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Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it

71 points by urahara 9y ago

return0 9y ago
There is literally no argument in the whole article to support the title's conclusion.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  He argues that America has more science than anywhere else, but is more religious than comparable first world countries. That seems like an argument to me. You could counter that America was filled early on with particularly zealous types, and that it's a big enough country that the science and the religion could find their own areas to bloom separately, but that may actually be supporting his argument.
  - Ericson2314 9y ago
    Historians often talk about waves of religiousity in the US. The puritans were just want strand of colonists, just the one America loves to enphasized the most. Jamestown was more economic than religious.
  - return0 9y ago
    That's an observation (which is false thus stated ; america produces science but people are not as scientifically literate as western europe. And still, loud religious zealots pose no threat politically like they do in Turkey). his argument is > science will not destroy it
    - jcbrand 9y ago
      That's a claim, not an argument.
      - return0 9y ago
        yep, a claim that's lacking arguments.
  - hsjoberg 9y ago
    Well they have a lot of science but they lack proper education.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    What does it mean for America to have more science? There seems to be a very large portion of the population of America who don't understand even the basic tenets of the scientific process, and can't define science, much less know about specific theories and the math behind experiments.
  - Iv 9y ago
    USA is an outlier. http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/religion-gdp.png http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/relig... Like Kuwait: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploads/2583.gif http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploa...
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Interesting that on the evolution vs GDP graph, Turkey is another outlier, with even lower belief in evolution than their GDP would suggest. Turkey, and it's teaching of evolution is brought up in the original article as a failure of science to destroy religion. I wonder if that survey records that the teaching of evolution never worked, or reflects the backlash against that belief.
      - imustbeevil 9y ago
        Turkey isn't an outlier they are literally on the line.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        The line is drawn including Turkey, but not including America. Visually, they both look like outliers.
      - bitL 9y ago
        Evolution is a scientific fact for local adaptation, i.e. developing mechanisms to cope with environmental changes between generations. In a geological timescale it's just a theory, basically extrapolating local changes to creating whole new species (which we obviously can't observe yet). There are various issues with this extrapolation, i.e. from computational complexity point of view the time from the start of the Universe might not be sufficient to come up with precision needed for a new specie. This obviously then puts evolution among other hypotheses like the religious one (there is a God, or there are multiple gods, creating the world), simulation hypothesis (we are a hypercomputer game/reality show/testing ground/miniatures/VM etc.), chaos theory, total determinism a'la Bell equation etc. From these religion is the only one that gives most people some meaning/goal to their lives, especially during hard times when it's easier to off oneself, so no wonder it's going to stay. Evolution also plays against non-religious people as these often produce less children than religious ones, increasing odds of their genotype to survive and keep the same culture. So in fact being religious might be a better evolutionary strategy, which is quite funny.
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    > He argues that America has more science than anywhere else, but is more religious than comparable first world countries. That's making two statements, not arguing that those two things show the points in the title. Maybe those two things are an accident? Maybe they're unrelated to the conclusions. To make an argument they'd have to argue why they support those conclusions.
  - VeejayRampay 9y ago
    How exactly does America "have more science"? How do you even quantify such a thing?
    - coldtea 9y ago
      By numbers of people who have gone to higher education? By numbers of Nobel prize winners? By numbers of practicing researchers? By numbers of technological and scientific jobs? By the presence of advanced technological infrastructure? I mean there are tons of ways to "quantify such a thing", and in most of those America comes close to the top or at the top.
      - VeejayRampay 9y ago
        You'd need to bring down those numbers to a per-capita basis for them to be relevant though, I don't think America is anything special.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Except the several pretty crystal clear arguments and statistics it gives?
Ericson2314 9y ago
The author drops it looks like the real correlation is the social safety net + decent prosperity? Yet another reason to support having one.
simonh 9y ago
It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter religious belief. I've been following the Closer To Truth series on Youtube for a while and although I find the atheist positions given much more convincing, the religious side always has some way out of a killing blow. However what that series never seems to really tackle head on, and which I would have expected to be a much more powerful argument, is that although religious philosophers and theologians can always come up with some justification for believing in a universal creator, they never seem to come up with any argument as to what that creator is like. If the universe was created by god, what is that god like and why should I be a Christian rather than a Muslim, or Hindu, or Budhist? If Christian, why a Catholic, say, rather than a Methodist, or Calvinist, etc. Science, or at least rational philosophy, can strip away much of the cultural detritus of religion. Ultimately though until it can answer why the universe exists, not just how, it can't land a fatal blow. So to me the argument of science versus religion is kind of secondary. The real question is can't religious people see that they're just projecting arbitrary cultural baggage they happen to have been born into, that keeps changing generation by generation anyway, on a philosophical emperor that inherently has no clothes?
- camus2 9y ago
  > It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter religious belief. Show me how one multiplies fishes. There are 2 differents questions when it comes to religion. One is philosophical : "Does a moral god exist?" The other is historical: "Who wrote the bible or the coran the torah and co, and do these prophets who claim they have seen or talked to the divine told the truth?" These are 2 separated questions. Science obviously can't answer the first one, it's purely philosophical, but science can absolutely answer the second one. Finally, a last question. Does following a religion means believing in "god" or believing in the vision of god from another man? edit: I'm focusing on what I know, AKA Abrahamic religions, and I'm not talking about the morality of religious texts nor whatever wisdom they contain. So don't take my comment as a personal attack against your faith.
  - js8 9y ago
    > Show me how one multiplies fishes. Not to detract from your argument, I think you're generally correct, but in this case: Two fish and 5 loafs of bread are enough to start a fish farm. Of course, I doubt this is what really happened, but this particular miracle is very easy to explain..
mannykannot 9y ago
Science, and, with one or two exceptions, scientists themselves, have no issue with religion except when it tries to suppress science.
- kgwgk 9y ago
  That's like saying that science has no issues with homeopathy or telepathy except when they try to supress science.
  - bbarn 9y ago
    Which would also be true. Science would gladly welcome these concepts if there were a shred of evidence that they were real.
