Is Religion Completely At War With Science, Or Are They Complementing Each Other?

The problem is the contradiction between unknowable and known. Seems to me you want it both ways. If God is unknowable how can he be known? If he is known to us by whatever means how can you call him unknowable. I think you need to change your definitions to something that is not contradictory.Are you wanting to say that humans can't find God but the God can find humans? Or that God can hide from humans but can choose to find them?
Or we can't know God unless God chooses to be known?What is it to know anything? What is it to know God? What is it you know when you say you know God? What would it mean to know something that is unknowable?lfen

I'm not at all sure I see any conflict there.There are things that I know exist yet I find unknowable. In fact, there are far more things I know that I find unknowable that there are things I know and understand.I know there is a GOD. But I also know that that GOD is unknowable. He exists in a state I cannot even imagine and can do things I cannot comprehend.If we want to compare that to the world of science, I can freely admit that much if not most of todays cosmolgy is beyond my capability to fully understand. That does not mean that I do not know about such things, only that I am limited by age, experience, training and most likely intellegence.But can we head back towards the topic?

Is Religion Completely At War With Science, Or Are They Complementing Each Other?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Some atheists and some believers are at odds with each other using belief vs. science. Science doesn't offer very much in support of religion. I don't at this point see religion offering anything to the activities of doing science. I don't see war, only some conflicts for some people.When the brain is better understood and perhaps consciousness yields to scientific investigation science may shed more light on religion.JMO, lfen

Hi Mr. J. I think you're on to something here, but maybe being misunderstood a bit. I think the dispute with LinearAg, for instance, stems from a misunderstanding of which "why" question is being addressed. Science addresses the why as in "What is the physical reason little Jimmy was born hydrocephalic?" The "why" question religion claims to address is "What is/was the purpose for little Jimmy being born hydrocephalic?"Humans in general seem to have this over-arching desire or need to ascribe purpose to what is essentially a blind and uncaring universe. In an old article in Skeptical Inquirer, James Alcock put it thusly:

quote:

---

Learning does not occur in a vacuum. We are not passive receivers of information. We actively seek out information to satisfy our many needs. We may yearn to find meaning in life. We may yearn for a sense of identity. We may yearn for recovery from disease. We may yearn to be in touch with deceased loved ones.

​

In general we yearn to reduce anxiety. Beliefs, be they correct or false, can assuage these yearnings. Often beliefs that might be categorized as irrational by scientists are the most efficient at reducing these yearnings. Rationality and scientific truth have little to offer for most people as remedies for existential anxiety. However, belief in reincarnation, supernatural intervention, and everlasting life can overcome such anxiety to some extent.

​

When we are yearning most, when we are in the greatest need, we are even more vulnerable to fallacious beliefs that can serve to satisfy those yearnings.

---

IOW, we (i.e., humans generically), seek to define the purpose or "meaning" behind events. Traditionally, this role - this defining - has been the exclusive province of religion. I would submit that this is where science and religion are at war. Attributes such as "purpose" and "meaning of life" are cultural affects, and as such are amenable to scientific investigation. There is no universally accepted "meaning of life" - each culture or society defines this differently depending on the subjective values they place on life, etc. Not only is it not the exclusive province of religion, no two religions or sects agree on the question - meaning that religion itself is unable to actually address the issue.Let me make a really strong statement here: religion HAS no exclusive province, even on the deepest philosophical level. To assume otherwise allows religion to ascribe to itself powers and abilities it doesn't justifiably have. It allows it to define such things as "morals" and "right and wrong" which are totally subjective cultural values. And before the fundies burn any crosses on my computer, I am NOT a moral relativist - I do not hold to the post-modernist belief that all definitions of morality (for example) are equally valid. However, this is not from some metaphysical philosophy, but rather from a sociobiological standpoint some moral positions are non-adaptive.Quoting myself from a post I made here a couple years ago:

quote:

---

Religions have, throughout history, abrogated unto themselves the power to define what constitutes ethics, morality, progress, purpose, etc. They have traditionally dictated the moral laws and established the social constraints necessary for complex societies, although primarily with the goal of insuring their own survival and propagation. Don’t get me wrong: religions and their symbols have played a powerful role in cultural evolution, providing cohesiveness, group identity, and a comforting wall against the impersonality of nature. In addition, religions have in the past provided a fairly solid foundation upon which to base the socio-cultural interactions needed in any society that grows beyond the family/group level. As such, the advent of religion was a highly successful adaptive response to increasing social complexity in pre-scientific societies.

​

However, religions and their adherents rather quickly seized upon the idea that they — and they alone — possessed Truth , whether about morality or the nature of the universe. Anyone who was not an adherent could not, by definition — including competing religions. While this may have been an acceptable and even necessary postulate to a pre-scientific society, especially to foster group identity, a religious meme based on a rigidly enforced dogma and reward-punishment is only effective in the absence of alternatives.

