stamps, why would you label me an anti-stamp collector? Can't I just not care, as studiot points out?

 

Personally, I'm a humanist. Until god(s) decides to become observable, I'll focus my worldly attention on my fellow humans. I generally like them better, and they are more or less predictable.

But, it's not only you who makes up the population. If anything, when I say these things it also implies I am forgiving in cases where the person knows what Atheism is.

Edited October 4, 2014 by s1eep

[Phi for All]

But, it's not only you who makes up the population. If anything, when I say these things it also implies I am forgiving in cases where the person knows what Atheism is.

 

You ignored all the questions I asked, and chose to focus on how forgiving you are. And on top of that, your answer still makes no sense to me. Are you saying "the population" gets to decide what I believe or not because I'm just a part of it? How does THAT work?

[s1eep]

 

You ignored all the questions I asked, and chose to focus on how forgiving you are. And on top of that, your answer still makes no sense to me. Are you saying "the population" gets to decide what I believe or not because I'm just a part of it? How does THAT work?

You've got the wrong idea, I'm not condemning Atheism to anything other than disbelief in God, but I'm saying, most modern Atheists who the religious base their arguments on, are not actually good representatives of Atheism, especially towards people who are learning what Atheism is. In the same manner as Atheists saying all Christians believe in a man in the sky, clearly, some say they believe in something more believable.

Edited October 4, 2014 by s1eep

[MigL]

Re: post #60 iNow

 

Exactly !

[Phi for All]

You've got the wrong idea, I'm not condemning Atheism to anything other than disbelief in God,

 

Well, thanks for your condemnation for disbelief in God. You can also condemn me for disbelief in invisible pink unicorns and the tooth fairy. All three show a marked lack of evidence that don't meet any of the criteria I require before trusting that something is real.

 

And from my perspective, it's not even disbelief. There are theists who believe in god(s), and I'm simply not one of them. I don't have a disbelief, I choose not to participate in a belief in god(s). I'M NOT AN ANTI-STAMP COLLECTOR, I JUST DON'T COLLECT STAMPS!

[knyazik]

Science is about describing how the world works, involving observation and confirmation that the word actually works that way. Models must conform to observation.

 

An ideology tells the world how to work. Observation must conform to ideology.

 

I don't see how they can not be in conflict.

 

I think that in all honesty there is hypocracy in both approaches. A lot of religion is built on faith, and doesn't require facts in order for one to believe that something is true. Science on the other hand always makes people question what they observe and what they believe, and try to setup other observations that can potentially prove or disprove what they believe to be true today. Both of those approaches are not absolute. Religion transforms with time and current trends. Just look at what the current pope is doing, and if you were to compare how we interpreted religion in the dark ages compared to today, you will clearly see that there has been progress in interpretation of the ideal truth. People do not believe the same thing they did 500 years ago, so there must have been someone who questioned validity of certain aspects of religion, and then convinced others that he is correct. That is how religious approach is being hypocritical. The scientific approach is not pure as well. If you think about it, even though we try to teach people to question everything, think outside the box, etc. the vast majority of people that are highly trained in different sciences have role models such as Einstein, Hawking, Feynman, Watson, etc. They try to think like their role models do, and operate like their role models do. Very few try to think outside the box, therefore most of the science that is done today falls much more under engineering then it does under pure science, so uses well known approaches to measure something that others just had no time to do before. Perhaps you can make an argument that people are people, and although they are curious about how things behave and want answers, they also don't want to move too far out of their comfort zone. And from absolute point of view both aspects fail, and therefore conflict seems much more superficial then it appears from first glance.

[PeterJ]

My view would be that the reason for the dispute is that religion is poorly studied and often lazily equated with objective theism. The issues are more subtle and sophisticated than they are usually given credit for. As 'steep' says, on the atheist/materialist side are some very prominent figures with naïve, extreme and dogmatic views who do represent atheism well, and on the religion side there are prominent figures with similar views who do represent religion well.

 

This is why I would recommend cutting to the chase and studying metaphysics. Bradley calls it 'an antidote for dogmatic superstition', and this would be its chief virtue. Extreme views on both sides suffer badly from a little analysis.

 

My writing is entirely devoted to reconciling religion, philosophy and science, and I have no problem doing this in my head. There is no reason we cannot all do it, but we do tend to have some weird ideas about religion which prevents it happening. Metaphysics is the only neutral territory available to us on which to sort all this out. There we have to think about it logically without all the emotional stuff and childhood baggage.

[knyazik]

My view would be that the reason for the dispute is that religion is poorly studied and often lazily equated with objective theism. The issues are more subtle and sophisticated than they are usually given credit for. As 'steep' says, on the atheist/materialist side are some very prominent figures with naïve, extreme and dogmatic views who do represent atheism well, and on the religion side there are prominent figures with similar views who do represent religion well.

