Truth : Science Vs. Religion

[gumpty]

Science is the best method we have for producing useful knowledge about the world we live in. Religion does not produce meaningful, testable knowledge. If someone can demonstrate a better alternative to methodological naturalism for producing knowledge that benefits mankind and our planet then I'll back that instead.

Religion was useful once for uniting a society and prevent parts splintering off or joining another rival group. It is redundant now that we have massively organised sports teams and competitions.

 

[TheMailMan78]

I don't get it. We know so much about the real and rather mundane historical origins of all religions now that it's no longer a defensible view point to have. So why would anyone continue to have religious beliefs? A) They need them for comfort. The idea of not existing and constantly having to worry about not existing at some point can be quite debilitating. Most likely why religious beliefs are an evolutionary necessity for any advanced race in the early days before they have a legacy of knowledge to build upon. Otherwise you'd spend too much time pondering why this or why that and being terrified of death. B) It's entrenched from childhood, and resistance to having the foundation of your beliefs removed is incredibly high. C) It's just much easier to be pig headed than to go research something with the intent of proving yourself wrong.

Its more of a man knowing his limitations.......man as a whole doesn't seem to know his yet. Therefore religion will always come into play. This is the main reason I question everything man says. Be it scientific or religious.

Science is the best method we have for producing useful knowledge about the world we live in. Religion does not produce meaningful, testable knowledge. If someone can demonstrate a better alternative to methodological naturalism for producing knowledge that benefits mankind and our planet then I'll back that instead.

Religion was useful once for uniting a society and prevent parts splintering off or joining another rival group. It is redundant now that we have massively organised sports teams and competitions.

We had that before Rome. Hell we had that in Sumeria. Religion at its core is needed for man to survive as much as science is. Its that damn pesky ego that keeps the two from uniting.

 

[Deleted member 3]

This was bound to happen. Eventually there would be a TPU vs GN thread.

 

[gumpty]

Religion at its core is needed for man to survive as much as science is.

What is religion at it's core?

 

[TheMailMan78]

What is religion at it's core?

Faith that there is more then we understand. Much like Quantum Physics.

 

[W1zzard]

What is religion at it's core?

it dangles a magical carrot in front of you that promises a great reward for fitting a certain profile during your life

 

[TheMailMan78]

it dangles a magical carrot in front of you that promises a great reward for fitting a certain profile during your life

Unlike Quantum Physics which dangles a magical cat in front of your face and promises you nothing.

 

[AphexDreamer]

How many of you would be alive today if not for antibiotics,
cardiac pacemakers, and the rest of the panoply of modern medicine?

Science saves more lives then it has destroyed. However, I cannot attest the same for religion.

 

[TheMailMan78]

How many of you would be alive today if not for antibiotics,
cardiac pacemakers, and the rest of the panoply of modern medicine?

Science saves more lives then it has destroyed. However, I cannot attest the same for religion.

All the missions in third world nations bringing those anti-biotics to people disagree.

 

[gumpty]

Faith that there is more then we understand.

Yeah, but at it doesn't provide any mechanism for discovering what that is. And in it's organised form often actively discourages people from striving to know more.

Science on the other hand provides us a mechanism for bettering our situation. I don't see how religion provides that.

All the missions in third world nations bringing those anti-biotics to people disagree.

It could be argued that it is people's innate humanity brings those meds to people. The "faith that there is more then we understand" doesn't seem to speak about distributing meds to third-world countries.


This thread is going to run and run.

I'll try and read the hundreds of posts in the morning. Night night people.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Yeah, but at it doesn't provide any mechanism for discovering what that is. And in it's organised form often actively discourages people from striving to know more.

Science on the other hand provides us a mechanism for bettering our situation. I don't see how religion provides that.

I agree to a point. But Science doesn't give comfort to people in dire situations to continue fighting to survive. Only religion does that. Religion and instinct. But instinct will never give comfort. No one in a fox hole says "Man I can wait to read Hawkins next book on quantum mechanics. I better stay alive." no its more of "G-d if you can pull me through this alive I swear Ill be a better man.".

See where I'm coming from?

Both are needed for man. Pure religion and pure science are equally bad. The human race needs both in moderation to survive.

 

[Phxprovost]

Science saves more lives then it has destroyed. However, I cannot attest the same for religion.

your kidding me right? for every life saving advancement that has been brought about by science there is also weapons that can eliminate whole regions with the push of a button. Both Science and Religion are inherently neutral, the key is human nature and how we use them to our advantage.

 

[TheMailMan78]

your kidding me right? for every life saving advancement that has been brought about by science there is also weapons that can eliminate whole regions with the push of a button. Both Science and Religion are inherently neutral, the key is human nature and how we use them to our advantage.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.

 

[gumpty]

I agree to a point. But Science doesn't give comfort to people in dire situations to continue fighting to survive. Only religion does that. Religion and instinct. But instinct will never give comfort. No one in a fox hole says "Man I can wait to read Hawkins next book on quantum mechanics. I better stay alive." no its more of "G-d if you can pull me through this alive I swear Ill be a better man.".

See where I'm coming from?

Both are needed for man. Pure religion and pure science are equally bad. The human race needs both in moderation to survive.

You call it religion ... I call it humanity. I agree, just differ in the name we give it. I guess I'm a humanist, explains the same things without pretending there is a invisible sky-daddy.

Anyway, have fun with this. I'm going to bed.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Given the other zealotry (for both sides), let's look at this with a critical eye.