    - NotAChristian 9y ago
      There will come a time where science will have advanced so far that scientists will be able perform miracles that are indistinguishable from the power of God? Where Science finally converges with Spirituality because Spirituality is just really really advance science?
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    There are large areas of religion that are not attempting to suppress either scientific research or the propagation of its knowledge. As far as I know, believers in telepathy are not attempting to suppress science, they simply believe in something that has no scientific support.
  - toflon 9y ago
    I think the difference is that religion focuses on what happened, and science focuses on how it happened. I know some do, but I think most Christian people don't actually believe it took god 6 days or 144 hours to create everything. I think the accept that it's a metaphor, that doesn't try to explain it. While I don't believe in any religion, I still think these two things can coexists. For instance the originator of the Big Bang theory was both a scientist and priest.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tim333 9y ago
On the other hand the UK was just in the news as the percentage "having no religious affiliation" just went over 50%. Its was 48% in 2015, 53% in the recent survey. Not sure how much of that is science - we have Dawkins plugging away with his books and the like - and how much is bad press religion has had in recent times. Like the London Bridge stabbings don't exactly make you think wow isn't religion great. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fredley 9y ago
  As more moderate people fall away from church congregations and other religious groups, only the hardliners and fanatics remain. I am convinced that the rise in religious fundamentalism (amongst all religions) is closely tied to the rise in secularism.
  - MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
    An interesting thought. As the moderates leave, inevitably more extreme forces gain power.
    - fredley 9y ago
      I have a theory that, in Britain at least, the distribution of religious fervour is pretty much the same as it was 100 years ago. The difference is that the more moderate people now no longer go to church, meaning the churches are controlled by, and put out more fundamentalist viewpoints. This in turn drives more moderates away. I am one of the moderates, I grew up part of a church congregation, but as I grew up I found almost everyone I met who identified as Christian to have beliefs wildly different from mine. Any Christian gatherings I attended tended towards fundamentalism and the quashing of inquisitive thought about the nature of the World, God etc. I do not believe in God, but I suspect that many churchgoers of 100 years ago didn't really either, and the focus was much more on tradition, ritual and community rather than actual belief. I mourn the loss of this, even though I barely knew it myself, but there are hardly any congregations left for people like me (and yes, I know about movements such as Sunday Assembly, which I have tried out but find equally unpalatable for reasons I can't quite put into words).
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins actually undermine one of the classic arguments against religion, as they and their followers have demonstrated repeatedly that the racism, sexism, xenophobia, hypocrisy, believing and repeating obvious lies, pseudoscience, favoring hierarchies with some people clearly marked as inferior, covering up for sexual assault and predation, wars etc. etc. that many would have previously associated with organised religion can bloom in atheist circles too. I thought that might account for the low numbers of people identifying themselves as "Atheist" with a capital A, but on following the link it seems it's hard to get a straight answer on that for multiple reasons e.g. "8% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a universal spirit. Indeed, 2% say they are “absolutely certain” about the existence of God or a universal spirit."
- moccachino 9y ago
  That you associate them with any of the things you mentioned tells me you haven't listened to or read any of their works with the intention of understanding the contents, rather than picking out sentences that can be twisted to fit into your completely wrong image of them.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    I was already an atheist and agreed with most of the points Dawkins makes in his books before I even read them. That doesn't detract from him demonstrating various human follies that could, and have been argued to be caused or exacerbated by organised religion. And if it was just one older gentlemen then you could probably just write it off, but when lots of younger atheists form communities to actively practice and promote many of these things, it really just blows that argument out of the water totally.
    - moccachino 9y ago
      You are confused. 1) Sam Harris / Richard Dawkins are not promoting any of these Bad Qualities (xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc.). You seem to concede that because you now talk about "lots of younger atheists" that "form communities to actively practice and promote" these Bad Qualities. Probably some exist but I haven't seen any of consequence. In any case, they are not SH/RD so your entire opening statement is therefore baseless. 2) The main argument of SH/RD is NOT that only religious people or groups promote Bad Qualities. The main argument is that religious faith is a set of made-up doctrines and "truths" that can lead to a whole variety of behaviors depending on the specific set of "truths" and doctrines. Some of those are good, many of those are bad (see Bad Qualities). The Bad Qualities arise because the faith is made-up and therefore will unavoidably have components incompatible with the real world. 3) The good parts of religion can all, each and every one, be achieved without religious faith. Sam Harris especially has been advocating this. You can have "spirituality" and meditation without all the bullcrap of gods.
js8 9y ago
I think the decline of religion that we see is due to decline of power of single authorities over large majority of population. With competing authorities (different religions), it's harder to sustain an unwarranted belief. However, it's not clear whether this trend will continue, if there will always be multiple different authorities from this point on, or if humanity will largely again unify under a single overarching authority. Also I believe that many people have inborn tendency to value authority (we typically call this conservative beliefs), and it's not clear if this tendency is going away or staying.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  American Christianity is thoroughly diffuse with few leaders with any literal authority. You get pastors of megachurches, but their following often wanes as they age, retire, or pass away. Perhaps it's the decentralized organizational structure that has allowed American Christianity to fare better than its European counterparts.
  - js8 9y ago
    Yes, but in the past, it was often difficult for people to get information or support outside their respective communities. Internet (and other media before that, to a smaller extent) changed all that. I distinctly remember Laci Green's Youtube channel when she was 17 or so, and a closet atheist from a Mormon community. She talked exactly about this and how Internet let her to get to information that she otherwise wouldn't get to. There are many cases like that.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Sure, but there were always places people gravitated to when they wanted to get the hell out of the Bible belt. They had to wait until they were old enough and ready enough to pack up and move, though.
- speedplane 9y ago
  > With competing authorities (different religions), it's harder to sustain an unwarranted belief. True, but it's also difficult to even sustain warranted beliefs. I would not say that science is the new religion, but I don't deny it has a lot of power. And there are plenty of people out there who are more than happy to twist truths and break down the foundations of science to accrue some of that very warranted power.
alexasmyths 9y ago
