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> There are major aspects of our life that remain unexplained, leaving professional scientists with the choice of whether to accept the general notion that they

> There are major aspects of our life that remain unexplained, leaving professional scientists with the choice of whether to accept the general notion that they will also be resolved one day by the scientific method. ... This ambiguous state of affairs explains why some of the best scientists are religious. This to me reflects huge deficit in the author's thinking and perception. It also reflects a common sentiment and so reflects a common deficit in many people's thinking and perception, especially in the contemporary Western world. At some point in history, Science and Religion both got tricked into a debate -- both got tricked into thinking that their propositions somehow exist in the same domain when they do not. Their domains are mutually exclusive and yet the conversation continues stupidly (on both sides) as if they were. So a Scientist will say the Resurrection never happened and proceed with their proof leveraging physics and biology. The Scientist makes the first mistake by trying to engage on these grounds, as if any of that fundamentally mattered to the Religious person. The Religious person, not recognizing the flub, takes the bait, and tries to answer the Scientist using the scientific vocabulary (the internet is not short on religious apologists doing just this.) The Religious makes this mistake because they are tricked into thinking that Truth is a pure function of propositions in scientific terms. They are tricked into this rhetoric, at least. They are not fully tricked, though, because after debating on these grounds (and likely losing -- b/c after all Science owns those terms, and brought them to the table), the Religious person will still go home and pray, will still go home and live according to the mimetic behaviors of the characters within their faith. What a Religious person derives from their beliefs has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with the measurable/observable particle interactions of the material world. Even if they say it does, self-reports are not to be trusted here. What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here. Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed.

