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arib... and I'm forced to wonder:
Why do so many scientists, as well as many religious figures, see science and religion as diametrically opposed to one another?
I mean, I'm a fairly religious person, and science is something that's very important to me. In some cases, scientific acheivements don't adversely challenge my faith, they help me define it.
I'm sure I have more to say, but I'm tired right now. SO, I'll open the discussion up to you, my friends. What do y'all think?
Why do so many scientists, as well as many religious figures, see science and religion as diametrically opposed to one another?
I mean, I'm a fairly religious person, and science is something that's very important to me. In some cases, scientific acheivements don't adversely challenge my faith, they help me define it.
I'm sure I have more to say, but I'm tired right now. SO, I'll open the discussion up to you, my friends. What do y'all think?
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seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-29 11:43 pm (UTC)Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 12:14 am (UTC)Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 04:59 am (UTC)*shrug*
A lot of science can't yet be proven, either. Theories and such. Yet the scientific community regards them as true. Last I checked, it's still the Theory of Relativity, not the Law of Relativity, and the Theory of Evolution, not the Law of Evolution. (Mind you, both make a lot of sense to me, and until I see evidence to the contrary, I'll assume they're valid. Whether it's just blind science, or the way God chose to run the universe is an exercise I leave to greater minds than mine.)
the world would be much better off without religion
I strongly disagree, but that's another post for another time.
While I understand that this topic is pretty sensitive, and you may want to remain anonymous, I'd honestly like to know who you are. :-)
Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 09:32 am (UTC)Last I checked, it's still the Theory of Relativity
That's because the term "theory" as used by science is actually a technical term (lessee how well I explain this) meaning "long complex idea" more or less. It's more strongly meant to be true (or, more precisely, the best explanation for existing data that predicts new data) than just "this is my theory of how the butler killed Lord Cregg".
As for the larger question....I was raised by fundamentalist Christians, and have a BS degree in Biology, so I want to address this, but can't right at the moment.
A.A
Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 09:43 am (UTC)Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 05:42 pm (UTC)So. The question you asked, to wit: Why do so many scientists, as well as many religious figures, see science and religion as diametrically opposed to one another? I'm still working out my answer to this, but it goes like this at the moment:
Religion and science, though I think they have mostly different jobs, have both worked at answering some of the same questions ("how is the world structured?" "where did the Universe come from?" "why do we get sick and what do we do about it?" etc). In some branches of some religions (such as the fundie Christianity I was raised in) there's an "all or nothing" kind of idea, that one must belive as strongly that God made the world in 144 hours as that Jesus Christ is one's Savior and Lord. Such an impulse put Galileo under house arrest. So, an idea like that can lead the minds that hold it to think that religion is at odds with science and its different, sometimes conflicting, answers to these questions and its different philosophies and pathways underneath. I think much of scientists thinking religion is their enemy is a reaction to that.
As someone who has studied a bit of archaeology sometimes I share your anonymous friend's cynical view that religion is merely a form of social control. It's impressive what big pyramids you can get people to build for you if you've convinced them you're God. However, I usually don't think that way. I haven't settled on a religious path yet, but I do believe in the Divine, in something more to us and the world than the physical reality. My mother was trained as a biochemist, and like many scientists, what she learned in science fueled her religious faith (although how she still believed in straight-up six-24-hour-day Creationism is beyond me).
A.
at length.
Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 06:40 pm (UTC)Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 06:51 pm (UTC)Re: seems pretty obvious to me
Date: 2002-06-30 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-30 03:26 am (UTC)Reply A:
P: Is there a word for something along the lines of "highly spiritual atheist"? :)
(Other than the catch-all of UU, that is.)
Me: Agnostic, perhaps. I'd describe my dad as a Jewish agnostic -- he doesn't believe in God, exactly -- at least, not the miracle-working God of the Torah -- but he does believe that a minimum of Jewish observance, particularly the family-centered things, are important.
Reply B:
L: i think there are people who use "science" as if it were just the opposite of "religion". but the world just doesn't break down that tidily into yin-yang pairs. there are *some* religions which are anti-science -- for instance, ones which say "you gotta believe the words in the big book, even if the data goes the other way"; this doesn't sit well with a scientific epistemology in which you gotta deal with the data, come hell or not.
but a lot of actual scientists i know (not dilettantes, working-type folks) are quite religious, and even religious in the gnostic, left-temporal-lobe-type way i think of as *really* religious. they look at the stuff of their work, and they see what's sacred there.
Me: Indeed, and Einstein wrote some amazing things about God -- all the books are packed, or I'd go find an appropriate quote.