"belief in supernatural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as a result of the increasing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge" That's not what religion is, and it's rather upsetting to see supposed 'intellectuals' with such a sad failure to grasp even the basics of metaphysics, let alone spirituality. There is no 'war' between Science and Religion. Maybe a 'war' between 'Scientists' and 'Some kinds of religious people who believe some impractical things' ... But the real debate is between 'Scientific Materialists' and 'Spiritualists' and that's a reasonable debate.
- macns 9y ago
  > There is no 'war' between Science and Religion. I agree. But there seems to be a war on science by religious fanatics.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    And a war on religion by science fanatics. Science is already a religion, if you ask me. There are even a lot of Messiahs: Newton, Einstein, Tesla. But also a lot of oil snake salesmen.
    - beojan 9y ago
      Atheistic (or better, anti-theistic) fanatics, not science fanatics.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      I would say that the war is between religion and philosophic materialism (or physicalism, if you prefer). Materialism is the dominant mental framework among scientists, but it is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. ("The physical universe is all that exists" is not scientifically provable, even in principle.)
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    There is a war on science from fundamentalists, sure, but it's not limited to theists. Was Damore a religious fanatic? He was engaging in a rational, scientific discussion (merits of the attempt aside, that was the stated goal). What about anti-vaccine people? What about there-is-no-good-GMO people? I think it's inconsistent at best to think the biggest enemy of science is religious fanatics. In fact, the biggest enemy of science these days is bad science. Lack of replicated results, for example.
baby 9y ago
Education is the logic explanation of Religion going away in Europe. (http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-lead-to-less-religion/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-lead-...) I think this explains the high degree of religion in the US, some schools still want to teach creationism there.
oldandtired 9y ago
Science is no more anti-religion than, say, a cold chisel is anti-hammer. Science is a study of the natural world. It doesn't answer philosophical or religious questions. That is not its part to play. However, saying that, each person will use science according to the base beliefs that person brings with them. It you come in as an atheist, those core beliefs will, generally, colour how you see the world around you. If you come in as a buddhist, this will colour how you see the world about you. if come in as a christian, the same will occur. Now the results or outcomes discovered can and have changed the underlying base beliefs a person may have started with. So, an atheist may become a christian, a christian may become an atheist, etc, etc, etc. In my case, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I personally believe that He is not only the creator of all the universe and everything in it, but He is my personal saviour and wants to know me personally. I was given a good science and engineering education. I had no problems with such ideas as evolution and big bang, etc. Interestingly, it was people like Richard Dawkins and his work in genetics that raised significant questions over the viability of any evolutionary model. As I studied the results obtained from various reported experiments in evolutionary biology, it became obvious that the interpretation of their results and the results themselves were different. So over time, I came to see that evolution as a model of reality was not viable, though very useful for some very good scifi stories. In turn, looking at other areas, the results seemed to be odds with the theories and models being propagated. This is turn, challenged me to look at the limits of what science could do. I think it is wonderful that we have the ability to systematically study and experiment with the world around. Science is a boon for that. But there are questions it cannot answer. We must look elsewhere for the tools to study those questions. What has also become obvious over the last few decades, is that Science has become a religion to which it has many adherents. Those who have pushed for this (such as Richard Dawkins et al) have done a great disservice to Science. It is religion neutral. It has no care whether you are atheist, agnostic, moslem, chistian, buddhist, hindu or anything else. It has no care for your political belief, your sexuality, your social status, your ethnicity or anything related to the non-science beliefs you carry. However, those non-science things will colour how you view the results obtained in your science. It will colour your interpretation and it will colour how you use the results. Religion and science are not intrinsically incompatible. It is how people used them for or against each other that generates the conflicts. My God has created an absolutely fascinating universe and His good pleasure is that we can study it to try and understand how it works and in doing so we can get to know Him. Just because we gain some understanding about certain aspects of the world around us, say how planetary motion works, does not mean in any way, that He is no longer in the picture. He is no God of the Gaps as Dr Neil Tyson or Bill Nye would have you believe. Anyone who falls into the trap of believing that Science will replace or supplant religion has already made Science into religion. There are no "stupid" questions and there is no problem asking questions about science, religion, philosophy or any other subject.
saiya-jin 9y ago
Because most people are ridiculously emotional, much more than rational. For example, what logical sense does it make to impress your friends with FB/whatever statuses? There are whole businesses built over decades, even centuries that thrive because of this feature of our personalities. Giving up something so fundamental requires continuous inner strength that unfortunately very few have. Another thing is, once human being has been 'indoctrinated' to given religion from childbirth, by whole community in which it grew up, it is extremely hard to shed off this belief. I see a prime example of this in my fiancee, who grew up in strict catholic setup and although she tried and tried (months in yoga ashrams, continuous exposition to different cultures and religions), she always eventually falls back. Visiting her mom back home has a turbo effect on this. Sometimes she is desperate because of this, sometimes she cries, but sadly its stronger than her. It is tragic for me to see this unfolding again and again in front of my eyes. I couldn't care less about other's religions, as long as they don't press me into it (and for sure many Christians have this complex of 'you should join our righteous one'). To all parents out there - give your kids freedom of choice in this. Respect their choice, but don't indoctrinate them. Chances that your religion and its specific sect (and often sub-sect) you adhere to is the right one is practically 0. Because whatever you believe, there are millions, if not billions out there who are by definition of your religion heretics, and they can think the same about you. Just be good human beings, not on surface but also deep down, bring good to this world and all will be OK. /rant
gourou 9y ago
Durkheim's definition of religion: > A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community. A lot of things fall under this, even people who wear Oakley glasses or own an iPhone.
VLM 9y ago
