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Religion Has Nothing to Do With Science

Religion has nothing to do with science.

  • True

    Votes: 19 43.2%
  • Untrue

    Votes: 25 56.8%

  • Total voters
    44

Earthtank

Active Member
I disagree, if you need to ask why then, you really have no clue what you are talking about and should quit now. I am pretty sure others won't be as "nice" to you.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I'm going to take the position that religion has nothing to do with science.

Do you disagree?
Why?
I think I'll agree but religion can't contradict proven science either. Religion can go where science can not address though,
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
I don't agree that religion and science are opposed. Take an obvious example, the Dalai Lama who said very clearly that if science disproves a Buddhist idea, he'll drop the idea in favor of what science discovers.

There are also many scientific believers. They have no trouble reconciling both. I count myself amongst their number.
 

Mindmaster

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I'm going to take the position that religion has nothing to do with science.

Do you disagree?
Why?

Your religion can take the approach that both should be considered to find the truth of various matters. Mine does anyway... :D

Anyway, it's commonly misunderstood that belief and faith matter more than evidence in most religions but there are few where evidence is important. The truth can be illuminated by a spiritual path, but it is validated by evidence. A religion of proper construction should be willing to accept the evidence and change it's views accordingly, just as we do in our everyday lives. That's the only way you can find the truth -- is if you're willing to hear it, so to speak.

But, I think to some extent your statement is an oversimplification of the religions of the masses. While the church authorities have a position, the lay folk of most faiths are really somewhere in the middle for the most part on this. They're not completely ignoring science, but also not rejecting the messages of the faith either -- they're mixing them to come up with their views. The modern day religious zealot is a rare creature indeed in these times, but there are a few of them around and they're more mouthy than the average Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Religion, specifically the Christian religion, has had quite a bit to do with science.

"Until the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the leading sponsor of scientific research. Starting in the Middle Ages, it paid for priests, monks and friars to study at the universities. The church even insisted that science and mathematics should be a compulsory part of the syllabus. And after some debate, it accepted that Greek and Arabic natural philosophy were essential tools for defending the faith. By the seventeenth century, the Jesuit order had become the leading scientific organisation in Europe, publishing thousands of papers and spreading new discoveries around the world. The cathedrals themselves were designed to double up as astronomical observatories to allow ever more accurate determination of the calendar. And of course, modern genetics was founded by a future abbot growing peas in the monastic garden.

But religious support for science took deeper forms as well. It was only during the nineteenth century that science began to have any practical applications. Technology had ploughed its own furrow up until the 1830s when the German chemical industry started to employ their first PhDs. Before then, the only reason to study science was curiosity or religious piety. Christians believed that God created the universe and ordained the laws of nature. To study the natural world was to admire the work of God. This could be a religious duty and inspire science when there were few other reasons to bother with it. It was faith that led Copernicus to reject the ugly Ptolemaic universe; that drove Johannes Kepler to discover the constitution of the solar system; and that convinced James Clerk Maxwell he could reduce electromagnetism to a set of equations so elegant they take the breathe away."

source

So while religion today has virtually nothing to do with science, science owes a debt of gratitude to religion for the advancements it was able to make in the past.

.
 
Last edited:

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
There are as many if not more scientific theories as to the origin of our universe as there are religious bodies, such as Abrahamic, Christianity, Muslim, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.

So, which scientific theory would you like to discuss as to the origin of our universe?
 

wizanda

One Accepts All Religious Texts
Premium Member

exchemist

Veteran Member
I disagree, if you need to ask why then, you really have no clue what you are talking about and should quit now. I am pretty sure others won't be as "nice" to you.
I think you need to explain that, as it is by no means self-evident.

Many people, including myself, would say that science and religion address different issues (cf. Gould's non-overlapping magisteria) and from this one can say religion does not have anything to do with science.

I suppose one could make an argument that, strictly, it is science that has nothing to do with religion, whereas religion may consider that science has something to say to it. Is that what you mean, by any chance?
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
Oh, religion has much to do with science.

Very much indeed.

At its best, religion benefits from science, as do all other fields of human activity. And since religion is a varied activity that focuses on the interaction between people, it benefits first and foremost from the scientific findings that involve human health, quality of life in general, learning and motivation, as well as economy, ecology, psychology, sociology and anthropology generally. Even political science.

At its worst, "religion" tries to give orders to its benefactor out of misguided pride and delusions.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
I'm going to take the position that religion has nothing to do with science.

Do you disagree?
Why?
Depends how you define Religion I guess

I belong to a religious group of Scientists
I believe something when it's proven
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Question should be - has science anything to do with religion - and the answer would be, no. Science might aid religious belief or oppose such, but that is merely incidental to what the aims of science are, to me that is, which is to explain reality. Religions might offer an alternative reality if one chooses to accept this.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm going to take the position that religion has nothing to do with science.

Do you disagree?
Why?

The choices in your poll do not reflect my views.

In short, it depends on the religion. Some ignore science, some embrace science, and a few incorporate it into their philosophies.
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
I'm going to take the position that religion has nothing to do with science.
Religion doesn’t have anything specifically to do with science but all human concepts will be inexorably linked with each other. Religion has something to do with science but only as much/little as they both do with vegetarianism, interpretative dance or cowboy hats. :cool:
 
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