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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
by 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> There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific process. How? I pray and do hypothesis testing, recording experiments that lead to independently reproducible results. I don't see why I couldn't even follow the scientific method for religious reasons. > The scientific process has answered [questions about nature] well enough that today's religious beliefs have shrunk in size But the scientific process doesn't answer "why" they happen. It explains mechanisms, but not why they exist. An atheist and/or agnostic answer is "There's no 'why' to be had. Cause and effect plus time eventually lead to hurricanes", but that's actually circular reasoning, since the scientific process presumes a materialist perspective, partly so that theists and atheists can learn about nature without arguing about theology. "Why", therefore, is a metaphysical, philosophical, and theological question and outside the scope of reproducible and reasoned-through hypothesis testing and observation of material things like matter and energy. > 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. Some do. Some don't. Lots of theists are more than happy to talk about these issues in a candid, honest, and reasonable way. They may seem to be hard to find, but part of that is religion is considered uncivil conversation these days, even if the tone of the conversation is benignly analytical.
- jasim 9y agoThere is a lot of upvote/downvote see-saw going on for my comment, so I appreciate you taking the time to actually respond. I think there is a strawman in claiming atheists answer that "there is not a why". We've already discovered reasons for a lot of natural phenomena, but that is an ongoing process: the why of the why of the why... and that line of questioning often ends up at universal physical constants and mathematical axioms. The good news is that we've been able to dig deeper into constants that we thought were impenetrable in the past, and go one more level deeper. The bad news is that there are still things that we don't know, and we don't even know whether we'll ever be able to unravel them. That is unfortunately the pain and pleasure of the scientific process. Anyone who is curious about things by definition accepts that there are things that they don't know, but holds out hope that they might be able to figure it out. > "Why", therefore, is a metaphysical, philosophical, and theological question and outside the scope of reproducible and reasoned-through hypothesis testing and observation of material things like matter and energy. This is precisely why I think religious doctrine is antithetical to the scientific process. The moment we accept that some questions are ultimately un-answerable and settle for un-verifiable religious theology, we have effectively put a stop to the scientific process. The theology doesn't even add any more meaning to the discussion, yet it orders us to stop looking. What if we kept on being curious we could figure out the ultimate nature of reality?