Starboy

The thought that one would consider that science and religion overlap makes as much sense as saying that Greek Mythology and science overlap. If there is any relation between science and religion it is that science is indifferent to religion and religion wishes to either destroy or co-opt science. If mankind survives, in our future history Christianity and it’s derivatives will be just another mythology in a long chain of mythologies, but THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HUMAN ENDEVOUR TO UNDERSTAND OUR SURROUNDINGS IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND will continue on.

Starboy

RufusAtticus

Yes, along with traditional concepts of what questions theology should be addressing. In other words, I think that in many instances the traditional realm of theology does conflict with the realm of science.

~~RvFvS~~

Synaesthesia

I think it is only really possible to reconicile faith with science by compartmentalizing them. This has the obvious psycological advangage of having 'the best of both worlds'.

This method is, however, theoretically undesireable. Parsimonious coherence is, in my mind, exactly what our best conception of reality IS. That's why we say a center of gravity is not real whereas we would say that a quark is real.

That being said, I would prefer that everyone seperated science from fantasy, erm, religious or magical thought rather than opting for purely magical thinking. The problem is that once you have accepted magical explanation, differentiation fantasy from reality becomes that much harder.

seanie

Another Dawkins link

<a href="http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3.html" target="_blank">http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3.html</a>

Vinnie

RD should stick to what is he is good at.

Vinnie

Oolon Colluphid

Perhaps, Vinnie, perhaps. But I can't for the life of me think why he's actually wrong. Can you?

Oolon

Vinnie

He is clearly one-sided.

That is not an argument nor does it even attempt to make a real argument. Its close to a logical fallacy IMO (poisoning the well). It looks more like a diatribe--it looks like the writings of a man disgusted with religion. He offers ONLY the negative side. The picture that is painted leads one to believe nothing good has ever come from religion.

RD sees religion as purely bad. Has he ever tried to look at the "good" of what religion has done? Am I missing something? Is there no "good" side to it? Religious people will find it quite ridiculous to hear someone say NO good has ever come from religion. Even the very liberal ones like me.

He makes himself look silly when talking about religion (to the religious). He seemingly does not even attempt to understand the importance of religion and theology in the lives of some people. He needs to stick with science.

scigirl

I agree with you here, Vinnie. As an evolutionary biologist, I believe that understanding our origins (that we came from chimp-like creatures) will help us understand human nature. I think Dawkins does over-state his case, mainly because I believe in evolution--sure we may blow each other up in the name of religion, but if we really are just specialized chimps, than what we are really doing is fighting over territory just like they do, right?

Of course now I'm over-stating evolution, but certainly religion cannot be the cause of all of our ills if we did evolve, and if we are biological organisms, etc etc.

Although when I read that article. . .I don't think Dawkins was blaming everything on religion, he just doesn't see the usefulness of it anymore in terms of explaining our origins. If you asked him to write an essay on, "The usefulness of religion in keeping societies together," perhaps you would see a different tone.

scigirl

scigirl

Vinnie,

I liked your post. I sent you some nit-picky comments via email, so that we can stick to discussing content here!

You listed these differences between science and theology:
Ok, onto #1. So what exactly is the "spiritual reality" and how do you draw the line between what science can and cannot enter? Science has much to say about earth origins, life origins, causes of disease, human nature, why we fall in love, etc etc. To me, it seems that this "spiritual world" or the world that science cannot touch or explain is getting smaller and smaller every day.

#2: But don't people perceive these revelations from God through their senses? They either "see" Him through dreams, or hear His voice, etc. Also, the revelations have translated into very real sensory experiences, or real objects, right? For instance, the Bible, or speaking in tongues.

#3: I wasn't sure what you meant by "different types of causality." Perhaps--science assumes a naturalistic explanation, religion a supernatural one?

#4 You say that science uses mathmatics, then say religion uses "unique historical events together with general principals or teachings." Disagree. Science uses all of them. It is not just math, it is math coupled with a bunch of other things, including unique historical events and general teachings.

Perhaps you need to make a distinction between historical science (i.e. paleontology) and non-historical science (medical research for example). The first type of scientist cannot repeat his experiment (repeat evolution, or repeat the big bang), but both types of sciences rely on the same methods of inference testing, etc. You seem to be comparing my type of science (i.e. medical research, which we can just repeat over and over until we figure it out) with theology. To be fair, you should compare historical science with theology.

And there is some repeatability even in historical sciences - every time another fossil is found, theories are tested and refined.

Ok, gotta go check my gel (I'm at work doing the repeatable science--unfortunately I'm sure I'll have to repeat this particular experiment more times than I care to! )

scigirl

Starboy

It is difficult for me to consider theology a science in any sense other then “Christian Science”. My difficulties are as follows:

--1. The primary subject of Christian theology is God. The main difficulty in studying this subject is that it can’t be approached in any productive way. Simple questions like: “Could my pencil be God?” can’t be answered. God as a concept is just too powerful to be useful in any way.
--2. Christian knowledge, such as the bible is not taken tentatively. No Christian theologian that wishes to remain a Christian theologian can say, “lets toss the whole thing out and start with a new set of observations and theories.” New science gets the Nobel Prize but new religion gets crucified.
--3. Christian Theology has little predictive power. If it does have any predictive power it is usually found after the fact.
--4. Christian Theology is about “TRUTH” and science is about what works.

My final conclusion is that the author suffers from “Science Envy” and a “if you can’t beat them join them” complex. Who can blame him? After all, science is THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HUMAN ENDEVOUR FOR UNDERSTANDING OUR SURROUNDINGS IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.

Starboy

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>