There are some truly weird sociological blind spots in the article. I think the CIA and police torture might have had a tiny bit more to do with the collapse of USA-ally dictatorships in Iran, not a failure of science to triumph over religion. This highlights the international level importance of religious groups (as opposed to the belief of religion or the individual believer, its the group that matters). The current system propped up by the CIA sucks, revolution executes the war criminal US ally dictator, giant vacuum exists for an org to step in, what giant org with a chip on its shoulder of knowing the right answer all the time oh how about religion? Better a religious than a corporate takeover, probably... Likewise on a smaller scale, inside nations, the article seems to miss the point that in the old days it was rather easy to discern if you were attending a fraternal social organization meeting like the freemasons or a religious service like pre-vatican-2 Catholic church. In the modern world both extremes have disappeared and merged into the middle. No amount of "science" can eliminate the traditional religious pre-game activities before the church knitting club meeting or the church singles club meeting or the Jesus themed rock music concert I attended one time at my local prosperity gospel church. I would theorize the collapse of the church in the UK is a mix of UK class separation and its related alienation leading to a lack of need for the church to be a social hub, plus mere individual anecdotal failure. There are also issues that are pretty much banned topics on this site, like religious fervor being transubstantiated into other forms such as political belief. If you ban a belief, if just means conversations about the topic are going to be ineffective and confused, which is why I have to leave this third issue unresolved, although its obviously a major component of the big picture.
hannob 9y ago
"The US is arguably the most scientifically and technologically advanced society in the world" Dear people in the US, I have unfortunate news for you: No.
sravanrao 9y ago
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erikb 9y ago
Because science is a religion. That sounds like a boring statement, but it's still true. Science in its core shouldn't be religious. But we are humans. So applying science, working as a scientist, using science (even if just for small talk) is not possible without putting some faith in unchecked results. To some degree we are all believers. The important part is to accept that and recognize it when you are about to do something which will yield bad results for you and humanity in general.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  This is a very valid thought. I'm not sure why it's being downvoted. In Christian theology, "belief" and "faith" is nothing more or less than what you put your trust in. Everyone trusts in many things and people all the time. From that perspective, the big question is whether a thing is trustworthy (science, God, seat belts), not whether trusting at all is even optional.
jasim 9y ago
Replace all occurrences of "science" in the article with "scientific method", and the entire article becomes a non sequitur. This is a classic case of painting science as a noun; as an inanimate, fixed concept which is used to increase pleasure in human lives (a religious sin), and whose materialism is in direct conflict with "moral" values. Questioning the scientific process yet accepting its fruits is a logical blunder often committed by religious apologists. Noun-ing science into a "thing" helps hide the incongruity of this idea. For instance, take the mobile phone, a concrete result of science. There is no question it exists. But it did not originate from a religious process. It was instead based on empirical research, making mistakes and learning from them, all built over centuries of human struggle, all to understand a little bit more of the universe that we live in. That process is science. It is just a process; not an answer or a fixed idea. It doesn't guarantee that we'll discover all the secrets of the universe. All it does is ask questions and try to find answers using logically coherent, structurally consistent, independently reproducible methods. There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific process. Both of them tries to find answers to questions central to human existence - what is this place? why are we here? who made it? who made us? A thousand years ago, we were asking other questions - what are the twinkling things in the sky? who brings the rain? which god causes the plague? The scientific process has answered them well enough that today's religious beliefs have shrunk in size, and refined themselves to focus on the questions that still remain transcendental. Their answers however are in direct conflict with what the scientific process has discovered. They claim the universe was created by an all knowing God, without a definition of what the God is, and stonewalling further enquiry into the topic. Religions do not bring any additional meaning to the discussion, and by its very nature stands in the way of the scientific process. The closing paragraph of the article is an ominous threat - "If anything, it is science that is subject to increasing threats to its authority and social legitimacy. Given this, science needs all the friends it can get". If it led to finding more allies in the religious world for the scientific process, I think it wouldn't hurt for scientific-minded folks to bend their outward convictions a little bit. But if it means getting rid of evolution from our textbooks and teaching kids that a voyeur in the sky is watching them all the time, waiting to subject them to eternal fire, I think it would be a hard bargain to drive.
- humanrebar 9y ago
Yizahi 9y ago
Religion will persist until humans will become smarter on average, meaning until humans will have bigger brain on average. But bigger brain may happen only if we solve how to birth babies with bigger heads or how to boost brain and head size after birth. Both requires significant medical and other breakthroughs.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Birth weights do seem to be going up, possible thanks to cesarian sections.
  - Yizahi 9y ago
    Yes, this gives me hope in our long term perspective.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Religion will persist until humans will become smarter on average How do you explain theists with high IQs then?
  - Yizahi 9y ago
    First of all IQ is commonly known to be a flawed metric, but more or less acceptable for many uses. Second - they are either outliers statistically or not really high IQ in the area of scientific methodology (which is incompatible with basic religion). People can know a lot and believe blindly in god-entity, people can do very hard calculus and believe. People can't do real scientific research about universe and blindly believe. They may use vague terminology about god-entity specifically because it is a clever concept that can't ever be disproven but really it is just a 3rd rate issue in large scale of things. Anyone claiming to be a theist and a scientist most likely never bothered to think about his "theism" much.
szemet 9y ago
Science is based on "methodological naturalism" - assuming that everything in nature have natural causes. This is the framework where science is made - it is not necessary to believe that it is true (that's called "metaphysical naturalism"), just work by the assumption. That's why there can be religious scientists. They apply methodological naturalism at work (they explain everything without appealing to the supernatural), but they maybe believe in virgin birth / resurrection / other miracles, so they actually believe that naturalism in the metaphysical sense is false. The successes of science may provide some confirmation that naturalism may be true in reality but of course can't prove it undoubtedly. But in practice it may work in this way: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Well put! It also explains why science cannot disprove supernatural events and why science can't categorically contradict supernatural beliefs. If you start with methodological naturalism, of course you'll end up with either open questions or naturalist explanations. People have the prerogative to disbelieve miracles, but by definition, they're not testable by hypothesis from a rational foundation of methodological naturalism.
  - jasonpeacock 9y ago
    Science cannot disprove supernatural events/contradict supernatural beliefs because you cannot prove a negative. The burden is on the supporters of the supernatural events/beliefs to provide the proof. It's not science vs religion, it's rational vs irrational thoughts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Agreed on your first sentence. That's another way to think about what I said. As to the rest, it's your prerogative to place the burden of proof wherever you'd like. Though it's not necessarily the case that a hypothetical God would agree with you about your standards for proof. To think a God would be unfair to not provide clear proof about miracles, etc. is a fair point, but it's not a rational or scientific one.

