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| Author | Topic: Is Science a Religion? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Open MInd Member (Idle past 1609 days) Posts: 261 Joined: |
Since the concept of a creator is not scientific, it follows that science must exclude a supernatural creator from any of its components. What we have is a subject matter that tries to describe the world without a creator. Without using the concept of a creator or any religous principles, science seeks to explain the entire world. Obviously, if science seeks to formulate laws upon which the world is run on a daily basis down to the atomic level, where can religion fit in? Where does this supreme being assert his control? Scientists cannot say where a supreme being takes over the controls of the atoms because that is never scientific. Because science must explain the entire world and its origin without using any religous factors and rather using formulated "Laws of Nature", science is its own religion. Edited by AdminPD, : White Space
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AdminPD Inactive Administrator |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Chiroptera Member (Idle past 526 days)  Posts: 6202 From: Oklahoma Joined: |
Welcome to EvC, OpenMInd. Here is how Wikipedia defines religion:
It also adds:
This all seems like a reasonable description to me. So how does this science fit into this definition of religion? But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)
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crashfrog Inactive Member |
Boy, religion is a funny thing, isn't it? Even if you develop your body of knowledge soley by auditable, non-supernatural means; even if you replace nonsense with fact; even if you do the exact opposite of what religion typically means, somehow you have it anyway. Religion is typically defined as: quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion Science doesn't involve codified beliefs, science doesn't involve ritual, science isn't a personal practice of faith or a shared system of belief. So in what sense is it a religion? The tortured logic of your post is all but impossible to follow. Science isn't any more a religion than a teapot is a religion. A religion is simply not what it is.
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Archer Opterix Member (Idle past 1431 days)  Posts: 1767 From: East Asia Joined: |
It is not a religion, which involves a priori beliefs in supernatural forces. Your own description of science, imperfect though it is, acknowledges it as a method. Your conclusion thus does not follow from the statements that precede it. ___ Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opterix Member (Idle past 1431 days) Posts: 1767 From: East Asia Joined: |
Now that the question posed in the OP has been answered, I wonder if we might entertain a more interesting question related to this topic. Why does this dead 'science is religion' canard get trotted out all the time? It scores no points in debate. Why is it so important to some people to assert this? I submit that this tired bit of blarney nourishes at least three illusions: 1. The illusion of equal footing. Two sets of conditioned beliefs duking it out is one thing. It's another when you have a set of conditioned beliefs on one side and a set of genuine discoveries on the other. __ Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity. Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair. Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair. Archer All species are transitional.
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crashfrog Inactive Member |
To equate science and religion. People know that science is important, and that they probably ought to know something about it. But science is hard, and so if they can convince themselves that their religion is the same as science, well, religion is designed to be easy to learn. So they think they've found the loophole.
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subbie Member  Posts: 3242 Joined: Member Rating: 9.6 |
The concept of the christian god as creator is not scientific. However, it does not follow that science must exclude a supernatural creator from its components. Science is a method of studying and learning about the natural world. If there is evidence found in that study that would support a hypothesis of a supernatural creator, science can pursue that evidence. It has not done so yet because there is no such scientific evidence. Science does not "try to describe a world without a creator," it tries to describe the world based on what we see. Because we see no scientific evidence of a creator, science proceeds on the basis of there being no creator. It's also not true that science tries to explain "the whole world." The whole world includes questions of morality, of right and wrong. It includes questions of purpose, of meaning. These are questions that most people reserve for religion, and questions about which science says nothing. They are not within the sphere of what science does.
Scientists can say where a supreme being would "take over the controls of the atoms" if the supreme being left behind evidence of doing so. In the absense of such evidence, science concludes there is no such being exerting such control. Science is not a religion, as others here have said, because it does not concern itself with matters of faith, of morality, of purpose. Certainly, one can put one's faith in the scientific method and choose it as one's primary source of knowledge about the world. And, to the extent that one does that, I suppose it's not entirely inaccurate to say that someone has faith in science over religion. However, the defining characteristic of science is not the fact that it doesn't address questions of faith, morality, etc. In my mind, any system of knowledge that does not address these types of questions cannot be classified as a religion. Mathematics tries to explain certain things about the real world without using any "religious factors" and instead uses its own theorems, axioms and laws. Would you call math a religion? Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
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Doddy Member (Idle past 1857 days)  Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
Though our prophets are far more accurate, our healers are far more effective, and explanations for phenomena far more satisfying and far less contradictory, there is no faith/unfounded beliefs nor worship nor prayer in science. Thus, science is not a faith system, so not a religion.