 

This is why I would recommend cutting to the chase and studying metaphysics. Bradley calls it 'an antidote for dogmatic superstition', and this would be its chief virtue. Extreme views on both sides suffer badly from a little analysis.

 

My writing is entirely devoted to reconciling religion, philosophy and science, and I have no problem doing this in my head. There is no reason we cannot all do it, but we do tend to have some weird ideas about religion which prevents it happening. Metaphysics is the only neutral territory available to us on which to sort all this out. There we have to think about it logically without all the emotional stuff and childhood baggage.

From personal experience, if there is ever any disagreement between physics and religion, those disagreement multiply when you have metaphysics. I think its because it tries to combine the two and there is a huge push back (not sure about the religion community) from the scientific community. I am curious about what exactly metaphysics does, and if you know of any good sources or can explain some basic ideas with examples, I think that would be really useful.

[PeterJ]

Hi knyazik - What you say seems spot on. Both sides have an antipathy to metaphysics. It is where we are forced to face the logic of our situation. Not many people seem to notice this and your the first I've seen mention it. But it very obvious when you read the anti-science and anti-religion literature. Not a decent discussion of metaphysics in sight.

 

It's difficult to refer you to any decent explanations of metaphysics. I don't know of any book that successfully marries up western and eastern ideas to provide an easy bridge between them. It is a huge chasm to cross. I think my suggestion would depend on whether you would already accept that, in Kant's terminology, 'all selective conclusions about the world as a whole are undecidable', in Nagarjuna's, 'All positive metaphysical theories are logically indefensible', or whether you've not grasped the meaning and seen the equivalence of these statements yet. .

 

What sort of sources are you after exactly? I could PM by blog but this wasn't supposed to be advertising.

 

 

.

 

.

..

[iNow]

I am curious about what exactly metaphysics does, and if you know of any good sources or can explain some basic ideas with examples, I think that would be really useful.

It's all off-topic here, but FYI: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/

[Willie71]

Reading through this thread, I see some great posts. I have a lot if views on this subject, and will list a few of them here.

 

Religion is a way to explain the natural world in the absence of scientific evidence. People are prone to assign intent to random observations, and this is related to the dopamine levels in your brain.

 

http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/dopamine-marks-the-line-between-religious-believer-and-fanatic/

 

There is a lot in the literature on this, but I cannot post it due to copywrite law.

 

The Druids believed in the power of the trees, the Native Americans had many guiding/controlling spirits that ruled nature. The Romans and Greeks had their myths. A few thousand years ago there was a shift to monotheism, which really isn't unless 3=1, but that's a different argument all together. Every culture had its creation myths. Here is 10 of them to look at:

 

http://listverse.com/2014/01/11/10-creation-myths-as-strange-as-the-bible/

 

Here are a few others that are very similar to Christianity:

 

http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus/

 

These are based on the hero archetype:

 

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/general-faith/lord-raglan-on-mythic-heroes-t2089.html

 

So, when you look at the evolution of spiritual beliefs, they follow a pattern that has evolved to be relevant to the culture, as people moved from hunter gatherer to agrarian, then industrialized societies. In this day, religion is becoming much less relevant to cultural norms. Numerous examples exist, such as climate change, human rights, equality of women, overpopulation, and many others. Solutions are opposed by people who fundamentally believe in a book that is millenia old, and no longer relevant. Additionally, people of the three major religions continue killing each other because the God of Abraham promised the world to three groups of people. Yes, that is correct, Christianity, Islam , and Judaism are all based on the same god, and share a number of books in their holy tomes.

 

Science only shares one principle with religion. It tries to explain the natural world, but in every way other than this it is different. Science looks for evidence and proof. It requires metagognition, rather than faith. It gives statistical probabilities. The results are accepted, even if the hypothesis is not supported. One does not have to explain away science, and if new evidence makes previous "truths" obsolete, it accepts that and evolves. This is not proof of the fallability of science, it is the quest to find the best explanation we can based on the evidence we have.

 

One of my issues with religion is the homocentrism of it all. The entire expanse of this vast universe was supposedly created for us. We can only observe about 1/1000 of it as our best guess, and we can only perceive through senses that make the majority of the universe unobservable to us. What a cruel trick to play on the reason for the universe.

 

When human suffering can be diminished through science, and religious groups block that because of an interpretation of a myth written two millenia ago (give or take several centuries) it is obvious that there will be conflict. I'm trying to stay away from politics here, as I understand that is against the rules, so I'm leaving it as the goals of religious groups versus scientific groups on issues that can benefit humanity, regardless of political systems.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Willie71

[knyazik]

Reading through this thread, I see some great posts. I have a lot if views on this subject, and will list a few of them here.