71 points by urahara 9y ago

return0 9y ago

There is literally no argument in the whole article to support the title's conclusion.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
He argues that America has more science than anywhere else, but is more religious than comparable first world countries. That seems like an argument to me. You could counter that America was filled early on with particularly zealous types, and that it's a big enough country that the science and the religion could find their own areas to bloom separately, but that may actually be supporting his argument.
- Ericson2314 9y ago
  Historians often talk about waves of religiousity in the US. The puritans were just want strand of colonists, just the one America loves to enphasized the most. Jamestown was more economic than religious.
- return0 9y ago
  That's an observation (which is false thus stated ; america produces science but people are not as scientifically literate as western europe. And still, loud religious zealots pose no threat politically like they do in Turkey). his argument is > science will not destroy it
  - jcbrand 9y ago
    That's a claim, not an argument.
    - return0 9y ago
      yep, a claim that's lacking arguments.
- hsjoberg 9y ago
  Well they have a lot of science but they lack proper education.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  What does it mean for America to have more science? There seems to be a very large portion of the population of America who don't understand even the basic tenets of the scientific process, and can't define science, much less know about specific theories and the math behind experiments.
- Iv 9y ago
  USA is an outlier. http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/religion-gdp.png http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/relig... Like Kuwait: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploads/2583.gif http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploa...
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Interesting that on the evolution vs GDP graph, Turkey is another outlier, with even lower belief in evolution than their GDP would suggest. Turkey, and it's teaching of evolution is brought up in the original article as a failure of science to destroy religion. I wonder if that survey records that the teaching of evolution never worked, or reflects the backlash against that belief.
    - imustbeevil 9y ago
      Turkey isn't an outlier they are literally on the line.
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        The line is drawn including Turkey, but not including America. Visually, they both look like outliers.
    - bitL 9y ago
      Evolution is a scientific fact for local adaptation, i.e. developing mechanisms to cope with environmental changes between generations. In a geological timescale it's just a theory, basically extrapolating local changes to creating whole new species (which we obviously can't observe yet). There are various issues with this extrapolation, i.e. from computational complexity point of view the time from the start of the Universe might not be sufficient to come up with precision needed for a new specie. This obviously then puts evolution among other hypotheses like the religious one (there is a God, or there are multiple gods, creating the world), simulation hypothesis (we are a hypercomputer game/reality show/testing ground/miniatures/VM etc.), chaos theory, total determinism a'la Bell equation etc. From these religion is the only one that gives most people some meaning/goal to their lives, especially during hard times when it's easier to off oneself, so no wonder it's going to stay. Evolution also plays against non-religious people as these often produce less children than religious ones, increasing odds of their genotype to survive and keep the same culture. So in fact being religious might be a better evolutionary strategy, which is quite funny.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  > He argues that America has more science than anywhere else, but is more religious than comparable first world countries. That's making two statements, not arguing that those two things show the points in the title. Maybe those two things are an accident? Maybe they're unrelated to the conclusions. To make an argument they'd have to argue why they support those conclusions.
- VeejayRampay 9y ago
  How exactly does America "have more science"? How do you even quantify such a thing?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    By numbers of people who have gone to higher education? By numbers of Nobel prize winners? By numbers of practicing researchers? By numbers of technological and scientific jobs? By the presence of advanced technological infrastructure? I mean there are tons of ways to "quantify such a thing", and in most of those America comes close to the top or at the top.
    - VeejayRampay 9y ago
      You'd need to bring down those numbers to a per-capita basis for them to be relevant though, I don't think America is anything special.
coldtea 9y ago
Except the several pretty crystal clear arguments and statistics it gives?

Ericson2314 9y ago

The author drops it looks like the real correlation is the social safety net + decent prosperity? Yet another reason to support having one.

simonh 9y ago

It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter religious belief. I've been following the Closer To Truth series on Youtube for a while and although I find the atheist positions given much more convincing, the religious side always has some way out of a killing blow. However what that series never seems to really tackle head on, and which I would have expected to be a much more powerful argument, is that although religious philosophers and theologians can always come up with some justification for believing in a universal creator, they never seem to come up with any argument as to what that creator is like. If the universe was created by god, what is that god like and why should I be a Christian rather than a Muslim, or Hindu, or Budhist? If Christian, why a Catholic, say, rather than a Methodist, or Calvinist, etc. Science, or at least rational philosophy, can strip away much of the cultural detritus of religion. Ultimately though until it can answer why the universe exists, not just how, it can't land a fatal blow. So to me the argument of science versus religion is kind of secondary. The real question is can't religious people see that they're just projecting arbitrary cultural baggage they happen to have been born into, that keeps changing generation by generation anyway, on a philosophical emperor that inherently has no clothes?

camus2 9y ago
> It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter religious belief. Show me how one multiplies fishes. There are 2 differents questions when it comes to religion. One is philosophical : "Does a moral god exist?" The other is historical: "Who wrote the bible or the coran the torah and co, and do these prophets who claim they have seen or talked to the divine told the truth?" These are 2 separated questions. Science obviously can't answer the first one, it's purely philosophical, but science can absolutely answer the second one. Finally, a last question. Does following a religion means believing in "god" or believing in the vision of god from another man? edit: I'm focusing on what I know, AKA Abrahamic religions, and I'm not talking about the morality of religious texts nor whatever wisdom they contain. So don't take my comment as a personal attack against your faith.
- js8 9y ago
  > Show me how one multiplies fishes. Not to detract from your argument, I think you're generally correct, but in this case: Two fish and 5 loafs of bread are enough to start a fish farm. Of course, I doubt this is what really happened, but this particular miracle is very easy to explain..

mannykannot 9y ago

Science, and, with one or two exceptions, scientists themselves, have no issue with religion except when it tries to suppress science.

kgwgk 9y ago
That's like saying that science has no issues with homeopathy or telepathy except when they try to supress science.
- bbarn 9y ago
  Which would also be true. Science would gladly welcome these concepts if there were a shred of evidence that they were real.
  - NotAChristian 9y ago
    There will come a time where science will have advanced so far that scientists will be able perform miracles that are indistinguishable from the power of God? Where Science finally converges with Spirituality because Spirituality is just really really advance science?
- mannykannot 9y ago
  There are large areas of religion that are not attempting to suppress either scientific research or the propagation of its knowledge. As far as I know, believers in telepathy are not attempting to suppress science, they simply believe in something that has no scientific support.
- toflon 9y ago
  I think the difference is that religion focuses on what happened, and science focuses on how it happened. I know some do, but I think most Christian people don't actually believe it took god 6 days or 144 hours to create everything. I think the accept that it's a metaphor, that doesn't try to explain it. While I don't believe in any religion, I still think these two things can coexists. For instance the originator of the Big Bang theory was both a scientist and priest.

