Peace be on all.
The source of religion and science is same God.
Religion comes with words of God.
Science is working of same God.
Science leads to 'should be'.
Religion takes to 'is'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelat...edge_%26_Truth
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Peace be on all.
The source of religion and science is same God.
Religion comes with words of God.
Science is working of same God.
Science leads to 'should be'.
Religion takes to 'is'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelat...edge_%26_Truth
Nice poem YALASH. The first four lines I can agree with or make sense out of immediately. The last two I'm still thinking about. I don't know much about Islam, but Mirza Tahir Ahmad's book referenced in the link might be a good place to start.
Here's a more nuanced take on the question of fading religious faith, from Adam Gopnik in last week's New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...urrentPage=all
Among Gopnik's points: Arguments in favor of naturalism (as opposed to super naturalism) have existed for centuries. One point of interest is how society and culture changes to make these arguments acceptable.
He discusses how physics is more compatable with religion than evolutionary biology.
He talks about how specifically atheistic arguments have been ineffective compared to (his example) Gibbon's discussion of the worldly mechanisms by which Christianity triumphed in Rome.
He says, "...we arrive at what the noes ("no" to God)... really have now, and that is a monopoly on legitimate forms of knowledge about the natural world." Herein lies my disapproval of "The Athiest". His argument is already won. Beating religious folks over the head with it is like the Seattle Seahawks challenging a Pop Warner football team to a game, and then tauntng the 100-pound kids after every bone-jarring tackle.
I'm not sure about Gopnik's conclusion -- which is that life has become so pleasant that we no longer need the opiate of God. However, by reading and commenting on the article, perhaps we can raise the level of this discussion (which wouldn't be difficult).
Oh, I agree completely. Religion is definitely starting to lose its luster. People are starting to figure out that over time it's been used to manipulate more than anything else. Manipulation is at the heart of every human endeavor, unfortunately. That is not to say that religion hasn't done great things for mankind. Music, poetry, architecture are just some of the things that religion has had a hand in over the centuries. But then you get to the bad, like the crusades for example, which is still affecting us to this very day, or the discovery of the New World, and those tend to overshadow the accomplishments. The same could be said for science, we've had great advancements in technology in such a short time, but those same advancements give us drones, nuclear bombs, missiles that can hit targets from half way around the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
The link looks like it could be a refreshing way to rationalize this thread. However, it appeared to me to be mainly assertions strung together with rhetoric to make it look like Adam Gopnik was just saying the obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Some of the assertions amused me such as the view that Lennon, far from being the atheist that he sounded like in "Imagine", was as New Age nutty as I am.
Others like his comment about Einstein's God being close enough to a theologian's God to be tolerated I think were plain nutty. Einstein's God doesn't exist. Quantum physics, or rather Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics, falsified it.
Some things about our getting ever more prosperous that we will become more and more atheistic made me think he might be mistaken on more than one level, the most ominous of which is that we may be on the edge of an economic crash. What happens then?
Really? The major majority of the world population is still religious, and as threads like these are a testament too, there are still plenty of believers out there espousing their religion as a worldview. Given that this thread is titled "science vs religion" it seems strange to accuse anyone of "beating the other side over the head" with what has "clearly already won." If science had "clearly already won," then these threads wouldn't exist. Nobody starts threads over "geocentrism VS heliocentrism."Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
I'm lookin' for a "bravo" emoticon, but I don't see one, so:Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Bravo!
Someone brought this to my attention. It is an interview with Alvin Plantinga by Gary Gutting titled "Is Atheism Irrational":
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...ype=blogs&_r=0
Plantinga has a book called "Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism" which sounds relevant to this thread although I haven't read it yet.
Actually, if you go to certain internet discussion boards, you can probably find your geocentrism thread, along with threads about the existence of sasquatch and alien space ships. The reason (as Gopnik points out) that the science vs. religion question is no longer important is that religion no longer affects science in a meaningful way. I’ll grant that there are occasional issues in the public education system here in the U.S., but they are confined to the education of children. At the Universities in which science is actually practiced and at which future scientists receive their training, religion no longer affects how science is done or taught. Individual scientists may still be religious, but science itself is a post-religious process and institution.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
In addition, wherefore the missionary zeal? I can understand why Christian missionaries feel called upon to proselytize. They think they are saving souls. But does rejection of the supernatural save anyone’s soul? In past centuries Christian missionaries travelled the world attempting to convert the benighted savages. Here in the Americas (and elsewhere) such conversions were often promoted by the scourge and the flame, as well as by bribes of food and goods. As recently as 100 years ago children were forcibly taken from their parents to “Indian” schools where they were taught literacy, Christianity, English, and Western Ways (including science). Why? Well it was obvious that the illiteracy and lack of Christianity in native cultures was leading to economic hardship, moral turpitude and intellectual ignorance among the Natives. This was a horrible injury to natďve children that could be rectified by “education”.
