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Is Science Necessary...

ppp

Well-Known Member
How do you know that you "ought" to pursue the goals given to you by your biology? That sounds like a faith-based statement to me.
I didn't say that I ought to pursue my goals. My goals just are. Sustenance, safety, society, sleep, solace, sex, and Star Trek*. I don't choose them. They are just a part of human facticity. All of my other goals devolve from those.

Similarly, morality is also an evolved trait in social species. Ethologists rate it on the metrics of empathy, equity, reciprocity and cooperation.

* I couldn't think an word for fun and enjoyment that started with 'S'
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
images

to Religion?

Does Religion have to justify itself to science?
There may be some overlap on matters of physics ('The Creation'), evolution ('garden of Eden', human morality), linguistics ('tower of Babel'), geology (the earth is not flat or immovably fixed), astronomy (heliocentry) &c &c and elsewhere eg mathematics (π≠3), history (passim) &c.

But the supernatural parts are no more accountable to reasoned enquiry than the works of Dickens or Rowling are.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
Natural environment is necessary as balanced. You don't need to be a scientist as first observer is and was always a natural human.

So neither science or religious science is honest.
 

Daniel Nicholson

Blasphemous Pryme
images

to Religion?

Does Religion have to justify itself to science?

Only when religion makes falsifiable scientific claims, then I think religion is obligated to justify itself scientifically.
The more magic that is used to justify a claim however, the weaker it gets. If I was religion's lawyer, I would advise it to "plead the fifth"
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Only when religion makes falsifiable scientific claims, then I think religion is obligated to justify itself scientifically.
The more magic that is used to justify a claim however, the weaker it gets. If I was religion's lawyer, I would advise it to "plead the fifth"

And if science does the same?
Here's two ---
The universe created itself before it existed
There is no reason for our being.

Please prove both, or plead the fifth.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
images

to Religion?

Does Religion have to justify itself to science?

Scientists didn't torture to death theists. In the Dark Ages (the age of ignorance, starvation, pain, etc.) theists tortured theists to death.

Religion is the practice of hate, and God is the lord of hatred. Hate of Gays, hate of other religions, hate of other denominations of the same religion, hate of science/scientists, etc. In translating and interpreting the bible, every shade of meaning is a chance to hate some more.

God flooded the world....but we can lie and say that God is love. Loved the innocents who drowned?

Theists walked door to door the spread their organized religion. Their religious meetings elected Ronald Reagan, Bush, W. Bush and Trump. W. Bush (student of Yale and Harvard, who graduated in economics) believed in hands-off economics as corporations fled the US (taking jobs with them), which is the exact opposite of Republican Donald Trump. So their economic philosophies were the exact opposite, yet they were bonded together by a shared religion.

Their religion was a religion of hatred. War...torture camps....fighting against universal health care. Jesus preached peace, God preached "thou shalt not kill." "Turn the other cheek," "do unto others," "thou shalt not bear false witness." W. Bush and Cheney asked Wilson to tell the lie about Niger selling yellow-cake Uranium to Iraq for purposes of greed and terrorism, so that W. Bush could justify his war against peaceful Iraq. When Wilson refused to lie, W. Bush and Cheney outed his CIA wife, Valerie Plame.

I can be an idiot if I want to be. I can contract covid if I want to, and when I do attend open church meetings, I can spread covid to others....other church members, and non-church members who catch covid from them. Perhaps 100,000 people will catch covid from my negligence, and some will die?

I can assert that God will protect me, and stand in the middle of a busy freeway, or in front of a gun that someone will soon fire. I can assert that God will protect me if I leap off of a tall building or cliff. How many theists survive these things? How many even try?

The Vatican was cut off to the public by the pope because of covid. This is because Italy was especially hard hit, and the Vatican is near, but not in Italy (it is a sovern land). The pope didn't have faith in God that risky behavior was protected.

Science is the only tool that we have to fight covid. Science made masks. Science made the vaccine. Even with all of the efforts of scientists, we were not able to immunize enough people (mostly because they refused to take vaccines). Some religions spread the word that the vaccines were bad. Sure, they didn't have adequate testing, but times were desperate.