 

Religion is a way to explain the natural world in the absence of scientific evidence. People are prone to assign intent to random observations, and this is related to the dopamine levels in your brain.

 

http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/dopamine-marks-the-line-between-religious-believer-and-fanatic/

 

There is a lot in the literature on this, but I cannot post it due to copywrite law.

 

The Druids believed in the power of the trees, the Native Americans had many guiding/controlling spirits that ruled nature. The Romans and Greeks had their myths. A few thousand years ago there was a shift to monotheism, which really isn't unless 3=1, but that's a different argument all together. Every culture had its creation myths. Here is 10 of them to look at:

 

http://listverse.com/2014/01/11/10-creation-myths-as-strange-as-the-bible/

 

Here are a few others that are very similar to Christianity:

 

http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus/

 

These are based on the hero archetype:

 

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/general-faith/lord-raglan-on-mythic-heroes-t2089.html

 

So, when you look at the evolution of spiritual beliefs, they follow a pattern that has evolved to be relevant to the culture, as people moved from hunter gatherer to agrarian, then industrialized societies. In this day, religion is becoming much less relevant to cultural norms. Numerous examples exist, such as climate change, human rights, equality of women, overpopulation, and many others. Solutions are opposed by people who fundamentally believe in a book that is millenia old, and no longer relevant. Additionally, people of the three major religions continue killing each other because the God of Abraham promised the world to three groups of people. Yes, that is correct, Christianity, Islam , and Judaism are all based on the same god, and share a number of books in their holy tomes.

 

Science only shares one principle with religion. It tries to explain the natural world, but in every way other than this it is different. Science looks for evidence and proof. It requires metagognition, rather than faith. It gives statistical probabilities. The results are accepted, even if the hypothesis is not supported. One does not have to explain away science, and if new evidence makes previous "truths" obsolete, it accepts that and evolves. This is not proof of the fallability of science, it is the quest to find the best explanation we can based on the evidence we have.

 

One of my issues with religion is the homocentrism of it all. The entire expanse of this vast universe was supposedly created for us. We can only observe about 1/1000 of it as our best guess, and we can only perceive through senses that make the majority of the universe unobservable to us. What a cruel trick to play on the reason for the universe.

 

When human suffering can be diminished through science, and religious groups block that because of an interpretation of a myth written two millenia ago (give or take several centuries) it is obvious that there will be conflict. I'm trying to stay away from politics here, as I understand that is against the rules, so I'm leaving it as the goals of religious groups versus scientific groups on issues that can benefit humanity, regardless of political systems.

 

That was a great summary. Really hard to follow that up. Thank you. One thing that I observed over the years is that people turn to religion when they are in a tough place. When you are faced with huge obstacles and problems that you can't do anything about such as death, divorce, illness, poverty, etc. and you cannot rationally accept or even begin getting over what is happening you turn to god to find comfort. In reality people just want to believe in something that cannot be proved by science, but their beliefs help them function so to them it doesn't matter if it can be proven or not, it works for them and therefore it's as good as a fact that can be proven using scientific reasoning. Unfortunately, and this has been going on for thousands of years, they can be manipulated by other people who position themselves as religious leaders, and then use their power for their own personal agenda. You are completely right a lot of religions are very similar, and the fact that there's conflict is more about conflict between religious leaders, or social position of different religions today, rather then battle of ideologies. Wow, that got way too political. On a lighter note, need to believe in something that is beyond us is very human, and not logical, so I really wonder if you can make an artificial intelligence machine that is not programmed to be religious, but figured out on its own that it wants to believe and be part of one religion or another.

[PeterJ]

Willie - I guess that your post took a lot of time and would say it's well put together. Unfortunately it almost completely misses the mark. Why does nobody bother to research religion properly before writing about it? A mystery. This is not an example of a scientific approach but of a lazy approach taken by many amateur detractors and the odd biologist. Sorry, but not impressed. Get to know your topic before risking writing about it.

[imatfaal]

Willie - I guess that your post took a lot of time and would say it's well put together. Unfortunately it almost completely misses the mark. Why does nobody bother to research religion properly before writing about it? A mystery. This is not an example of a scientific approach but of a lazy approach taken by many amateur detractors and the odd biologist. Sorry, but not impressed. Get to know your topic before risking writing about it.

 

Peter - a fair percentage of your recent posts have been telling other members how little they know or comprehend and (both implicitly and explicitly) describing the depths of your understanding and scope of your knowledge. It might be good for the forum if you were to share some of this wisdom and erudition - in the process some of your certainties about the shortfalls of others might be ameliorated and your confidence in your own correctness weakened.