I think what you have there is metaphysical naturalism, not science (which is based on methodological naturalism). Edited by Doddy Curumehtar, : added part on naturalism "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Open MInd Member (Idle past 1609 days) Posts: 261 Joined: |
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Taz Member  Posts: 5017 From: Zerus Joined: |
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Open MInd Member (Idle past 1609 days) Posts: 261 Joined: |
Maybe the supernatural being is holding order in the universe because he is trying to conceal his existence?
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iceage  Suspended Member (Idle past 1862 days)  Posts: 1024 From: Pacific Northwest Joined: |
Ya sure boss. I have a device that detects the earths rotation rate of 15 degrees per hour. But maybe god is just faking out the the rate gyro's. And maybe there really is intelligent falling and gravity is just a godly delusion to keep things orderly. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512 It is a wonder that we can send probes to Mar's when we have the wrong frame of reference.
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subbie Member Posts: 3242 Joined: Member Rating: 9.6 |
You describe science as a religion that worships the five senses. This, I think, is one place where you ignore a significant line. Science does not worship the senses. Not in the traditional way that we think of worship; services, hymns, sermons, etc. Nor in any kind of more abstract way where the sense are themselves elevated to a place of sanctity. Science views the senses as tools for gathering information about the world. However, in that process, science understands that these tools are inherently fallible. People make honest mistakes, and people fool themselves into seeing something that isn't there when their desire to see it is so strong that it almost overpowers them. This is a big part of the reason why science demands repeatability and confirmation of results before any conclusion gains broad acceptance. If you want to talk about science worshipping anything, I think the closest you can come is to say that science worships the scientific method. One can describe science as placing faith in the ability of people using the scientific method to arrive at reliable conclusions based on the evidence that we have available to us to date. However, in think even this goes too far, and any such description conflates two very different meanings of faith. In the religious sense, faith, at its core, means believing where there is no evidence, or even in spite of the evidence. There are many here who decribe themselves as "scientific creationists" who don't doubt for a minute that life evolved on this planet as the ToE explains. However, despite the evidence showing that it all could have happened without intervention from any supernatural being, they still attribute it all to god. Many people of faith have said that they believe in their faith and will do so regardless of what evidence is brought forward to challenge it. This is religious faith. The scientific method, on the other hand, is a practice that scientists have developed over time, and trial and error, that is our best attempt to gather information and systematise it in meaningful ways so that we can learn about the world and pass that learning on to others. Scientists rely on information, hypotheses and theories that have been challenged and survived the challenges. In this way, one can quite reasonably say that science has faith in the scientific method and the results that it produces. But this faith is vastly different in kind from religious faith. Faith in the arena of science is always tenuous, subject to new information, or better theories. If science worships any god, it's pragmatism. As long as the scientific method or any particular scietific theory works, and nothing does the job better, we stick with it. But if something starts to break down, or if a better idea comes along, science will abandon the old to go with the new and improved. Science is a very fickle parishoner. And let me iterate my point from my previous post. I reject the idea that science believes a priori in a strictly physical world. Science by its very nature must restrict itself to what can be observed, either with the naked senses or with sense enhanced by reliable instruments. But that does not mean that science believes that the non-physical world does not exist. It simply means that science doesn't deal with it, except to the extent that the non-physical world impinges on the physical world in some manner that leaves behind evidence that we can evaluate. To take your example, you are entirely correct that our understanding of gravity may be wrong, science accepts that as an axiom. And, while most here regard it as so implausible that it merits only humor as a response, science does not rule out the possibility that pixies might be behind it all. However, unless and until these pixies leave behind some evidence of their existence, science will disregard them. And, if science can devise a reasonably plausible alternative to explain how gravity works that does not depend on invisible pixies, science will not spend any time looking for evidence of them. The pixies will need to come knocking on science's door. Science certainly does not believe there is nothing hidden from our five senses. There are a great many things that science cannot look into, and may never be able to. If our universe did indeed begin with a big bang, and that's when the physical laws of our universe were created, it's very difficult to imagine how we could ever look back beyond that moment of creation. However, science does not reject the notion of the existence of things that it cannot look into. Science simply takes the attitude that if we cannot look into them, then there isn't anything for science to say about them. Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
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Vacate Member (Idle past 548 days)  Posts: 565 Joined: |
How do we explain why they keep messing with the clocks inside the satellites to produce just the effects that Relativity predicts? Are they also the ones that bend the light around massive objects such as the sun? Sneaky little buggers.
Nope. Can we explain why a lazer pointer works without quantum physics?
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