Is Science a Religion?

I'm no expert. If you're curious, your best bet is to read up on it. Loads and loads of info on the net. But if they are just in it for the money, they're certainly not the first or only people who've used people's desire for the comfort and reassurance of religion to make money.

Oh, and I added the emphasis to show that, far from meaning 'scientific', the word 'scientology' could also be used to denote the very opposite: false science. That's what 'pseudoscience' means. Or, to be a bit more accurate, having a pretense to science.

Interesting, I decided to avoid scientology overall, I never knew it was so..lets just say corrupt..
Well thanks for sharing your knowledge:)

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

And yet you require what you call irrefutible truth to believe in God, while admiting that sience has things that they cannot prove.

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Do I claim anything or require you anything? I know belief in God is based on faith and faith is a subjective feeling that is up to those with faith to uphold or not.
Also, there is any field of science actually specialized on disproving God? Saying they do not take god on account while studying does not mean they are bothered to proof or not his existence.

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Am I to turn away from God simply because others do not see things as I do?

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I think you may turn away from your god from the momment you are requiring others to disprove or prove it for you. (You as a generic person). Religion is a field that have its own function and internal logic, if I was religious I would not try to justify it by the strength of anyother field such as science.

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No, and neither will I turn away from science even though it is sometimes flawed.

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I think anyone can have a nice life without having to take sides. To live, we require efficience and results, and Religion have a history of success as well. So, I suppose you can have a quiet life just with the results.

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Gravity doesn't reqiire faith because I can feel the pull all too well. But things like "quarks" for example I may never see. Does this mean that they don't exist?

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Nope. I hope we do not equate visual register with existence.

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No. There is a similiarity, even if I am the only one who does believe that there is.

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A similarity between the existence of God and Quarks? Sorry, but If your God can be equated with small particles or energy waves, or anything that we do not see with our eyes, I must say you are not showing much face on your God.

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I accept evolution as in adaptation to habitat very well, for example. I don't believe the animals now, and at the time of creation are the same, they evolved and changed. I called attention once to an eohippus, ancestor of our horse.

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Ok, many people do it. It is reasonable.

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Nevertheless, I bow to those who feel that I am wrong. Feel free to do so, you haven't shaken me yet, and I don't think you could.

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I do not think anyone is wanting to shake your faith, just to answer the ideas you presented. The difference between science and religion are too clear but if you insist on arguing otherwise, It is not like anyone will hunt your down for it. A forum would not live if everyone wrote the exactly samething...

[QUOTE=JCamilo;654218]
A similarity between the existence of God and Quarks? Sorry, but If your God can be equated with small particles or energy waves, or anything that we do not see with our eyes, I must say you are not showing much face on your God.





[QUOTE]Not what I meant, although I can see how you got there. I meant that there is a similarity between science and religion. :)

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

I simply do not consider what one or more learned scientists say to be irrefutable truth or that science is infallible. For that matter I don't consider even my own Christian beliefs to be infallible, I might be wrong on how I see things.

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The only side which I've ever seen claim infallibility is the religious one.

I keep pointing out that this is the joy of science - it doesn't try to be infallible, in fact, it tries to be just the opposite. That's why science is constantly updated. Even mathematics, the purest of all pursuits, is up for revision, when a generally-accepted theory suddenly has an exception.

And that's all it takes in science - one single exception, there is no prize for being almost right in science. Once that single exception is found, there is no more Pendragon's Theory of equilateral trianges, it is just wrong.

Evolution is an absolutely classic example. Darwin was till largely right, despite what some people try to claim, but he certainly made a number of mistakes. Not surprising, since he was using a magnifying glass and a knife, while modern laboratories have access to electron microscopes and DNA typing. Science constantly moves forward, and it makes mistakes on the way.

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

But look at it this way: We have scientists (prophets?) who do experiments and write tomes of fact (holy books?) which are then accepted by people who cannot repeat these experiments for themselves nor are they able to gain proof of their own on things, yet they accept them as total proof (is this not faith?)

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Two words: peer review.

Scientists check each other's work. They are more jealous than a room full of aspiring catwalk models and like nothing better than plucking holes in someone else's work. Crikey - if you think theists and atheists get heated, you should sit in some science bull sessions. It's as well they're all geeks who don't carry concealed weapons or it'd be the shootout at the OK Corral every Thursday.

Because the glory in science is for the bloke who discovered it - Newton's Laws, Einstein's Theories, Pythagoras' Hippopotami - and if you're the bloke who's spent 147 years trying to prove circles are square when that bloke Pendragon down the road suddenly reckons he's cracked it, you can be sure that the first scientist is going to go nuts trying to disprove your theory.

Honestly, ask around, join Science Forums, go to Dawkins' site in the science section - there is no free pass anywhere in science.

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

But what if there was a mistake in the formula or a bad equation? The repeated experiments use the same data, so this will not be caught.

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Nope. Never mind the fine-tooth comb, these guys are true zealots. If a study is done on 1,324,786 fruit flies, you'd better not have 1,324,787 dead ones, because someone will program an algorithm to count the blighters.

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

And yet you require what you call irrefutible truth to believe in God, ...

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As I've said many times, I'd settle for one exception.

In fact when a particular set of idea becomes institutionalized it becomes a religion, and today some science has been a religion. Science becomes religion when it is unquestioned or is taken for granted.

No sense, blaze, Law are instituionalized and no religion. I would like just to remember everyone that Religion is more complex than just "dogmas that people follow out of ignorance".

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

I would like just to remember everyone that Religion is more complex than just "dogmas that people follow out of ignorance".

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i dont remember that...pretty sure your quote--"dogmas that people follow out of ignorance"--sums it up for the most part.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

In fact when a particular set of idea becomes institutionalized it becomes a religion, and today some science has been a religion. Science becomes religion when it is unquestioned or is taken for granted.

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No, because by that stage, it's no longer science, and has become pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience or not, you have to admit that people put trust in things they only know based the word of someone else.

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Originally Posted by dzebra

Pseudoscience or not, you have to admit that people put trust in things they only know based the word of someone else.

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Of course they do, but that has no relevance whatsoever to science, which doesn't use hearsay at all.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Of course they do, but that has no relevance whatsoever to science, which doesn't use hearsay at all.

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Indeed. Cold Fusion. Fact or Fiction? Some say yea, and some say nay. Both are using scientific principles. Both are nigh rabid in their belief or disbelief. Sounds like many religious arguments to me.

But trusting in what others say is not either Religion, Science, Art, law, watever field of knowledge of humankind, it is human nature. If you have time and resources, you can question everything people tell you and think only by yourself, but that is and have been always impossible.
Trust me, humans.

I just do not believe in institutionalized religions. And religions if to be true must spring from the heart.

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

Indeed. Cold Fusion. Fact or Fiction? Some say yea, and some say nay. Both are using scientific principles. Both are nigh rabid in their belief or disbelief. Sounds like many religious arguments to me.

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People who nowadays believe the "kitchen table cold fusion" are not using scientific principles.
The "Kitchen Table Cold Fusion", when I remember correctly, is an experiment that other scientists couldn't replicate - and nowadays that experiment is widely regarded as pathological science - by the scientific principles - so if you are trying to make science look like religion, you'd better dig up something better than a piece of bad science.