ta1234567890 7y ago
Very good point. Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. Despite the above, we (and science) are continuously trying to reduce the immensity, inconmensurability and ineffability of reality into something that can easily fit into our small minds. Unfortunately this is an impossible task to perform for all of reality. However we do have the capacity to experience instead of thinking/modeling, which is a very good way of understanding things at an intuitive level. This was very well expressed by Nietzsche: "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy".
- kiba 7y ago
  Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. What are ineffable things in life?
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    Qualia are one class.
    - kiba 7y ago
      I am content with trying to grasp with it and never quite coming to an answer. These stuff can be answered with "I don't know" or "I don't know, but this is my best guess".
      - wellpast 7y ago
        Or you could write narratives and koans and poems that explore it and assist in exploring it to its depths. Or -- better -- read the ancient and long-evolved, long-refined attempts at this. Why limit exploration to the narrow (and yet highly valuable at times) domain of Science.
        StanislavPetrov 7y ago
        Its fine to write fairy tales and works of fiction, but its quite another to do so in a attempt to explain objective reality. There is great value in being able to admit to yourself, and to others, that you "don't know" without any shame in doing so.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Qualia are the only class of things which both can be experienced by an individual (and thus reasonably be said to exist, at least by that individual) but also be ineffable. If there are other ineffable things which exist, we cannot ever know about them.
chousuke 7y ago
I'm not quite sure what it is exactly that you're trying to say, so apologies if I misinterpreted it, but to me you seem to suggest that science and religion are somehow complimentary; two different ways of seeing "truth". Two different "domains" of truthiness, in essence. If you're just saying that people can use religions to make themselves feel better by believing in things that are false, then yes, that's evidently true, but I don't think it's a good thing. I have serious problems with this sentiment that there's some other way of knowing things besides studying reality. To me, it is not apparent at all that there even can be such a thing as "religious truth" as opposed to "scientific truth". I have never seen a definition of the former, so I don't know how to even discuss it meaningfully. Also, to claim that science has nothing to do with how a person views the world etc. is patently false. It is perfectly possible for example to derive a workable moral systems without involving religion. You just need an axiom to start with, and then you can do science to examine whether your actions lead to morally acceptable outcomes given that axiom. A common axiom for morality seems to be something like "maximal suffering for everyone is bad", which I personally would agree with. Similarly, neither is the "pursuit of contented life" in any way a concept outside science. I acknowledge that I may hold beliefs that are not true, but I will state with certainty that there is nothing religious about how I view the world. I understand religion as a social phenomenon, I am not convinced that it is, or can ever be, a tool for understanding "truths".
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  This is a philosophical issue, and it's also an ineffable issue. What is truth? Something that is the same for everyone at the same time? How could you ever prove something is true if you are not omniscient? (ie. you can only experience reality from your own point of view, but can never experience it from someone else's). To complicate things further, we are trying to use words and spoken language as a way to communicate meaning about something else (reality). How can you know for certain that the words you use have the same meaning for you and me? We can't even agree on the meaning of words for one language. Every time you say something, you are essentially translating what you feel/understand "in your head" to words, which you hope the receiver/listener will decode to mean the same thing you understand. But we can never be certain of the effectiveness of that. And we can only find relief in apparent agreement (ie. When the other person(s) ascents to what we say) In other words, what for you might not be true is your own perspective of reality, and it doesn't imply that the same thing is not true for someone else. Reality is subjective. If you can't force me to agree with you, then our realities will just be different, even if we can still share some aspects of it. And that's ok.
pvg 7y ago
both got tricked into thinking that their propositions somehow exist in the same domain when they do not. This seems quite ahistorical and dismissive of a few hundred years of recent history. The domains overlap and this was a fight, both intellectual and sometimes literal that lasted centuries and for real stakes. It has now mostly settled into a sort of polite truce but calling this all a result of some sort of trick is reductive to the point of not-even-wrongness.
- wellpast 7y ago
  Take my example of the person who believes in Resurrection encountering the Scientific dissenter. Either they are having a fair debate and they are talking in the same domain or they are not. I say they are not. Yet they are still having the debate. Ergo, I say they are "tricked". What better word to use for two people fervently engaging in debate based on a senseless equivalency? I also point to history b/c it seems pretty clear to me that this wasn't always a dichotomy.
  - yarrel 7y ago
    Someone has certainly been tricked in this example...
    - wellpast 7y ago
      You have an ellipse to finish I think. Show us your brilliant thinking:
  - pvg 7y ago
    You don't have to make up some hypothetical, you can just look at what actually happened with, say, heliocentrism or the beginnings of scientific geology. These were real, genuine cosmological disputes. In what way was this a 'trick'? What is the history you are pointing at that clarifies your position?
    - wellpast 7y ago
      The trick was in both sides acting as if geo or helio-centrism from a scientific method pov had anything to do with the derived value to the religious. The religious derives value — perhaps — from the concept of centrism, perhaps the centrism of the soul/consciousness from a relational POV but whether or not the litmus paper proves an earth center matters two shits to the religious. The trick was that these two domains were confounded and a yes genuine dispute (based on a genuinely stupid equivalency) played out.
simonsarris 7y ago
Agree very much. It's a terrible state to be in. I think religion's job is not to explain things, as the very non-religious (and even now, most religious!) seem to think, but to leave you in wonder, to fill you with the mystery of the world. Demanding such an explanation from your religion seems like asking for the wrong thing. Like asking your cat to sub in as a human baby. You will be disappointed, and scratched. > Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed. I think you are right. And yet, I wish people were more religious, and filled with wonder, open to mystery. I also wish people were more scientific too, and took their life seriously enough to practice, experiment, measure their health, wealth, etc.
- kiba 7y ago