Some people who hadn't graduated from high school were laughing at the notion of getting immunized from covid. Should we put our trust in the ignorant, or should we put our trust in people who got good grades and PhDs and specialized in science that created vaccines?

Theists walked door to door trying to convince people to join their religion. Atheists refused to believe unless someone can show them proof. Otherwise, they'd have to believe in superman. Certainly the same evidence could be used to believe in superman and God.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
And if science does the same?
Here's two ---
The universe created itself before it existed
There is no reason for our being.

Please prove both, or plead the fifth.

Some scientists don't use scientific methods. Neil De Grasse Tyson believes that we are in a virtual world (like the Matrix movie). He didn't test that theory to arrive at his conclusion. Everyone has a tendancy to believe without proof.

Frankly, I wonder if the universe did/didn't create itself. I don't know if backward time travel is possible. But, it is odd that the metric of space can expand faster than the speed of light. What would happen if the dimensions of space and time bent backward on one another so that the matter of the universe ended up at the beginning of the universe and caused the big bang? Of course, it would take a leap of faith to entertain that notion. But wouldn't it take a leap of faith to believe any other cause of the beginning of the universe? Perhaps we should wait for evidence?
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Some scientists don't use scientific methods. Neil De Grasse Tyson believes that we are in a virtual world (like the Matrix movie). He didn't test that theory to arrive at his conclusion. Everyone has a tendancy to believe without proof.

Frankly, I wonder if the universe did/didn't create itself. I don't know if backward time travel is possible. But, it is odd that the metric of space can expand faster than the speed of light. What would happen if the dimensions of space and time bent backward on one another so that the matter of the universe ended up at the beginning of the universe and caused the big bang? Of course, it would take a leap of faith to entertain that notion. But wouldn't it take a leap of faith to believe any other cause of the beginning of the universe? Perhaps we should wait for evidence?

Yes, the universe can travel faster than light. Light's speed is referenced to space - but space can go like a bat
out of hell.
There's all sorts of super-clever ideas about how the universe could create the universe - but they all needs to
acknowledge that at some point the universe didn't exist. I think the old theory of an eternal universe just dodged
the question.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
The spiritual and the physical are two occasionally divergent paths of exploration and enquiry which may, eventually, converge again in the human mind. Or not. But the idea that they must be mutually antagonistic or contradictory, is certainly erroneous. Each can learn from the other, given sufficient open mindedness, honesty and willingness (qualities in short supply everywhere, sadly).
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
images

to Religion?

Does Religion have to justify itself to science?

No.

However, if religion wants to be taken seriously as an accurate description of the way the universe really is, it's going to have to do a lot better than it has been doing.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
I didn't say that I ought to pursue my goals. My goals just are. Sustenance, safety, society, sleep, solace, sex, and Star Trek*. I don't choose them. They are just a part of human facticity. All of my other goals devolve from those.

Similarly, morality is also an evolved trait in social species. Ethologists rate it on the metrics of empathy, equity, reciprocity and cooperation.

* I couldn't think an word for fun and enjoyment that started with 'S'


So the entire purpose of your existence is the satisfaction of material needs?
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
Does Religion have to justify itself to science?
Science is an abstract concept. You can't justify anything to "science" any more than you could to "height", "swimming" or "the smell of wet grass after the rain". What you're actually talking about is religion being justified to other people.

There is nothing special or unique about religious beliefs, claims or ideas compared to any non-religious ones. Whether an idea needs justifying depends entirely on the specific circumstances and the people involved. If someone half way around the world happens to believe something, there is no practical reason they would need to justify that to me. If someone expects me to behave differently or take specific action because of their belief though, they'll need to take some steps to convince me that is necessary or beneficial (either to me or more widely). Note that in either case, the belief could be religious or not, it makes no difference.

How a claim or belief is justified will vary significantly too, but scientific method, formally or informally, is a common tool by which we naturally assess such things (even if we don't realise we're doing it).
 
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