The ethnocentrism, bigotry and inhumanity shown by those running the Indian Schools does not automatically suggest that they were evil men. Christianity was a motive for some of them, but not all of them. Some educators were probably motivated by a faith in science. If they could just forcibly remove Native Children from their own culture, they could prevent the ignorance which they saw as a terrible injury to children. Nonetheless, this attitude was smug, self-centered, ethnocentric and bigoted. The Native children were ignorant of Western ways, of Chriastianity and of Science -- but they were no more uneducated than Western children.
I don’t mean to suggest that anyone here has advocated the forcible “education” of the religious. However, I see ethnocentric bigotry in these threads similar to that of which the educators of the past were guilty. Cultural differences in and of themselves need not be eradicated. We can fight specific battles – against teaching Creationism to school children, for example. But we need not “convert” the religious in order to do that.
In addition, as Gopnik points out, the statistics about how many people here in North America and Western Europe are “religious” are questionable. A vocal minority of “Christians” in the U.S. identify as Fundamentalists (maybe 15% of the population). The rest of those who identify themselves as Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) are often as willing to accept “science” as you or I.
So the battlefield is controlled by the scientists. Some refugees from the religious army have escaped destruction, and gone guerilla, fighting minor skirmishes far from the centers of scientific progress. It’s reasonable to keep them under control (on the subject of public education, for example), but unreasonable to think we should hunt them down and educate (eradicate?) them. It is also unreasonable for us to belittle them or their culture.
(Of course there are parts of the world where this issue is more pressing, but even there I'm not sure the "science vs. religion" debate is a significant way in which to combat stonings, oppression, and other social problems associated with (if not necessarily due to) religion. Moral problems should be addressed in moral terms.)
You're right. This makes no sense. It is irrational behavior.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Universities and science/scientists rely on money to function. Much of that money comes from donations. People tend to donate to the fields they have interest in or feel are worthwhile. How many wealthy religious believers are there out there? How many will donate to a university science department if they feel that department is turning out results that conflict with their beliefs? Conversely, how many will donate to dishonest institutes like Discovery that disseminate lies and propaganda to convince the ignorant of their beliefs, and how many of those who are hooked will themselves grow up to be religious and withhold their own donations to science departments? How much time does people like Dawkins spend fighting the lies Creationists spread to the public about evolution? How much BETTER would his time have been spent by actually focusing on evolutionary biology and how it can benefit humanity? How far advanced would stem cell research be right now were it not for the resistance mostly from religious fundamentalists?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
I think you (and Gopnik probably) grossly miscalculate the affect religious beliefs can have on science and society at large. Societies naturally direct their time, money, and energy into fields it feels are worthwhile, and while mostly everyone feels science is worthwhile, when it comes into conflict with religious beliefs we've seen the directly deleterious impact it can have. To assume that science is free to go about what it does without a care in the world strikes me as quite naive since science requires the support of others in society, just like every institution. In fact, consider how much money gets spent on religious even in a year, and then imagine how much scientific research that money could support. I don't think such things are trivial matters.
So, perhaps given the above, you'll discern my answer for "wherefore the missionary zeal?" Besides these larger, social reasons for my participation in debates about religion and science, I also have personal reasons, insofar as I've directly experienced the sickness that's produced when one's beliefs cut against the grain of how reality functions. While I wouldn't claim everyone has those same personal negative experiences with religion (in fact, I'd probably admit that, for most, religion may even promote mental health, even if it's via untruths), I know a great many do, and for those I do feel a certain moral responsibility in saying "there is another way; trade in the 10 Commandments for the 12 Virtues of Rationality."
When people's morality comes from their holy texts, I don't see any way not to address it in religious terms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Religion is not faulty, a lot of people who claim to follow it are. I never got a response from the person I asked to give me a citation where the Bible indicates evolution is wrong. In God I trust, in those who claim God is their foundation, often not so much.
Look, everything has a beginning. Then evolution changes things by environment changes that force adaptation. Question though for the scientists; what was the disaster that caused the death of the dinosaurs and early mammals that hit so fast that mammoths are found still with food in their mouths? Whatever it was, to you who like myself believe God created them caused major changes to take place rather swiftly in order to survive.
