Kolya on 7/9/2010 at 14:46
Solving major problems of humanity in a honest to goodness fashion on one rainy afternoon. Let's go!
There's a place for both religion and science in many people's minds, including brilliant ones, where religion is confident to answer the question: Why is everything the way it is? Meanwhile science tries to answer a different question: How exactly are things?
These sides can interfere, eg when they both try to answer: How did things come to be the way they are? because religion includes that in their explanation for Why? and science in their findings about How?.
With its constant doubting, including itself, religion and everything else, science may seem in a weaker position at first, but as it progresses it pushes the religious realm back ever more. While science sheds it light here and there, the room is still endless though and religion will always have a place in it. To fill it religion has to move. Science is an open dynamic system. The possibility of mistakes is incorporated in it's doubting nature and so it moves on, un-thwarted by its many previous mistakes. If religion delivers absolute and static explanations and clings to its previous mistakes there will be a systemic conflict.
It shouldn't be impossible for religions to cope with the progress of science. But from the viewpoint of an absolute and static religion, like the one-book religions, science will appear as an aggressive force that has to be fended off.
So the questions are: Which dynamic elements already exist in these religions that can be supported? How do other religions cope with these problems? And how can religions deal with previous mistakes without losing credibility?
Re-interpretations of the book are one way of adjusting to the changes brought to life by science. But re-interpretations are not without pitfalls as older interpretations linger around with no good internal logic in place to explain why they're now considered obsolete. (As far as I can see.) Overall that makes them tend to look like passive reactions and religious reforms appear driven by an outside force.
Maybe religions should actually take a keen interest in science to see what it cannot explain and then move to these new positions. A known working solution is to establish the religion as a kind of journey with a somewhat foggy end. This allows to leave old positions behind gracefully.
Well that's what I got so far. I hope I'm not offending anyone with this simplistic view. I just wanted to look at science and religion as social constructs or systems and see how they can be made to cooperate for the benefit of all. I'm aware this doesn't really solve anything by itself. Constructive critiques/ideas welcome. If you don't like this post or are just having a bad day consider it a brainfart and move on. Thank you for your attention.
Briareos H on 7/9/2010 at 15:16
I'm pretty sure that any religious person able (/willing) to comprehend and agree with your reasoning has already no problem with science and religion coexisting...
Queue on 7/9/2010 at 15:17
It's a wonderful thought, but in my mind science and religion can't coexist because they honestly cancel each other out for these reasons:
- Science is the search for truths based in facts.
- Religion is the perpetuation of an ideal.
- Facts disprove ideals, and those that follow ideals couldn't care less about finding truths that might negate their whole reason for living.
Though I admit that I am a very cynical person.
SubJeff on 7/9/2010 at 15:26
Your statement about religion is wrong.
Kolya on 7/9/2010 at 15:33
Briareos H: That would be good people to show the other half of the way then, as my own reasoning is probably too coloured by my non-religious views.
Queue: Facts don't disprove a good ideal, eg as a gardener you could believe in nature's beauty being an expression of a mystic force and there's no way to disprove that.
SE: Which one? Oh you mean Queue's, never mind.
Queue on 7/9/2010 at 15:44
Quote Posted by Kolya
Queue: Facts don't disprove a good ideal, eg as a gardener you could believe in nature's beauty being an expression of a mystic force and there's no way to disprove that.
But one could also state that there is nothing mystic about it and that nature's beauty is simply a reaction to the survival instinct caused by evolution. Plants have evolved to be beautiful (or poisonous, or full of stinging glands, or have properties to get one stoned) simply to perpetuate their continued existence.
It's like Cannabis--uglier than shit but a very desirable plant because of its inherent properties. And through the course of evolution, the off-spring with stronger properties are selected and cultivated thus ensuring that the species survives and thrives.
(edit) SE--how so?
Phatose on 7/9/2010 at 15:57
Interestingly, major religious figures agree.
Quote Posted by The Dalai Lama
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.
Quote Posted by Pope John Paul II
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
SD on 7/9/2010 at 16:21
Science is the sum total of knowledge gleaned by the finest minds over the entirety of human existence. Religion is what some barely cognitive Neolitihic cavemen came up with to explain everything while they were pulling twigs out of their hair. There is no way the two can ever be reconciled.
As Stephen Hawking put it recently: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."
Queue on 7/9/2010 at 16:29
Quote Posted by SD
Science will win because it works."
Even in a world where religion dominates? It seems that more and more people believe in religion than science, and are becoming increasingly willing to make religion a central part of our lives by infusing it into government and everyday existence.
Just look at the Tea Party... One of the party's major calls is to bring America, "back to a nation of Christian values," by perpetuating this notion it was founded under the guise of Christian values.
And it's working. Slowly people are migrating to the outer fringes of religious fanaticism, believing that the country truly has gone to hell recently (because someone with a bullhorn told them so).
Vivian on 7/9/2010 at 16:33
Yeah, but that's only the philosophical aspects of science they're rejecting - I bet you anything you like that all those rallies are organised using mobile phones and the internet, and that the participants have taken some of medicinal drugs over the last year or so. People still use the products of science, which (probably) cannot be obtained without the working philosophy and worldview that drives scientific research, so whether they like it or not, it basically doesn't actually matter what they think. Until they start cutting funding, that is.