  I don't see why we need to appeal to religion to have a system of morality or having a sense of wonder.
  - wellpast 7y ago
    You don't have to appeal to religion -- in the word. But you will be appealing to something that isn't Scientific rhetoric, call it what you will. You can just use the word Wonder if you like. I only object when one approaches someone else (like a religious person) and accuses them of being "wrong" and "un-scientific". You are both doing the same thing. One is staring at Wonder. The other is staring at God. Or call me wrong and devise whatever vocbulary you want that is better than this^^ But god-forbid anyone think they're on higher ground just because they have a different word for it.
- krapp 7y ago
  >I think religion's job is not to explain things, as the very non-religious (and even now, most religious!) seem to think, but to leave you in wonder, to fill you with the mystery of the world. Religions were created when there was no concept of a separation between a physical and metaphysical world, when everything natural was also supernatural. Religion's job is not only to explain things, but to assert itself as the only valid explanation. Also, I disagree that religion is necessary for one to be able experience wonder and mystery in the world. One doesn't need to believe in faeries at the bottom of a pool to appreciate its beauty.
CharlesColeman 7y ago
> So a Scientist will say the Resurrection never happened and proceed with their proof leveraging physics and biology. The Scientist makes the first mistake by trying to engage on these grounds, as if any of that fundamentally mattered to the Religious person. In doing so he also makes the mistake of confusing his practical methodological assumptions for something more fundamental than they are, so his proof ends up begging the question.
andrepd 7y ago
>Their domains are mutually exclusive and yet the conversation continues stupidly (on both sides) as if they were. This may be true in principle, but your whole argument falls apart because religion does make assertions about the real physical world. They (taking here the example of Christianity) they postulate miracles, divine intervention, life after death, an unlikely and unsubstantiated cosmology, not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods which have conveniently become "metaphorical" after it became plain enough that they were nothing but fabrication. So your premise is not true, and that is where the whole friction comes from. EDIT: Engagement rather than downvotes would be appreciated :)
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  I agree with your central thesis, but I doubt one of your other points: > not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods which have conveniently become "metaphorical" after it became plain enough that they were nothing but fabrication. People hold (and have held) various beliefs about Christian theology and proper interpretation of scripture. E.g., you rightly point out problems with a literal 6-day interpretation of creation, but St. Augustine and others [0] were skeptical of that interpretation well before modern archaeological methods and/or carbon dating. So I think it's helpful to look closely at just a handful of testable claims, that cut across many different theologies, denominations, and interpretations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of...
- wellpast 7y ago
  > This may be true in principle, but your whole argument falls apart because religion does make assertions about the real physical world. They (taking here the example of Christianity) they postulate miracles, divine intervention, life after death, an unlikely and unsubstantiated cosmology, not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods... I don't think you could have articulated my point any better. The so-called "assertions"[1] you're talking about are narratives that came well before the scientific method, including presumably your conceptual understanding of the whole model of a "real physical world". So, therefore, at least for your examples here, there is no way that religion could have been making these "assertions"[1] in the way that you're talking about. [1] Also this word "assertions" is so grounded in this narrow (but extremely useful at times) scientific/propositional/static worldview. Science derives value from "assertions", "axioms" etc. The religious derive no value from static "assertions"; for the religious the value is in a dynamic mimetic process to the characters and narratives of their long-evolved spiritual texts & scriptures. We are so deeply entrenched in this "static" view of "assertions" that for many, many people it is the only way to "see" the world. But it is a narrow, severely incomplete picture of the world -- and, of course, extremely useful at times, but extremely narrow as well.
gus_massa 7y ago
People use both science and religion to say what other people should do: * What they should and should not eat. * Who they should and should not marry. * Who/What they should and should not kill. When some people think that science backs their ideas and other people think that religion backs their ideas, then you got a discussion.
jmcqk6 7y ago
>What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here. Why do you claim self-reports are not to be trusted here? My understanding of morality has absolutely been shaped by empirical studies of moral thinking. When I consider whether something is right or wrong, I'm drawing on that knowledge, as well as other related knowledge that I have. When considering how to live a contented life, I'm absolutely going to be thinking about studies that have shown levels of happiness tend to stabilize over time, and related information. And if I encounter a studies that is in conflict with my moral and ethical views, I'm definitely going to be considering those things. That's not to say that these things are purely scientific, but it's also not accurate to say that there is nothing scientific about them.
MRAutumn 7y ago
> Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed. Only if you define religious as 'spiritual'; as more than the physical atoms that make up a person. If you are claiming that being religious is an integral part of being human I guess we are going to need a new word to describe those who believe in a divine power guiding the events of the universe. I am certainly not religious. > What a Religious person derives from their beliefs has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with the measurable/observable particle interactions of the material world. Even if they say it does, self-reports are not to be trusted here. > What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here. I do believe you are wrong in both counts here. If you don't think religious doctrines can shape how a person percieves and acts in the world I guess you have not meet many devout people. And if you think the observations of science have nothing to do with how people approach their interactions in the world, well, I don't know what to say. Science in human reproduction has made unthinkable positions just a couple of decades ago, morally acceptable today, and that is just one example of hundreds I could list of the top of my head.
licebmi__at__ 7y ago
Unless you're trying to play the "not true Scotsman" card for the historical actions of religious figures, as well as the understanding of religion, then I would argue that the trick and quite modern one is the proposition that science and religion are different domains. It has only been until recently that religion lose enough ground, that they might be considered different domains.

