3 ms·

Maybe because most questions about life are 'why?' questions and not 'how?' questions.

by pasta 9y ago

brownbat 9y ago
Minus, say, "how did we get here" or "how should we behave?" Or another way to look at it, we could reduce almost all questions, in science or religion, to something like "what is the nature of this stuff around me?" A subpart, "how can I interact with the stuff?" A subpart of that question, in turn, is "what are the consequences of those interactions?" Sometimes the stuff around you is carbon. You can burn it or build things with it. If you breathe enough of it in certain forms, you might suffocate. Sometimes the stuff around you is other people. You can help them or hurt them in a near endless variety of ways. The consequences are complex but it's generally better to not be a dick, for a variety of reasons. Maybe the stuff around you is... all of reality? Which may or may not be controlled by a unimaginably powerful law giver. Maybe not, but if so, that would certainly affect the consequences of a lot of actions, so it would be worth trying to work out how that system worked if that was the deal. To be clear, I'm not arguing for Pascal's wager here, I'm just needling the idea of non overlapping magisteria. Isn't it all just, "How does reality work?"
- Cogito 9y ago
  I hadn't heard of non overlapping magisteria (NOMA) before. My immediate thought was that if you assume the 'teaching domains' of science and religion do not overlap at all, then the domain of religion is vanishingly small. If you accept that science covers (at least) all observable things, and also hold the idea of NOMA, then religion must never deal with anything observable. The teaching domain of the unobservable seems like it would be near non-existent. Alternately, let's start from the position that a supernatural power exists and cares about what we do. Why would we be interested in that? We would be interested if that supernatural power has the ability to affect our lives/the world we live in, or will affect our lives after we die/some other aspect of some supernatural world beyond this one. If the power can affect this world, we should be able to observe that interaction. If it is literally impossible to measure any effect, it is the same as if the power is not interacting with the world at all. Which is to say, if the power interacts with the world, then those interactions fall under the domain of science. If the power does not interact with the world, then we can only be interested in what effect our actions, choices, and beliefs will have outside this world, on the supernatural or afterlife. The thing is, we have no way of knowing what that would be, because communicating any of that information to us would count as interacting with the world. Thus, anyone claiming that something should or shouldn't be believed or done, for religious reasons, is either making a testable claim or claiming something which has no reason to be believed. If the magesteria of science and religion truly are non overlapping, it seems that religion's must necessarily be very very small.

Maybe because most questions about life are 'why?' questions and not 'how?' questions.

by pasta 9y ago

Maybe because most questions about life are 'why?' questions and not 'how?' questions.

Minus, say, "how did we get here" or "how should we behave?" Or another way to look at it, we could reduce almost all questions, in science or religion, to something like "what is the nature of this stuff around me?" A subpart, "how can I interact with the stuff?" A subpart of that question, in turn, is "what are the consequences of those interactions?" Sometimes the stuff around you is carbon. You can burn it or build things with it. If you breathe enough of it in certain forms, you might suffocate. Sometimes the stuff around you is other people. You can help them or hurt them in a near endless variety of ways. The consequences are complex but it's generally better to not be a dick, for a variety of reasons. Maybe the stuff around you is... all of reality? Which may or may not be controlled by a unimaginably powerful law giver. Maybe not, but if so, that would certainly affect the consequences of a lot of actions, so it would be worth trying to work out how that system worked if that was the deal. To be clear, I'm not arguing for Pascal's wager here, I'm just needling the idea of non overlapping magisteria. Isn't it all just, "How does reality work?"

Cogito 9y ago
I hadn't heard of non overlapping magisteria (NOMA) before. My immediate thought was that if you assume the 'teaching domains' of science and religion do not overlap at all, then the domain of religion is vanishingly small. If you accept that science covers (at least) all observable things, and also hold the idea of NOMA, then religion must never deal with anything observable. The teaching domain of the unobservable seems like it would be near non-existent. Alternately, let's start from the position that a supernatural power exists and cares about what we do. Why would we be interested in that? We would be interested if that supernatural power has the ability to affect our lives/the world we live in, or will affect our lives after we die/some other aspect of some supernatural world beyond this one. If the power can affect this world, we should be able to observe that interaction. If it is literally impossible to measure any effect, it is the same as if the power is not interacting with the world at all. Which is to say, if the power interacts with the world, then those interactions fall under the domain of science. If the power does not interact with the world, then we can only be interested in what effect our actions, choices, and beliefs will have outside this world, on the supernatural or afterlife. The thing is, we have no way of knowing what that would be, because communicating any of that information to us would count as interacting with the world. Thus, anyone claiming that something should or shouldn't be believed or done, for religious reasons, is either making a testable claim or claiming something which has no reason to be believed. If the magesteria of science and religion truly are non overlapping, it seems that religion's must necessarily be very very small.