Is Science a Religion?

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

Nope, Science is not a religion.

Religions all attempt to answer the "WHY"

Science (good science at any rate) is far more interested in the "WHAT" & "HOW"

Science does not even attempt to offer any moral code for us to follow for the governance of our lives, one of the main requirements of religion

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Religion to answer why and science to answer what and how? You may have to elaborate more this, as I disagree with this.

Science also attempts to answer WHY, to know the WHAT and use to solve HOW. For example, a to understand WHAT a particular disease it is, scientists need to know WHY it is the way it is, and HOW they can fight it off from spreading etc.

Religion also answers WHAT we must do in life, and something eg the Bible tells HOW we can achieve this, and WHY we have to put the effort into it.

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Originally Posted by zado_k

I'm sorry but what is your authority to point this out? First, you define science as essentially theistic (something the vast majority of practising scientists deny!) then you conflate it with technology! As someone who "does science" for a living, I do nothing that has anything to do with "creations of God" and there is no guarantee at all that anything I do can be implemented so as to be beneficial in anyone's feeble life. As it happens, I don't know these feeble lives you speak of.

Peace and loving kindness,

Z

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So you too dedicate your life to science? Welcome to the club. So am I. Yet I believe that science is a field where mankind tries to understand God's creation : the universe and everything that it contains within.

You say what you do has no guarantee of helping out people in earth? So what? If you spend your whole life working on something and you end up with no product that will help people, thats your businesss and I dont care. I was talking about science in GENERAL, not one specific person that "does science". Science itself attempts to discover new things, therefore put a bit more words into science, increasing our knowledge about the world. The world itself is God's creation, hence science attempts to understand His creations.

Someone in this site told me a very high percentage of medical doctors of the world are Christian and every single of them would link their work with God: Helping His creations from being sick, implementing with the advanced science.

I do have an authority to point this out thank you very much. Its called individual thought and belief, and if you have anything against it, feel free to debate on this.

Hmm...Wow, it's been awhile since I seen something that interested me.:D Science and Religion does seem to share some similarities, I think.

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

Nope, Science is not a religion.

Religions all attempt to answer the "WHY"

Science (good science at any rate) is far more interested in the "WHAT" & "HOW"

Science does not even attempt to offer any moral code for us to follow for the governance of our lives, one of the main requirements of religion

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I think science is also used to answer the 'why'. But unlike religion, it uses specific methodology in its attempt to provide the answer.

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Originally Posted by skasian

Religion to answer why and science to answer what and how? You may have to elaborate more this, as I disagree with this.

Science also attempts to answer WHY, to know the WHAT and use to solve HOW. For example, a to understand WHAT a particular disease it is, scientists need to know WHY it is the way it is, and HOW they can fight it off from spreading etc.

Religion also answers WHAT we must do in life, and something eg the Bible tells HOW we can achieve this, and WHY we have to put the effort into it.

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May not have been specific enough in the original post, Science does not answer the "big" why questions eg Why are we here. but it will attempt to answer the lower level questions like how was this done, what causes this to happen. It offers no moral guidance at all, and as such is not a religion in any way shape or form.

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

May not have been specific enough in the original post, Science does not answer the "big" why questions eg Why are we here. but it will attempt to answer the lower level questions like how was this done, what causes this to happen. It offers no moral guidance at all, and as such is not a religion in any way shape or form.

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Yeah, every little aspect of in science requires specificness. If you are thinking that science doesnt answer Why we are here, it also doesnt answer what is the reason for our existance and how we can fulfill the purpose of existance.

Why does this question arise? It bears examination because, on the face of things it's no more interesting than

Is cookery a religion?
Is sport a religion?

and so on (and the latter example is to my mind closer to being answered "yes"...).

It seems to me reading these threads and the enormous literature on the subject, that science implicitly or explicitly challenges the claims of religion and that for this reason both religious believers and scientific rationalists feel compelled to answer the question.

It's a strange debate because neither side would really wish to believe that science is a religion: the religious believer does not admit that the natural explanations of science are sufficient and wishes to reserve a realm of supernatural explanation and the scientists wants to differentiate the constrained explanations of science from the expansive imagination of religion.

Science isn't a religion. It doesn't have any of the characteristic hallmarks of religious belief - most importantly it has no place for the supernatural in its explanations. Moreover, it is characterised by its own canons of reason that are nothing like those of theology. When people compare science to a religion it is not science they are talking about at all - it is scientists. People really want to say that scientists are in the same position as religious believers; that their thinking is no more or less securely grounded and that their motivations are similar.

Even so of course it's not true. Scientists are in a different position with respect to their knowledge claims than believers because the claims are in principle susceptible to testing using natural methods of enquiry. But this it seems will never do. It just has to be so that scientists have "faith" and that the claims of supernatural belief are due all the "respect" that those of science claim. You would have thought they'd be due more! Science, in response to the question "What is the meaning of life?" answers "as best we know there is no pre-ordained meaning to life and you must give it what meaning you can". Given this modesty, you would think that religious believers who typically respond that they have privileged access to the mind of god and can answer the question in detail, would be anxious to distinguish themselves from science!

Despite the language games and naive philosophising, it remains the case that with respect to god the scientist (qua scientist) "has no need of this hypothesis". There are no halfway convincing "proofs" of god's existence and no compelling reason to seek them.