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tim333 9y ago

On the other hand the UK was just in the news as the percentage "having no religious affiliation" just went over 50%. Its was 48% in 2015, 53% in the recent survey. Not sure how much of that is science - we have Dawkins plugging away with his books and the like - and how much is bad press religion has had in recent times. Like the London Bridge stabbings don't exactly make you think wow isn't religion great. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack)

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fredley 9y ago
As more moderate people fall away from church congregations and other religious groups, only the hardliners and fanatics remain. I am convinced that the rise in religious fundamentalism (amongst all religions) is closely tied to the rise in secularism.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
  An interesting thought. As the moderates leave, inevitably more extreme forces gain power.
  - fredley 9y ago
    I have a theory that, in Britain at least, the distribution of religious fervour is pretty much the same as it was 100 years ago. The difference is that the more moderate people now no longer go to church, meaning the churches are controlled by, and put out more fundamentalist viewpoints. This in turn drives more moderates away. I am one of the moderates, I grew up part of a church congregation, but as I grew up I found almost everyone I met who identified as Christian to have beliefs wildly different from mine. Any Christian gatherings I attended tended towards fundamentalism and the quashing of inquisitive thought about the nature of the World, God etc. I do not believe in God, but I suspect that many churchgoers of 100 years ago didn't really either, and the focus was much more on tradition, ritual and community rather than actual belief. I mourn the loss of this, even though I barely knew it myself, but there are hardly any congregations left for people like me (and yes, I know about movements such as Sunday Assembly, which I have tried out but find equally unpalatable for reasons I can't quite put into words).

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins actually undermine one of the classic arguments against religion, as they and their followers have demonstrated repeatedly that the racism, sexism, xenophobia, hypocrisy, believing and repeating obvious lies, pseudoscience, favoring hierarchies with some people clearly marked as inferior, covering up for sexual assault and predation, wars etc. etc. that many would have previously associated with organised religion can bloom in atheist circles too. I thought that might account for the low numbers of people identifying themselves as "Atheist" with a capital A, but on following the link it seems it's hard to get a straight answer on that for multiple reasons e.g. "8% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a universal spirit. Indeed, 2% say they are “absolutely certain” about the existence of God or a universal spirit."

moccachino 9y ago
That you associate them with any of the things you mentioned tells me you haven't listened to or read any of their works with the intention of understanding the contents, rather than picking out sentences that can be twisted to fit into your completely wrong image of them.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  I was already an atheist and agreed with most of the points Dawkins makes in his books before I even read them. That doesn't detract from him demonstrating various human follies that could, and have been argued to be caused or exacerbated by organised religion. And if it was just one older gentlemen then you could probably just write it off, but when lots of younger atheists form communities to actively practice and promote many of these things, it really just blows that argument out of the water totally.
  - moccachino 9y ago
    You are confused. 1) Sam Harris / Richard Dawkins are not promoting any of these Bad Qualities (xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc.). You seem to concede that because you now talk about "lots of younger atheists" that "form communities to actively practice and promote" these Bad Qualities. Probably some exist but I haven't seen any of consequence. In any case, they are not SH/RD so your entire opening statement is therefore baseless. 2) The main argument of SH/RD is NOT that only religious people or groups promote Bad Qualities. The main argument is that religious faith is a set of made-up doctrines and "truths" that can lead to a whole variety of behaviors depending on the specific set of "truths" and doctrines. Some of those are good, many of those are bad (see Bad Qualities). The Bad Qualities arise because the faith is made-up and therefore will unavoidably have components incompatible with the real world. 3) The good parts of religion can all, each and every one, be achieved without religious faith. Sam Harris especially has been advocating this. You can have "spirituality" and meditation without all the bullcrap of gods.

js8 9y ago

I think the decline of religion that we see is due to decline of power of single authorities over large majority of population. With competing authorities (different religions), it's harder to sustain an unwarranted belief. However, it's not clear whether this trend will continue, if there will always be multiple different authorities from this point on, or if humanity will largely again unify under a single overarching authority. Also I believe that many people have inborn tendency to value authority (we typically call this conservative beliefs), and it's not clear if this tendency is going away or staying.

humanrebar 9y ago
American Christianity is thoroughly diffuse with few leaders with any literal authority. You get pastors of megachurches, but their following often wanes as they age, retire, or pass away. Perhaps it's the decentralized organizational structure that has allowed American Christianity to fare better than its European counterparts.
- js8 9y ago
  Yes, but in the past, it was often difficult for people to get information or support outside their respective communities. Internet (and other media before that, to a smaller extent) changed all that. I distinctly remember Laci Green's Youtube channel when she was 17 or so, and a closet atheist from a Mormon community. She talked exactly about this and how Internet let her to get to information that she otherwise wouldn't get to. There are many cases like that.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Sure, but there were always places people gravitated to when they wanted to get the hell out of the Bible belt. They had to wait until they were old enough and ready enough to pack up and move, though.
speedplane 9y ago
> With competing authorities (different religions), it's harder to sustain an unwarranted belief. True, but it's also difficult to even sustain warranted beliefs. I would not say that science is the new religion, but I don't deny it has a lot of power. And there are plenty of people out there who are more than happy to twist truths and break down the foundations of science to accrue some of that very warranted power.

alexasmyths 9y ago

"belief in supernatural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as a result of the increasing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge" That's not what religion is, and it's rather upsetting to see supposed 'intellectuals' with such a sad failure to grasp even the basics of metaphysics, let alone spirituality. There is no 'war' between Science and Religion. Maybe a 'war' between 'Scientists' and 'Some kinds of religious people who believe some impractical things' ... But the real debate is between 'Scientific Materialists' and 'Spiritualists' and that's a reasonable debate.