ta1234567890 7y ago

Very good point. Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. Despite the above, we (and science) are continuously trying to reduce the immensity, inconmensurability and ineffability of reality into something that can easily fit into our small minds. Unfortunately this is an impossible task to perform for all of reality. However we do have the capacity to experience instead of thinking/modeling, which is a very good way of understanding things at an intuitive level. This was very well expressed by Nietzsche: "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy".

kiba 7y ago
Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. What are ineffable things in life?
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  Qualia are one class.
  - kiba 7y ago
    I am content with trying to grasp with it and never quite coming to an answer. These stuff can be answered with "I don't know" or "I don't know, but this is my best guess".
    - wellpast 7y ago
      Or you could write narratives and koans and poems that explore it and assist in exploring it to its depths. Or -- better -- read the ancient and long-evolved, long-refined attempts at this. Why limit exploration to the narrow (and yet highly valuable at times) domain of Science.
      - StanislavPetrov 7y ago
        Its fine to write fairy tales and works of fiction, but its quite another to do so in a attempt to explain objective reality. There is great value in being able to admit to yourself, and to others, that you "don't know" without any shame in doing so.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Qualia are the only class of things which both can be experienced by an individual (and thus reasonably be said to exist, at least by that individual) but also be ineffable. If there are other ineffable things which exist, we cannot ever know about them.

chousuke 7y ago

I'm not quite sure what it is exactly that you're trying to say, so apologies if I misinterpreted it, but to me you seem to suggest that science and religion are somehow complimentary; two different ways of seeing "truth". Two different "domains" of truthiness, in essence. If you're just saying that people can use religions to make themselves feel better by believing in things that are false, then yes, that's evidently true, but I don't think it's a good thing. I have serious problems with this sentiment that there's some other way of knowing things besides studying reality. To me, it is not apparent at all that there even can be such a thing as "religious truth" as opposed to "scientific truth". I have never seen a definition of the former, so I don't know how to even discuss it meaningfully. Also, to claim that science has nothing to do with how a person views the world etc. is patently false. It is perfectly possible for example to derive a workable moral systems without involving religion. You just need an axiom to start with, and then you can do science to examine whether your actions lead to morally acceptable outcomes given that axiom. A common axiom for morality seems to be something like "maximal suffering for everyone is bad", which I personally would agree with. Similarly, neither is the "pursuit of contented life" in any way a concept outside science. I acknowledge that I may hold beliefs that are not true, but I will state with certainty that there is nothing religious about how I view the world. I understand religion as a social phenomenon, I am not convinced that it is, or can ever be, a tool for understanding "truths".

ta1234567890 7y ago
This is a philosophical issue, and it's also an ineffable issue. What is truth? Something that is the same for everyone at the same time? How could you ever prove something is true if you are not omniscient? (ie. you can only experience reality from your own point of view, but can never experience it from someone else's). To complicate things further, we are trying to use words and spoken language as a way to communicate meaning about something else (reality). How can you know for certain that the words you use have the same meaning for you and me? We can't even agree on the meaning of words for one language. Every time you say something, you are essentially translating what you feel/understand "in your head" to words, which you hope the receiver/listener will decode to mean the same thing you understand. But we can never be certain of the effectiveness of that. And we can only find relief in apparent agreement (ie. When the other person(s) ascents to what we say) In other words, what for you might not be true is your own perspective of reality, and it doesn't imply that the same thing is not true for someone else. Reality is subjective. If you can't force me to agree with you, then our realities will just be different, even if we can still share some aspects of it. And that's ok.