If the religious believer says "I have had this experience and it leads me to believe in god" then the rationalist can ask whether the experience is public and shareable or private and unique. If the latter, then there is nothing more for reason to say to religion and nothing more for religion to say to reason. If the religious believer claims on the contrary that this experience is publically accessible then it just has to meet the standards by which all other evidence is judged. The plain fact is that so far no evidence put forward has.

Science isn't a religion - it's nothing like one. Not because religion is bad and science is good but because one is emphatically wedded to the world of nature and the other is open to another realm which to most scientists appears quite imaginary.

Z

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Originally Posted by zado_k

Why does this question arise?

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Outstanding I think I know why it arises, but you've answered it brilliantly.

I think the reason it's asked is because, deep down, religionistas recognise that their faith is illogical so they want science to suffer from the same illogical faith.

I'm open to evidence though.

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Originally Posted by zado_k

...Is sport a religion?

and so on (and the latter example is to my mind closer to being answered "yes"...).

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That's actually a good discussion point for another day, because I agree with you. Not only a religion, but a religion with false idols and no moral code.

Oh, dude! Check it out! Man, I am an idiot for not thinking of this sooner! Ahem...Science is not a religion.

In point of fact science is also to a certain extent characteristic of religions, and it has features of religions that have some characteristics of religions.

Scientific assumptions remaining unapproved are likened to religious faiths characteristically.

I think you all are missing the point. Science is not a religion. It can be proven. However, the truth is that a good deal of what we know of science we have taken simply out of faith because we cannot see the actual research. The point is not that you believe science to be true, that is not what's worth believing. What matters is if a scientist whom you know to have successfully completed research and you trust i.e Darwin, Newton, etc do you look at the actual evidence or do you do what 99 percent of humans do which is just accept it as fact? That is 100 percent faith. Though it can be proven, the truth is you do not know anything except things that people have told you, and that is theism, not atheism. Atheism is not real in the literal sense, because everyone believes in something, whether it's trusting Darwin or it's trusting Jesus or it's trusting your dad or it's trusting a newspaper report that said "5 people died in the shooting". You often will accept things as fact before you are given any sort of proof, that is theism.

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That is 100 percent faith.

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I'd be more careful with statements like that. Much more careful. And, please, get yourself more familiar with the concept of fuzzy logic before you use it.
I wouldn't call that 100 percent faith. At most, I would call it, say 30 per cent faith - since that kind of information fits well with already known information, the probability that people are lying to me on issues like that is rather low and mistakes/lies would probably come out soon since they wouldn't fit with the known information.
Science demands a much lower percentage of faith than religion.

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Originally Posted by Taliesin

the probability that people are lying to me on issues like that is rather low and mistakes/lies would probably come out soon since they wouldn't fit with the known information..

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and yet you have faith this is true, but you needn't demand proof if you already believe someone is presenting you with facts. Like i said your view that the person in question has probably backed up his/her research and there is truth to that person's argument because he is a scientist or like you said word would have gotten out if the person was lying or wrong and everything you've heard leaves you to believe that it is fact.

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Originally Posted by Mathor

I think you all are missing the point. Science is not a religion. It can be proven. However, the truth is that a good deal of what we know of science we have taken simply out of faith because we cannot see the actual research. The point is not that you believe science to be true, that is not what's worth believing. What matters is if a scientist whom you know to have successfully completed research and you trust i.e Darwin, Newton, etc do you look at the actual evidence or do you do what 99 percent of humans do which is just accept it as fact? That is 100 percent faith. Though it can be proven, the truth is you do not know anything except things that people have told you, and that is theism, not atheism. Atheism is not real in the literal sense, because everyone believes in something, whether it's trusting Darwin or it's trusting Jesus or it's trusting your dad or it's trusting a newspaper report that said "5 people died in the shooting". You often will accept things as fact before you are given any sort of proof, that is theism.

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Very well argued and I confess that I do not know or understand 99.99% of what I accept as scientific 'fact' and reject virtually 100% of what is presented to me as religious conviction. A different, possibly more relevant question might be: Why, with no indisputable personal evidence in either case does one opt for one or the other, science or religion?

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Originally Posted by Taliesin

Science demands a much lower percentage of faith than religion.

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Does it?

For the sake of this argument, let's use this dictionary.com definition of faith: belief that is not based on proof. It is very arguable to say that religion demands quite a bit of faith because of the low level of proof available to many of its claims, but I will argue that science is not very different.

There are many beliefs in science that demand high faith due to low proof available, and some of these beliefs are the most fundamental theories. For example,

(1) Black holes: scientists only have very indirect evidence for these, but believe these to exist (or else General Relativity is violated).
(2) Strings of string theory: many scientists and mathematicians believe these to exist because of the elegance and power of the equations of string theory, but there has been no evidence at all that these things exist.

etc...

Now, it is fair to say that while we have no direct proof for many scientific concepts, we have indirect proofs in the form of the scientific method that led to those conclusions, and therefore less faith is required. In other words, there is empirical evidence that the method of science works, which itself is proof for aspects of science we would have little evidence for otherwise.

But is religion very different from this?

If you look carefully at Christianity, for example, there is apparent evidence that, as a whole, it works. To cite two examples: prophecies coming true within the bible itself, and miracles taking place today. Whether or not you believe these in the first place is a question of fact which demands research and empirical evidence, just like in science.

If you choose not to find any empirical evidence for the religion you believe it, then you are using faith in adhering to the religion. In the same way, if you choose not to find empirical evidence for any of the scientific theories you believe in, then you are using faith in applying those theories.

Just my two cents about the topic. :)