The Problem with Science as a Substitute

[DiverBeth]

Yes, the proof is in the pudding!! Where do you think you've got your brilliant scientific brain? God has put you on earth to serve Him and maybe getting a cure for something else like AIDS.

God put us here to serve him? Are we God's slaves? That doesn't sound like a loving God to me.

I don't think science is any type of substitute for religion. They are 2 completely different things. However, if you want to live in the modern world you do need science (love those antibiotics) but not religion. Though I personally have nothing against people who believe in religion as along as you don't force your beliefs on me.

 

[Thalassamania]

... Though I personally have nothing against people who believe in religion as along as you don't force your beliefs on me.

But inevitably they do ... sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, but they always do.

 

[nereas]

AXL brought up faith healing. You said it is TV stuff. Are you suggesting that the contribution of faith to the healing process is just another myth?

Brain death is a serious disease, related strongly to watching too much TV, and hardly reading at all.

Symptoms include wondering "What if stuff on TV is for real?"

Books are meant for intelligent patrons, whereas TV is designed and target-marketed largely to the masses whose I/Qs are around 70 (where 100 is average). The primary objecting is entertainment and advertising, in case you yourself have not noticed yet.

I suppose a lot of people wonder if they send their money in, will they really get a prayer blessing or a faith healing in return? But that is fundamentally an issue of too much TV, and has nothing to do with religion, science, or philosophy.

Did any of that make sense, to you AWAP? Or do I need to repeat it yet again??

 

[nereas]

But inevitably they do ... sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, but they always do.

How did you put this once, Thal: "a single example to the contrary would successfully serve to overturn this fallacy of hasty generalization"?

 

[Thalassamania]

I stand by it. I've never met a religionist who has failed, at one time or other, to demonstrate that they were "better" than other people (often professing all the while how they don't really feel that way).

 

[redacted]

Brain death is a serious disease, related strongly to watching too much TV, and hardly reading at all.

Symptoms include wondering "What if stuff on TV is for real?"

Books are meant for intelligent patrons, whereas TV is designed and target-marketed largely to the masses whose I/Qs are around 70 (where 100 is average). The primary objecting is entertainment and advertising, in case you yourself have not noticed yet.

I suppose a lot of people wonder if they send their money in, will they really get a prayer blessing or a faith healing in return? But that is fundamentally an issue of too much TV, and has nothing to do with religion, science, or philosophy.

Did any of that make sense, to you AWAP? Or do I need to repeat it yet again??

You could repeat it yet again if you think it will make you sound more intelligent. But my impression is that it is not going to help much.

You really should have caught the History of the Universe series on one of the PBS stations. Many people found it makes a lot more sense than the book.

 

[Teamcasa]

I am spiritual, a Christian and smart enough to understand that religion has been a significant impediment to science and research in virtually every arena of science. One thing the modern spiritual person rarely seems to grasp is that when science and religion clash, religion generally has takes a back seat.

In the days before history began to record events, religion had to provide answers to natures mysteries, and they did the best they could at the time. Today, as each mystery is solved, a dozen more are created as a result and we need to recognize that it is the mysteries of nature that drive the desire peal back the shroud that surrounds it.

“In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this religious feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.” Albert Einstein

On the spiritual side, I don’t have to reject one to embrace the other. I just recognize that the long held religious answers the nature’s mysteries were recorded before modern science began to provide us with some of the answers.

Unfortunately scientists and the religious will many times resort to ridicule and name calling when they reach the limit of their own understanding.

 

[Spencermm]

Unfortunately scientists and the religious will many times resort to ridicule and name calling when they reach the limit of their own understanding.

BRAVO! Well said.

 

[nereas]

I am spiritual, a Christian and smart enough to understand that religion has been a significant impediment to science and research in virtually every arena of science
...

T/C, history tells us this is true of the Roman Catholic Church and its popes and underlings during the Medieval period, sure. So you need to focus this responsibility on one political-religious organization, and not on all faiths in their entirety during and since. The Lutherin, Calvinist, and American reformations have since rectified this problem of one chruch dominating empires since then. How can you blame everybody for Catholicism's failures? How is this just or even logical???

The Persian Empire conquered and overthrew the Egyptian pharoahs and ended the pharoahs' claims to immortality and godhood. Any empire that has ever used religion as a power base has been eventually defeated and overthrown, including Catholic Rome. So it is time to get over it, not.

...when science and religion clash, ...

There is no reason, as has been pointed out here repeatedly, that the two should ever clash, since they have nothing in common at all. This is the whole point and content of this thread, and hopefully to the revelation of all those who love Jesus and hate science, as well as all those atheists who love their science books and hate religion. As east is east, and west is west, nary the twain shall meet.

Anyone in science who thinks that science supersedes religion does not understand science. And conversely, anyone in religion who thinks religion contradicts science does not under stand the Hebrew Old Testament, nor the Greek New Testament, nor the Muslim Q'ran, nor the Hindu Vedas.

...
In the days before history began to record events, ...

Well if this was in the days before history began, then how do you know about it at all??? This statement smells really fishy. As Johnny Depp said in Pirate of the Caribbean, "If there are never any survivors from the Black Pearl, then who is left to tell the stories I wonder?"

 

[Thalassamania]

I am spiritual, a Christian and smart enough to understand that religion has been a significant impediment to science and research in virtually every arena of science.

Has been, and continues to be a significant impediment. e.g., how much time and effort has been wasted on creationism crap that could have been put to usefull scientific endeavors?

One thing the modern spiritual person rarely seems to grasp is that when science and religion clash, religion generally has takes a back seat.

"Generally?" Try always, without fail.

In the days before history began to record events, religion had to provide answers to natures mysteries, and they did the best they could at the time.

... and then slaughtered anyone who could do better.

Today, as each mystery is solved, a dozen more are created as a result and we need to recognize that it is the mysteries of nature that drive the desire peal back the shroud that surrounds it.

That's romantic clap-trap.

“In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this religious feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.” Albert Einstein

Let's not take one sentence out of context: Einstein

On the spiritual side, I don’t have to reject one to embrace the other. I just recognize that the long held religious answers the nature’s mysteries were recorded before modern science began to provide us with some of the answers.

So what do you do? Do you view them as mythology that conveys a moral or spiratual message? How do you deal with the fundamentalists who want to teach our childern such mythology and at the same time call it science?

Unfortunately scientists and the religious will many times resort to ridicule and name calling when they reach the limit of their own understanding.

No ... when the religionists reach the limit of their understanding and then try to tell the scientists that they know "THE TRUTH" what can we do but tell them that they're full of horse pucky.