pvg 7y ago

both got tricked into thinking that their propositions somehow exist in the same domain when they do not. This seems quite ahistorical and dismissive of a few hundred years of recent history. The domains overlap and this was a fight, both intellectual and sometimes literal that lasted centuries and for real stakes. It has now mostly settled into a sort of polite truce but calling this all a result of some sort of trick is reductive to the point of not-even-wrongness.

wellpast 7y ago
Take my example of the person who believes in Resurrection encountering the Scientific dissenter. Either they are having a fair debate and they are talking in the same domain or they are not. I say they are not. Yet they are still having the debate. Ergo, I say they are "tricked". What better word to use for two people fervently engaging in debate based on a senseless equivalency? I also point to history b/c it seems pretty clear to me that this wasn't always a dichotomy.
- yarrel 7y ago
  Someone has certainly been tricked in this example...
  - wellpast 7y ago
    You have an ellipse to finish I think. Show us your brilliant thinking:
- pvg 7y ago
  You don't have to make up some hypothetical, you can just look at what actually happened with, say, heliocentrism or the beginnings of scientific geology. These were real, genuine cosmological disputes. In what way was this a 'trick'? What is the history you are pointing at that clarifies your position?
  - wellpast 7y ago
    The trick was in both sides acting as if geo or helio-centrism from a scientific method pov had anything to do with the derived value to the religious. The religious derives value — perhaps — from the concept of centrism, perhaps the centrism of the soul/consciousness from a relational POV but whether or not the litmus paper proves an earth center matters two shits to the religious. The trick was that these two domains were confounded and a yes genuine dispute (based on a genuinely stupid equivalency) played out.

simonsarris 7y ago

Agree very much. It's a terrible state to be in. I think religion's job is not to explain things, as the very non-religious (and even now, most religious!) seem to think, but to leave you in wonder, to fill you with the mystery of the world. Demanding such an explanation from your religion seems like asking for the wrong thing. Like asking your cat to sub in as a human baby. You will be disappointed, and scratched. > Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed. I think you are right. And yet, I wish people were more religious, and filled with wonder, open to mystery. I also wish people were more scientific too, and took their life seriously enough to practice, experiment, measure their health, wealth, etc.

kiba 7y ago
I don't see why we need to appeal to religion to have a system of morality or having a sense of wonder.
- wellpast 7y ago
  You don't have to appeal to religion -- in the word. But you will be appealing to something that isn't Scientific rhetoric, call it what you will. You can just use the word Wonder if you like. I only object when one approaches someone else (like a religious person) and accuses them of being "wrong" and "un-scientific". You are both doing the same thing. One is staring at Wonder. The other is staring at God. Or call me wrong and devise whatever vocbulary you want that is better than this^^ But god-forbid anyone think they're on higher ground just because they have a different word for it.
krapp 7y ago
>I think religion's job is not to explain things, as the very non-religious (and even now, most religious!) seem to think, but to leave you in wonder, to fill you with the mystery of the world. Religions were created when there was no concept of a separation between a physical and metaphysical world, when everything natural was also supernatural. Religion's job is not only to explain things, but to assert itself as the only valid explanation. Also, I disagree that religion is necessary for one to be able experience wonder and mystery in the world. One doesn't need to believe in faeries at the bottom of a pool to appreciate its beauty.