Our original topic was about nuclear decay being a non-constant. The article cited a decrease in the decay rate whenever the solar activity increased. Let's assume that this is a 100% true trend that did not evolve from anywhere else.

If you dated a fossil's radioactive carbon content, assuming a constant decay rate, you would have a logarithmic curve. This curve is used to determine how old a given specimen was whenever it stopped taking in radioactive carbon isotopes (death or finished good).

Assuming the decay rate changes with solar activity the curve would not apply. This does not account for either upswings in decay (low solar activity) or downswings (extreme solar activity). Before anyone trumpets for either side, let's get our facts in line.


Now zealots on both sides, look at the numbers. You don't know what the influence is, and don't have hard facts to support either side. Taking either the religious extreme (we were created by g_d 2000 years ago), or the scientific extreme (life has been around longer than we thought), is foolish.

In short, calm the flaming. Wait until people who know better can do the math, and give us a more accurate picture. Hate like this is why the undecided middle can't side with either set of fundamentalists.


Full disclosure: I believe in a higher power, but not the Judeo-Christian or Muslim interpretation. Science is damn good at explaining things, and should always be the first thing we develop (before we bow to a superior pawer).

 

[TIGR]

nothing in science speaks about a creator nor can science ever make any statements to that

That assumes that God and science are and always will be mutually exclusive.

 

[_Zod_]

Question religion and you might be beheaded, question science and you might win a nobel prize.

I'll just leave this here.

 

[W1zzard]

That assumes that God and science are and always will be mutually exclusive.

yes, per definition

 

[TIGR]

yes, per definition

Such a narrow definition of God seems unscientific to me as it ignores many possibilities; e.g. the possibility of a god existing though not exactly as perceived by some. See cargo cults.

 

[AphexDreamer]

your kidding me right? for every life saving advancement that has been brought about by science there is also weapons that can eliminate whole regions with the push of a button. Both Science and Religion are inherently neutral, the key is human nature and how we use them to our advantage.

Everyday Science helps successfully give birth and maintain/ensure the survival of the human race via medicine, hospitals, security systems, etc... etc...

Only in rare cases like the nuclear bomb (twice) and random spurs of war (usually caused by religious extremists from the start) where science is accompanying man to destroy themselves.

 

[Rule-R]

Religion explains the existence of men.
Science tries to explain the existence of men.

Objectively i would rather believe in the faith (either in God or Science) by which i gain the most in the long run. (I also buy the best price/quality parts for my pc) Science is fun fun fun, me like computers!, but the idea of the possibility suffering in hell almost fries my circuitry.
Subjectively i am pleased that science is more and more backing up my religion and less and less supporting everything else. Not that it would matter, because faith is.. faith.

 

[TIGR]

Religion explains the existence of men.
Science tries to explain the existence of men.

Objectively i would rather believe in the faith (either in God or Science) by which i gain the most in the long run. (I also buy the best price/quality parts for my pc) Science is fun fun fun, me like computers!, but the idea of the possibility suffering in hell almost fries my circuitry.
Subjectively i am pleased that science is more and more backing up my religion and less and less supporting everything else. Not that it would matter, because faith is.. faith.

Respectful, not adversarial questions:

Does religion explain our existence any better than science, or does it just delay the jump from nothingness to existence by introducing an intermediate step—that intermediate step being in many cases a supernatural being?

A second question is: does aligning one's self with a religious belief system based upon fear (rather than upon confidence in the underlying truth of that belief system) constitute true religious belief? If the threat was removed, would you still believe? And what if science invented its own hell and the threat of its hell seemed equally convincing?

I think of us as being born with lenses so rough they are almost opaque between ourselves and reality. As we learn, we are grinding away at the imperfections in the lens, revealing a clearer and clearer vision of truth. Science and technology are tools for grinding the lens ever more finely and if there is a god out there, perhaps they are what will lead us to that god.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Dammit, 2nd time of writing this as I just mistakenly pressed escape and my 10 min 3 paragraph post disappeared

Anyway, i believe science and religion are more closely related than many of us would believe or admit to. For instance, most biblical readings deem the earth was created in so many days and there is an omnipresent being who created it all, this isn't a million miles away from some of science's explanations where there was a big bang (god?) billions of years ago (7 days?) that created the universe...

People tend to get caught up in the detail rather than the larger picture. I mean who says the bible, koran, tora etc were all meant to be taken literal (7 days in biblical terms could be billions of years in himan terms), infact there are so many comparisons in science and religion it's not even funny, mankind just seems to get bogged down in detail and focused on it that we kind of forget to take a look at the bigger picture.

Whos to say science and religion can't dwell in the same house, both have people that follow them that would die for what they believe both believe in something yet neither is quite sure what that something is and both look for answers to questions that have been asked since the dawn of man (or monkey/fish/microbacterial etc etc)

Regardless of whether science is your religion or religion is your science we can agree that neither side has all of the answers and there may be more similarities between science and religion than people would care to admit, which is a shame.

Damn really feel like having a spliff now and getting all hippy-fied

 

[micropage7]

wow. personally i think religion and science should run on the same way. religion however teachs us to think and figure out all that happen in our life, but at some point it wont get explained coz its like philosophy

 

[streetfighter 2]

Obviously that picture is not accurate, but it is funny! I think it's important to mention that some people really do believe that (though usually only one or the other).

it dangles a magical carrot in front of you that promises a great reward for fitting a certain profile during your life

We're talking about religion, not your coke addiction.