macns 9y ago
> There is no 'war' between Science and Religion. I agree. But there seems to be a war on science by religious fanatics.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  And a war on religion by science fanatics. Science is already a religion, if you ask me. There are even a lot of Messiahs: Newton, Einstein, Tesla. But also a lot of oil snake salesmen.
  - beojan 9y ago
    Atheistic (or better, anti-theistic) fanatics, not science fanatics.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    I would say that the war is between religion and philosophic materialism (or physicalism, if you prefer). Materialism is the dominant mental framework among scientists, but it is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. ("The physical universe is all that exists" is not scientifically provable, even in principle.)
- humanrebar 9y ago
  There is a war on science from fundamentalists, sure, but it's not limited to theists. Was Damore a religious fanatic? He was engaging in a rational, scientific discussion (merits of the attempt aside, that was the stated goal). What about anti-vaccine people? What about there-is-no-good-GMO people? I think it's inconsistent at best to think the biggest enemy of science is religious fanatics. In fact, the biggest enemy of science these days is bad science. Lack of replicated results, for example.

baby 9y ago

Education is the logic explanation of Religion going away in Europe. (http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-lead-to-less-religion/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-lead-...) I think this explains the high degree of religion in the US, some schools still want to teach creationism there.

oldandtired 9y ago

Science is no more anti-religion than, say, a cold chisel is anti-hammer. Science is a study of the natural world. It doesn't answer philosophical or religious questions. That is not its part to play. However, saying that, each person will use science according to the base beliefs that person brings with them. It you come in as an atheist, those core beliefs will, generally, colour how you see the world around you. If you come in as a buddhist, this will colour how you see the world about you. if come in as a christian, the same will occur. Now the results or outcomes discovered can and have changed the underlying base beliefs a person may have started with. So, an atheist may become a christian, a christian may become an atheist, etc, etc, etc. In my case, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I personally believe that He is not only the creator of all the universe and everything in it, but He is my personal saviour and wants to know me personally. I was given a good science and engineering education. I had no problems with such ideas as evolution and big bang, etc. Interestingly, it was people like Richard Dawkins and his work in genetics that raised significant questions over the viability of any evolutionary model. As I studied the results obtained from various reported experiments in evolutionary biology, it became obvious that the interpretation of their results and the results themselves were different. So over time, I came to see that evolution as a model of reality was not viable, though very useful for some very good scifi stories. In turn, looking at other areas, the results seemed to be odds with the theories and models being propagated. This is turn, challenged me to look at the limits of what science could do. I think it is wonderful that we have the ability to systematically study and experiment with the world around. Science is a boon for that. But there are questions it cannot answer. We must look elsewhere for the tools to study those questions. What has also become obvious over the last few decades, is that Science has become a religion to which it has many adherents. Those who have pushed for this (such as Richard Dawkins et al) have done a great disservice to Science. It is religion neutral. It has no care whether you are atheist, agnostic, moslem, chistian, buddhist, hindu or anything else. It has no care for your political belief, your sexuality, your social status, your ethnicity or anything related to the non-science beliefs you carry. However, those non-science things will colour how you view the results obtained in your science. It will colour your interpretation and it will colour how you use the results. Religion and science are not intrinsically incompatible. It is how people used them for or against each other that generates the conflicts. My God has created an absolutely fascinating universe and His good pleasure is that we can study it to try and understand how it works and in doing so we can get to know Him. Just because we gain some understanding about certain aspects of the world around us, say how planetary motion works, does not mean in any way, that He is no longer in the picture. He is no God of the Gaps as Dr Neil Tyson or Bill Nye would have you believe. Anyone who falls into the trap of believing that Science will replace or supplant religion has already made Science into religion. There are no "stupid" questions and there is no problem asking questions about science, religion, philosophy or any other subject.

saiya-jin 9y ago

Because most people are ridiculously emotional, much more than rational. For example, what logical sense does it make to impress your friends with FB/whatever statuses? There are whole businesses built over decades, even centuries that thrive because of this feature of our personalities. Giving up something so fundamental requires continuous inner strength that unfortunately very few have. Another thing is, once human being has been 'indoctrinated' to given religion from childbirth, by whole community in which it grew up, it is extremely hard to shed off this belief. I see a prime example of this in my fiancee, who grew up in strict catholic setup and although she tried and tried (months in yoga ashrams, continuous exposition to different cultures and religions), she always eventually falls back. Visiting her mom back home has a turbo effect on this. Sometimes she is desperate because of this, sometimes she cries, but sadly its stronger than her. It is tragic for me to see this unfolding again and again in front of my eyes. I couldn't care less about other's religions, as long as they don't press me into it (and for sure many Christians have this complex of 'you should join our righteous one'). To all parents out there - give your kids freedom of choice in this. Respect their choice, but don't indoctrinate them. Chances that your religion and its specific sect (and often sub-sect) you adhere to is the right one is practically 0. Because whatever you believe, there are millions, if not billions out there who are by definition of your religion heretics, and they can think the same about you. Just be good human beings, not on surface but also deep down, bring good to this world and all will be OK. /rant

gourou 9y ago

Durkheim's definition of religion: > A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community. A lot of things fall under this, even people who wear Oakley glasses or own an iPhone.