CharlesColeman 7y ago

> So a Scientist will say the Resurrection never happened and proceed with their proof leveraging physics and biology. The Scientist makes the first mistake by trying to engage on these grounds, as if any of that fundamentally mattered to the Religious person. In doing so he also makes the mistake of confusing his practical methodological assumptions for something more fundamental than they are, so his proof ends up begging the question.

andrepd 7y ago

>Their domains are mutually exclusive and yet the conversation continues stupidly (on both sides) as if they were. This may be true in principle, but your whole argument falls apart because religion does make assertions about the real physical world. They (taking here the example of Christianity) they postulate miracles, divine intervention, life after death, an unlikely and unsubstantiated cosmology, not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods which have conveniently become "metaphorical" after it became plain enough that they were nothing but fabrication. So your premise is not true, and that is where the whole friction comes from. EDIT: Engagement rather than downvotes would be appreciated :)

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
I agree with your central thesis, but I doubt one of your other points: > not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods which have conveniently become "metaphorical" after it became plain enough that they were nothing but fabrication. People hold (and have held) various beliefs about Christian theology and proper interpretation of scripture. E.g., you rightly point out problems with a literal 6-day interpretation of creation, but St. Augustine and others [0] were skeptical of that interpretation well before modern archaeological methods and/or carbon dating. So I think it's helpful to look closely at just a handful of testable claims, that cut across many different theologies, denominations, and interpretations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of...
wellpast 7y ago
> This may be true in principle, but your whole argument falls apart because religion does make assertions about the real physical world. They (taking here the example of Christianity) they postulate miracles, divine intervention, life after death, an unlikely and unsubstantiated cosmology, not to mention of course stories about the creation of the universe or biblical floods... I don't think you could have articulated my point any better. The so-called "assertions"[1] you're talking about are narratives that came well before the scientific method, including presumably your conceptual understanding of the whole model of a "real physical world". So, therefore, at least for your examples here, there is no way that religion could have been making these "assertions"[1] in the way that you're talking about. [1] Also this word "assertions" is so grounded in this narrow (but extremely useful at times) scientific/propositional/static worldview. Science derives value from "assertions", "axioms" etc. The religious derive no value from static "assertions"; for the religious the value is in a dynamic mimetic process to the characters and narratives of their long-evolved spiritual texts & scriptures. We are so deeply entrenched in this "static" view of "assertions" that for many, many people it is the only way to "see" the world. But it is a narrow, severely incomplete picture of the world -- and, of course, extremely useful at times, but extremely narrow as well.

gus_massa 7y ago

People use both science and religion to say what other people should do: * What they should and should not eat. * Who they should and should not marry. * Who/What they should and should not kill. When some people think that science backs their ideas and other people think that religion backs their ideas, then you got a discussion.

jmcqk6 7y ago

>What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here. Why do you claim self-reports are not to be trusted here? My understanding of morality has absolutely been shaped by empirical studies of moral thinking. When I consider whether something is right or wrong, I'm drawing on that knowledge, as well as other related knowledge that I have. When considering how to live a contented life, I'm absolutely going to be thinking about studies that have shown levels of happiness tend to stabilize over time, and related information. And if I encounter a studies that is in conflict with my moral and ethical views, I'm definitely going to be considering those things. That's not to say that these things are purely scientific, but it's also not accurate to say that there is nothing scientific about them.

MRAutumn 7y ago

> Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed. Only if you define religious as 'spiritual'; as more than the physical atoms that make up a person. If you are claiming that being religious is an integral part of being human I guess we are going to need a new word to describe those who believe in a divine power guiding the events of the universe. I am certainly not religious. > What a Religious person derives from their beliefs has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with the measurable/observable particle interactions of the material world. Even if they say it does, self-reports are not to be trusted here. > What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here. I do believe you are wrong in both counts here. If you don't think religious doctrines can shape how a person percieves and acts in the world I guess you have not meet many devout people. And if you think the observations of science have nothing to do with how people approach their interactions in the world, well, I don't know what to say. Science in human reproduction has made unthinkable positions just a couple of decades ago, morally acceptable today, and that is just one example of hundreds I could list of the top of my head.

licebmi__at__ 7y ago

Unless you're trying to play the "not true Scotsman" card for the historical actions of religious figures, as well as the understanding of religion, then I would argue that the trick and quite modern one is the proposition that science and religion are different domains. It has only been until recently that religion lose enough ground, that they might be considered different domains.