Why do you deny what can be proven? God chooses evolution to refine His product, that is how I feel. God place medications here for illness, but science made the discovery of how to use it. There were things to create homes, heat, vehicles, etc. Man learned to use what God supplied.
Denying science a place in God's kingdom is ludicrous. Knowledge is often mention favorably in the Bible, especially in Proverbs where knowledge and foolishness are contrasted.
My belief in God as all powerful does not and should not exclude science. I can use this computer because someone discovered the way to use and store data. I can use prayer, because to me God exists. If I need medication to control my bipolar, I don't allow prayer to cause me to refuse the relief medication can give me. I believe God could heal me if He chooses. But not to use the medication He allowed man to discover is foolish in the extreme.
Well, I have probably ticked off both sides. But God Bless.
Pen
It is true that Universities rely on public funding and religion influences the public. I have no expertise as to the extent that religion (in this manner) influences scientific funding – my guess is: not very much. The amount of money spent funding Creation Science is probably a drop in the bucket, as well as coming from private instead of public sources. If religious people want to fund Creation Science, I see no problem with that. I’ll grant that it’s probably a waste of money, but so is buying big-screen TVs and seeing the 7th "Batman" movie. In addition, there’s some value to diversity -- of the many seemingly whacky theories that are funded, perhaps one will prove valuable. I think creation science, searching for sasquatch, and looking for alien spaceships is a waste of time and money – but I don’t see any real harm in it (as long as it’s privately funded).
You correctly point out some specific fields which may have been held back by religious opposition – like stem cell research. But, as we agreed previously, it does not follow that because the objections are based on flawed premises, the objections themselves are unreasonable. Religious faith has been the primary mover in political movements objecting to slavery, too. It seems to me that there are some potentially reasonable, non-religious objections to stem cell research, too.
So as to the issue of the effect of religion on modern science, our disagreement is one of degree, not of kind – and it would take more research than I am willing to do to resolve it in any reasonable way. I’ll grant the (minor) impact.
As far as having personal reasons for your missionary zeal – I think that’s fair. To return to my Native American analogy – it’s one thing for white educators to demand that Natives renounce their superstitious ways and send their kids off to boarding school to be assimilated into a Christian and Scientific society, and another for Hopi parents to decide to do it on their own, and try to persuade their Hopi friends to do the same. The first case demonstrates bigoted ethnocentrism; the second shows reasonable self-criticism.
That’s why I object when some posters mock the beliefs of others (as in, “That’s hilarious.” – “The humour just keeps on keeping on”.) That rhetorical style is a form of bullying. Returning to the analogy, suppose a white man heard the Hopi creation story of how “the people” emerged from the underworld through a hole in the ground and responded, “That’s hilarious! The humour just keeps on coming.” Suppose that same man then started war whooping and performing a fake Hopi Snake Dance to mock Hopi culture. Such a man would be obnoxious. Outsiders should treat the culture of others with some respect – although they can disagree with allegedly factual claims Native Speakers make. Members of the culture (even some who have renounced parts of that culture) have a bit more latitude to criticize the culture, because they are criticizing themselves. Black people can use the “N” word, when white people should not.
Finally, I agree that when people's morals come from religion, there is no way to address it other than in religious terms. That's why I see your approach as ineffective. Alternative theologies or textual interpretations are more likely to change the moral postition of fundamentalists than arguments about science vs. religion.
It is bullying. It is verbal abuse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
What the abuser does is demonstrates that he or she has run out of something reasonable to say, is hostile, and easily gets out of control. If you are debating this kind of person, you just have to stand back and let them talk. They are their own worst enemies, because they demonstrate their own irrationality. In particular, when atheists do this they are setting themselves up for cultural criticism, as you have been providing, since they are giving evidence that they are irrational when they brag about the supposed superiority of their rationality over others.
The main question that I would have for theists is whether their particular religious practices actually lead them to a divine reality. I am more interested in how effective those practices are since there is not enough time to practice all of them.
The main question that I would have for atheists is whether their position is consistent or "rational" even when they are not bullying others. Their practice is supposedly "being reasonable" or "being scientific". How consistent and how scientific then are those beliefs?
Nice strawman you make there, Ecurb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
When Hopi Indians demand that my children be taught Hopi fairy tales as fact, I will indeed mock their beliefs.
When blacks demand an end to scientific research and abortion, I will indeed mock their beliefs. (if there is such a thing)
Meanwhile, you're typing through a hole in your head.