I agree with you, and with L (who has a PhD in neuroscience), personally.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-30 07:35 pm (UTC)I have been known to say that the words "always" and "never" are, to me, proof of the existence of God. I find it unimaginable that by chance a universe could have come about where something could always be true, or never be true. What an extraordinary thing it is that in base 10, 2+2=4, no matter what else is going on in the entire universe! Contemplating things like that touches my soul and makes it thrum as though part of a greater harmony.
by chance?
Date: 2002-06-30 08:47 pm (UTC)quoting from the website...
Life is too complex to have happened by chance.
Another is the "randomness argument". What is "random", anyway? We are never told. It says that self organization cannot occur because the process is "blind" and "random" that is supposed to drive it. Never mind that the system has a finite number of states it can occupy and its history can constrain its future states. This borrows from the thermodynamic argument the confusion over entropy and open system states.
The theory of evolution doesn't say it did happen by chance. This argument completely ignores natural selection. Please read:
Life in Darwin's Universe
G. Bylinsky, Omni Sept 79
The Evolution of Ecological Systems
May, Scientific American, Sept 1978
Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life
Dickerson, Scientific American, Sept 1978
The Evolution of the Earliest Cells
Schopf, Scientific American, Sept 1978
The Evolution of Multicellular Plants and Animals
Valentine, Scientific American, Sept 1978
---
(done with the quote)
just for arguments sake, think about this...religion is not the same as belief in god(s)...many people believe in a divine yet do not ascribe to a particular theological dogma or follow a certain theocracy...you can believe in a warm, fluffy invisible something if it makes you feel better...but that's all it is...meanwhile, organized religion is there to tell you what to do and how to do it, based on the leaders of that religion...just seems to me it's just another way for people with power to maintain power, and we all know what power does, as the catholics from which I came have given evidence...so ugly, such vile hypocracy...I hope all the people involved in the coverups and conspiracies are punished
Re: by chance?
Date: 2002-06-30 08:52 pm (UTC)Who invited you and your strawmen to the party?
Re: by chance?
Date: 2002-06-30 11:18 pm (UTC)Dor some religions, possibly. Lumping all organized religions into the "organized religion is just a way to keep the little people down" camp is quite rash.
By your line of reasoning, governments, which are an organized system with a codified set or rules and punishments, fall under the same heading. (Yes, the grammar in that sentence was atrocious, mea culpa.) Instead of doing something because -Deity of your choice- says to, you're doing it because -government X- says to.
Blaming religions as a whole for the actions of some of their practitioners is bordering on groundless discrimination, not to mention paranoia. While the media has brought the recent scandals in the Catholic church to light, it's more how certain individuals handled matters, IMO, rather than how the religion as a culture dealt with it.
FInally, if you're not willing to sign your name to your words, I'm not gonna bother discussing them.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-07-01 02:48 am (UTC)My personal theory is that the scientists and religious people who disagree so strongly both believe in an essentially limited deity. I see nothing about the universe that precludes the existence of God, and I do not believe in a creator whose very existence is challenged by our explorations into the universe around us. And "there are some things man was not meant to *try* to know" is just silly - if we really weren't 'meant' to know something, it'd be inaccessible.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-07-01 09:07 pm (UTC)Ack! I've just gotta jump in here with an anti-recommendation. I read Calculating God last year because it was nominated for a Hugo (I later found out that Sawyer agressively campaigns for the Hugo among his fans; the number of people who nominate for the Hugos is small enough that a small number of devoted fans can get a lousy book onto the ballot), and thought it was one of the worst novels I'd read in a long while. It's got about as much intellectual depth as a mediocre Start Trek episode, and there are points where the author just stacks the deck to get things to come out the way he wants. I'd never read anything be Sawyer before, and after Calculating God I'll never read anything by him again.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-07-01 10:27 pm (UTC)Cons: Yes, he does stack the deck quite a bit, and there is a jarring note of human chauvinism in the way that our hero intuits the solution to a mystery that more advanced alien scientists were baffled by. Also, there's the occasional imbalance between philosophy and plot advancament. And Sawyer is frequently facile where he should have intorduced some depth. But...
Pros: Sawyer's writing style is imho not just readable but enjoyable. The book got off to a slightly shaky start, but once he hit his stride it carried itself along very nicely. It was didactic when it needed to be without being annoying, which is rare. The issue central to the book was sufficiently intriguing and rich that it *was* worthy of having an entire novel devoted to it, although I do admit I'd have liked to see someone more 'thoughtful' handle it. But on the whole it was a very entertaining read, and did manage to make me think. Overall, I'd put it on the plus side of the balance sheet.