​

With the rise of a rationalist or naturalist epistemology, especially since the Enlightenment (although the Greeks, and even theologians like Aquinas saw the utility of rationalism within their own context - remember "de motu creaturae rationalis in Deum"?), the religious worldview has faced it’s greatest survival challenge. Forced to retreat from its claim to being able to answer all of the questions of the universe, religion is now in a position of being forced to justify its own existence for the first time in human history.

---

As to the claim "there are things science can't address", I agree with you: it's utter bunk. Not very long ago, it was claimed that astronomy couldn’t explain the universe. Along come the Hubble telescope and the modern cosmologists and astrophysicists who have extended human knowledge of the universe beyond even the conception of early astronomers like Galileo. Religion, in spite of some early successes at suppression, has been forced to abandon their claim to primacy. There are a myriad of issues upon which religion has claimed dominance - and as science has progressed religion has been forced to relinquish its hold. With the possible exception of individual, subjective experience - and I submit science is nibbling around the edges even here - there is NO subject which methodological naturalism cannot directly or indirectly investigate.

Great post,Q.

If morality Is "cultural" and "subjective," then morality is meaningless. And therefore from the standpoint of morality there is no reason to do or not do anything at all. It really doesn't matter if you murder or create--because it's all subjective.

Meaningless? Without meaning? Substitute some other concepts in that proposition. Would you claim: If language is "cultural" and "subjective" then language is meaningless? Or: If customs are "cultural" and "subjective" then customs are meaningless?I hold that morality, language, custom all hold meaning for human beings. Morality and ethics give reasons for moral and ethical behaviour. Doesn't matter to who? Subjective to who? If it's subjective to me, yes it matters. And it matters to lots of subjects.lfen

Earlier, I used the immaterial pink unicorn example to show that you can't really prove the existence of god and justified my atheistic belief. Using the same logic, I pretty much demonstrated that you can't really disprove god either.If you can't objectively prove or disprove god, I guess it's down to personal belief.

---

Hate world.Revenge soon!

And what possible justification could you have for doing something? Because it makes you feel good? It no doubt makes some people feel good to murder. Where is your ground?

You are comparing language to morality???It doesn't matter if I say "googog" and mean "table."And you are saying that is no different from murdering somebody and helping somebody?

But it doesn't make the rest of us feel very good, now does it?What's so wrong about feeling good? Don't you think that people would rather feel good than bad? And isn't it sufficient, therefore, to justify our moral proscriptions based on what makes the most people possible feel good, or at least, not bad?See game theory for strategies on how people might work together for the maximum mutual benefit.

How do we know that there is no absolute language? By the fact that nobody can agree on just one language, and that groups of people often invent their own language, mutually.Why then can we not apply the same reasoning to morality? If there's only one absolute morality, why is it that nobody can agree on what it is?

Lets look at your propositions:If Morality is cultural.
If Morality is subjective.
Then morality is meaningless.
Therefore there is no reason to do anything.
Therefore there is no reason not to do anything.
Therefore It doesn't matter because it's all subjective.I would need you to clarify what you mean by subjective and how something can be subjective and cultural. I tend to think of subjective as personal and cultural as being interpersonal and thus objective.You've given no proof that "subjective" or "cultural" implies lack of meaning. I think people have personal meanings, and cultures have meanings. Why wouldn't they? If I find meaning in morality why can't I?People may have reasons for doing things, or not doing them, then again they may or may not do something for no reason they can think of.If something is subjective, it could still matter to the subject. It might matter to me, it might matter to you.I don't see how cultural or personal(subjective) values, or biological values, or rational values have to mean that nothing matters. And you've not established this at all.It seems to me that you are setting up an extreme dicotomy. Your system means things matter, personal or cultural systems means they don't and you are telling me that no matter what I think, feel, find meaningful that I'm wrong cause I don't accept your judgements and you are not even attempting to prove your case.Or are you just wanting to offend me, trolling just to annoy?lfenedited cause I hadn't made some statements uniform for the pattern. Added "if"s and "therefore".This message has been edited by lfen, 12-09-2004 02:21 AM

Does a science which is "culture-specific" or "subjective" make sense to you?Me neither.Same with morality.

This is a false analogy.Science is objective. The fact that you can go to anywhere, anytime, and any culture and still find that the hydrogen atom only has 1 electron and 1 proton demonstrates that science is objective.Morality is subjective. You can go to Africa and Asia Minor to find some cultural practices that we would judge to be wrong in our culture. Take the practice of female circumcision, for example.

---

Hate world.Revenge soon!