VLM 9y ago

There are some truly weird sociological blind spots in the article. I think the CIA and police torture might have had a tiny bit more to do with the collapse of USA-ally dictatorships in Iran, not a failure of science to triumph over religion. This highlights the international level importance of religious groups (as opposed to the belief of religion or the individual believer, its the group that matters). The current system propped up by the CIA sucks, revolution executes the war criminal US ally dictator, giant vacuum exists for an org to step in, what giant org with a chip on its shoulder of knowing the right answer all the time oh how about religion? Better a religious than a corporate takeover, probably... Likewise on a smaller scale, inside nations, the article seems to miss the point that in the old days it was rather easy to discern if you were attending a fraternal social organization meeting like the freemasons or a religious service like pre-vatican-2 Catholic church. In the modern world both extremes have disappeared and merged into the middle. No amount of "science" can eliminate the traditional religious pre-game activities before the church knitting club meeting or the church singles club meeting or the Jesus themed rock music concert I attended one time at my local prosperity gospel church. I would theorize the collapse of the church in the UK is a mix of UK class separation and its related alienation leading to a lack of need for the church to be a social hub, plus mere individual anecdotal failure. There are also issues that are pretty much banned topics on this site, like religious fervor being transubstantiated into other forms such as political belief. If you ban a belief, if just means conversations about the topic are going to be ineffective and confused, which is why I have to leave this third issue unresolved, although its obviously a major component of the big picture.

hannob 9y ago

"The US is arguably the most scientifically and technologically advanced society in the world" Dear people in the US, I have unfortunate news for you: No.

sravanrao 9y ago

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erikb 9y ago

Because science is a religion. That sounds like a boring statement, but it's still true. Science in its core shouldn't be religious. But we are humans. So applying science, working as a scientist, using science (even if just for small talk) is not possible without putting some faith in unchecked results. To some degree we are all believers. The important part is to accept that and recognize it when you are about to do something which will yield bad results for you and humanity in general.

humanrebar 9y ago
This is a very valid thought. I'm not sure why it's being downvoted. In Christian theology, "belief" and "faith" is nothing more or less than what you put your trust in. Everyone trusts in many things and people all the time. From that perspective, the big question is whether a thing is trustworthy (science, God, seat belts), not whether trusting at all is even optional.

jasim 9y ago

Replace all occurrences of "science" in the article with "scientific method", and the entire article becomes a non sequitur. This is a classic case of painting science as a noun; as an inanimate, fixed concept which is used to increase pleasure in human lives (a religious sin), and whose materialism is in direct conflict with "moral" values. Questioning the scientific process yet accepting its fruits is a logical blunder often committed by religious apologists. Noun-ing science into a "thing" helps hide the incongruity of this idea. For instance, take the mobile phone, a concrete result of science. There is no question it exists. But it did not originate from a religious process. It was instead based on empirical research, making mistakes and learning from them, all built over centuries of human struggle, all to understand a little bit more of the universe that we live in. That process is science. It is just a process; not an answer or a fixed idea. It doesn't guarantee that we'll discover all the secrets of the universe. All it does is ask questions and try to find answers using logically coherent, structurally consistent, independently reproducible methods. There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific process. Both of them tries to find answers to questions central to human existence - what is this place? why are we here? who made it? who made us? A thousand years ago, we were asking other questions - what are the twinkling things in the sky? who brings the rain? which god causes the plague? The scientific process has answered them well enough that today's religious beliefs have shrunk in size, and refined themselves to focus on the questions that still remain transcendental. Their answers however are in direct conflict with what the scientific process has discovered. They claim the universe was created by an all knowing God, without a definition of what the God is, and stonewalling further enquiry into the topic. Religions do not bring any additional meaning to the discussion, and by its very nature stands in the way of the scientific process. The closing paragraph of the article is an ominous threat - "If anything, it is science that is subject to increasing threats to its authority and social legitimacy. Given this, science needs all the friends it can get". If it led to finding more allies in the religious world for the scientific process, I think it wouldn't hurt for scientific-minded folks to bend their outward convictions a little bit. But if it means getting rid of evolution from our textbooks and teaching kids that a voyeur in the sky is watching them all the time, waiting to subject them to eternal fire, I think it would be a hard bargain to drive.

humanrebar 9y ago

Yizahi 9y ago

Religion will persist until humans will become smarter on average, meaning until humans will have bigger brain on average. But bigger brain may happen only if we solve how to birth babies with bigger heads or how to boost brain and head size after birth. Both requires significant medical and other breakthroughs.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Birth weights do seem to be going up, possible thanks to cesarian sections.
- Yizahi 9y ago
  Yes, this gives me hope in our long term perspective.
humanrebar 9y ago
> Religion will persist until humans will become smarter on average How do you explain theists with high IQs then?
- Yizahi 9y ago
  First of all IQ is commonly known to be a flawed metric, but more or less acceptable for many uses. Second - they are either outliers statistically or not really high IQ in the area of scientific methodology (which is incompatible with basic religion). People can know a lot and believe blindly in god-entity, people can do very hard calculus and believe. People can't do real scientific research about universe and blindly believe. They may use vague terminology about god-entity specifically because it is a clever concept that can't ever be disproven but really it is just a 3rd rate issue in large scale of things. Anyone claiming to be a theist and a scientist most likely never bothered to think about his "theism" much.

szemet 9y ago

Science is based on "methodological naturalism" - assuming that everything in nature have natural causes. This is the framework where science is made - it is not necessary to believe that it is true (that's called "metaphysical naturalism"), just work by the assumption. That's why there can be religious scientists. They apply methodological naturalism at work (they explain everything without appealing to the supernatural), but they maybe believe in virgin birth / resurrection / other miracles, so they actually believe that naturalism in the metaphysical sense is false. The successes of science may provide some confirmation that naturalism may be true in reality but of course can't prove it undoubtedly. But in practice it may work in this way: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

humanrebar 9y ago
Well put! It also explains why science cannot disprove supernatural events and why science can't categorically contradict supernatural beliefs. If you start with methodological naturalism, of course you'll end up with either open questions or naturalist explanations. People have the prerogative to disbelieve miracles, but by definition, they're not testable by hypothesis from a rational foundation of methodological naturalism.
- jasonpeacock 9y ago
  Science cannot disprove supernatural events/contradict supernatural beliefs because you cannot prove a negative. The burden is on the supporters of the supernatural events/beliefs to provide the proof. It's not science vs religion, it's rational vs irrational thoughts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Agreed on your first sentence. That's another way to think about what I said. As to the rest, it's your prerogative to place the burden of proof wherever you'd like. Though it's not necessarily the case that a hypothetical God would agree with you about your standards for proof. To think a God would be unfair to not provide clear proof about miracles, etc. is a fair point, but it's not a rational or scientific one.